This is Rachael and her friend Alex playing the piano last January (2008). Cute kids.
And this is Rachael and Alex hammering away last week. Still cute kids, one year later. What I like best about the two pictures is not that you can tell how they have grown, nor the fact that we like Rachael in pink and Alex in orange, but that in both pictures if you look at the background it's clear I am still putting away my Christmas decorations.
This was taken this morning. We had lots of melting and freezing and melting and freezing yesterday, and the icicles are pretty fantastic.
And now we have an inch or so of fresh snow on top. 
Today is the start of perhaps the worst ice storm we have seen since we moved here. I know it doesn't look like much, but it's at least a half inch of solid ice on everything. I make jokes all the time about how school gets canceled because of a skiff of snow, but this ice is serious stuff. Even the university here canceled classes today. Don't worry about us, though; we're all set.
Ryan has the perfect work-from-home scenario going. (Note the two different laptops, the TV remote, and the Wii remote. I'm sure he's hiding a Diet Coke somewhere).
And we have a lovely pot of leftover homemade chicken noodle soup (seriously homemade: we roasted the chicken last Sunday and I made the egg noodles from scratch) and a nice warm pan of fresh rolls to keep us going.
By Thursday morning most of her body was looking pretty good (although her face was worse, probably because she scratched at it all night) so I went ahead and sent her to preschool. No dice... after about an hour a preschool the director called and said Rachael seemed really uncomfortable. I picked her up (which upset her immensely) and we went to WalMart for more Benadryl. She did get to go back to preschool for a few minutes at the end, which salved the wound of having to leave early. Thursday night she complained about her feet hurting, and when I finally got her socks off late that night I discovered the bottom of her feet were covered with hives. More Aveeno cream.
Hawaii October 2004
Rachael watched the inauguration with me today. Her expression captures a lot of what I feel: hopeful optimism mixed with fear and doubt. Plus, you know, he's a Democrat. 
Today in Richmond the temperature is a balmy zero degrees and we have a light dusting of snow. School, of course, is canceled. My friends and family out West are always in disbelief over how little snow it takes to cancel school here - sometimes even the forecast of snow is enough. I've been here three years now and it still makes me laugh.
There won't be a report on how preschool went today... we have about an inch of snow and the high for today is 15 degrees, so school is canceled. It's just as well, Rachael has a cold.
Ryan was tying up some new flies for a fly swap. The particular pattern he is tying is actually called a "Stealth Bomber," but as he was tying them up, I said, "neato skedeeo." Rachael then said, "What's a skedeedo?"
We have had quite a bit of rain lately, and I remembered a couple of years ago the first time Rachael and I went out and danced in the rain. It was a warm August afternoon and the water almost felt like warm water from the tap. Rachael was just about 18 months old and still a little unsteady on her feet, but we had a great time. We got soaked.
Rachael had her first day of preschool today! She started at the Little Hands Preschool, which for her age is one day a week for three hours. Just about right.
And the best deal of the day, some pink Columbia sandals for Rachael. I found them online in the Bargain Cave at Cabelas for about $6. I'm sure it will be the best deal of the summer!
It's our little girl's first Sunday as a Sunbeam! This is a picture of her standing outside the building. She looks cold but really she's just folding her arms. We have been talking this up all week, so she was pretty excited to go. I don't know how long it will last - sooner or later she will figure out there are no toys in Primary.
