Josh Renaud

Comings and goings

On the way out: We begin our day-long journey to Bolivia at 6:10 a.m. this morning. We should arrive there at 10 p.m. (Bolivia time). That could make for a long day, so please keep us in your prayers. While we are in Bolivia, we will be posting updates and photos to our Bolivia weblog NOT here, so please check there frequently!

On the way in: The Renaud Empire continues its expansion. We are pleased to announce that we are expecting our third child, who will arrive in January!

Red means stop

If you're like me and you hate the notion of red-light cameras, you'll be pleased to learn that they just don't work. That's right, they do not reduce the number of accidents at intersections; they increase the number of accidents.

Red light cameras always bothered me because:

• Private companies run the cameras and municipalities turn over a percentage of the fines to them.
• I deplore the idea of government watching citizens by camera
• The motive is clear: profit, not public safety.

The University of South Florida study on these cameras supports that third point, since the cameras HURT public safety, not improve it.

One perfect example of this is the red-light camera on West Florissant at the entrance to the parking lot of the old Dellwood Schnucks. This strip mall has been mostly vacant for several years!

The foggiest idea

This month Yoli has been taking a "fondant and gum paste" class. No, that's not a chemistry course at UMSL … it's a cake-decorating class at Fischer's!

So on Thursdays I've had the girls to myself for an extra two hours.

The first week, I was thinking of taking them to a destination, like the Zoo. I asked Jadzia if she wanted to go there, and of course she said yes. But it wasn't a well-thought-out plan on my part. After all, it takes a while to get to the Zoo from North County. And if you don't score a prime parking spot, you have to tack on time spent walking the extra distance.

As it turned out, that was a particularly busy day at the Zoo. We ended up spending maybe 20-30 minutes grand total inside looking at animals and were late getting back to pick up Yoli.

The second week I decided to stay nearer to Yoli. We played on the swings at Bangert Park in Florissant, where they have that old Sherman tank. After that we visited the Florissant Valley library, which is actually within the park, to get a drink of water and check out a book. Then, the main event of the morning: bowling at Crest Bowl.

I consider it a super-heroic feat to have bowled one complete game along with my three-year-old daughter, while at the same time keeping my one-year-old more or less corralled. Suffice it to say, one game was enough for me.

Today I didn't have the energy to try bowling again, and the park probably was all wet because of the light rain we'd been having.

After dropping Yoli off, the overcast, foggy sky gave me a last-minute notion. School had started again, which would mean fewer kids out and about. The threat rain of rain was sure to scare off most everybody else. We would try the zoo again.

(This is my "Six Flags Strategy," which I have mentioned before. Plan your trips to Six Flags on rainy days, when you are sure to find shorter lines and better parking.)

Before committing to my plan, I asked Jadzia where she wanted to go. "The Zoo," she said. I drove past Bangert Park and asked her again, just to be sure. "No, I don't want the park," she said.

We got to the zoo in good time and found a gem of a parking spot. So far, my plans were falling into place.

As we walked to the entrance of the zoo, a light rain began to fall. No problem, I thought. I just put on Jadzia's hat and draped her blanket over her head and shoulders.

But then it started to rain harder. I watched, envious, as a mother and daughter in front of us traipsed along under an umbrella.

I tried running, but Jadzia doesn't really run. I had to hoist her up onto my shoulders and run, pushing the stroller one-handed. We made it to the entrance and sheltered just inside the gate, waiting for a break in the rain. I checked Jadzia, and she was fairly dry. Ludi was another story. Anytime she's in the stroller (and awake), she sits right on the edge of her seat. She refuses to lay back. This resulted in a fairly wet baby.

After a couple minutes, the rain lightened and we made a break for the herpetarium. Inside it was warm, dry, full of reptiles … and Amish folks.

Jadzia got a kick out of seeing all the lizards, snakes, frogs, caimans, etc. Ludi could care less about the animals; she just liked being able to roam and to climb the steps and platforms for the exhibits. At each one she would pull herself up and start slapping the exhibit sign, which was pure entertainment for her.

There were quite a few Amish. Some of the Amish girls were watching us with a bemused look. I found it interesting to see them there, since I had read a story in the newspaper this morning about how the Amish population has boomed in the U.S. over the last decade.

We spent a good 30 minutes in the herpetarium until Jadzia started to get a little restless and silly. By then the rain had stopped. It was only overcast and muggy outside, and we had each dried out.

I decided to take the girls to see the butterflies at the insectarium. We got some good closeup views of the butterflies, including a chocolate-colored one which landed on a zoo volunteer's clipboard and let us observe it for a few minutes.

After the butterflies it was time to head back to Florissant. I would have made good time except I took a bad route out of the park to the highway, which wasted a lot of time.

All in all it was a nice way to spend the morning. As for Yoli's classes, she has one week remaining, which she will miss while she is in Bolivia. She'll make it up in September after we're all back in town.

Uncle Bill

My great-uncle Bill (William) George died this morning.

I didn't know him very well, but the times I remember meeting him, I liked him.

I remember once visiting his house in Arkansas probably when I was in my teens. Turns out that he and aunt Betty liked Star Trek. They had recorded "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," my favorite movie of all time, once when it was broadcast on CBS. This was a big deal to me. I already had the movie on VHS. But the network broadcast had included a lot of deleted scenes (they used to pad out movies to make them fill a longer time slot) which I had never seen before. Thanks to Uncle Bill and Aunt Betty I got to! It was many, many years until I could see that stuff again, when a "director's edition" of the movie was released on DVD.

After my Papa died, I realized how much uncle Bill reminded me of Papa: his face, his voice. This was somehow comforting to me.

Uncle Bill was a pilot and flew his own planes. I always hoped I could fly along with him someday. When I was in my teens I was fascinated by the notion of getting a pilot's license myself. Unfortunately I never got to go up with him in a plane.

He also liked to buy old houses, fix them up, and sell them to make money. I remember that for a while he was doing that with my mom's sister, my aunt Karen.

Killing time in Miami

In two weeks, we're flying to Bolivia. As usual, we connect to our international flight in Miami. Unlike past years, this time we have a five-hour layover. So basically we will spend an entire day (from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m.) in airports or airplanes.

The girls might go stir-crazy. Heck, I might go stir-crazy. So we've been considering our options for the layover.

One thing we've been wondering is: would it be worth it to leave the airport and do something in Miami with the girls? Is there anything fun to do that's relatively close (reachable by bus)?

Any experienced travelers out there? Let us know, we're counting on you!

Summer Saturdays

On Saturdays when Yoli's not working, we like to walk around town. We start off by going to the Ferguson Farmer's Market and picking up some veggies. A lot of times there are food/cooking demos going on, which means free samples. And there's always good music. In this photo, Yoli's telling me not to take the picture because I'm taking it from the wrong angle (the sun is behind them).

At some point during the trip we'll usually go past the bank and use the ATM.

Most Saturdays we'll see a train go by the Whistle Stop while we're near the market. This one whistled really loud when it came roaring by.

Sometimes we go to Spencer's Bakery for breakfast. It's always very good. This plate is $3.99. The sausage is nice and crisp, and so are the potatoes.

Ludi likes the biscuits.

Jadzia likes the eggs. She eats the biscuits, but what she really likes is opening the packages of butter and jam, and putting them on the biscuits.

On this day we stopped by Rinderer's pharmacy to drop off a prescription. Then we cruised the aisles looking at their clearance stuff. Today we found a couple of packets of brown gravy for 49¢.

New camera

People always seem surprised to learn that we don't have cable, high-speed internet access, cell phones or a digital camera. After all, we are a highly computer-literate family, and I am a lover of technology. Well, now you can knock one of those off the list: we got a digital camera. But I wouldn't bet on any of the others changing anytime soon.

Actually, we have had a digital video camera for a couple years. But we felt this was the year to start taking digital photos, especially with our trip to Bolivia coming in two weeks. That way we can post photos on our Bolivia weblog at the same time as we write about events that happen there.

The camera is a Canon PowerShot A590 IS... it's very nice. Among the features are the ability to manually adjust the focus, aperture, etc; plus it has a viewfinder, which is rare on point-and-shoot digital cameras. This lets us shut off the LCD screen much of the time, so we don't use the batteries as fast.

The (kind of) funny part of the story is that we didn't know my mom was planning to give us a a camera as a present on Yoli's birthday. Imagine her dismay as we got to her house for the party and were telling her our Amazon horror stories ("Yeah, we ordered this camera and it was supposed to arrive this morning, but it still hasn't shipped yet, blah blah blah...").
Well, great minds think alike, and she wanted us to have a camera for the same reason we wanted it: photos from Bolivia.

Speaking of Amazon, we did have technical problems getting this camera delivered. The camera did show up eventually, more than a week after we ordered it. We had to talk with their Filipino customer support folks (who were very nice) a couple times. (Turns out my Citi American Express card's phone support is also in the Philippines. Who knew?)

Here are some of our early photos with the camera:

Flowers in the neighbor's lovely garden.

Ludi likes climbing into Jadzia's chair.

Collage of Jadzia making faces. She really likes posing for the camera, and likes even more to review all of her photos on the camera's LCD screen afterward. Everyday since the camera arrived, she tells us "I want to take photos."

Ammy-ville

Today I was with Jadzia and Ludi at the school, playing on the playground. As things were winding down, I was talking with Jadzia about airplanes, reminding her about our upcoming trip.

"We're going to take TWO airplanes. We'll take one from St. Louis to Miami. Then we'll stay in Miami a few hours. Then we'll take another plane from Miami to BOLIVIA!"

Without missing a beat, Jadzia replied, "No, we're not going to YOUR 'ammy.' We're going to MY 'ammy!' "

A mohawk is a mohawk, of course, of course

Jadzia and I went shopping at Aldi's this morning. As we were bagging our groceries, she saw a kid whose hair was cut into a mohawk. "That's a horse," she said. Thankfully she dropped the subject pretty quickly.

Birthday crush

We had a mini-celebration for Ludi's first birthday earlier this week. She turned one on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, late July and so far in August has been a time of hustle and bustle. We were in Houston the two days before Wednesday, staying overnight with our friends the Zanders so that we could do a bunch of paperwork at the Bolivian consulate in that city. Fortunately we completed everything we needed to, and now we are set for our trip to Bolivia at the end of August.

So Wednesday arrived and we knew we wanted to do something for Ludi, since it was her day. We had already settled on a trip to the Whistle Stop, but I thought it would also be fun to go to the Botanical Garden first.

It had been raining, so that scared away a lot people and we got a great parking spot. (This accords well with my "Six Flags Strategy": Plan your trips to Six Flags on rainy days, that way the lines are short and you get to ride the rides more times.)

We visited the Climatron to see all the tropical plants (including many Yoli is familiar with). As we were making our way out, we noticed they had a new exhibit for kids, called "Exploring Trees Inside and Out." It was a lot of fun, and very unexpected. (This was our third trip to the Garden in 2008 and we had been unaware of the exhibit's existence. It started in May and ends Sept. 1.)

Among the highlights were dressing the girls up in bird costumes and letting them play in front of a blue-screen computerized background; a game where you smell different scents and try to guess which fruit, sap, etc. it is; building a birdhouse; and a very sharp microscope that lets you look at cool tiny plant things.

We also visited the Chinese and Japanese gardens. On our way to those gardens, Jadzia played on the sheep sculptures and some of the Niki sculptures.

This time I actually remembered to bring change so we could buy fish food at the bridge where the Koi fish gather. This is Jadzia's favorite part, after all. (As a side note, this morning at the Farmer's Market we participated in the peach contest. Yoli made some peach ice cream. She didn't win, but that didn't matter to Jadzia who was craving ice cream. When I was feeding her, she would open her mouth wide in anticipation of a bite, and she looked just like those Koi waiting to be fed.)

As we headed back to the car, it started to rain. Of course we didn't bring umbrellas, but it was a light rain and not too bad.

At the Whistle Stop we enjoyed some ice cream but Jadzia did give us a little trouble eating a hot dog and then eating her vanilla. It was past her nap time. She saw that Yoli and I had chocolate, and she wanted it. I hadn't gotten her chocolate because the previous night her Nanny told me that Jadzia hadn't wanted to eat chocolate at Nanny's house on Tuesday. Anyway, I offered Jadzia to trade my chocolate cone for her vanilla. But Jadzia refused. It was HER vanilla. She wanted to keep her vanilla and obtain my chocolate. A true Borg moment: trying to assimilate all ice cream in her path.

It was a nice way to spend the morning, and then I had to go in to work a rare Wednesday night (since I had been off Monday instead for our Houston trip). We are planning to have a more traditional birthday party with cake for Ludi next Tuesday.

And then comes the crush of August birthdays: my brother Jonathan, my dad, Yoli, Jadzia, my brother-in-law Juan, my sister-in-law Becca, and my niece Leya. It's enough to make your head spin.