What else can you do to pizza?

Remember last week I told y'all that Ichabod made a peanut butter and jelly pizza. It wasn't too bad. He likes to experiment. It's usually good.

Well, last night he took a crust and spread mayonnaise over. Then he sprinkled tuna from the can on top of that. After that he topped it with mozzarella cheese. It was very good.

Aren't you all jillis?

Can't resist a sunrise

I saw this on the way in to work. The colors were more red and hot pink but this was the first chance I had to stop the car and get a shot.







As always, I like 'em better when I click on them and check all sizes for the large size. :-)

Nephews Party Now with Pictures!

The boys had a great time drawing on our huge white board. Bobby is the little artist in the family, but both had fun with it. Tiago, the older one, had more fun playing computer games.

Ichabod made dinner for us. He made two regular vegetarian pizzas and one that was a peanut butter and jelly pizza. Couldn't get the boys to try that one for anything, though. Of course we didn't have grape or strawberry jelly which would've looked better. We had apple butter. Ichabod and I ate that one.

They crashed on the living floor in our sleeping bags.


They slept close to twelve hours. We were awake long before they were. Even after they were awake they just stayed in the sleeping bags for a while.


Then they were back to the drawing board, so to speak.
This is Bobby. He told me that he was going to draw a button nose on this face. He's such a sensitive little guy. When Tiago drew a scary alien Ichabod joked that he (Ichabod) was going to have nightmares. Bobby started a new picture. He told us that it was a nice alien so his uncle wouldn't have nightmares. Is that sweet or what?

Here they are at it.

Like I said, Bobby is the serious artist in the family. He saw this picture. Thank goodness that they can't read. The name was Ichabod's idea. I just drew the picture.
You might have to click on it for the bigger size to read it.

Anyway he wanted to draw a picture just like it. He kept working on it bit by bit. I don't think it's bad for a four-year-old.
Check out the adam's apple. :-)

I think this was the nice alien.


Bobby asked Ichabod to trace his outline. Then he turned it into Mr Freeze from Batman.


Here's Tiago with his breakfast banana.


And here he is playing computer games. The picture up above is a painting of Frank Zappa done by Tardist.


Here they are just before the left.


On the way home we stopped at Ichabod's parents'. I got these Annie pictures. I got some last week, too, but I've been too lazy to post them. So here are a few shots of her.






This was drawn by a guy with a PhD in chemistry.

Nephews Party!

My thanks to everyone who showed up for my blog anniversary party. I had a fun time, hope you did, too.

Tonight we have Ichabod's nephews over for the night. I had pictures of them up from the January pizza party at their grandparents. They've been drawing on the big white board. Now they're getting the computer going.

I can't believe what great kids they are. They're so good and not brats at all. Really bright and a lot of fun! I'll probably end up falling asleep before they do. They slept in the car on the way over. :-)

A whole year!

Wow! It's been a whole year since I started blogging. I'd enjoyed reading other people's blogs before that time. My family, Bucky, Tardist, and Ichabod all encouraged me to start my own.

I thought maybe I'd a have a funny story to tell. Then there's the reason why my name is Squirl. And I've talked about some, uh, interesting neighbors.

There's a friend I'll miss. But a new one to help ease the transition. Along with my sibs we shared with you our family's loss.

I bought myself a camera and had loads of fun with that. There were sunrises, sunsets, lots of flowers, and general silliness.

Along the way I met many wonderful people. These are people with whom I've laughed and cried. There's been sadness, happiness, and, my favorite of course, general silliness. I don't know what my life would be without all of you but I'm glad that I don't have to know the answer.

Thank you all for being part of my life.

A Friday drive and a very short Sunday drive

On Friday I went out with a friend to the usual places to check out the wildlife. We saw turkey vultures, red-tail hawks, sandhill cranes, and bufflehead ducks. It was the first time I've seen turkey vultures this year.

I tried to get some pictures. The crane pictures aren't that great. Makes me want a better camera already. Here's one.

This one just looks like a water/weed shot. The little dot kind of toward the top against a cloud was my attempt to get a shot of a turkey vulture. But you have to click on it and check out the Large Size in Flickr if you're interested.

I couldn't resist a shot of the sun. I love the rainbows it makes.

And this one, with the buds on the tree, makes me think of spring.


Then, today, Ichabod and I went for a drive after breakfast by the river again. This is how it looked three weeks ago. Now, instead of ice, we have floods.
I tried to get shots of this pair of mallards. This one you really have to click on and view the large size if you want to see them.

And this is actually a road. I started getting pissy with Ichabod when he started to drive into the water. You can see it's taken through the windshield. And those ripples are because we're quickly backing out of the water-covered road.

Blogger Week

Made it home tonight. I was kinda worried because it was snowing quite a bit today in Madison. The plane took off a bit late as they had to de-ice the wings. The whole thing was quite uneventful.

But tonight Ichabod and I met up with Chia and Lawbrat at a local Friday's. There was much laughing, silliness and hilarity. This really has been my week to meet up with blogfolk. And I like it.

Fun, fun, fun

On Sunday I flew from Grand Rapids to Detroit then from Detroit to Madison, WI. Yes, if you are good at geography or have a map handy you will see that I had to go east before I could go west. But I can't complain too loudly as the connecting flight gave me enough time to grab a slice of unhurried pizza and get over to the gate about ten minutes before my boarding time. The bag that I checked even made it. Cross your fingers for me that it'll make it back with me as well. :-)

As much as the flight was uneventful, the rest of the day wasn't. And I'm not talking about the severe storms and wind that came up later. No foks, Jessica Rabbit and the Bobblehead Hillbilly came up to pick me up. Then they took me back to their place to visit and meet all the wonderful little beings with whom they share their abode.

We all had a great time, especially the cats and dogs. They know when there's a new person in their midst who can't resist petting them. Here is the pictorial of my visit. :-)

Here are Hermione and Moo being distracted by cheese.

Here's the wonderful old man Roo showing me how excited he is to see me.

Moo lips and Hermione belly.

The girls playing nice.

Eleven decided she'd stroll through occasionally.

Wobbles hung around a lot.

But Nala didn't.

Is that a pretty mask or what? I didn't mean to cut off her head but I didn't have much time to focus and shoot before she was too close to get a shot.

Here Jess is trying to save me from the girls.

Vicious, vicious dogs fighting over and empty water bottle.

At this point they seemed to be ready to rest for a moment.


Then it was off to dinner where the food stared at me.


There are a few more pictures on Flickr. You can click on any of these and it will take you there.

I wanna thank Jess and Nick for being wonderful hosts and it was a great time!

I'm going to be traveling tomorrow to go for some training. Not sure how much blogging ability I'll have. I'll will do what I can.

Went for another ride together. It's getting to be close enough to springtime that some birds are passing through and some are here for breeding purposes. I was extremely excited to see about 9 or 10 Sandhill Cranes fly in for a landing. I couldn't get any good pictures so please check the links.

Then I saw quite a few Bufflehead swimming. I also saw a pair of Osprey flying. And I saw a couple of wild turkeys. Those I got a picture of.




So, everybody enjoy the rest of your weekend. I'll get around to see you as I can.

Drunken Blogging Day

This has been officially claimed Drunken Blogging Day by Jim. You are supposed to go to his site, after imbibing whatever beverage seems appropriate, and comment with a fabricated memory of you and him.

Just go and play. It's really fun. Really!

Maybe we can't have nice things, but, dammit, we can have fun.

Squirl's first audioblog

Another Sunday drive

Went for a ride yesterday with a friend. We drove up to the river and along the way I got these shots of sastrugi. This type of snow ridge was better last year. But that's okay because that means we got less snow this year.



Then we went along the river. I liked this reflection.


Then we drove along Crockery Creek. If you're from Michigan you'll pronounce that "crick". This showed how the water had been higher, frozen, and then gone down again.







Then we drove over to an area that sometimes floods over by the highway. More good examples of frozen ice ledges stuck on the trees. Again, not as cool as last year's when they were a foot thick and three feet or more high.




And, while I recommend clicking on all of these pictures and choosing All Sizes to see them in a larger version, you really need to with these. We drove by a farm where there were chickens and wild ducks hanging out together. If you look at the large size and look waaaay to the right, about my side-view mirror, you can see the female mallards.



I also saw some Red Tail Hawks. They were close enough that I could see the red of the tail perfectly but too far away to get a picture.