TYPICAL TUESDAY LUNCHTIME

The primary colors in our lives...

RED...BLUE...GREEN...


YELLOW...ORANGE...


FACE HAIR...

We love it here!

It was a beautiful day so we went to a near by park and rec center and had a blast hanging out, exploring and playing on the playground!

wish you were here!

Royal's birthday and beyond!

So, we decided to take a trip to the zoo in celebration of Royal's big day!

The other pictures are from, the snow day, Royal's birthday party,
and just hanging out in the house!

Enjoy!

WHERE THE HELL HAVE WE BEEN?!??

Well...we've been kinda busy these past couple of months...

Our plans to visit Jupiter's moons were put on hold while we fought off the midnight invasion of the Canadian Vampire Coalition...the 6-hour kung-fu battle with their shock troops was largely ignored by the media, distracted as they were by the inauguration of the nation's first Android-American President, Barack-Obamabot...

Christina accepted a position as Dutchess of MILFness in Belgium, but was quickly ousted after her very first decree was to institute a mandatory Baked Goods of Doom cooking class in every high school...she has retired to the French countryside where the people are much more accepting of the idea of Death by Cranberry Scone...


Spike taught himself the ancient secrets of Jewish Mysticism...created a golem out of Legos in the form of his older brother...and has spent the winter hunting down and terrorizing the lost clans of Vikings in the snowy mountains of Norway...nobody really knows why...it's just what Spike does...



Boris joined the Peace Corps...they sent him to a suburban kitchen in Northern Virginia to show the local people how to care for themselves by washing their dishes, taking out their garbage and making six different kinds of pancakes...besides the daily threat of head-hunting tribes-people emerging from the nearby jungles, he is enjoying himself immensely...


Royal decided to walk the Appalachian Trail alone, performing acts of heroism and selflessness...during his weeklong trek (a world record for completing the Trail) - he saved three campers from bears, discovered an abandoned flying saucer (with the words "The Truth Is Out There" spray-painted on its side) and caught Bigfoot (but then decided to let him go)...


Hella wrote a Pulitzer-nominated treatise on solving the Human-Moleman Dilemma, basically recommending that the Mole-people be given full rights as a sovereign nation in exchange for divulging the secrets of their magma-powered clean-energy generators...she is working on a follow-up, after her universally praised diplomatic mission to the Mole-people's underground city, reversing her earlier ideas and advocating a policy of, "Let's just nuke the squinty little bastards!"


Rik has spent the last couple of months posting to Twitter and playing XBox...

GUESS WHAT...

GUESS WHAT...
Originally uploaded by xinacoconuts

...Time it is? :-)

THANKSGIVING PEOPLE

THANKSGIVING PEOPLE
Originally uploaded by xinacoconuts

So our camera kicked the bucket earlier this week, and we're having to
rely on ye olde camera phone...don't let the poor quality of the picture
fool you...this has been one of the best days since arriving in this
green and pleasant land!

THANKSGIVING DINNER ROLLS

THANKSGIVING DINNER ROLLS
Originally uploaded by xinacoconuts

Rolls made from scratch over an 18hr period...
--
Sent from my T-Mobile Sidekick®

THANKSGIVING PIE

THANKSGIVING PIE
Originally uploaded by xinacoconuts

Damn! Now that's an apple pie!

Royal!

Royal!
Originally uploaded by xinacoconuts

Getting ready to head out an do an obscene amount of holiday grocery
shoping!

COMMERCIAL BREAK

go to WE NEED NEW NEEDLES (Rik's notebook) to see quickie sketch of Young Master Super-Speed.

(also to see what else Rik has been jotting down, and to hear the depressing music he's been listening to...)

SOME SUNNY DAY

Thanks to the Astonishing Sarah Belcher, here's some new pictures...
(Hella and Royal spend an hour or two every afternoon at the Belchers' house, hanging out with Sarah and her Astonishing Offspring, Ingrid and Malcolm...)

Ingrid hurt her knee, so Royal had to check it out


Royal and Malcolm speaking telepathically


Sometimes Hella is sad


Sometimes Hella shines


Hella is beautiful


Royal is happy

BAD-ASSSSSSS!!!

Look at that picture!
Isn't it easy to imagine him as Batman...
No, seriously...
President by day, kicking ass by night.
We are so excited!
It's about time we got a LEADER to lead us!
It's a brand new world!

Obama '08

Obama '08
Originally uploaded by xinacoconuts

Waiting in line to vote!
Sent from my T-Mobile Sidekick®

HALLOWEEN 2008

So...

In the strobe-light, whirligig hurricane that has been our lives for the past month, Halloween kept getting pushed to the back burner.

We had some vague ideas about what to do, but nothing definite.

------

Jump ahead to 4pm on the day...Christina gets home from work (Rik is off on Fridays), the parents have some coffee and then get busy cobblin' together some creations...

We had a store-bought bottle of fake blood and then whatever we could scrounge from toy boxes, closets and still-unpacked boxes.

This is how it ended up...

Lots of smiles!


and

Lots of blood!


We went out with our bestest friends Sarah, Ingrid and Malcolm (Josh works late), but unfortunately didn't get any pics of them! (Ingrid = mouse, Malcolm = lion, Sarah = hot mom).

Boris was THE KING OF DEATH IN THE WINTER


Spike was A ZOMBIE PIRATE FROM BEYOND THE APOCALYPSE

(we didn't get any good pics of JUST him)

Hella was SUNRISE, FAERIE OF THE MORNING LIGHT


Royal was INDIANA SPEED, ROOTIN' TOOTIN' ADVENTURE BOY

Royal was completely excited about the whole idea of getting free candy...every time somebody put something in his bag, he had to show everybody around what he had gotten!

Since it was his first REAL Halloween, we let him have as much candy as he wanted...he gorged...then spent the night crying with a belly-ache!

Classic!

BOTH FEET ON THE GROUND

So...

I was going to scan in and post the Halloween drawings the kids have done over the last few days. But then I realized the printer/scanner isn't yet hooked up from the move.

So...

You're gonna have to settle for another picture or two...

All on their own, the kids started having small book parties in the mornings.
They typically are ready for school 20-30 minutes before they have to leave, so they raid our bookshelves looking for interesting things. In this picture (happens to have been taken the first day of school), Boris and Hella are reading Edward Gorey's "Gashlycrumb Tinies", while Spike looks through the "Book of Bunny Suicides". Royal is just snogging his Stinker-eater...as usual...


This is one of those unplanned, offhand shots that turns out really well. We were at Gravelly Point (a park right next to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) early one morning, watching the planes take off. The sky was crisp, the air was sharp, Boris was being beautiful...

REWIRED

Back online at last.
Here's a few pictures from recent weeks...

Royal is a baby no longer...


Xina and Hella outside National Air and Space Museum


Rik and Royal in National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden


Hella excited to be riding the Metro


Walking the boys to their first day of school in Virginia with our new house in the background. (Can you tell Spike was nervous?)


Meeting the boys after their first day of school in Virginia.