Day 3.304: The ultimate tie-in toy?

Exile #2 spotted these when we were in Target on Monday morning (during the snow), this is a Lego Toy Story set featuring Lego versions of the little plastic soldiers from the Toy Story films.

So, these are toy-styled toy versions of toy characters in a film.

Now all we need is for Toy Story 4 to feature these Lego plastic soldiers and then for some other toy brand to license them in their own style...

Day 3.303: The day before the snow...

...we got a fair deal of raking done and - thanks to a neighbour's tarpaulin and some help from the kids - the leaves were beside the road before the snow came.



The front yard is another matter alas...

Day 3.302: Bowling, buying, building and balling

I took the day off work today so that we could pick up a car that we bought on Saturday. Nothing to do with our van which is at the body-shop being fixed and will be for another week or so at least - this was a replacement for my Jetta - which had an eventful final journey today.

We'd decided to go with E5N1 to pick up the new car after picking him up from school at lunchtime, so we had the morning to occupy by ourselves. A hike was the plan, but the threat of almost constant rain put us off. It's probably just as well. Instead we went bowling:

The rain was actually some light sleet (ice pellets) when we arrived there.  By the time we had proved our lack of skills to ourselves in the otherwise deserted establishment it had changed...to snow.

The snow continued to fall as we picked E5N1 up, went to the car dealership and then went to get a late lunch.

We got home a few minutes before it was time for the girls to get off the bus.  It had turned into a quite convincingly snowy day and it was still falling.

Instead of sitting them down to do some homework when they got home, I dragged them out to build a snowman.  We were joined by their two-doors-down friend who was celebrating an unusually wintry birthday.

We followed up with a snowball fight that E5N1 got into - not something that he would have had much tolerance of last winter.    Quite good all round.

Day 3.301: Sunday's cool

We had a walk at Five Rivers this afternoon - fitting it in between raking and going to church. It was sunny and rather cool (45°F or so - about 7°C).

E5N1 who has taken to 'reading' the trail markers which have numbers on stopped at one, "It says 'Z'" he observed. Exile #2 pointed out it was probably supposed to be a '2' and only then realised that he had said 'zed' not 'zee'. It is not our fault - rather a talking alphabet toy that we had when we came over is the 'bad' influence on him.

Later it was Exile #3's chance to surprise us with a blast from our British past. As we picked up the food to take to the church 'pot-luck' she asked, "Will there be Sunday School?" Exile #4 was completely non-plussed, "What on Earth is 'Sunday School'?" - sure enough, I realised that we haven't called it that since leaving the UK three years and 300 days ago when Exile #3 was only four and a half and Exile #4 was only two.  Where did that come from?

Day 3.300: Red Ring of Death

Photo by Flickr user tomasland.

My faithful Xbox 360 has seen a lot of action - mostly, in the last few years, of the Rock Band variety. Alas, it has finally given up the bits and gone to the electronics recycling pile in the sky. In fact, it happened when we tried to get it fired up for Rock Band Night yesterday. Happily, unlike when we started the event, we have another one to call on as a substitute and the 'show' went on.

One of the disadvantages of it having survived a long time is that it is now out of even the extended warranty for this famous error. Of course that means that I have an excuse to replace it with its less error-prone, sleeker, quieter and wifi-enabled younger brother.

The rocking will go on, but for now, a moment's silence at the end of a busy day (that I plan to tell you about on Monday) for a valued member of the household:


[this is it!]


and, goodnight!