August 2009 with the Girlies - Aunt Pam and New and Improved Gary at the Jersey Shore

So after my sister and Uncle Garf left, we headed down to Bay Head, New Jersey to stay at Julian's vacation house, as the girls call it. Kim's sister Pam and her husband, New and Improved Gary, came to spend about 5 days with the girlies and enjoy the beach.

Pam is delightful and she and Gary are very happy together - I was actually only there for a couple of days because I had to go back and work for the Germans, but Kim stayed down the girlies for the entire week and they had a great time.

Now please enjoy some photographs:

Aunt Pam with the girlies at Julian's vacation house

Pam gave the girlies their first pedicure - she wanted to charge an extra $10 for a 10-minute foot massage but the girlies had a coupon

Painted feet and the New York Post

Playing with umbrellas - a regular occurrence

Aunt Pam squeezed between the girlies car seats - Kim is getting a new car next month that has almost 3 more cubic inches of space, so we are very excited. Plus, it's a hybrid, which ought to shut the dirty hippies up for a while.

Pam and Uncle New and Improved Gary at the Point Pleasant Boardwalk

Pam and Amelia on the Carousel

The Bay Head Beach

Me with Sally in the Ocean

At the Lakeville Blue Claws Game - Pam has a very nice smile



Amelia singing very cutely - this is a song called 'Taxi' from their music class this summer. It is a very New York-y song about city kids hailing a taxi - hence the name (one of my father's later wives, the vile and wretched Sandy, used to use the word 'hence' a lot, although she usually used it incorrectly. She would say "That's germs on the shower curtain. Hence, you should clean it." Or "The salt shaker should be placed exactly in the center of the table and never moved, even if you need to use the salt. It is not to be moved and it must stay exactly where it is at all times, even in the event of a cataclysmic natural disaster. Hence, I am a despicable moron." Well, she probably didn't say that last bit, but that's how it sounded to me). The girlies sing this song all the time and usually come up with alternative lyrics, as is the case here when Amelia decides to sing about Mac and Cheese halfway through.



Now Sally's turn



Kim having a chat about pizza and counting with the girlies on the deck at Gene and Stacie's house in Bay Head. One of my favorite things in the world is that when Sally counts she says "One, Two, Pree, Pour, Pive!" I don't want her to ever grow out of that because it is so delightful.

August 2009 with the Girlies - Sarah and Uncle 'Garf' in Town

August was a big month for us - my darling younger sister Sarah came in town with her husband, whose name starts with a 'G' but I can never remember exactly what it is. I think it is Glen or Gregory (my other sister D;laslkjd thinks his name might be Geronimo, but I don't think that is right), but because it is so hard to remember we all just decided to call him Garth. Sarah and Garth went to some dances together in high school but then he graduated and went off to seek his fortune as a horseman, while Sarah stayed in high school, starred in all of the high school dramatic and musical productions, and befriended a weird looking red-headed kid.

Years later Sarah and Garth reconnected while bumping into each other at the 'Things Remembered' kiosk at the mall - Sarah, as she often did in the afternoons, was browsing the engraved heart necklaces with the keepsake box, and Garth was wandering by on his way to the Hickory Farms store to enjoy some of their delicious summer sausage. They struck up a conversation, compared their various tattoos, and decided to get married.

My other siblings and I were very skeptical because we still weren't certain that we could remember his actual name, but more importantly because Sarah was our beloved younger sister and we had to be convinced that he was truly the right one for her. We subjected him to various tests and trials, including one where he had to throw a kettle over a pub, and he scored well, making it clear that Sarah was the love of his life. Once we were certain, we let the word go forth from this time and place that Sarah and Garth were to be married.

Then, they decided to come to New York to see us and the girlies. The girlies immediately liked Garth and, because they are three years old and cute, they decided that he would henceforth and forever more be known as 'Uncle Garf'. My heart was warmed by this development.

It turns out that other than the walk across the bridge, we didn't get too many photos of Sarah and Garth in NY. They were here for a week but for some reason we didn't take too many photos. I blame the Germans. Below are some photos of their visit and some other things too probably. You will also notice that there are more photos of Amelia than Sally - I don't know why.

Sarah and Uncle Garf reading a book to the girlies - Amelia liked Garth right away

At Grimaldi's Pizza in Brooklyn, before walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and stuff

What a lovely couple

Sarah and Uncle Garf with the girlies under the bridge

Garth loves skulls, which scares me

Amelia on the Brooklyn Bridge

Amelia's First Haircut!



Amelia's First Haircut

What's cuter than that?



A video of Amelia dancing to Chinese songs - we have a tutor that comes over to teach Mandarin and we put some music on. Amelia felt the uncontrollable urge to dance.



Crazy Swinging!

July 2009 with the Girlies

In July we did a bunch of stuff. It was fun. Below are pictures and videos.

Me with the girlies at the new High Line park in New York.

Amelia in her panda shirt and University of Missouri hat (from Natalie, who goes to college!) Helping with the laundry

Sally at soccer - her favorite part was 'observing'. She is wearing her cool Barcelona soccer shirt.

Amelia also wearing a cool Barcelona soccer shirt.

Soccer Class



Amelia at soccer class



The girlies watching other kids play soccer.

Amelia wearing #14 - Kim's number. And as far as you know, the 'Henry' on her shirt is a tribute to my grandpa, Henry 'Bud' Koelling. Sally's shirt says 'Dot'.

Mimi with the girlies in the park

June 2009 with the Girlies - Barcelona

One of the benefits of Kim working in her line of business is that she gets to work with amazing people who are doing tremendous things to, you know, fix the world and stuff. I would like to fix the world, but there are a lot of problems out there, like hunger and malaria and pestilence and Rosie O'Donnell and high tax rates and traffic and cancer and Reba McEntire and murdering thugs getting positions of prominence at the United Nations and people who slowly glide and wander side-to-side down the sidewalk instead of walking in a straight line so I can get by.

There is a lot to fix and there is no way that I could do it all, so I have decided that instead of trying to solve all of the world's problems, which clearly would be very difficult, I will focus my attention on convincing bankers to buy software and then going home to see the girlies, drink wine and watch the Cardinals. I can't do anything about Barbara Streisand or the continuing scourge known as global cooling, but I do let women and the old get on the bus before I do, which is a truly benevolent gesture because even though I am being the nice one here I get punished because most people stop on the first step and then search through their purse or pocket to find their Metro Card, while I stand outside the bus in the rain (well, if it's raining) while they fumble around and waste my time.

One way to make the world a better place would be for women and the old (sorry for the stereotype, but it is always women or the old -- non-old men seem to have no problem getting in rapidly and with great efficiency) to step all the way up the stairs to let me on so I don't get rained on, and then begin the fumbling process to locate your Metro Card. But I continue to allow people to get on first, because I try to do my part to improve the lives of others. I also hold the door when I get off the bus in the back, even if there are a bunch of people and I have to stand there for a while, because sometimes it slams shut with no notice and I figure that holding the door makes the world a little bit better for someone else, and also this frees me up morally so I don't have to worry as much about the continuing threat of terrorism or hygiene problems among our nation's hippies.

But Kim works in HIV, and contrary to what the Germans would have you believe, her company and others like it are doing amazing things to develop drugs that make HIV a treatable condition instead of a death sentence. They also focus on helping people in less-developed parts of the world gain access to life-saving drugs, which is having a huge impact on millions of people in places like western and southern Africa.

So what does this have to do with me and the girlies? Well, the person at Kim's company responsible for the program that provides HIV treatment and care for people in sub-Saharan Africa, invited us to spend a week with his friends and family in Barcelona. Of course we accepted his invitation (and that was a very long introduction to how we ended up going to Spain).

Coincidentally, John and his wife Barbara also have delightful twins (Samantha and Jamie) from China, although they are two years older than Sally and Amelia. A few years ago, before we found out that we were getting twins, we met their girls. After meeting Samantha and Jamie, Kim (being a bit superstitious) thought that we were destined to get twins. She also has a story about a double-yolked egg and fused fortune cookies.

So back to Spain - Barbara had an upcoming birthday and John rented an amazing villa outside of Barcelona for his family and several of their friends. They were kind enough to invite us along. We had a fantastic time, and our girlies had great fun swimming in the pool(s) and playing with Samantha and Jamie.

Here are some photos and videos of our journey:

The girlies cleaning the window in the Continental Lounge.



A video of that exact thing

The handsome family in the Park Guell in Barcelona

John and Samantha at the Park Guell

Eating popsicles (the Brits call them 'ice-lollies') in the Park Ciutadella

Barbara with Jamie lounging at the villa

Amelia in an enormous hat

Amelia, Sally, Samantha and Jamie looking at fishies

Looking down at Barcelona from Mont Juic, where the 1992 Olympics were held

At the Olympic Stadium where Russian Igor Astapkovich won a silver medal in the Hammer Throw!

Kim and Amelia on the roof of the Casa Mila

Sally making her father very proud, inside the Casa Mila

At Sitges Beach, outside of Barcelona

Mmmm, fudgesicles



A video of that exact thing

Sally and Mike S on the beach -I forgot my swimsuit and had to go buy one at the store. I didn't look that closely and it turns out that they are ridiculously short, like Larry Bird's basketball shorts in the 1980s. These are not those swim trunks, though - these are cargo shorts, although I am sure you could tell that.

June with the Girlies - Grammy Judy in Town

After Grandma Linny and Aunt Mikey left, my dear mother came to visit, also to celebrate the girlies' third birthday. For some reason we don't have many pictures of her time here, however. My mom is notoriously camera shy, largely because of fervent religious beliefs developed while spending her teenage years among the Quakers, but I thought we got more pictures of her trip than we did.

Oh well - here are a few photos and stuff:

Expert soup maker and wine purveyor Maria (she's Italian!) with Sally

Kim and the girlies enjoying a frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity

Kim and the girlies in the Sony Building - not the best picture in the world, but it's cool because Spiderman is in the background

Finally, a picture of Judy with the girlies. Again, not a great picture - our camera was acting up and we had to get a new one

At the girlies birthday party - DeYan is making a crazy face, which I would never do, of course

My 'Mom' with Maria

Kim and Judy in front of our building with the girlies

Amelia in her tutu (Kim is so happy because she has dreams that the girls will grow up to be beautiful ballerinas) and Judy taking photos

DeYan came over before her big prom and the girlies came outside in their tutus

Sally, her tutu, and baby Ada

Sally in her tutu, waiting for DeYan