Despite snow, sickness and some screw-ups this weekend was good to us. Things started a bit shaky when we got rejected by two attempts to go to a restaurant on New Year's Eve (I'm not sure what we were thinking.). Our situation improved a lot on New Year's Day. Meg made a great brunch for some friends of ours. I had a great time conversing with some other dads and all the kids played well together, no injuries and not too much craziness. That evening we went out to dinner with my parents. (Taking Henry to a restaurant isn't too bad, when you have four adults to walk him around the place when he gets bored.) On Saturday we shoveled snow, played in the snow, napped and read. Sunday was just about the same.

We sure would have liked to get out of the house more and I hope Meg's able to take Henry somewhere to play today, but despite that I think it was a good start to the year. Usually weekends are more tiring for Meg and I than we would like and are a bit stressful when Henry gets stir-crazy, but once the weekend is past I usually just think of all of the fun times we had and during this weekend there were many. Every weekend with Meg and Henry beats all the weekends I had before I met Meg, even if we don't leave the house!









If you listen carefully in the above video you can hear Henry say, "plane, high."



Here's a photo of Meg Henry took. He was walking around the house taking self-portraits and I somehow convinced him to "put Mommy in the camera" and take this photo.



Above is a shot of Henry playing with a "Momma bus" and a "baby bus." Lately Henry has begun labeling everything small as baby something and everything big as Momma/Dizz something. He also refers to himself as baby now.

The year in coins started out pretty well for me with this week's halves. 8,100 halves turned up eleven 90% silver halves (1918S, 1947D, 1952, 1957D, 1962, 1963, 4 x 1964, 1964D), thirty-one 40% silver halves (2 x 1966, 6 x 1966, 10 x 1967, 8 x 1968D, 4 x 1969D, 1969S) and two proof halves (1969S, 1989S). Finding a new Walker felt pretty good. I hope I find another Barber half. These very worn, old Walkers make it seem like I'm getting close ... if there is such a thing. The 1969S is a decent upgrade to the best example I had found.





I also finished my last book of 2009, The Lost City of Z : A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, by David Grann. I got the book for my birthday and had heard about it on NPR. Exploration books isn't what the author usually writes, but this is a great start. The book is mostly a biography of Percy Fawcett (1867-1925?), a hard driving, British explorer who became obsessed with finding El Dorado deep in the Amazon. (For some unknown reason he labeled his El Dorado, "Z.") Fawcett went missing in 1925 while looking for his "Z" with his son and a family friend. Grann combines this biography with his personal story of research and adventure concerning Fawcett and others ill-fated attempts to find Fawcett. I had a tough time believing in Fawcett's quest, seems unbelievable to me, or that Grann had any hope of finding out what really happened to Fawcett after some 80 years, but otherwise the book is really good; it's exceptionally readable.

Redeemd (2009): $10.45