Day 40: Happy Birthday Mr President

Not that it is the current president's birthday, or indeed any president that I know of. However, it is President's Day (or maybe Presidents Day - no-one seems sure) a minor holiday celebrating a Monday near to George Washington's birthday. As it is the first day of Exile #3's 'Winter Break' and Exile #2 had an appointment with the midwife at her OBSGYN practice, I took a day off work. So, while Exile #2 kept her appointment, I took the girls for their first US haircuts.

Now, my first haircut here was traumatic enough. How was I supposed to know what a 'fade' was or whether it was what I wanted? But at least I was the one who would have to live with the consequences, today I had the whole family's well-being on my shoulders (well that's how it felt - really it was just a haircut of course). It was also Exile #4's first haircut ever except for a few fringe trims - and I was to give the first direction to her life of hairstyling. And those immortal words? Short back and sides? Can you do a Jennifer Aniston? No. Just a trim please. Anyway, they both seem to have come out looking OK. You can judge for yourselves over the next few days.

After that, we visited CMOST (The Children's Museum of Science and Technology). Amongst other delights, the girls paddled a dugout canoe (on the carpet), pulled faces in a two-way mirror, learned about low-wattage bulbs and watched a planetarium show about the planets (something of a specialist subject of Exile #3 after her day-sky/night-sky week at school. Pictured is her using her other specialist subject - operating computers. Her ability to do the right thing without being able to read seems virtually supernatural, and says a lot for both her generation's ease with technology and the interface design that so often makes the right choice more obvious than the wrong ones.

Tonight on the local news they said "Things are mostly getting back to normal after the Valentine's Day Snowstorm that buried all of us" Well the roads are largely clear, but our garden is still pretty much impassible. I went out about four steps to get a better picture for yesterday's post today, but I wouldn't have relished the prospect of going much further.