Post Irony

We stormed Branson a couple of weekends ago to spend time with Mimi and Pawpaw. Mimi got us another sweet suite at the resort where she works.

Last summer I stopped by the place that’s home to the World’s Largest Banjo, dubbed “Branson’s Eiffel Tower,” just to take a photo of it. This time we hit the place to take advantage of the fun-packed attractions on the other side of the colossal instrument.

The big draw at the Grand Country Square is 3-D Blacklight Mini-Golf. For an additional $3 you get the 3-D glasses to get the full experience. Although I immediately observed that if one is playing mini-golf on a real-live mini-golf course, one is experiencing actual 3-D. No extra enhancement needed.

This is possibly the greatest photo I’ve ever taken. Click on the picture to see the big version. You won’t be disappointed.

The 3-D mini-golf caused a bit of sensory overload for Abby. She enjoyed the mini-bowling much better.

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Abby had her first soccer practice on Saturday. It was like somebody dropped a cute bomb on that field.

The coaches had the kids run a bunch of drills that I think is supposed to teach them how to handle a soccer ball with their feet.

The obstacle course was Abby’s favorite. She’s been setting up little obstacle courses at home so she can practice.

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Little Rock’s first snow of any significance in 7 years (according to the news) happened this week. Abby was so excited she got dressed in record time, and all by herself to boot. She never does that on a school day.

Her first snowman.

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After enduring weeks of a Christmas-fueled Abby, endless viewings of RTRNR and last-minute runs to Toys R Us, the big day finally arrived. It was the first Christmas when Abby was fully cognizant of the implications of the season. I got all my picture-taking junk set up the night before (I used the Strobist Christmas game plan) in anticipation of capturing the surprise and wonder on Abby’s face when she saw Santa’s bounty laid before her. But instead of letting her awaken to her own circadian rhythm, we woke her up, which resulted in her being groggy, confused and in a kinda cranky mood. She did show a little classic Christmas emotion when her jaw dropped upon seeing the half-eaten cookies and empty milk glass left from Santa’s late-night snack.

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Abby met Santa for the first time on Sunday. This is the first Christmas where she really knows what’s going on, Santa and presents and being good and the whole bit. She’s literally been bouncing off the walls. She’s hurt her knee and cracked her head and skinned her elbows.

She is notorious for not enjoying things normal kids really like. So keeping in mind that Santa as a concept is really weird and dudes dressed all in red from head to foot are scary, we coached her extensively before going to the mall. We told her there would be a long line and the whole thing was going to move fast. She’d have to get right up there and talk to Santa and smile when told to for the picture.

She went right up to him and got on his lap and told him what she wanted. And she at least looked toward the camera when we told her the picture was coming.

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What’s the one thing you don’t want to do when acquiring a Christmas tree? Drink the goat water. We figured we couldn’t put off getting a tree any longer, so we went to Motley’s Christmas Tree Farm and Pig Racing Stadium on Sunday. Motley’s is chock full of holiday fun. There’s the petting zoo, the racing pigs, the shop full of Christmas-themed junk, the hayride and, of course, a field full of Christmas trees.

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Abby has come a long way since she first rode the springy horse two years ago. In the beginning, we had to put her up on the thing and tell her to hold on. The other day she just grabbed her cowboy hat, jumped up on there and started yelling “yee-haw!” Strobist info for the top pic: SB-600 in silver reflective umbrella at 1/2 power camera left and SB-26 fired into the ceiling for fill at probably 1/2 power. The bottom photo was lit with an SB-400 on the camera probably fired into the ceiling on auto an sunlight through a window on camera right.

For you photographers, the Today Show profiled the little town where my parents live. It’s home to the last lab processing the iconic Kodachrome slide film.

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Abby got her very first report card last week and, as you can see, she’s probably a genius – gifted and talented at the least. (If you’re having trouble reading the report card, click on it and you can see a bigger version.) She’s off the charts in everything, including eating lunch and going to the bathroom. Gina and I are ecstatic, as you might imagine. Of course, for all we know, every kid gets an A on everything, but we’ve decided to believe that Abby is in the top 1 percent of 3-year-olds in the city. We did have a conference with her teacher, and she said Abby is ahead of normal 3-year-olds in many areas. She can identify numbers 1 through 6, which most of the kids in the class can’t do, according to her teacher. And she knows all the main colors, which most of the kids in the class can’t do, either. Plus, (although her teacher didn’t say it) she’s clearly the cutest kid in the class, too. Brains and looks, she’s got the big two. One thing we don’t really know about is her athletic ability. I wonder if she can outrun all the kids in her class.

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About a month ago, we took the front off of Abby’s baby bed so she could finally be free to effect her own ingress and egress. We got tired of her laying in bed in the morning and yelling, “Mommy, Daddy! I’m ready!” It was especially bothersome on the weekends when we really didn’t feel like getting up to lift her out of bed. The sides of her bed are so high that she has never been able to climb over them. Abby has never been what you’d call a good sleeper. (For a long time she wasn’t what you’d call a sleeper at all.) We put off converting her bed because we just knew there’d be many long nights of putting her back into bed over and over. Of course, the opposite happened. She’s like one of those career prisoners who can’t function once they get out, so they commit more crimes so they can go back to jail. She hasn’t once gotten out of bed unless we’ve told her to. She still lays in there after she wakes up and yells “I’m reeeaaaaaady!”

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