Girls go to London & Facial Hair

Hello Readers,
Kind of a slow news week so the post will be short.  The highlight of the rainy weekend was Lori and Kalle going to London to see Les Miserables with Becky and Teresa Lheureau.  The girls had a great time and are excited to go back.  They had such a good time that I can't wait until our London day trip in two weeks.  They were so complimentary of Les Mis that I wouldn't mind seeing a musical or play there myself.  The other main highlight of London was Hamley's (thanks for the tip Steve) which is a seven story toy store which we will all see in two weeks.  Not many pics from Lori so you'll have to wait a couple of weeks for some London pics.       

Inside view of the theatre before the show started.

Kalle by Platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter fame.  As a platform FYI I will blatantly copy from Steve Frey's blog on the platform:

Interestingly, platforms 9 and 10 at Kings Cross Station are not adjacent to one another, so they don't have an adjoining wall separating them, instead it’s the railway line separating them. When J K Rowling was quizzed about why she choose platform 9 and 10 in Kings Cross Station, she said that she was thinking of Euston Station instead and mixed them up. However, Euston Station has the same problem, and railway track between the two platforms.

To overcome the numbering problem, platforms 4 & 5 were renumbered in Kings Cross Station during shooting of Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets.

Kalle's Hamley's gift.

While the girls were Londoning Karl and I saw Star Wars Phantom Menace 3D and played video games.  I completed the Bastion story quest and am in New Game Plus Mode now where I need to replay the game story with all my weapons so it should be much quicker this time.  Hopefully they will have extra stuff in NGPM.  I don't like playing games or reading books more than once so we will see if I can complete the game twice.  Usually I wouldn't play a game twice but I loved playing Bastion.  Karl and I also started a new game called Deadspank.  You can check out a YouTube clip of the game here.  It has cartoonish graphics with a dim-witted but kind hearted barbarian type hero plowing his way through the world of injustice.  KJ is Deadspank and I am the unnamed magician side kick who accompanies Deadspank on his quests to enrich the lives of the down trodden and restore justice to the righteous.  We played for a few hours and it was a lot more fun than I expected.  Kind of reminds me of the cartoon Samurai Jack but without Jack's seriousness.

Random shot of the flowers Bob and Lona sent Lori for Valentine's Day.  They are barely alive but look good for being three weeks old.

 And since we are rolling from February to March it is time for a new facial hair style.

The disgruntled Lemmy.  He isn't happy that it's time to go but his job is done.  Thanks Lemmy!

This month's facial hair style was easy for me to pick.  With the Manning contract decision coming due this month I selected the horseshoe.  We had the Favre drama the last few off seasons, last year was the lock out story, so this year's drama is the Peyton Manning dilemma.  Who needs soap operas when you have professional football players whining about their bruised egos?  The roster decision is due this week so we'll see what happens.  My only hope is that Washington doesn't sign him but with him being an over-priced, past prime Pro Bowler I am sure Washington will try to sign him.  <sigh>  Don't get me wrong, Manning has had a great career and may still have some football left in him but I just don't want to see him in the burgundy and gold next year.  

The horseshoe.  Lori wanted me to put the little square ends on the legs but that is to much work for me.  I am retired you know.

We received Karl's progress card from school this week but I don't know what it is supposed to be telling us.  Each class grade has a number followed by a L (low), S (middle), or H (high).  He is in Year 8 and his current working grade levels range from 4H in Food Technology to 7S in Maths (not Math here) which doesn't make sense.  The confusing part is that level 4H doesn't mean he is working in Year 4 High material.  We have a parent teacher meeting in a couple of weeks so hopefully they will be able to explain some of it to us.  (We had a parent teacher conference with Kalle's teacher a few weeks back and she couldn't explain the grade levels to us either.  Just because you are in Year 5 doesn't mean you are working on 5L, 5S, or 5H material.)  The best part is we are meeting three teachers (Maths, English, Science) and have ten minutes allotted to each teacher which include five minutes walking between the buildings so basically we have five minutes with each teacher.  The frustration with the schooling over here continues. 


Thanks for listening,
Jay