Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Traveling Ingys Visit Our Neighbors to the North

And when I say "north" I mean waaayyy north. Shelley was nice enough to take us along for her trip to Québec City. Being that I'm a native Texan and Jason's an A&M graduate, we're about as far from French-Canadian as you could possibly be....Pretty sure there's not many Conservative Republicans running around up there. But, looks like we still had a great time!

Here we are at our hotel. The hotel we stayed at is the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac. Of course since it's French-Canadian it's not merely a hotel located in the heart of Old Québec ─ it is the heart of Old Québec! I'm guessing Le Château isn't the French word for La Quinta.

Nestled on a mountainside overlooking Lac Beauport, Mont Tourbillon is one of the most scenic golf courses in Québec. Since it's opening, it has become an established favorite with golfers who enjoy the mountain vistas as much as the challenging play. JR wasn't too impressed since he prefers "Dinosaur Golf" at the Katy Mills Mall.

We also went to Montmorency Fall just outside of Québec City. It has impressive waterfalls measuring 83-metre high. (in honor of our trip, notice my use of the metric system and the spelling of the word "meter")

Thanks for taking us along, Shelley. And everybody else, don't forget to get out your Traveling Ingys and take us around. We don't have to go anywhere "special" we just want to go! And if you'd like your own Traveling Ingys to take pictures with (and be featured on our blog), just drop me an email. I'll be happy to send you one!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

A Whopper of a Tale

Today's posting starts with a little refresher course in children's bible stories. Here's the verse: Jonah 1 1:3 1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah 2 "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." 3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish.
So, Granny Sherry was a huge help last week by taking JR to school for me a couple of times. On the way, they had the following conversation:
JR: Granny Sherry, Did you know that Baby Moses got swallowed by a big fish?
Sherry: Well, actually JR, Wasn't it Jonah that got swallowed by the big fish?
JR: Yes, that's what I meant. Did you know Jonah got swallowed by a big fish?
Sherry: Yes, JR, I did know that.
JR: Yep, He got swallowed by a big fish because God told him to go to Nin-a-vah and he went to Target instead.

Oh, how well I've taught him to shop. Yes, JR, I would have to agree. Sometimes it's hard to do what God tells you, especially when there's a Target nearby!

Friday, September 26, 2008

Baby Talk: On The Move

Guest Blogger: Reed Ingersoll
Even though I'm the youngest and the smallest of the babies, I still do most everything first. Kyle is crawling now, but I did it about a month before he did. And I'm still a lot faster than he is! Mommy and Daddy say I look like a baby sea turtle. What do you think?

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Baby Talk For Real

Guest Blogger: Kyle Ingersoll
I'm bloggin' again today, and I've brought video for you this time. Now we all know my mom isn't the best videographer in town. First, there was the snake incident where she held the camera wrong. Then, she was supposed to be doing a serious documentary on the hurricane and she started squealing when it rained on her. But this one really takes the cake. Here I was showing off my new verbal skills and my mom comes down with a case of the hiccups. Not once, but twice we tried to show everybody how I can talk, and both times she ruined my big moment. So please enjoy my new found vocabulary ability, and try to ignore my mom hiccuping and dropping the camera...Oh, and will somebody please tell Daddy to take over the cinematography responsibilities in our house?

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Baby Talk: Tearin' Up the Joint

Kyle: Y'all may have forgotten us. We're the twins Mommy had about 8 months ago.
Reed: She's been totally hogging the blog; we haven't written in a whole month.
K: We told her how upset we were about the blog situation, and since we're the babies, she said we could write on it whenever we wanted.
R: So we just might take over for the next few days!
K: Mommy and Daddy are all in a tizzy these days about how long we've been living here at Granny Sherry's.
R: I don't know what they're so worried about, Granny said we could make ourselves at home...so we did.
R: Here's one of the first things I learned to do. I can pull up on Granny's big cushy ottoman. I taught myself that pretty fast, now I'm trying to figure out if I can crawl on top of it. I'm thinking these big black pillows I'm standing on will give me just enough height to throw my leg up there...I'm sure I'll be doing that any day now.

K: At first I was a little upset to discover that Pee-Wee has more toys than I do. But then after I got the basket turned over, I found out how much fun they can be! Pee-Wee's pretty excited about it too...now he can get to the toys that were at the bottom of the basket.


K: Mommy kept hollering something about "No!" and "Dog Toys" and "Mouth" and then she'd take them away from me. But around day 7 of us being here, she just gave up. These toys are great, they even squeak when I chew on them!


K: The other really great thing Pee-Wee has is his own door. I know it must be for Reed and me too since it's just our size! We still haven't figured out how to get ourselves through it, but dropping our toys through it is a blast! I can also hold it up and just take a look outside whenever I want! So cool!


R: My favorite thing is this flower cart Granny Sherry has. I can climb in the bottom of it and Mommy will find me hanging half out of it all the time. Granny even has this soft blanket in it so I don't hurt my face when I launch myself in it.


Granny's bottom shelves got cleared out pretty fast, and look how fun these cubes are to crawl through. And if you get a toy, you can bang it inside of here and it makes the most fabulous loud noise!


I love crawling through these too, but as you can see, there's some stuff on the middle shelf. I've already made it to one of the middle shelves, but Mommy cleared it out too fast for me to find out what was on it. But don't worry, when Mommy's not looking, I'll climb up to one of those other shelves and let you know what's up there!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

I'm Done With It

When I checked the Centerpoint Energy website today it said maybe we'll have power on Sunday. Sunday! I've been through all kinds of emotions since finding that out...anger, sadness, depression...And I wrote two posts on the subject. One in a rage filled rant, and a more light-hearted post comparing my feelings about Centerpoint to Obama and Tom Cruise. After deleting both, I've decided this is my last hurricane post, although I'll still continue to update our electricity status to the right. I've dedicated enough time to this hurricane and I'm tired of Ike stealing my blog's joy. So to wrap up all hurricane talk, here are the pictures of our street and house waiting for "big trash pick-up" AND electricity.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Native American Cuisine

Yes, we are still Ike refugees at Granny Sherry's house, but Praise the Lord (or as my mom would say 'PTL') JR started back to school today. And with the starting of school, JR was able to crack me up with one of our conversations:

JR: Mommy, Do you know about plaid corn?
Me: Plaid corn?
JR: Yes, plaid corn. It's what the Indians ate. Its real name is 'Indian Corn', but it looks plaid.
Me: Oh! Yes, JR, I know what you're talking about.
JR: God made plaid corn, then he made yellow corn.
Me: Are you learning about the Indians at school?
(I'm a little confused at this point because I'm thinking it's too early for Thanksgiving talk.)
JR: No, we got to change the season to 'fall', and the picture is of plaid corn. Mrs. Jennings told us that the Indians ate plaid corn.
Me: Oh, okay. Did she tell you what else the Indians ate or did they just eat plaid corn?
JR: Mommy, they ate everything we eat...except it was all plaid.

Watch Us on TV

Click here to watch our big TV debut. We show up about 22 seconds into it, and we're only on for a second or two. Jason walks into the frame first and them me. He's wearing a white shirt with thin red stripes, and I'm wearing a blue tank top and sunglasses. (I know we look way too casual for church, but remember, church was outside and Houston is HOT!)

Sunday, September 21, 2008

The Ingys and Ike-We're TV Stars!

I've always known Jason and I were meant to be on television, and today, we made it! We noticed Chanel 2 news was at church today, and when we watched it this afternoon, there we were walking into the service. 2nd Baptist is one of the largest churches in Houston (I'm guessing we're right behind Joel Osteen's Lakewood) and our campus was severely damaged. Ike pealed the copper right off the domed roof, picked it up, and then slammed it back on the church. Our 5,000+ seat worship center had 2 feet of water in it, and everything was ruined. It's millions of dollars worth of damage (think sound and computer equipment) and 6 months to a year before we'll be back inside. The news was there to cover the story of the damage and to show us having church on the football field. We were told to dress super casual, so Jason and I were wearing shorts for our big TV debut. I'm glad we were too, even at 9:30AM the sun was beating down on us, and with my milk-toast skin, I actually got a little bit sunburned. Of course our channel 2 exposure was only a couple of seconds, but JR was pretty upset that we were on TV and he wasn't. (He was at children's church) In fact, he burst into tears that he wasn't featured...he's so my child. If Chanel 2 puts anything about it on their website, I'll be sure and add the link. Here's a picture of the dome damage that I took this morning.

Friday, September 19, 2008

The Traveling Ingys Go European

With all the stress of the hurricane, we were definitely in need of a fabulous vacay. Leave it our friends, Gary and Anita, (Blog readers, you'll remember them as the friends we went to visit in Charleston) to jet set us on over to Europe. Here we are hanging out on the island of Santorini. And since my European geography is not near as refined as my Asian geography, I actually had to google Santorini to find out where we went. Turns out we were hanging on a volcanic island off the southern coast of Greece. As you can see in the pictures, the island has a giant central lagoon and is surrounded by high steep cliffs on three sides. The island slopes downward from the cliffs to the surrounding Aegean Sea. Santorini claims to have some of the best sunsets in the world, and after checking out our pictures, I definitely believe it. Hello?... Are we fancy pants or what? Actually are pants really appropriate in Greece? I'm thinking a toga is in order!




Thursday, September 18, 2008

The Ingys and Ike- Need A Break

I'm taking an Ingy and Ike blog vacation starting tomorrow. The Traveling Ingys just got back from a fabulous European vacay, so I'll be posting our European adventures tomorrow.
I got the saddest phone call from my mom today. She called the power company and they told her it would be at least 3 more weeks before they get their electricity back. I've never heard her so sad or depressed. Their neighbors down the way got it back yesterday, so she was thinking they would be getting it any minute. Unfortunately, they aren't on the same power grid. In other East Texas news, the gas station owner in their little town was going into Crockett and picking up the free FEMA ice and water and then selling (actually price gouging ) it in his store. They sent in a high school kid undercover and they charged him $26 for ice and water. The owners were arrested and taken out in handcuffs. I say, AMEN! He deserved it!
In Ike messing up stuff for the Ingys news, the worship center in our church was badly damaged and it will be months until we can have services inside it. I don't know what we'll be doing long term, but Sunday's service is out on the football field. They still don't have power either, so it remains to be seen if JR will be going to school on Monday.
I leave you with some pictures that were emailed to Jason today. And Houstonians, I know you're as sick of Ike talk as I am, so I promise no hurricane blogging tomorrow.






Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The Ingys and Ike-Going Stir Crazy

As you can see, we're loosing it a little bit around here. Poor Granny Sherry is used to only sharing her house with her dog, Pee Wee. Now she's got our family of 5 moved into her 2 bedroom house. I'm sure she's thinking that she lived through Hurricane Ike and now she's having to live through Hurricane Ingy! The babies are both crawling, and boy are they fast. We've baby-proofed the shelves as far up as they can reach, and I've given up on taking the dog toys away from them. Besides, Granny Sherry's house is so clean that Pee Wee's dog toys are probably cleaner than most anything. Jason's dad read in the paper that they are aiming to have power restored to our zip code by Tuesday. The local channels aren't doing 24/7 news coverage anymore, so it was nice to see some network television shows tonight...hopefully "normal" isn't too far off.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Ingys and Ike- Aftermath Day 4

I had an awesome set of before and after pictures I had taken around our house so you could see how bad it is here. But in my stressed-outness I accidentally deleted them when trying to get them off my memory stick. It's awful here. 70 person gas lines, no gas, lines just to get inside the grocery store, and still no electricity. I feel bad being upset about the 4 big trees we lost in our yard since those trees could have so easily landed on our house. Our neighbors across the street, like thousands here in Houston, have a tree right through their house. Or, we could be like the thousands of people whose homes were blown or washed completely away. We're still refugees over at Jason's mom's house, which again, I'm not complaining. I could be a refugee in a shelter. Most schools are closed through the end of the week, and some are closed indefinitely. My parents still don't have power, and have no idea when they'll get it. They have to go through the FEMA line everyday just to get ice and water. JR's school is supposed to start up again on Thursday and it will take me close to an hour to drive him to school from out here in Katy. Luckily, my friend, Shelley, has power at her place (which is close to JR's school) and she's letting me go sit at her house with the babies until JR gets out. We're going to have to go to the store tonight to get baby food. I haven't left the house since we got here (except to walk JR to the park), and I'm not looking forward to it. I lived in a third world country for 3 years, and I've never experienced anything like this. Everybody is under a curfew, we have to worry about looters, we finally got water back at our house and we can now stop boiling it here at Sherry's, and I now know what a POD site is (It means "Point of Distribution" and that's where you go line up to get food, water, and ice.) Our definition of "normal" has been completely altered, and everything about Houston -the people, the landscape-has been changed forever.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

The Ingys and Ike- Hurricane Home Video

Here are the videos from the storm. I tried to do my best Mariza Reyes impersonation that I could. (Jason and I love Mariza Reyes from Chanel 2. When we would be up with the twins at 5 A.M. they would always have her reporting from the absolute worst part of Houston. Every morning Jason and I would joke...wonder where their going to have poor Mariza this morning.) I was trying to stay calm while I talked, but you can hear in my voice that I'm scared. In this video you can't see anything because it was so black, dark outside. What you're hearing isn't rain, it's wind!

The next two videos are after the sun came up. At the end of the second one I had a "Jan moment" and started screaming when the rain started coming down sideways and soaked me. The crazy thing about the second video is that a huge oak tree in the backyard fell about 5 minutes after I quit filming...Can you imagine the squealing that would have come out of me if that had happened on camera?

Saturday, September 13, 2008

The Ingys and Ike- It was BAAADDD

Okay, no joking here tonight. It was bad; I was scared. Our yard looks like a war zone. We lost 2 big trees, but neither hit our house. We were certainly blessed. Jason's dad lives next door and lost about 10 trees. There's no telling when we'll have power again. The news is saying everybody should have power again in a month...A Month! Katy, where Jason's mom lives, is in West Houston and got the least damage from the storm, so her house has power. It came on again about 9:00 P.M. tonight so we broke curfew and came here to stay. JR is out of school until at least Wednesday. I took video and lots of pictures, but in my hurry to pack in the dark I left the camera at home. We'll pick it up tomorrow, so I should have video and pictures to show then. As bad as it was, it could have been so much worse. We want to thank all of you that called and text messaged to check on us. We really appreciate it. My parents are also okay. One side of their barn blew off and they lost some trees. I'll have more tomorrow, I'm going on to bed since I didn't sleep one minute last night since I was too busy pacing back and forth and hiding in the closet.

Friday, September 12, 2008

The Ingys and Ike- 9:45 P.M.

Jason has cranked the air conditioning down to 70 so when the power does go out it will hopefully stay cool in the house for awhile. Needless to say, we're all freezing right now...I'm sure in a day or two I'll be wishing I had just a drop of this cold air. JR and the babies are asleep in our room, and we only have one set of windows in there, so that's probably the safest room for us to be in (besides the closets). The wind is gusting to about 45 MPH and the storm still hasn't reached us. This will be my last post for tonight, and I'll post again as soon as I'm able. Here's some latest video from our front porch..


I'm also including the latest picture from Channel 2. If you want to see what the storm is doing in our area visit Channel 2 and our location is the actual city of Houston, inside the Sam Houston Tollway/Beltway at I-10W.

The Ingys and Ike- 6:45 P.M.

Getting more serious out there, and this is the easy part. Our neighbors down the street just lost their power so it's only a matter of time. The winds are up to 110 MPH and its about 100 miles off the coast of Galveston. Our phone, TV, and internet is all through our cable so don't worry if you can't get us on our home phone. Here's a video of our front yard.

The Ingys and Ike-3:30 P.M.

It's clouding up, starting to sprinkle, and winds are gusting to 25 MPH. I just asked Jason, "At what point do you think I'm going to say..We should have gone...I'm scared?" He said, probably when a tree comes crashing through our house. In wildlife news, the peacock is back. First he was eating the squirrel food in the backyard, then later he was hanging out in the front yard. I called my mom to tell her and she said, "go catch it and bring it in the house!" Then her friend, Karen, said, "Oh no! The hurricane will blow off all its feathers!" About that time Granny Sherry's dog, Pee-Wee, chased it and it flew up in a tree. So if you see a naked peacock hanging around our street, totally our fault. Here's the latest picture from Channel 2. Poor Galveston is taking a pounding with this storm surge.

The Ingys and Ike-11:40 A.M.

We've made all our hurricane preparations. We've put all our outside things in the garage, I've washed all the clothes, and everybody has taken a shower...we want to make sure we look our best for the TV cameras when they rescue us from the roof of our house! I'm kidding about the last part, if our house floods, then all of Houston will be underwater. Their forecasting we'll have to deal with 70-100 mile an hour winds and 4-8 inches of rain here in town. Of course the storm is supposed to hit around midnight, so we won't be able to see what's coming at us. The water is already over the Seawall in Galveston. For you non-Texans: The seawall was built in 1902 after the 1900 hurricane that killed between 6,000-12,000 people and is 17 feet high and 16 feet thick. Here's another picture from Chanel 2 showing the waves hitting The Seawall.

As you can see from the picture above, and our pictures, it's still not raining...not even cloudy. Here are pictures from our preparations this morning. JR's swing-set with no swings, our empty back porch, and Jason and JR working on clearing our front porch.

The Ingys and Ike-7:30 A.M.

We've had non-stop news coverage of Hurricane Ike since yesterday morning. We haven't seen anything else on TV now for 24 hours (I'm happy to let JR watch "his shows" just to get a break from it). The latest news still has Ike hitting Galveston, we're hoping to be on the west side of the storm when it hits, as that is the "clean" side. The "dirty" east side produces all the tornadoes. The models they are showing now have the hurricane going right through downtown Houston, so I guess we won't be worrying about east or west, and we'll be dealing with the eye. It's still a beautiful day, but parts of Galveston and Kemah are already under water do to the storm surge. Here's the latest map from Channel 2 here in Houston. I've chosen them as my news provider since their weather men haven't been getting hysterical.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

It's A Sunshine Day...Right Now

We were living in Beijing during Hurricane Katrina (praise the Lord). And during that time we were talking about living in Houston and dealing with hurricanes and tornadoes. Our Bosnian friend, Sunny, looked at us and with all seriousness said, "Why would you live in such a place?" Jason and I really didn't have an answer except to say "that's where we call home". You'd never know it to look outside, it's just a normal, hot, sunny, Houston day...but Hurricane Ike is on its way, and it looks like we're going to take a pretty direct hit. We've decided to stay put and "ride it out". You might be thinking, "Their crazy! Why would they do that?" Well, with hurricanes, you really never know what the safest thing is to do. Parts of Houston near the coast are under mandatory evacuation; we are not. (We're about 10 miles from downtown, Galveston is about an hour drive for us). Jason and I have both been through a hurricane before-Alicia in 1983. They aren't fun, they can be very scary, but we've made the choice to stay. The mayor made an announcement that Houston will be closed on Friday- basically we're just supposed to stay put and be ready. The storm is supposed to hit early Saturday morning, and we'll for sure be without power for quite awhile, so I'll keep you updated best I can.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

For Goodness Snakes, I mean Peacocks!

When people come to our house for the first time they often say something like, "With all these trees, I can't believe I'm in the middle of Houston." Of course we have our share of squirrels and even rabbits, but today takes the cake. As JR and I pulled up to the house I noticed something sitting on our fence...a peacock. I thought it would run off as we drove by, but he let me get inside, get my camera, and come take a couple of pictures of him before he took off across the street.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Back On The Street

Much to my dismay, JR never really cared about watching Sesame Street. When he was a baby I thought he would love it, but it didn't come on in China, and when we were back home visiting he never showed much interest in it. By the time we moved home, I figured he had outgrown it. Lately I've been putting it on for the babies, and surprisingly JR will stop and watch. His favorites are Grover and Ernie, which had you asked me which muppets JR would relate to, I would have picked those two in an instant. Grover because he's always falling down, and JR loves a good sight gag. (He's just like his dad...Jason thinks anybody who falls down or walks into a glass door is a comic genius.) JR loves Ernie for the same reason I love Ernie, he's always picking on Bert and annoying him. Since he started catching episodes of "The Street", he dug out all my old Sesame Street books from when I was little. We've been reading them at night, and I've come to discover that he actually doesn't even know all the main-stream characters' names. What's funny is that he knows all the old-school characters that are in my old books. Just tonight he was pointing at the characters and naming them, when one stumped him.

JR: Hummm,...Hummm...B, B, Hummm..The Bird?
Me: That's Big Bird, JR.
JR: Oh okay, Big Bird.
JR: And there's Sherlock Hemlock, Guy Smiley, Betty Lou, and Prairie Dawn.

Let's hope I don't get points off my mom score card that my child can't name Big Bird. Here's some help for those of you that aren't very familiar with JR's favorite old-school muppets. And for others, a little trip down memory lane...

Sherlock Hemlock-hasn't appeared in a new episode since 1995

Guy Smiley-hasn't appeared since 1990

Betty Lou began appearing on a more regular basis in 1993 as part of an increased attempt to balance the number of male and female characters. She has since faded once again into the background.

Prairie Dawn who is still a Street regular and Betty Lou are often confused, since they are both blonde and pink.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Inappropriate Laughter

My mom and I have a real problem with inappropriate laughter, especially when we're together. We'll get fixated on something, and then we can't stop laughing. Then we start laughing at each other, and it just gets bad. The last time we had a really bad case of it was at a wedding. The groom was obviously and blatantly drunk...Wow, that wedding was entertaining! Thank goodness it was a big wedding and we were near the back. To this day if we mention that wedding, my mom and I start giggling. BTW, the groom was so drunk that at the reception he told me to "give him a call soon". Anyway, the inappropriate laughter happened again today. My mom went with me to the twins first day of Tiny Tots and Tunes at the church. It's exactly the same as Gymboree except half the songs are Christian songs, and it only costs $10 a kid instead of $200 a kid. The laughter started almost as soon as class did. One of the first songs was a marching song. The teacher told us to all stand up and march with the kids. As the music started, my mom and I were on our knees helping the kids stand up to "march". We had them "marching" and then the teacher said, "Swing your arms! Swing your arms!". That's when my mom hollered, "Swing your arms?! Kyle's holding on for dear life!" I know it's not that funny, but the whole ridiculousness of the situation hit us with that comment and we started laughing. Then, to make things worse, my mom would holler out to the beat of the music, "March for Jesus! March for Jesus!" By this time, I had tears running down my face I was laughing so hard. So what did I do? I started hollering, "March for Jesus! March for Jesus!" right along with her. So inappropriate, but so funny. Needless to say, after 45 minutes of Tiny Tots and Tunes my mom and I were more worn out than the babies. And here's what they looked like by the time they got home...

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Movin' On Out

The babies are really starting to act like brothers. We've moved on from the basics of pacifier stealing and are now moving into the intermediate stage of floor wrestling. More often than not I'll find them like this...

Or this....


Kyle still hasn't figured out he's bigger than his brother, or that he can fight back. The only defense maneuver he's learned is the quite effective "cry for Mommy to come save me". The floor wrestling has spilled over to their bedroom, so Jason finally convinced me it was time to put them in their own cribs. I really didn't want to...they look so cute cuddling together, and I was worried they would miss each other. Kyle didn't skip a beat, if fact, he looked like he was making snow angels in the bed he was so stretched out. Reed, on the other hand, seemed a little sad. It's taken him longer to fall asleep, and he kept looking around the room..probably looking for a wrestling match. But, they did seem to sleep better last night, so I guess it was time....here they are in their new separate cribs...

Friday, September 5, 2008

And The Winner Is....

Good evening, award show fans. Welcome to The Bloscars!
We'll be showcasing some of your favorite talent from the Ingy Family Blog, and of course, the winning posts. Thanks to all of you who participated in our blog anniversary issue! Let's start tonight by welcoming our first presenter, the youngest of the Ingy family, Reed Ingersoll! (Cheers and Applause)
Reed: Thank you, Thank you. and Thank you. I'll be presenting the award for "Best Performance By A Baby." And The Bloscar goes to...."A Thief in our Midst"! It's me! I've won! I've won! I'd like to thank my mom and my dad, JR, my stylist, and of course, my brother Kyle. Without you and your pacifier, Kyle, this would never have been possible. Let's take a look back at that special moment.






Please help me welcome our 2nd presenter of the evening, the biggest of the Ingersoll babies, Kyle Ingersoll! (Cheers and Applause)
Kyle: Thank you, blog fans. I'm going to take a minute from the glitz and glamour of the evening and get political for a moment. I want to thank our soldiers who are serving overseas, protecting us and keeping us safe, and remind you that I'm a proud member of Babies for McCain! Woo-Hoo! Okay, I'll be presenting the award for "Best Hysterical Moment By My Mom". And The Bloscar goes to...I can't believe it...."For Goodness Snakes!" Let's take a look at just how hysterical that moment was...
Our final award of the night will be presented by our most popular Ingy Family Blog personality. The oldest and most well traveled of all the Ingy children...Please welcome....JR Ingersoll! (Cheers and Applause)
JR: Thank you! I'm here to announce the big winner of the evening. Out of the 248 postings my mom wrote in a year, you, blog audience, have picked your favorite. And The Bloscar for favorite blog of the year goes to....."Recession? Have They Told Starbucks Yet?" So what's the big lesson we learned from that post? Well, we learned Mommy's pretty conservative, and she sure likes to get on her soap box about it. And if you want to tell her how bad the recession is, you better make sure her mouth's full of Cinnabon so she can't interrupt you!
Thanks for joining us for The Ingy Family Bloscars! Stay tuned for Fashion Police with Joan and Melissa Rivers...I'm sure they'll have plenty to say about Mommy's constant pony-tails and baseball caps!

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Karen's Back

So blog readers, you're going to have to indulge me, as I have another JR story for today. For those of you with sweet, little girls who just sit around cutting and coloring, you'll never know this feeling, but it's pretty much a crapshoot for me everyday when picking up JR. I never know if I'm picking up JR - perfect student, or JR -"bee thrower". Luckily, this week, I've been picking up JR-perfect student. And when I pick up JR-perfect student, he's quick to point out who got in trouble that day. Today's story went on and on about 3 kids getting in trouble and one was a girl, and she told somebody to shove him and blah, blah, blah. There's no telling what actually happened, but in JR's mind, the girl had it out for him. I asked him what the girl's name was and after thinking long and hard he said, "Karen". Now, let me stop the story here to give you the back-story on "Karen". Karen was JR's arch-rival from preschool in China...his wicked nemesis, his Achilles' heel, his kryptonite. Everytime he got in trouble, it somehow involved Karen, and vice-versa. JR and Karen were always fighting. They always wanted the same things-toys, books, puzzles. And since Karen was the cute, British, female version of JR- their interactions always ended in a full contact brawl. I remember telling him, "JR, do not go near Karen. Stay away from Karen. If Karen comes near you, go to the other side of the room. " Of course none of the girls in JR's class are named "Karen". But seems JR can't forget his old rival. I wonder if Karen's somewhere calling all the unruly boys in her class "JR"?

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

From Juice To Caboose

When I picked JR up from school yesterday he was pretty excited about their weekly change of "jobs".
JR: Mommy, Guess what I'm in charge of this week.
Me: Oh JR, You're not in charge of juice anymore.
JR: No. I'm the ca-boo-sss
(I take a few seconds to figure out the last word he's just said.)
Me: Oh! The caboose. How exciting!
(I'm now thinking how ingenious his teacher is to make the kids think being last in line is a special treat for the week.)
JR: Yes. I'm the caboose. When we line up, nobody is allowed behind me.
Me: What would you do if somebody did get behind you?
JR: They're not allowed. They know I'm the caboose.
Me: Do you miss being in charge of juice?
JR: No, but I would like to be the napkin helper.
Me: Oh, the napkin helper does sound like fun. What job do you not want to do?
JR: The weather helper. All you get to do is look out the window. They never get to change the weather because it's always sunny and hot. I would like to be the weather helper if it was raining. Then I could change the picture.
Me: Yeah, the weather doesn't change much this time of year. But, I'm sure excited about you getting to be the caboose.
JR: Yes! Nobody gets behind me!

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Olympics? Saw it Live, Baby!

The Traveling Ingys made it to our favorite place in the world. And while we were there we went to the biggest event in the world. Oooohhh, yeah! I sent Katie to the Pearl Market to get me my new passport that says I'm 25, and she did me one better. Say it with me...O-lymp-ics!


Here we are hanging out with the Benson family (Katie, Ella, Madeline, and Andy) and 4 of the 1 million Olympic volunteers. JR was just thrilled to be back in the arms of a girl from his homeland.


So what did you do this summer? Oh, really? Yeah, we didn't do much....Just watched the USA women's soccer team win a gold medal over Brazil with Madeline!


It's Bird's Nest all the way! We weren't as fast as Usain Bolt at the Track and Field events, but hey, when your bodies look like Michael Phelps and Misty May what more could you want? We can't have everything now can we?


And to wrap up the Olympics, Katie took us to the USA vs. China baseball game. And yes, we cheered for the Americans...the Chinese have enough medals!