Lots and lots and lots of posts, scroll way down to catch up!

Happy Halloween (say that in a robot voice)!

For three months, Gus has held steady with the desire to be a robot for Halloween. The following reveals "Gusbot 2.5" who is, according to Gus "a friendly robot who says 'meep meep." He has gotten a lot of milage out his mama-made costume so far, wearing trick-or-treating on Columbus' beggar's night Thursday (the first picture is of Gus going up to his first house all on his own. He said trick-or-treat and thank you, then sat with the lady on her stoop for a while to watch the other kids), then to a friend's house for a harvest dinner on Friday, then today for "Spooky Science" day at the science museum. At the science museum, our friendly robot did experiments, rode the space capsule, and got his face painted. He does look a bit like David Bowie in a space outfit, it's true.

Meet Naan and Chicken Joe

We all know Gus loves animals and aquariums, but it was only recently that he started asking for a pet of his own. One weekend, he very seriously asked for either "a yellow cat or little fish in a tank." After a family meeting, we took a trip to the pet store and came home with two betta fish. Gus set up their tank almost entirely on his own, and named his new buddies (entirely on his own, and who knows where he got these names) "Naan and Chicken Joe." He takes excellent care of them, and often reads to them, "holding their fins through the tank, like this, because they can't come out."

Late Summer in Review

Hey! So, we're still here, and we still take pictures of our kid! Who is two and a half years old! He is nearly 40" tall, talks and sings all day long, has multiple imaginary friends, and loves trains, dancing, drawing, inventing things out of recycling materials, and is obsessed with jigsaw puzzles, chess games, and 'They Might Be Giants' songs about science. We had a busy end of our summer, and below are pictures with captions. We took a trip to Minneapolis, went on a open van safari trip on the plains of Ohio, spent a 'Day Out With Thomas,' saw the Toldeo Zoo, and took some dance lessons. Part of the reason for our hiatus has been due to a big change in the family--Mary Ann, after a year of a medical science post-bacc, was accepted and started Ohio State University's Pediatric Nurse Practitioner program in the graduate school of nursing. She's been in classes and on hospital rotation since September. Enjoy!

A rare mama and Gus portrait--Mary Ann usually wields the camera and everyone forgets to get their picture.

Gus doing the hokey pokey in dance class.





The above are pictures from our trip to Minneapolis. Gus LOVED the airplane ride, and we got to see Allen and Jenny (we all went to an aquarium), and Uncle Josh. Uncle Josh and Gus had a bachelor's night while Matt, Mary Ann, Allen, and Jenny went out to a fancy UND Theatre Department reunion downtown.


A late summer trip to the zoo (one of many, actually). Family portrait on a zoo boat.



Our trip to Ohio's 'The Wilds' a huge nature preserve where west African animals have a gazillion acres to hide from the open air bus that rides us around. We saw a lot of scenery, glimpses of animal butts, and the very un-shy rhinos.




We had a LOT of fun going to a historical railway station to meet the real Thomas the Train. There were lots of activities, the train ride through town, and the total thrill of watching Gus be "star struck" meeting the real Thomas. Mama so did not have to pull out the Kleenex watching Gus' face when Gus saw Thomas roll down the rails for the first time.



The Toldeo Zoo was super fun--we met up with our friend from Bowling Green. We now think we should visit all the zoos in Ohio. Two down, two to go! The Toldeo zoo reminded us of the Brooklyn Zoo.

Ohio State Fair

Our little family has been accustomed to very tiny county fairs in our recent history, most notably the Clallam County fair in Port Angeles, WA. Even at that scale, we felt it was overwhelming. Ha! We were not prepared for a state fair, let alone the Ohio State fair which competes openly with such famous and epic state fairs as Michigan's and Iowa's. The permanent fairgrounds are astronomical--the poultry barn alone took us two hours to walk through only a small portion of, with thousands of competitors. There are gondolas to get you from one side of the fair to the other, and there is a huge temporary state park with a butterfly aviary, a Ohio native animal zoo, a artificial lake for kayaking and thousands of native plants and trees. We walked miles, saw much, and stuck to eating sandwiches since the hundreds of food booths competing against each other were selling, in many cases, upsetting and revolting-sounding variations on meat in order woo fair-goers.

This is what a champion Ohio chicken looks like. She practically begged me to take a picture.

A sense of the enormous scale of the animal barns.

Somebody is less than impressed with three city blocks worth of gladiola competition.

Late in the day, he finally gave up after looking at the model trains for the billionth time. This is one of the giant squash carvings--the artist who did it is named Gus.

The gondolas that take you from one side to the other.

YIKES

See you at the fair!

Extremely glossy Champion Holstein

Extremely glossy life-size butter Holstein

Double prettiness in the butterfly aviary

Self Expression

So Gus, as you know, is big into dress up and playing pretend and telling us about the exploits of his imaginary friends. He is also pretty specific and expressive about dressing for the day. I try to take pictures of him in some of the more fabulous outfits, so I can show his friends one day, but it's like he knows what I am trying to do and will lay himself on the ground in bizarre configurations so that one day, in my dotage, I am sure to have no idea why I took these pictures. I hope Blogger's server lasts forever.

This first example of what I am talking about is a vintage circa late 70s Superman shirt that our friend Tina found for us, striped pants (which I think were actually Tina's daughter's at some point, come to think of it), and his infamous "sparkle"shoes, which I have hidden, now, because they are too small and if he sees them he will fight to wear them and cry when he can't cram his big feets into them.

This second example is a clearance Target Star Wars shirt that he calls the 'star rainbow' shirt, pants with apples on them, and red sandals (which are also in hiding after being a much-loved hand-me-down from his friend Maud).

Science museum with visitors

When Grammy Hudson and Uncle Jason came, in addition to going to the awesome Heritage farm, Gus decided to show them around the science museum, which he goes to about once a week. They were impressed, for sure.

These two pictures are of Matt and Gus trying out the 1960s era broadcasting room. I don't think anchorpeople usually sit on each other's laps.


Grammy, Jason, and Gus in front of the 1880s era post office on the 1880s era street. The museum recreates entire streets, with shops and everything, from different eras.

This picture is for our friend Tina, who is a letterpress artist, and would be very sad to see this beautiful press displayed in a museum instead of being used.

Gus and Matt inside a real submarine.

In the water and oceans room

Driving a tractor--this picture for his buddy Cooper