The Rankin Zoo

Let’s see if this works…

This should be a live video feed from my office window in Falls Church.

Live Broadcasting by Ustream

It’s snowing right now but this video is from the weekend, after our last snow. We took the kids over to this small hill by our house and did some sledding. In this one, the girls are going down together. There are a few interesting things to note.

First of all, they quickly go off course and B worries that they will end up in the street. I’m trying to prevent that but also get good footage. It works out okay.

The whole way down PJ seems to be watching me, which is funny.

When they really get going off course the ride gets a little bumpy and they almost tip over. At that point you can see that Coral has a tight grip around PJ with one hand and she has jammed her other hand (gloveless at that point) into the snow to slow them down. What a good big sister!

Oh, and of course at the end PJ thinks it was a ton of fun.

Last weekend is snowed a lot. It was crazy and fun. We still have a bunch of snow around but it’s getting crusty and yucky.

My cool underwater camera also works in cold, snowy weather so I got some footage of the storm – during and after. I didn’t put a lot of planning into this footage so I’ve created two compilation videos. One is long and boring and the other is short and boring (the same footage as the long and boring video – just less of it). Either way, if you weren’t around for the storm it might be interesting for about 30 seconds – and in 10 years both videos will be fascinating I’m sure.

Long and boring:

Short and boring:

For the first time ever, we cut Pearl’s hair last night. We didn’t cut very much, just enough to keep it out of her eyes.

Yesterday Coral and I carved our three pumpkins. Coral designed two of them and I designed one. It was fun and I decided to record the whole thing – but instead of an hour of us slaving away over a few pumpkins you get a time-lapse version that’s only… 4.5 minutes long! This is probably worth watching only if you really like jack-o-lanterns.

I never post so here are two quick things.

Pearl has never shown tons of interest in Scout and he hasn’t shown tons of interest in her. Scout didn’t really pay attention to Coral until she learned to walk – now they’re pretty good buddies. Also, because Pearl is allergic, we tend to discourage Pearl and Scout from interacting (which I worry about in terms of Pearl’s long term view of dogs).

Well, the other day Pearl was sitting on the floor in the family room with me. Scout happened to walk by, as he’s been known to do from time to time, but for some reason this time Pearl decided to act. As Scout walked by she launched herself at him, grabbing his back and his collar. This slightly surprised him and he just kept walking, pulling her over onto the floor. I was a bit stunned and slow to react because I had never seen Pearl do anything like this. Anyway, Pearl seemed slightly miffed by the outcome, Scout went in the other room to lie down, and that was it.

The second thing is this – when Coral gets frustrated or disappointed she often yells, “Bam It!” Trust me, she is saying “Bam” even though it sounds like something else. I’ve encouraged her to try “Darn It” or “Dag Nab It” but she says she prefers “Bam It.”