Louisville

Snowed again!  The night right before our Louisville trip!  Still decided to keep the plan of going to Louisville, knowing not much to see or do there, simply for “getting away”!

We drove through the forest and the road is beautiful after the snow. 

Visited Louisville downtown.  Had lunch at a local café.  Food is great!  Kids are Lousy!  Parents are busy!  Luckily we were not in a hurry to visit any particular places or do anything special.  Just spent time in a different place!

 Enjoyed time in hotel, especially Jake, happy with his big apple biting.

Left Louisville Sunday morning.  Had fun in Columbus, IN, a city on our way back.  Easton and Jake had a great time playing in this public “KidsCommom” place!  We will definitely come back to Columbus!

new chair for Easton

new chair from Ikea for Easton, but Jake really liked it!

He fits in perfectly!

Watching "bob the builder"

"hi Jake" and he responded!

after almost 10 minutes, Jake still sat there so omfortably!

1st Storm Day in Bloomington

Some simple facts in the morning

10 inches snow on the morning after Christmas day.  Furnace still needs to be fixed.  The technician will not be able to come due to the sever storm.

7:30am in the morning, still snowing badly, strong wind, completely blurry outside

Decided to wait till talk to manager before heading to work

~8am manager got some words from department admin, who already drove to work under the above weather condition “technically the plant is still open today!”

~8:30am, Quote from manager “let me check the possibility for us to work from home today”. 

~9am, Quote from manager “we have 3 options.  Take vacation day; work from home; or work extra hours in the following week to make it up”.  Replied “I will work from home.”

Immediately after reply, received further information from big boss “Since all hourly paid employees will not be paid if they cannot make it to work, Technically we are not allowed to work from home. So please don’t put too much hours into it and then find out that those hours don’t count.”

“What?!!!”  (I guess I am just so lack of imagination on how “Technically” corporate policy can be.  Or maybe all of us should sometime forget that we are living in a “human” world so that we can easily accept those “technical” rules and restrictions”)

Then we decided to spend the day like this.

Shoveling snows

Making a snow man--- Tie described our snow man "Spooky" snowman.  with my limited vocabulary, i didn't get it when he said it.  after his explanation, i like the description --- it is an ugly but with some characters' snowman. 

House & Baby!

After 1^st snow in Bloomington in 2012, two days before Christmas, we welcomed our 1^st major breakage in our house – furnace.

Tie happened to want to vacuum the basement Sunday afternoon, and happened to be very particular for each corner, and happened to dampen his socks as he was finishing up, and happened to find out that the carpet is wet, and the Furnace is Leaking Water, but don’t know for how long.

Called the home warranty and a guy with a truck was sent over right after.

Easton completely thought that the guy with the truck is “Bob the Builder”!  And the idea of asking the guy: “Can you fixe it?” made his so excited!

The problem does not warrant a replacement of a new furnace.  So we have to wait for it to be fixed, and we cannot use the Furnace for 3 days due to Christmas holidays! 

The first thought came to my mind is to record this 1^st major breakage like I did for Easton and Jake. 

It was then I realized that there are lots of similarities between having a house and a baby!  E.g.

1.    always have lots of uncertainties, eager to learn and anticipate yet don’t know what to expect
2.   lots of fun come with frustrations at times
3.  always wonder “How can I make it (him) better?”
4. “it will never go away” (Tie’s colleague summarized his feeling of having a house for 20 years.  We really like it and think it says all!)

Saturday in Indy

Made our 2^nd Indy trip today. 

First and most important destination - Indy’s children museum

Based on the brochure, it is the Largest Children’s Museum in the WORLD!    We arrived there around 10:30am, all streets around felt rather empty on a Saturday morning, but the parking lot at the museum were completely packed.  Lots of kids, jumping, running, and playing around inside!

Concept is a little different from Philly’s Please Touch Museum.  1^st through 3^rd floors are all exhibitions with some little stuff for touching.  

Luckily there is a little baby play area for Jake on the 2nd floor.  He played hard like he knew that's the only place for him!

4^th floor is where the fun begins for Easton and all of us!

Driving a bulldozer.

busy digging

 finally it is Easton's turn to shoveling!

2^nd stop – Home Goods

Bought quite a few things, all are much needed, 3 mirrors, 1 lamp, 1 pan, basket, ….

3^rd stop – Costco

As always surprised by how much grocery we need to consume every day

4^th stop – Asian Market

Size is very similar to the one in Madison but with Live Fresh-Water fish.

5^th stop – would love to make some random stops at casual in the evening, but driving on the highway makes this an unachievable task.