Mouse

About a week ago Tia saw, late at night, a mouse run around the corner of the bed and toward a wall.  We turned over everything we reasonably could at a late hour (in our tiredness) but didn’t find the mouse.

So the next day she bought some humane mousetraps, a type that merely shuts a door on its prisoner instead of smashing its brains out.

(I shudder – never mind such traps are far easier and less disgusting to manage.)

Over the next few days the kids eagerly awaited the capturing of mice (Nem: “More mouses, please”).  One morning Tia found a trap set off, but it seemed so light, and the traps had previously been set off without capturing anything, so she opened the trap door to reset it – and a mouse scurried out and ran and hid in a corner, behind and under some things.   She managed then to trap the mouse in a shoebox, which she taped shut.

We set off to Rock Canyon, the kids very eager to see the mouse as we would release it into the wild.

I videotaped this release, which (edited) footage follows, with some walking and playing with the kids afterward.  After the mouse’s escape Tia asked me if I’d captured footage of  something particular (and very remarkable) about it on tape.  I hadn’t noticed, and thought I hadn’t captured it.  But it certainly showed in the lens and on the camera’s video display.  I only noticed by playing it back frame by frame, and for only six frames (at the frames per second rate multiplied by 5, and to put it more technically, that something like the “blink of an eye“).

You may also miss it on the first pass – this render will repeat the surprise in slow motion.  Here is a still – please only show this after watching the video. [spoiler](Link to image file)[/spoiler]

(It also starts off with a relevant silly clip from a video game I played when I was a kid – exported from an emulator.)

For a higher quality video click the link that says “play in new window” after “(hifi)”.

Video: Nemmy and Mago, September 2008

Despite wanting to post so many other videos and never getting around to it, I couldn’t hold this back from the web.  Maybe the first four minutes are slow (I like them, obviously, and that is correct – that thar is a Commodore 64 my family is playing), but you won’t regret watching this to the end, to see Nemmy.

Also, regarding the previous entry, Tia told me she had meant to mention the pictures of Mago in his pumpkin t-shirt – those photos are by me.

Click the small link below that says “Play in popup” (because the video frame is too large to be in the blog layout inline – and I haven’t come up with another solution yet).  If you have trouble you may need the Flash player (link).

Pictures from June to September

All these pictures were taken at home.  I never seem to be able to get my camera out for special occasions and events, unfortunately.  I have no pictures from Grampa’s funeral, or the coral pink sand dunes, or the family reunion – except the portraits I took at Bridal Veil Falls – which I’ll post on my page later, or Arches, which we just got back from.  To anyone who did take pictures of those things, I would love it if you’d send them to me.  To move through the gallery you can use your arrow keys, or click on the green arrow that will appear if you roll your mouse over the right or left side of the main image.

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Fishes addendum, painting and coloring

I took these pictures yesterday, the last of which is Mago with his “aquarium”.

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Last Friday I was working in the yard for maybe 4 hours, and finally came in and Mago had put on Clifford’s puppy days DVD all by himself. I rested in bed and when Clifford put painted paw marks all over his owner’s shirt, ‘painting’ her shirt giving her a great idea for her friend’s birthday party, Mago giggled delightedly. I then told him we could go buy shirts to paint. We’ve done that, and he painted with sparkly paint on a green shirt, using stencils: a crab, a seahorse, a fish, and waves and smears.

Alex’s addition: A week or so ago in church Tia showed crayon drawing to Nem-nem, with a large red crayon. I think that was Nem-nem’s first seeing crayon coloring? As she watched the crayon leave the first broad marks on a page, she smiled.