8/29/2010

We had a pretty relaxing do-not-a-whole-lot week and then Friday Mommy and Papa went on a crazy packing rampage and said let's go let's go let's GO!  and said it was time to get in the car for a long time. And in fact, they were right, it was a long time -- all the way across the state, just so we could have our (almost) traditional Shabbat dinner... but wait, you can read in a weird little motel in Spokane. Yup -- we barbecued in a motel parking lot, and Papa in his rush had not brought the Shabbat Kit, so Mommy rushed out and bought (birthday) candles, (French bread) challah, and sacramental (cranberry) juice. Pretty interesting kiddush, come to think of it.

No, not really -- we didn't travel all that far just to do that. In fact, we got in the car again the next day and drove FOREVER again. We thought we might starve, but finally we ate in Montana (and they said there was a bear near there but we didn't see it). But it turned out OK, we are finally at our Destination (Glacier) and have met up with our great friends and excellent vacation-mates Marcy, David, and Emily.

Now  -- get ready for a week of forced marches! And, if we're lucky, since it's vacation, lots of ice cream and stuff.

News flash: I (W.) tried pound cake (with apricots) and it was good.

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So, you think we had a spider last week---look at this fellow that was inhabiting the downstairs bathtub. I want a jacuzzi said the spider. No, you want the spider lounge said Mommy (spider lounge=vacuum cleaner bag). By the way, it's a hobo, and it's bites are nasty.

OMG--papa got an electric guitar and he's making all kind of noise with it. HELP!!!! Senior citizens do not rock--just look at the Rolling Stones--put down the guitar and step away slowly. Please.

Woo hoo! He fell for it and now I...must...ROCK!!!!

On the way to Glacier National Park, we stopped in Spokane, WA and it was getting to be shabbos so papa barbequed chicken out on the open bbq by the pool in the motel, but first we had to light the BBQ bag and watch it burn baby burn, then, finally after the chicken was done we lit the shabbos birthday candles and made kiddush over the cranberry juice and then had our regular bbq'd chicken/french fries/hummous dinner. And bbq sauce, don't you forget the sauce. Whew, that was a close one.

Hey you, you grabbed my tooth and ripped it out of my mouth--I'm gonna report you to to to to the proper authorities. I'll report you to the ADA, to the SPCA, to the New York times who will revoke your crossword puzzle privileges.

Ahhh, finally in Montana in our cozy bunk house. So far we've driven around, eaten and seen wild animals. No, we're not the wild animals--we mean the real wild life like bears and stuff, even though we didn't see the bear but Papa and Mommy and the Fish's saw it.

We did see the big horn sheep and deer and SNOW IN AUGUST! This place is like Costco and their Xmas stuff in August. What a topsy turvy world. It was 36 degrees up at the continental divide, where we're not sure if our pee was going down to the Pacific or the Atlantic. It's just weird I say.

8/22/2010

Willie is home from camp. He had a good time, despite he may say to the contrary to anybody that might listen. He didn't eat great, but he took hilarious videos of the goings on in his bunk. We all laughed, but not as hard as Willie when he was trying to describe the doings to us.

It was summer for about 3 days, then it was back to spring/fall I don't know what kind of weather--it beats broiling.

The best thing about Willie being home for Teddy is that he has his best friend/playmate back. The best thing for Willie is the food. All you can eat of what you want to eat. It's good to be home.

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Where is he? The suspense is killing me.

At last--the bus is here!

Hey--you can't take pictures til I'm in proper sneer mode...

Darn, I can't even get into a proper sneer cuz I'm too dang happy to be home.

I'm still trying, but still unsuccessful.

GADZOOKS! Now I'm in proper sneer mode after seeing this monster spider in the living room. This thing was so big that when papa started chasing it with the vacuum, it flexed its muscles and started toward mommy, who screamed. Papa got him though, but when he showed her this picture on the camera, she screamed again. Now that's a proper spider.

8/15/2010

Summer has finally arrived with two 90+ degree days in a row. We know--you're not impressed, but today it hit 96, and it hardly ever gets that hot here. There are 5 box fans running right now and papa is trying desperately to cool off the house before going to sleep--looks like he'll get to sleep on Tuesday if that is the case.

We laid low this week, but just a couple of outings. We went on a few shopping trips, and we saw some cousins where I (Teddy) demonstrated my frisbee throwing skills. They all thought I should start playing ultimate frisbee. I'll have to ask my friend Noah about that because he has played on his school team.

Our friend Lacia brought two of her not-so-baby goats over to chew things in the backyard. Roses and raspberry leaves were a hit, as was the ivy. Mostly they roamed around chewing stuff and emitting goat poop. They will be invited back, but they don't mow properly so papa doesn't think he wants one. A sheep on the other hand...

Willie gets home on Wednesday. He had a kind of hard week including getting either a stomach bug or food poisoning on Friday, but he was better by friday night. He was a little bummed because there were going to be torah reading days 4 days in a row, and one of his Rubik's cube classes was cancelled.

Happy Birthday Nana. We still can't figure out how you have a 23 year old son, but we'll leave that for another day.
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Eat everything little goats. Otherwise it's going to the lawnmower and the yard waste.

Mmmm, ivy. Now, don't say anything about young and old goats or you'll get somebody in trouble. Oh crumbs, what have I done.

Yummy roses. Eat up girls.

Hot days can only mean one thing, ICE CREAM SANDWICHES! Hooray!

Copyright 1997-2010, The Berman Brothers, Willie and Teddy. All rights reserved.

8/8/2010

Well, Willie's been at camp for 9 days now--how long until he gets home? We did get the required-for-a-meal postcard that said in big preprinted letters "Camp is fun" on which Willie wrote "somewhat" between "is" and "fun." It could be worse--he could have written "not" or "never" or worse. Just goes to show, even camp guantanamo schechter has some bright spots...

Papa and me (Teddy) have been on a couple of outings, one to the top of a mountain and one to all the old shopping hot spots, but mostly I've been hanging around my computer hoping that nobody remembers to turn off the internet connection. Sometimes it works, usually it doesn't but a guy can dream can't he? Papa keeps nattering on about calling friends or tante's or showering or going outside, but I ignore him and he goes away. The way I look at it, Mommy and Papa are pretty overloaded with their own work, so they tend not to notice me if I'm just being quiet minding my own business.

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This is the view from the top of the mountain we hiked up called Rattlesnake mountain, but we didn't see any rattle snakes--just greedy chipmunks begging for food and Rattlesnake Lake away down yonder.

We parked in one of those whitish semi circles above the lake--can you believe it? Neither could I. I was complaining a fair amount on the way up, but once we got to the top I said it wasn't such a bad hike--4.5 miles round trip with 1000 feet of elevation change (1000 up, 1000 down).

Ahhhh, it's good to be home. Where's the snack wallah with my salty snacks and root beer? Where's MAL when you need him?

Then on Thursday it was off to City Produce. You know what's amazing? I've been going to this place since I was born. I walked in the door and Pat (one of the guys that works there) says "hey, it's the T-man." They don't let me drive the forklifts yet, but when I was little I'd climb up and honk the horns. I didn't honk the horn this time cuz I thought they'd toss me out on my hiney if I did.

Of course the greatest thing that happened on the shopping trip day was at Restaurant Depot where they have Mexican Coke with REAL SUGAR in GLASS BOTTLES in a vending machine! Papa immediately bought one and we shared it while trying to plug our ears against the Blue Angels fly-bys.

Alert, alert, Willie has been making himself scarce in pictures from camp--we weren't even sure he was still there, but then here he his with his posse heading for the gaga pit.

We don't know whether he got knocked out or chose to sit out the round, but we've seen pix of him playing so it's anybody's guess. We hope we see more pix of Willie soon, and maybe we'll get a letter or two, or not.

8/1/2010

We got home from California--it was a pretty easy ride home. We stopped in the same place we did on the way down, and we even had the same hotel room as before, except this time we switched beds. We also got to eat popcorn after we discovered that there was a microwave oven in the room. Speaking of microwaves, papa was heating up his rice bowl lunch in the microwave this afternoon and after he was finished, all the lights and the control panel in the microwave went dead. It just wouldn't do anything. So, papa, who isn't afraid of things like radiation or high voltage, took the back off the microwave with a trick to defeating security torx screws that he learned from the interwebs, and saw an envelope sitting in the guts of the oven. Hmm, said he, what's in here? It turned out to be a wiring diagram and diagnostic flowchart. Nothing happening? Bad fuse, said the flow chart. Papa took out the fuse, hooked up to the ohm meter with a battery and discovered...bad fuse, so he went up to ace hardware and bought a new fuse and put it in the microwave and voila, it's alive, it's alive and irradiating all of our food! Hooray! 3 eyed snacks for all!

Last friday Willie shipped out to camp. This has made me (Teddy) pretty lonely because mommy and papa have had a lot to do this weekend so I felt pretty left on my own. Later on sunday we had a good game of monopoly. Mommy got the orange property because papa is always saying that anybody with oranges automatically wins. He came back about 2 hours into the game and mommy was getting beaten pretty badly by me and my blue properties (Boardwalk and Park Place) and my railroads. Papa said to her "where's you're hotels?" and she said "you didn't say I had to build on them..." D'oh! She then put hotels on them and actually put up a fight for awhile, but my blues came through for me in the end.

I pretty much made the entire waffle batter myself this morning. Mommy showed me how to separate the eggs, and I measured out and mixed everything else, and even made the first batch of waffles in the iron. Then I decided that I was more interested in eating than cooking so I let my helpful minion (mother) take over.

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Our last day in California we finally got to see the fountains at Woodminster Amphitheater. It was built in the 1930's and is that classic WPA architecture. MAL kept telling us it is a really good fountain and he was right. This is just the top, but it waterfalls down a bunch of levels.

Next time we come here we're bringing our bathing suits--to heck with the no wading signs. What could happen?

Ahhh, home sweet home, and me in my natural environment--in front of the computer.

Hmmm, just one dollar bills left? RENT! That'll be two THOUSAND dollars. Heh heh heh!

Ahhh money money money...filthy lucre...sweet simoleons...

Arrival at camp, cue eye roll and angry face. Check. You may proceed with the picture taking.

Hey, no fair taking pictures before I was ready. Candid shots are strictly not allowed. I demand a retake!

Much better. Now everybody will have the true idea of the camp experience. Over and out, and hopefully my backpack will arrive soon...sleeping without a pillow is a drag.

Copyright 1997-2010. The Berman Boys, Willie and Teddy. All rights reserved.