The Extraordinary Renaud Family

Fishing for compliments

2010-02-19T22:40:21Z

A conversation with Jadzia at breakfast the other day. I was wearing my pajamas:

Jadzia: "Oooh, Daddy, I really like your pants."

Me: "Why, thank you, Jadzia!"

(pause)

Jadzia: "Aren't you going to say anything about me?"

Look out for that green minivan!

2010-02-18T19:06:41Z

There are no teenagers in our house. Still, I just got back from the Ferguson License Office with a newly-permitted driver.

Yoli!

Today she finally took her written test and passed with a 96. (Somehow I imagine we are the only family of 5 (and a half) to go all together to the Highway Patrol offices so mom can take her test)

Now that she has her learner's permit, we'll be hitting the parking lots and getting Yoli comfortable in the minivan. You might want to stay away from Jamestown Mall for a while; I hear it's a good place to practice.

I hate it when the kids get sick

2010-02-17T23:05:34Z

Ludi has a runny nose, and had a slight fever. This certainly isn't as bad as some other bouts we've had over the years. But it's amazing how just a little sick goes a loooooooong way with these girls.

Photos from the Magic House

2010-02-16T22:24:35Z

At the end of January we took a trip to the Magic House. It was our first outing somewhere in a while with the girls. They had a blast, but of course it couldn't last long enough for them.

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Ludi tries playing house.

Opening doors and feeling materials.

Jadzia uses one of the little sprayer thingies in the water play area.

Ludi really loved the water play, pouring buckets of water through funnels and such.

But Ludi loved Curious George even more. We had a lot of trouble pulling her away from this statue.

Milestones at Renaud Manor

2010-02-16T03:33:22Z

Some recent development milestones:

Jadzia can read and write! Last week she made up some valentines that we mailed out to family and handed to our neighbors. I spelled the names, and she wrote them out.

Ludi is singing really well, and she has quite a few songs memorized.

Josie is walking, and doing some talking and signing. Best of all, she is sleeping through the night -- and she has moved into the girls' room.

Search old St. Louis Post-Dispatch stories (1874-1922)

2010-02-06T23:00:43Z

Hey, family history buffs and amateur genealogists in St. Louis County!

Get out your library card, and check out an awesome new resource:

ProQuest's Historical St. Louis Post-Dispatch database

It includes searchable full text and full image articles from 1874 - 1922, though there are some gaps.

This is just one of many helpful databases you can search from the St. Louis County Library's genealogy databases page. All of these databases are free, but some (like Ancestry.com or Footnote.com) require you to search from within a library branch. But this Post-Dispatch database can be searched from home!

]]> I have been waiting years for this. The ability to search a newspaper can help you find all sorts of stuff about a family that you would not have been able to otherwise, when you don't know dates or events.

Searching by name is good, but you should also try searching by home and work addresses. I have uncovered stuff I never would have found by running through the (many) addresses I have collected for various people in my Becker family tree.

An important caveat: This index was produced by OCR (optical character recognition). The computer has done a pretty good job at "reading" the text. But sometimes the scans of the pages are not optimal quality and sometimes the computer mis-reads things ... So, for example, the number "3" is read as an "8," or the letter "e" gets read as an "c."

I suggest you try searching for variations. I have looked for "Backer," "Bocker," "Beeker," "Becher," and others in my Becker searches in order to leave no stone unturned.

And sometimes when a search doesn't turn up what you feel certain must be in the paper, try browsing instead. ProQuest will let you call up specific issues of the paper and read through them page by page.

Good luck with your searches. If you find something cool, please tell me about it by adding a comment!

Other libraries

There are several other library systems in our area. I don't know if they all are subscribing to this 1874-1922 Post-Dispatch DB, since it is new. But here are links to some of their database pages:

For residents of St. Louis City:

St. Louis Public Libary

The following independent libraries in St. Louis County participate in a cooperative called the Municipal Library Consortium (MLC):

For residents of St. Charles County:

St Charles City County Library

The power of pretend

2010-01-30T20:21:39Z

A couple years ago, one of our neighbors gave us her old Fischer-Price Molly cow, much like the one in the photo above.

We tied some yarn to its neck so Jadzia could pull it around. After a while she began to call the cow her "Lassie" (the dog from the TV show). She would lose and regain interest in it over time.

Recently we watched the Wizard of Oz twice with Jadzia and Ludi. Ludi seems to have been especially captivated by it. She asks me daily (or more than once a day) to recount the story for her. I tell various versions, depending on how much time I feel like spending sitting down and talking.

And lately Ludi has begun taking the cow and calling it "Toto." She, of course, is Dorothy. (Sometimes Josie is the Wicked Witch of the West.)

So Molly the Cow has become a stand-in for famous TV and movie dogs.

High-speed internet alternatives in St. Louis?

2010-01-23T21:13:29Z

It's no secret that the Renaud Empire is a thrifty state.

So, while we are lovers of technology, we have never ponied up for cable, high-speed internet access, or cell phones. There doesn't seem to be enough competition among service providers in those areas; consequently, prices stay high.

]]> We have stuck with dial-up over the years. But not just any dialup: $6/month dialup. That's pretty doggone cheap for internet access.

Similarly, we dumped AT&T long distance within the last year because I got tired of all the extra taxes and fees, and the way they kept re-doing their plans every couple years (and making them all more expensive). Now we use a special calling card that makes it pretty inexpensive to call long-distance, or even internationally to Bolivia.

For a while I have considered upgrading to high-speed internet. Especially tempting was the $10/month DSL that AT&T was required by law to provide for 2 years after its merger. I have looked around to see if this deal still exists, but I think it may be kaput.

What I am wondering is if anyone can suggest broadband internet alternatives to the big ones that everybody knows (AT&T, Charter Cable, etc). Any local St. Louis companies offering DSL? Satellite providers? You get the idea.

I'd be love to hear about anything under $18/month ... if such plans services actually exist.

A birthday and a bald-day

2010-01-18T22:48:15Z

Josie turned one year old on Jan. 14. We had a nice little party with the girls and their Nanny. Yoli made homemade pizza, which was awesome. Josie got a kick out of it, and she wasn't shy about wolfing down the birthday cake, either.

Keep reading to see some photos from the festivities (and to learn about the bald-day).

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Now, due to various circumstances (and a smidgen of procrastination), we ended up deciding not to shave Josie's head until after shortly her birthday. With the other girls, we did it around 6 months, to make sure they'd have some hair grown out by the time their first birthdays rolled around.

Today was the appointed day. We envisoned a nice family moment. Jadzia and Ludi wanted to sit in chairs and spectate as I trimmed Josie's hair and Yoli videotaped.

Unfortunately, our electric razor was giving me some problems. I disassembled it partially and cleaned it out. I figured it needed some oil, but I had just thrown away our 3-in-1 last week because it had a hole and was leaking all over everywhere. So I tried vegetable oil. At first it was going nicely, then it clogged up again and wouldn't cut.

So, I began cutting Josie's hair with scissors, ala Jadzia. But she didn't like that one bit, and began tossing her head all over everywhere.

Finally I decided I'd go to Ferguson Hardware and buy some more 3-in-1, then fully disassemble the razor. That meant the party was over for the older girls, who needed to take their naps.

Thankfully, it worked. Once I put it all back together, it ran smoothly, and it didn't take long to finish up Josie's head. Now she can be bald and beautiful for a while, just like her sisters before her.

For anyone wondering, this is a Bolivian tradition we have followed with each of our girls. You can follow the "Pelonita" link below to read about how it went for Jadzia.

When news happens

2010-01-12T22:06:56Z

Working at a newspaper is still an exciting thing to do, even if the future of the industry looks dim.

In the last week, I have had to work during two big breaking news stories. The first was the horrible shooting at ABB in St. Louis. The second was McGwire's admission yesterday that he took steroids.

My job each time was to design informative, compelling pages. In such situations, there is a lot of collaborative work with my bosses and other designers. Also, important editors are frequently looking over your shoulder. Deadline looms.

It's an environment I still enjoy and still thrive in. Here's to hoping that newspapers survive their current morass so they can continue informing the public and serving as a check against abuses by governments or businesses.

Also, check out the Post-Dispatch's work on the McGwire confession on the SportsDesigner blog

The tired and the wakeful

2010-01-11T03:43:58Z

We've been tired lately, Yoli especially. Mostly it's Josie who wakes up early and such.

But Ludi has also been waking up in the night. Sometimes it's just that she doesn't want to go to sleep, so we have issues with her getting out of her bed.

A couple nights ago, I came home and found Ludi sleeping on the couch. She had snuck out of her room while Yoli was washing dishes, and fell asleep there. Last night, Yoli heard her crying in the night. She was on the potty!

We are very thankful for that latter development!

In any event, these girls wear us out.

Dallas Times-Herald Classifieds at 748-1414...

2010-01-04T01:55:41Z

Advertising often sticks with us in powerful ways, whether we want it to or not.

I have always had a mind for jingles, and I can remember a lot of old commercials and songs. But it has always struck me as peculiar that I could remember a jingle for the Dallas Times-Herald.

]]> After all, I had to have been pretty small when I first heard it. I was born in Fort Worth and later we lived in Arlington, which are both in Dallas' orbit.

The little snatches of the jingle that I could remember were:

"Call the Dallas Times-Herald Classifieds at 748-1414..."

"We are those people..."

Today, somehow this came up in conversation at work. As is customary nowadays, I hit up Google to see what I could find. There were eight pages of results, including the actual audio!

As it turns out, my second recollection was a little off. It was actually "We are the pages..." But this jingle is note-for-note the way I remember it. Weird.

Here's a nice blog entry someone wrote on jingles, with lots of links to audio clips, including the Bunny Bread jingle.

What are some advertising jingles you remember from radio or TV?

Christmas chuckle

2009-12-28T02:42:40Z

This Christmas was a lot of fun. Perhaps the best part was having my Nan in town all week, and my brother's family for several days. We went over to my mom's house daily to hang out.

Of all the gifts the girls received this week, this one gave us the biggest laugh. It's a ladybug toy for Josie:

As Yoli removed it from its packaging today, she found the following warning:

Caution: Please be safe. Always select the correct size toy for the type of breed and chewing habits of your dog. Should any portion of this toy break or tear, please remove from your dog and discard immediately. Vo-Toys, Inc. is not responsible for any pet owner's neglect or misuse of this toy.

Third time's the charm

2009-12-18T03:34:11Z

In recent years I have twice written up a stack of Christmas cards with every intention of mailing them. I even got them into the envelopes and somewhat addressed. Then some thing(s) or other cropped up and I procrastinated to the point that I thought "well, it's too late to mail them now!"

It's embarrasing. (Well, I guess it's only embarrasing now that I've mentioned it here on the blog. Before that, nobody really knew about it!)

But this year, I did put together a little Renaud family letter for Christmas, and I have managed to get most of them into the mail. I have one left, and it will hit the post office sometime tomorrow.

Of course this whole endeavor is a bit pricey, with the cost of having the letter printed and folded, stamps, and all.

To cut costs, I ended up printing in black and white. Also I decided I will send a digitial PDF of the letter via email to many folks.

Maybe that's the way to go in the future. It sure is easier to do. But then again, there's something nice about getting a tangible letter with a little handwritten note (even if it's just a short note).

We sprang for Springerles

2009-12-15T04:11:30Z

We took two unplanned trips to Hermann, Mo. this week in search of Springerle cookie molds. Hermann is a wonderful old city on the banks of the Missouri River founded by German immigrants.

]]> Our first trip there was last Tuesday morning. The main place to get Springerle molds, as far as we understood, was the visitor's center at the Deutschheim state historic site. We called ahead and got an answering machine message which said it was open daily.

So, we made our way to Hermann, thinking we'd visit the museum, buy some molds, and eat some food.

Along the way, it began pouring rain. So when we arrived, I went up the steps solo to see if it was open. It was not.

So I walked around for a few blocks, looking for stores that were open and asking if any of them had Springerle molds. Nobody did.

But I did find some cool shops.

Since we had come all that way, we certainly weren't going to just turn around, rain or no rain.

We went into a nice coffee shop called "Time for Pie" and ordered some bratwurst and pie. A very nice combo. The place was perfect for the girls because it had toys (and no other customers were around).

We were disappointed that so many stores were closed on Tuesday, but not totally surprised.

We checked out a few more stores that were open, and Jadzia got to see some really beautiful Nutcrackers. We ended up buying some cranberry preserves and some tea-time honey so we wouldn't go home empty-handed.

The return

As it turns out, I got a rare Sunday off this weekend. One of the shop owners had told me that there would be a Kristkindl market in Hermann that weekend and that there might be a few people selling Springerle molds there. Plus, Deutschheim was certain to be open.

So, after church and a bite to eat at the Grace Cafe, we headed back to Hermann. The weather was warmer and dry, so we were able to get out and all walk around together.

We hit Deutschheim first. They had a great selection of molds. The man behind the counter explained many things to us, and demonstrated the many of the molds using playdough. Their molds were resin reproductions of old wood originals. We ended up buying two molds: a nutcracker and a bell design.

We heard there were free cookies to be had at another part of the Deutschheim site (it comprises multiple houses and buildings close together), so we walked down the street to the Strehly house. Inside, a guide showed us around. We saw very old Christmas trees made of goosefeathers, stereoscopic glasses, woodburning stoves, old butter churns, and best of all many kinds of old toys.

One door over was the Strehly winery. Inside we saw one of the only surviving carved German wine casks from before Prohibition. There were also wooden shoes, an old loom, and cookies. Since we were the last ones to visit that day, we basically had the cookies to ourselves. The girls hammered away.

After a nice long visit, we walked a couple blocks to first street. I let the girls walk ahead so I could run back to the bridge that leads into Hermann across the Missouri River. The sun was setting and I wanted to get some photos while the light was good.

Once I caught up to the girls, we found that the Kristkindl market was closed. It had finished at 4 p.m. So we took a look around Blanche's, another nice gift shop. The lady inside offered us some more cookies (yay).

As we walked back up the street, we noticed that a lot of businesses in Hermann close at 4 p.m.

We ended up stopping in a deli/frozen custard place to eat some ice cream. The girls, of course, didn't protest.

After that, it was time to head home. It felt funny to be driving for an hour and a half in the dark, and to arrive home at an early 7 p.m.

Both trips were shorter than perhaps would have been ideal given the distance, but still we had fun and came home with what we wanted. Yoli got started baking as soon as the girls went to sleep.