Day 3.031: Have a tar-day tonight?

The day started as it meant to go on - snow free (well we did get a coating, but disappointingly little once again). However, that did mean that the girls could try out their cycling skills on this excellent road-system that Exile #2 made for E5N1 to drive his car around on the tarmac of the drive yesterday.

This evening Exile #2 and I went out for what is known as a 'date-night' here. Friends came to baby-sit for our three babies (well, you know, they still seem like babies when they're sleeping) and we went to see Avatar in digital 3D. Despite seeing many issues with shallow characterisation and derivative story lines, we thoroughly enjoyed it. The story was good, the effects were stunning (including very delicately-handled 3D) and the characters were surprisingly easy to like and identify with. Frankly, I could not see how computer-generated characters in a computer-generated landscape could seem like anything other than a video game or a cartoon, but it was totally engaging and believable (well, not actually believable, but hopefully you know what I mean).

Day 3.030: Canine tooth?

E5N1 is quite taken with dogs at the moment - he's taken to carrying this little pile around with him (he had two others until Exile #4 asserted a prior claim at the weekend.

He is quite keen on the real thing as well - if you didn't follow the link to the Winterfest pictures you missed out on this little interaction.

Of course, none of these canines has any teeth - but not having teeth is the real point as it happens.  Here is a picture of Exile #4 who is delighted to have lost her first one today.

Thanks to this record of our happenings, I can say that she has beaten her sister to this milestone by about 300 days.

Day 3.029: Two birds - one stone

Snow-charge and No Comment @ Yahoo! Video

Here is a detailed explanation of the rules of 'Snow-charge' in 30 seconds. As will be immediately obvious, I won this round against Exile #3 by 1-0. The music is some No Comment because I know you wanted to know about that too!

Day 3.028: Somber air oh!

We had a quieter day today. E5N1 and I dropped Exile #3 at a birthday party at lunch time and picked up a frame for the picture we bought yesterday on the way home. Apart from that, we only ventured out to go to church for a potluck (bring and share) dinner before returning home to get the kids to bed and watch the last two and a half quarters of the Super Bowl.

Of course, watching the Super Bowl does not make you an American - even when you are cheering on one team in a thoroughly partisan way. I'm sure I will be with many 'neutral' fans happy that the New Orleans Saints won today. Nor does wearing a sombrero make you a Mexican - as we are ably proving I think.

Day 3.027: United what?

Whether you look at it as local residents, or as foreign nationals, we had a good day...

Day 3.027(a): United States: Winterfest 2010

We spent the afternoon at the Grafton Lake State Park Winterfest.  This was our fourth visit to this event.  Previous reports here.  As you can see - once again there was plenty of ice to cut through on the lake to make a bit of open water for the Polar Plunge.  Apart from watching the crazy people jump into the icy water, we also watched an ice-diving demonstration (the girls and me), had a dog-sled ride (Exile #4), said hi to all the dogs (E5N1), rode on a horse-drawn cart (all of us), bought a photo in the silent auction (mostly Exile #2), fell in love with a Great Horned Owl (Exile #3).  You can see more pictures of the day here and the some of the polar plunge here.

Day 3.027(a): United Kingdom: The British Super Bowl

This evening we settled down with friends and a beer or two to watch the big game. The Super Bowl may be tomorrow, but this was the game that really counted in this house - England against Wales on the opening day of the Six Nations Championship.

It was broadcast live on BBC America - something of a treat for me - it's one of the sporting competitions I watched most consistently when in the UK and has been almost entirely impossible to see here until today.

We watched it six hours behind live - thanks to a busy middle part of the day, but that really didn't seem to matter.  Exile #2 cheered on Wales as they fought back from a large deficit and the game was close with ten minutes left to play, but in the end England got their act together and finished the job.