I just had an idea.

In case you haven't heard, Chris had a great idea for a birthday present for me this year. He is going to cook dinner for the family every Sunday for a year. Now, this is cool on several levels. Most obviously, it means 52 meals over the next year that I don't have to cook. Now, I kind of like cooking, but it does get tedious sometimes, and it can be a strain to constantly be trying to figure out what to make--what's healthy enough, what will the kids (Casey, really) actually eat. I'm taking on some new tasks these days, and Chris is well aware, and so it's greatly appreciated that he's stepping up to lighten the load. Secondly, and this is one of my favorite things about it, is that it's totally out of his comfort zone. This is the guy who survived on spaghetti and takeout before I came along. Occasionally he'd make a fabulous dessert--trifle, anybody?--but only because he felt like dessert was worth the effort, whereas normal food wasn't. So him volunteering to take up cooking--it's like he told me he was going to take dance lessons.

Day 1 was a success. When he first told me what he was doing, I immediately pictured him making spaghetti once a week, which was fine with me. But he's actually seeking out recipes for real food. His first meal: Stuffed shells! He's not just pitching in; he's showing me up. I only take the time to stuff pasta for special occasions. And that's awesome! He can show me up anytime he wants.

Anyway, I just had this idea today that he should be blogging about this experience. Then he could totally parlay that into a book deal, a la that blogger who made all of Julia Child's recipes in a year. I guess it's not quite that level of commitment ... but he could write humorous accounts of his kitchen adventures, combined with moving prose about how it helped bring him closer to his wife and appreciate her more. It'd be a bestseller! Women everywhere would buy it for their husbands.

But ... who would play him in the movie version?

Off to College

These seem like bright kids, so we decided to ship them off to college just a bit early. For a few hours. UW-Madison science program was having an exhibition over the weekend, and the info I saw said "all ages." It had been cold and drizzly here, and we were itching to have somewhere to take the kids, so we decided to take that literally. Luckily, there were a ton of little kids there, so we were in good company. Different departments had booths set up with activities. A lot of it was way over our kids' heads (genetic mapping anyone?) but Casey was very interested, and the college students staffing it were nice about trying to talk at his level. He got to do weird things like make a pipe-cleaner neuron and build a diaphragm out of candy.

Casey's favorite booth was the one by the engineering students. They had lego robots that were hooked up to computer controls that the kids could use to make them move.

 The entomology booth was also very popular. They got to pet a caterpillar and look at some creepy crawlies.

Ew. (That's one of the entomology students holding a live cockroach. They tried to convince us they make good pets, but yuck.)

I don't even know what he's looking at here.

Casey really liked this globe in the campus geology museum. He has a thing for maps and globes in general. The rest of my pictures from the geology museum didn't turn out, but they had a bunch of rocks (of course) as well as fossils and some dinosaur and mammoth skeleton replicas. We spent an extra twenty minutes there while Casey listened to a professor talk about the teeth of different Ice Age animals. I was bored, but he was rapt.

Darby also enjoyed the day but in a different way. He just likes to be out in the world chilling.

Lunchtime! I told Casey to smile for the camera.

Then we told him to close his mouth. This is a little better.

This is now one of my favorite pictures of Darby. He looks great in his dad's hat.

And finally, one leftover picture from March. Occasionally Casey will come home from school looking a little strange. Around St. Patrick's Day, they gave him back to us looking like this.