Sunday, September 28, 2008

Time for a Toddler "Tent"!


"It's time to sleep in my tent!"

We measured Anja today, and she's a whopping 38 inches tall, which means 3T when you're talking clothes, and >97th percentile for height. This also means that her wonderful Stokke crib was getting too small for her. We thought we could make it to 2 years, but decided since we were in the area dropping my parents off for their 32 day trip "over the pond" that it was time for us to take a trip to Ikea!

Anja's first (and final) stop was to the bed with the "blue tent" over it. The others were nice, but clearly, we would be leaving with the blue tent. A few hours later, she was all set, ready to sleep in her new tent. :) Something must have worked, because she actually slept until 7:09 this morning . . . hooray!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Adventure Day

I'd love to take credit for the idea of an adventure day (good 'ol family fun we're talking about here), but I can't. A few weeks ago I reconnected with my good friend Sarah with whom I spent a semester in Crete while at Concordia. We realized we don't live too far from each other and we got to meet her two daughters and their chickens! (Check out their blog "Growing!" in the link to the right). In any case, it's been fun reading about their adventure days and a recent trip of theirs to Tamarack Nature Center, one of my favorites, inspired us to get out this past Saturday and go on an adventure of our own.

Despite a little rain, Anja loved it. We went on about an hour hike through the park and Anja walked nearly the entire way! Here are some photos from our day.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Speaking of Anja . . .


Here's our cutie tonight, pushing around a
half eaten banana in her car. Love it!

Blog going political?!?

Oh the joys of the political season - with the last two posts taking a stab at politics this blog seems to be losing its focus. Thus, Erik has decided to take a stab at a political blog and get the Adventures of Erik, Shana, and Anja back to what it does best: cute pictures of Anja.

http://folkelighed.blogspot.com/

Saturday, September 06, 2008

A closer look at snide, sarcastic Sarah Palin . . .

Some of you may have seen or heard about this letter from a resident of Wasilla, Alaska that has gone "viral" all over the internet. After watching Sarah Palin the other night, I was pleasantly surprised that my first reaction to this VP candidate wasn't far from how others view her as well. I can (very reluctantly) take McCain in the White House, but not this one.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Oh the politics

So . . . Shana and I have been sucked into politics again this year. As Obama, supporters I'm certain we are a bit biased, but we're trying to be as fair as we can. Over the past couple days we watched the Republican convention. I have to admit that I really liked John McCain's speech last night (I know there have been some mixed reviews about this speech). What I thought was most interesting was how his most forward looking ideas, his ideas about working together, taking the best from both parties, and reaching out across the aisle (to anyone for that matter) received the most tepid support from the audience. That speech was the John McCain I would support. However, the rest of his party was, at least from my opinion, utterly divisive. I know this is politics and it doesn't take too long for the gloves to come off, but... so much of this just seemed excessive to me.

Now, perhaps the Democrats are just as bad (I'm not naive). Part of me has been looking for Joe Biden's acceptance speech in order to compare it to Sarah Palin's. I don't doubt there will be a similar amount of attacks. However, I couldn't get past her sarcasm and self-righteous smugness. I have to admit she reminded me of Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter books. A women who felt she was standing up for "good" and what was "right," but was so self-righteous and arrogant that the only result was, you guessed it, umbrage!

Perhaps my perception is slanted, but it seems to me the Republicans tend to be far more guilty of this bashing - the loudest cheers at the RNC always came from the biggest attacks and insults (they almost seemed just hungry for blood).

I also can't believe some of the hypocrisy. After getting to the point where it was hard to listen to anymore, some comic relief was sorely needed and the Daily Show came to the rescue.



It always feels a lot better to laugh than to get angry and I can't help but remember Shakespeare's line: "There is much truth in jest."

Monday, September 01, 2008

Back to work

As a teacher I start work in earnest this week. As always, it's a bit bittersweet. On the one hand, I'm excited for a new year and new opportunities. On the other hand, summer is over and it is still work.

This weekend also marked Shana's and my sixth wedding anniversary, along with Ron's birthday. Happy Birthday Ron and Happy Anniversary us! After a relaxing evening with Ron, Linda, Steve, Shana and Anja last night I pulled a Shel Silverstein book off the shelf and found this poem that I thought was fun.

Hurk
I'd rather play tennis than go to the dentist.
I'd rather play soccer than go to the doctor.
I'd rather play Hurk than go to work.
Hurk? Hurk? What is Hurk?
I don't know, but it must be better than work.

- Shel Silverstein: A Light in the Attic