A turn for the worse

Red and purple flags snapping in the wind today. Normally, we have a bad weather day, it rains, and it moves on. This year, the front is stalled just to the west of us, bringing stiff onshore winds... and man o' wars.

Tons and tons and tons of man o' wars. And these pesky buggers can sting you even after they're dead. So, not only is the surf itself unsafe, but there's no safe spot to sit on the beach, either! What a bummer.

But, we did get down to feed the seagulls again. (They were eating right out of my hand! As long as I wasn't looking, I didn't chicken out and drop the popcorn.) And we took a (careful!) walk. Got some pretty shots with the new camera. But I still don't like it!

More dolphins than ever

So, we had nice weather, and we saw a pod of dolphins "dancing" up close for the first time ever! The question is, can the crappy Nikon camera handle it?

Well.... more than half of the pictures were blurry shots of empty water. This camera really, really thinks about taking a picture before it actually does it. I'm going to make sure shutter response is the No. 1 priority on my list when I shop for a new one!

But, there are some nice shots here! The Nikon switches pretty well between portraits and landscape shooting...

And we really did get a great dolphin show this time around. Even though we've been futzing around with the house loan and all that goes with it, the sunset dolphin and nature cruise is still one of the most relaxing parts of our trip. They really do take care to treat the dolphins -- and all of Wolf Bay -- well. Thank you, Cetacean Cruises. It's a great tradition!

For the rest of Tuesday's photos, click here.

Testing out the emergency camera

Nikon Coolpix. Cheap at Walmart. I do not like it. But, I get to return it within 15 days, and I can do so at any Walmart. Sounds like a plan!

But it seems to work well enough to capture the growing threat on the beach... man o' wars (dun dun dunnnnn!), and I took this nice picture of my old camera (*sob*!). I have to say, the Nikon does work well indoors with no flash. Although I cannot change the aspect ratio! Booo!

We'll see how it does on the dolphin cruise.

Also today, a trip to Souvenir City! Allen picked up a new shark friend! He's big and soft... so now Allen has a small, medium and large!

A shutterbug mommy's worst nightmare !

My camera died while we were at Lulu's for lunch! What?!?!

Before that, though, we got some great shots of yet another seagull feeding frenzy... Allen playing in the waves, and Daddy and Emilyn smiling sweetly at Lulu's (where the food continues to disappoint, but the atmosphere can't be beat). Emilyn found out she's a hula-hooping wizard, and Allen played happily in the giant sand mounds.

Time to run out and buy an emergency camera at Walmart. O, sweet Casio Exilim, thank you for your years of amazing service. You were state of the art... in 2006. You taught me that digital cameras can be loved, not feared.

For the very last shots ever taken by my beloved camera, click here.

Foggy start, beautiful finish

It's a very good thing we enjoyed this day at the beach...

It was a chilly, foggy start, to be sure. That persistent fog hung right around the Gulf-front condos. And we saw an ominous little visitor on the beach... our first Portuguese man o' war! Dun dun dunnnnn!

But the sun was sparkling on the water, and soaking into our pasty, Midwestern winter skin... Emilyn took a long walk while Allen messed around with the boogie board, and Daddy made a friend while watching cownose rays leaping out of the water and flapping their little "wings"!

It was generally a great day to be together.

For all of our pictures from Sunday, click here.

Back to the beach - weird fog included

It's our 10th spring break at the beach! After all the stress of the house deal, we were apprehensive to leave town, yet oh-so-very happy to get away. After a road trip full of Allen's new favorite song -- "Through the Fire and Flames" -- we finally saw the beachfront buildings on the horizon, shrouded in a very weird and localized fog... but the Crabbes were still eager to dip their toes (and more!) in the Gulf!

Ah, the beautiful, clean sand... And water that was a little chillier than it might have first appeared!


After our traditional first-day meal at The Crab Trap (during which we finally managed to buy just the right amount of food -- and save a ton of money!), Emilyn took the photo that is becoming a tradition -- me and Daddy on the picnic tables at the restaurant's playground.


It's good to be back!

New hab for the Crabbes !

So, last week I posed a question to my friends on Facebook -- Would you change your life to fit a house that you knew was a great bargain?

That's was the question we had been wrestling with since we first saw 436 Johanna Place Drive. Emilyn had been inside before... coincidentally, the previous owner was one of her Scout leaders.

I had been looking at listings as they come online, mostly because I feel the weight of history telling me that NOW is the perfect time to buy a bigger house. We have made such good choices and are in such sound financial shape that we almost could make money. That's a powerful incentive.

But none of that matters, I told myself, if we don't find a house we like! And then we saw this house!

It has everything I wanted: Bigger bedrooms. A bigger yard. A deck. A bigger kitchen. All new appliances. New furnace and AC. Beautiful floors and walls. An open floor plan. A master bath with a huge tub and a window. A place for me to set up a desk for my budding freelance editing business.

The downside: The garage is smaller. The basement is badly broken up, and it lacks something we have in abundance now: Storage space. But it is a great bargain, we believe, because of the work the owner has put in since he bought it two years ago... and because he offered it at a loss of thousands of dollars from what he paid then.

We made an offer this week once we found out there was a competing bid... Our offer was accepted after some furious fretting on Thursday night. We close early next month.

Steve is embracing the opportunity to make a great investment and to step off on a grand (and a bit scary!) new adventure for our family. It's closer to both the kids' schools. Allen just loves rolling around on the nice carpet and running through the big back yard. We're looking forward to playing Uno out on our nice new deck. And Emilyn really wants new bedroom furniture!

The most trepidation comes, of course, with the prospect of selling our house. It needs some work, to be sure. We'll have to hire people to clean and paint and patch up some things after we've moved out. But our realtor says she's pretty confident she can sell it quickly, especially since we can be pretty flexible on our asking price. We are very lucky to have bought so long ago and to have refinanced smartly since then. Steve is the master of bill-paying and credit-building!

It has been a great home, the best, and we will miss it terribly. But I imagine some new family will find as much joy on Asilomar Court was we did. And I hope we find that family very soon!

Weeto magnifeeto

Congratulations to Emilyn, who made all A's on her report card for the second trimester. Given her early struggles with her science class, this is an achievement to really be proud of! Her A's put her on the seventh-grade honor roll, and she also earned six "outstanding" marks for classroom citizenship, which earned her a spot on the citizenship honor roll! (I like this one, because it means she's keeping up a positive attitude and being respectful!) AND, she was selected as Spanish student of the month for February! Way to go, sweetie! We are so proud of you!

Allen's work at the art show

Hooray for the boy! His self-portrait was chosen by his art teacher, Mrs. Pettey, for display at the South Area Art Show at the high school. Allen says about his work: "I'm at the beach, and the brown stuff is the sand, and the blue stuff is the water. The red stuff I put just because I wanted to fill it in." Personally, I love his pretty green eyes!

Mastered !

Emilyn and some girls from the 7th and 8th grade choirs got the opportunity to learn solo songs and perform them for Steven Slusher, a professor of music at Lindenwood University here. He said she had a "beautiful voice" and cautioned her only to look at the ground less often!

Anyway, then the girls all got to sing their solo songs for an audience of parents tonight. Emilyn's selection was a beautiful traditonal lullaby, "Sing Me to Sleep." (I challenge you not to tear up... I'm so strung out over house worrying and lack of sleep myself that I had to try not to bawl.)

Sing Me To Sleep

Sing me to sleep, the shadows fall
Let me forget the world and all
Tired is my heart, the day is so long
Let it soon come to evensong

Sing me to sleep, your hand in mine
Our fingers as in prayer entwine
Only your voice, love, let me hear
Singing to tell me you are near

Love, I am lonely, years are so long
I want you only, you and your song
Dark is life's shore, love, night is so deep
Leave me no more, love, sing me to sleep

Sing me to sleep with you alone
Stay with me and remain my own
Gladly my heart will know no pain
When I awake from sleep again

Sing me to sleep and let me rest
Of all the world, I love you best
Nothing is faithful, nothing true
In heaven or earth but God and you

Love, I am lonely, years are so long
I want you only, you and your song
Dark is life's shore, love, night is so deep
Leave me no more, love, sing me to sleep

Not feeling so good

I didn't have a fever today, so I have no explanation for why I was playing basketball with Betty White and Barack Obama at 5 this morning. Or for why Jack Nicholson was the ref.

Yes, dizziness and freaky dreams were the rule for me today, and I'm not feeling so hot right now as I type this... but I'm hoping it's just an odd manifestation of the little sore throat thing that Allen and Emilyn had over the weekend.

Other things are going on... Steve and Emilyn both have to have minor surgery in the coming weeks... Steve has a cancerous growth on his face that has to come off, and Emilyn needs oral surgery to attach appliances to some stubborn teeth that are refusing to come in. We'll let you know how that goes!

In Allen news, his art was just chosen for the South Area art show... We'll be going to see that in the next few days, so pictures will be forthcoming.

I'm going to speak in front of my old prof Avis' editing class next week... Kind of at a loss on what to say. As I was discussing with some friends, I kind of don't like to think about newspapers' past, and I sure don't want to think about newspapers' future... Sigh. Might be a pretty short talk.

We had dinner and dessert at Bailey's Chocolate Bar with our good friends Hania and Raul... Steve and the kids got to see their new (old) house for the first time. Beautiful old mansion in Lafayette Square. And within walking distance of the Chocolate Bar?! Sweet! Allen and Raul played with Beyblades and magnets... Then we walked down to Bailey's for the world's best hot cocoa and other assorted delights. I could eat there every week. But that probably wouldn't be a good idea, so...

And, of course, Beach Week is just a short time away... 25 days. Wow. It's weird this year because we haven't had much winter to escape from... But we're still really looking forward to our 10th trip to the beach.

Hope everything is going well with all of you!

Emilyn's rockin' science project

Despite many pitfalls along the way, Emilyn triumphed with her science project, getting a B and creating a beautiful, professional-looking display of her work. We couldn't be more proud of the way she persevered through what was a very difficult assignment.

She studied the effects of bleach on different types of stains: Juice, mascara, oil and tomato sauce. My friend Erica used some Photoshop magic to create scales of stain intensity for us to compare the results to... Emilyn then graphed the data and wrote about her conclusions for her display board. Basically: Bleach really doesn't work on mascara or motor oil, but it'll do wonders for cherry juice. Handy info for the future!


And the house no longer smells like bleach and motor oil... so that's a plus. Great work, kiddo!

Impressive car, unimpressive maple fest

OK, Missouri isn't a maple Mecca. And again, we haven't had much winter to speak of. So I guess it wasn't too surprising that Steve and Allen's trip to the Maple Sugar Festival at Rockwoods Reservation was kind of a bust.

But the did get to taste some yummy stuff, and there was fire involved. So, not a total loss!

Steve's photos and captions:

They poured hot syrup into shaved ice.
It was called "sugar on snow." Allen and I went back a few times.



Allen trying to make fire at the maple fest.
This was the highlight of maple fest.
But what was impressive was Steve's Ford Taurus hitting 240,000 miles. We have owned the car for over 10 years now. This, again, is the car we had to buy as an emergency when our Subaru died a painful death in Kentucky. Gooood Ford, nice Ford. Thank you very much for your service.

Steve's photos and captions:


Since Ford doesn't have grill badges showing how many miles
your car has gone, I improvised. We've gone 240,000 miles,which equals
one trip to the moon.

Farewell, dear Fusion

While the blue car was away at the "spa," the Crabbes spent the weekend tooling around in a brand new Ford Fusion loaner car, courtesy of Bo Beuckmann Ford.

We've never had a car with this many bells and whistles... HD radio, satellite navigation, seat warmers -- even mood lighting!

It goes without saying... we all loved it. Just ask Allen about the "noise"!

It was hard to say goodbye today as we welcomed home the blue car. The blue car we bought in Kentucky when our other blue car died. The blue car with enough miles on it to have made it to the moon. Good blue car. Nice blue car... If ever it should leave us, well... we know where we'll go to shop.

Science Night !

Well, we were away from Sorrento for a year, but Allen gets things started all over again with another great Science Night!

Allen got started with the fun right away, getting a bracelet made of UV-sensitive beads... Then, the gang made yellow goop, extracted DNA from strawberries, inflated a balloon with dry ice, got the iron out of cereal with a magnet, played with circuits and teased their brains with tangrams! Whew!

Emilyn, as you might remember, got to hold a scorpion two years ago at Science Night. Well, the Reptile Guy was back... This time bearing an alligator and a skink! (I grabbed his card; he does birthday parties!)


Stacy, mom of Allen's friend Nate, runs Science Night, and I put a bug in her ear that Allen and Daddy would like to run an oobleck table next year! We'll see what happens!

For the rest of our great photos from Science Night, click here.

A rough week for the boy

Allen started acting funny last Sunday, when he woke up Steve and me and complained about feeling sick to his tummy... Nothing happened, but he did spend the day a little more clingy than usual. Finally, we got up the energy to go out to Panda Express and Walmart -- and then every parent's nightmare: He got sick in the restaurant. Actually, he got sick as I had my hand clamped over his mouth and dragged him to the bathroom of the restaurant! And I got to clean up the bathroom -- which, let me tell you, is a delightful experience.

So, Monday was a holiday anyway, and he seemed to be feeling a lot better. No more sickness. He went back to school Tuesday and Wednesday with seemingly no problem. Then Wednesday after school, during his walk home with Steve, he started complaining about his tummy again. He worked up a little enthusiasm for his new Beyblade that came all the way from Korea, Basalt Horogium, but that was short-lived. He started getting whiny and tantrum-y as he fought off the nausea, but it came back with a vengeance. TWO DAYS LATER!? That's a weird 24-hour bug, for sure.

After he got everything out of his system the second time, he curled up asleep on the couch. Awwww. He's a kid that never acts sick until he's sick in a BIG way.

Now, after his unpleasant experience with that peanut butter sandwich from Wednesday's lunch, he's refusing to eat peanut butter. That was seriously his main source of protein! I think we'll try turkey sandwiches for a while...

Turning 40 at the Loop Ice Carnival

If you'll recall, somebody got to go to Prague when he turned 40.

So, it seemed like the pressure was on for my big day to be that big, too. But, come on... Steve had to work, I had to work, and let's face it: There weren't going to be any passports involved!

But that was just fine with me, because my dear little family and I ended up at the Loop Ice Carnival, and we had a really great time! Right here in River City! Well, University City...

For starters, I had a bowl of happiness at Ginger Bistro... delicious bulgogi beef, a fried egg and just the right amount of Sriracha sauce! (heeheehee) The kiddos and Steve even won stuffed penguins by shooting baskets near the bar area of the restaurant. There was fun for everyone!

While we were eating, I couldn't help but notice the crowd across the street at the Craft Alliance... Well, heck, that explains it... they were making free s'mores over there! Oh, yeah!

The weather really was just perfect for an ice-themed street festival. About 33 degrees, periodic sun, and no wind to speak of.

Nearly every business had an ice sculpture out front... Even the local head shop, Sunshine Daydream, and the nearby Smoothie King (filled with real smoothie)! "What a looonnnnnng strange trip it's been..."


We headed around the corner to Dough to Door, where you can get a custom dozen fresh baked cookies with any dough and mix-ins you want. Ummm, yeah! They were just opening as we walked in, so they could take advantage of all the extra foot traffic for the ice fest. Our cookies took a little while, but they have games that you can play while you wait! And then they were out of the oven... piping hot! Mmmmmm. I got chocolate dough with peanut butter cups, peanut butter chips and chocolate chips. I could only eat one and a half!



When we waddled back outside, we saw the warmest guy in the place, juggling torches... and the coldest guy in the place, covered head to toe in slush while working on an ice sculpture of an eagle. I had to go to work, but the gang stayed and watched, and Emilyn got a picture of the finished product.



For all the rest of the pictures from my big birthday, click here.

Well, the choir thing . . .

... was a big bummer, because we showed up on the wrong day, and Emilyn missed a chance to sing with the
All-Suburban Choir. But we did see these totally ginchy half-picnic-tables!

And, OMG, it converts into a bench! If Dad had seen these, he would have to have built one.

As Christmas wanes . . .

It's time to pack up Mary, Joseph, Jesus and the rest of the Playmobil "farm set" for another year... The tree came down and went to the curb... and the weather was so warm (we still haven't really had any winter to speak of) that Daddy tried out his new cycling jacket! He's oh-so-visible!

A resolution

So... I can't help but notice that 2011 was the slowest -- by far -- for posts on The Crabbe Trap. There are probably a number of reasons for that...

I started out 2011 on the Luxe 365 project, and taking pictures for that really burned me out on using the camera. Plus, with both kiddos in school full time, there just isn't as much going on around here! And, as they get bigger, their tolerance for Mommy and her camera is waning.

But I do resolve to take more pictures in 2012, and to keep chronicling our stories. There are big things ahead this year. Our 10th trip to the beach. Another two-week summer odyssey. Allen will have a kindergarten performance in April. I'm hoping they do another Mother's Day Tea. Emilyn will have another concert in April, too... And I will be bringing the video camera this time!

The one thing I do not want to do is let these memories slip away. So, let's make a pact to keep them going through 2012 and beyond. Thanks for reading!