tjameswhite.com

How does a pickle live on the Earth?
How does an eyeball go for a walk?
How does a lightbulb eat?

While looking through our Atlas of the World this morning, I pointed out a beautiful satellite photo of Mt. Etna. “Look Olivia, this is a volcano,” said I. “What’s a volcano?” said she.

We then spent the next ½ hour on YouTube looking at volcano eruptions.

Having instant internet access and rich media sites helped her understand a volcano better than I was able to describe it, and we had a great bonding experience watching lava flow.

Thank you 21st century.

A couple of months ago Olivia created a little poem about the thunder and rain which I scribbled on a scrap of paper. Cleaning the home office on this rainy day I found the scrap:

Thunder and lightening
Thunder and lightening
Thunder and lightening everywhere.

Thunder and lightening
Thunder and lightening
They count them 2 by 2.

Rain rain rain rain
It’s raining everywhere.

Rain rain rain.

Olivia White, © 2008

Three years and an hour ago my daughter was born.

Happy birthday princess

Neither Sarah nor I have ice skated in who-knows-how-long, so we decided to the our 2 1/2 year-old to the ice rink. Surprisingly, none of us fell.

OK, Olivia kind of fell.

She did amazingly well considering rental skate boots aren’t comfortable and hers were a couple sizes big. Once laced up, I set her down and she walked to the rink.

On the ice was a little different. She wasn’t wobbly or shaky, but she did tense up. If you’ve skated you know that a tense, unyielding body doesn’t skate very well.

The big test for mom and dad was when Olivia was all done skating and we were on the far side of the rink. I had to carry her and skate 3/4 of the way around the ice rink. Did I mention that there were about a billion people on the ice?

See the few pictures we managed to take over on Flickr.

From Olivia: She wants Santa to bring her a car.

That’s my girl.

Labor Day marks many things, but many around here it means back-to-school. My classes actually started last week; Sarah has students returning this week.

To mark the seasons, I’ve uploaded a ton of photos, most from this past weekend’s trip to Harsen’s Island. Sarah’s family has a cottage there and we decided to have one last mini-vacation. The Schleicks and the Baats joined us for most of the short stay.

I’ve also uploaded some older pictures, including a couple from a trip to the zoo (see photo above) and another short trip that we made about a month ago to Grand Haven. We stayed in a cottage with my parents for a long weekend.

The other day I let Olivia “drive” the race car while I did a little work on it:

Me: “Where are you driving?”

Olivia: “You crazy.”

True enough.

On Flickr

Hard to believe that two years ago today I became a father. Yes, my little girls second birthday was today.

Happy birthday pumpkin.