A couple more from the weekend

The looks that mean trouble

Madelyn Leta Bice: Master artiste

"Nooo...we weren't horsing around in here...."

"Mama, don't squeeze too tight!"

Just remember to stop pushing when you feel resistance... 

A slightly blurry vision of the christmas tree in progress (i.e. Olivia newest demolition project) 

Olivia thinks better of the diatribe that she was about to launch into regarding the current state of affairs of the stuffed animal population in the house and instead sucks on her palm 

Erin is coaxed into a rare on-camera moment 

"I don't think that's very funny, Daddy" 

Sometimes dinners can get to be just too much for a little girl to handle 

It's easy to have a cheesy grin when you have alot of cottage cheese

Olivia looks on skeptically from her throne 

The Halloween Edition (slightly belated)

Well, Halloween came and went here in Houston, and Erin, Madelyn, Olivia, and I all made sure we went out and gathered in our fair share of candy. As you can see below, Olivia opted for the cheerleader costume, although she also opted to not approve of Dad photographing her.

Madelyn on the other hand discovered the joys of witches; so much so that she would just repeat the word "Witch" every 5 seconds for 10 minutes at a time as we walked around the neighborhood. I think we know what she'll be going out as next year. After all of the trick or treating, we ended back at my friend Tyson's house, where Madelyn got in a little big wheel time.

Naturally, I've been spending plenty of time doing rigorous candy inspection to make sure it's all safe (i.e. eating it). That's all for now; I'm off to St Louis on Thursday for some rusted steel member action....good times!

How the Greats Sleep & A Semi-full House

I thought I'd take some time this morning before I headed out to endure what became an hour and a half commute this morning to document how the great sleepers of our time do what they do so well (at around 5:30 AM). Here we see how Madelyn--the old hand--effortlessly sleeps it out.
And here is how Olivia sleeps at 5:30 AM

While many of my friends around the country were watching Tech nearly take down Texas (oh....the agony!), I was out doing what all good married men do on the weekends: furniture shopping. Our little home is now taking on a more finished look.


I've alos received requests for pictures of the exterior of the house. The only problem with this being that I am leaving and returning to the house when it's dark outside. That said, never think that we don't strive to give the masses that for which they ask. Here's the house circa 5:30 AM.
Well, my work here is done for the time being. I've got a big day of vibration monitoring and concrete inspections ahead of me; Time to get to it.

Kitchen

Master bedroom with view into living room. Maddie and Olivia's room. Pic of garden shed in the backyard.

Dining room

First part of living area.

View of the front door from the breakfast area. This shows the second part of the living area.

Jake and Erin's Big Empty House

Well, we finally closed on our house in Spring. Erin and I are now the proud owners of 30-years worth of debt--Hooray! While the girls spent the day with Grandma, Erin spent the day getting her new home cleaned to her exacting specifications. I stopped off on my evening commute to take a couple of pictures of our empty home. We expect to officially assume residence there by this weekend.

I think the camera adds ten pounds.

View from the Fourth

This definitely will not qualify as the most interesting picture I've ever posted, but it's my blog so I can bore people if I want to. They saw fit to give me my own digital camera, presumably so I could take pictures of useful things like concrete columns and cracks and such, so I promptly took a picture of my office. A couple of things to point out here: (1) Notice the empty computer on the right...that's mine. It's empty and therefore I'm not working or being very productive: a.k.a. Status Quo. (2) We face west, so as the sun sets our office becomes extremely warm. Yet another reason to come in early and leave early.

Anyhow, I've been pretty busy here lately getting lightly involved with assorted projects (proposals, inspections, and calculation checking), but things will be ramping up pretty soon. I think they're interested in getting me involved with some Sturctural Health moitoring projects (lots of vibration analysis).

On the homefront, it looks like Erin and I may be closing on the house VERY soon, so it's possible that we will be in the house as early as sometime next week...very exciting. The girls are doing well, and are thoroughly enjoying having both parents back full-time.