Try the veal

We introduced the kids to the Muppets this week and it hasn't taken long for the genius of Fozzy to rub off.

After finishing her breakfast this morning, Sophia struggled to dismount from her chair.

Sebastian: "Did you take a spill there, sister?"

Sophia, without missing a beat: "No, I just fell off."

On the tube

The only tube that matters these days, that is. Check out what Cindy's been up to here. Among our favorites is Sebastian throwing dad under the bus for his his long-term financial outlook and a heartfelt rendition of a Little Mermaid song, which is pictured here.

This one deserves to stand alone

Man, he hung tough all day. He downed nachos and all the other grub we threw his way, threw the football all over Stankowski Field and was a vocal Tiger fan well into the second quarter.

But then he started to lose his shoes, dropping them under the bleachers. And then he began drifting in and out of the game, alternating between being bored and jumping up and down as the Tigers almost pulled it out late. And then he struggled to walk all the way to Flat Branch for a late dinner.

And when the food finally got to our table – it was 11:30 at this point – the game was up. Not one bite of chicken made it past his lips.

M-I-Z...

Trying to drive from Nashville to Columbia, Mo., on a long Friday night after a long week: Hopeful

Touring Mizzou's campus with old friends on a perfect early fall Saturday: Beautiful

Sitting in field-level bleachers and hearing just how loud a full Faurot Field is: An ear full

Watching your team lose for the first time since 2002: Painful

Taking in your three favorite watering holes in the course of 13 hours: Just plain full

Sharing your alma mater with your babies: Extremely joyful

A house visitor

Sophia is hangin' with Oma and Opa in El Paso, taking in the desert landscape another time, creating lots of art and enjoying the occasional outing to Applebee's. She also went to the wedding of one of Opa's co-workers, where she (of course) danced away most of the night.

He's got the right idea

A recent back and forth at the breakfast table:

“Buddy, just wait until Sophia and I have kids, too. You’ll be a triple uncle.”

“I’m gonna move out.”

'I look like a boy!'

So Geert gets a phone call at the office this afternoon: "Daddy! Daddy! I look like a boy! I look so cute!"

At some point earlier in the day, Sophia had gone AWOLBWS — absent without leave but with scissors — and parked herself in front of the big bathroom mirror. The result is what you see above.

Sure, she looks more boyish like this — perhaps even a little like Jim Carrey in "Dumb and Dumber." But anyone who knew Veerle at any point between 1979 and 1984 would be hard pressed to differentiate the two.

From the photo booth

Hey there. It's been a while, so here's your quick update.

Natasja and Sebastian are back in school and lovin' it. One of Natasja's class projects her first week was a collage of funky photos taken with Apple's PhotoBooth software. She asked if we could give it a try at home, so here we are.

Elsewhere, Geert and Sebastian had their first soccer practices of the season last Sunday and Tuesday, respectively. On Monday, Natasja will lace up her boots for the first time since last fall. Then, next week, she'll officially start life as a Junior Scout.

Why the silence this time about Sophia, you ask? Well, she's in the middle of a three-week mood. Must be the full moon. It better be.

But all that is small news compared to this picture, which is of lovely little Ella, Brittany's baby princess.

She was born on the 10th and weighed in at six pounds, eight ounces. She's a placid little one who, even when she's fussing, sounds like she doesn't really mean it.

Mom's doing well, though the nightly toil is taking its toll. But all in all, things are going very smoothly and Brittany plans to move to Northern Kentucky this fall so she can start nursing school at the turn of the year.

Baby talk

Sophism: A confusing or illogical argument used to deceive someone

Sophia-ism: A quick turn of phrase that goes soooo much further than its literal meaning. (See 'Heaven and ...' below.)

Two very recent examples: During a bedtime reading session, we decided to pull out an Dutch picture book for a change of pace. Without missing a beat, Sophia spits out, "But I'm just like mom!"

And yesterday, as Cindy prepared to don a spaghetti-strap shirt for work by putting on a strapless bra: "I like the boobs you have on today, mom. Mmmmmm..."

Take me out to the...

After the usual last-minute packing and cleaning, we hit the road to visit the family in Cincinnati. But rather than regale you with copious amounts of detail, we figured we'd recap our trip to the Queen City with an update to the All-American ballpark tune...

'Take me out to ol' Loveland
for some fireworks and food.
Drinking and playing some volleyball,
a grand time was had by one and all.'

'Take me out to the country
for four-wheelin' and fam
Playing some cornhole and having fun
Kids splashed happily under the sun.'

'Take me out to the ballgame,
where the Reds won 3-2.
Becky Hegge took photos by phone,
Then snagged a jersey for her boys at home.'

Hey, give us a break. We're a little short of sleep.

Turning back the clock

Tell you what: Oma is one special lady. Not only did she and Opa host Natasja and Sebastian in El Paso for an extra two weeks – during which buddy hit a golf ball "a few miles" at sports camp – but she also has the uncanny ability to get younger.

On her way to a leisurely few weeks in Belgium, she dropped off Natasja, who had sufficiently recovered from a case of the desert pukies. We surprised her with a little early-birthday apple pie and ice cream. She even blew out all five candles – we did say it was a little pie – in just two tries.

Desert beauty

The sun is blazing and this desert part of West Texas has gotten even less than its average 2 inches of rain in the first five months of this year, but there's still plenty of green.

The first shot is from Oma and Opa's neighborhood on the west side of El Paso, the second a leftover from our stop at Guadalupe Mountains National Park about 100 miles northeast of town.

And then there's one of our own natural beauties. Buddy shed any and all roller coaster-related inhibitions this trip. He went from being as reluctant as his dad the morning of our time at Six Flags to being the only one in our group who wanted another crack at The Rattler, an all-wood monster that gave everyone else the jitters and achy joints the rest of the day.

He also lost another front tooth this trip - woke up early our first morning in San Antonio and just tugged at it until it came out. We'll have photographic evidence soon enough.

It's a Sea World after all

Day one was such a good time and the weather cooperated so nicely – it was 'only' 95 and there was a nice cloud cover – that we had to go back a second time to catch the water park and the coasters.

We fed and petted the dolphins, saw a couple of shows (Shamu being one of them, of course), romped in a vast playground, climbed the 70-odd steps to the top of the water slide five times and cruised in the lazy river for the better part of an hour. The brave ones among us – you know who you are – also rode the Steel Eel coaster twice and endured the insane drop of the Journey to Atlantis ride.

Throughout, we downed ungodly amounts of water and soda to stay somewhat hydrated. A very nice time, even if it wore us all out.

Into the darkness

After a very smooth trip from Nashville to El Paso through Dallas – chalk up a small victory for beleaguered American Airlines – we settled in for a few days of pure R&R by the pool at Oma and Opa's house. Nice.

Now we're in San Antonio, where we'll take in Sea World, Six Flags and the Alamo, among other things. But first, a few pics from southeastern New Mexico, where we stopped off first at Guadalupe Mountains National Park – photo at left – and then the Carlsbad Caverns.

The latter was well worth the trip: Water and sulfides have over the years mixed to hollow out a ridge about 25 miles south of Carlsbad, creating a network of caves as deep as 1,000 feet under the surface. In many places, the water is still dripping down and mixing with the limestone and other minerals to create stalactites, stalagmites and other rock features. Very cool.

At sundown, we gathered with a few hundred of our not-at-all-close friends at the entrance to the cave complex to observe the emergence of the thousands of bats who live underground. They came out in dozens of waves of about 300 each, circling upward counterclockwise before heading off in search of water to the south. Also sweet.

Heaven and ...

Yeah, we've been gone a while, we know. That life thing gets in the way sometimes.

But we've got a good Sophia-ism to welcome you back. In the car with Geert the other day, she relays chunks of a heaven-and-hell conversation she'd recently had with Cindy. Only some information appeared to have gotten lost along the way...

"When I get to heaven, I'll see you up there, right, dad?"

"Sure. We'll all get to hang out there."

"Good, 'cause if you don't go to heaven, you go to Green Hills."

For the non-Nashvillians, here's the Wikipedia entry on Green Hills, where the mall (pictured above) is the material, spiritual and commuting center. Wikipedia is much too nice and factual, though. It should say something more along the lines of, "Well, there's only one main road in and out and it's clogged like a cheeseburger lover's arteries from 7 in the morning till 6 at night. Oh, and good luck turning left without an arrow. Yeah, you can take some back roads, but that'll take just as long because every alley has a stop sign."

The little girl may have nailed it more than she knew.

Graffiti for the seati

Not much to add, really, except to say that Sophia didn't actually sign her name. Sebastian discreetly added that touch after our youngest hooligan had left her mark.

Another lyric butcher

Poor girl. With these bloodlines, she never had a chance.

It's long been an established fact that Opa has an uncanny ability to thoroughly destroy just about any song's lyrics, whether the tune is from the '60s or '90s. He's spread this memorable talent across the world's time zones and shared it with millions.

More recently, it has come to light that Cindy is equally blessed at butchering lyrics so obvious you have to really work at getting them wrong. Her most famous instance: Steve Miller's "Big Ol' Jet Airliner" became "Big Ol' Carolina" – even though the entire freakin' song is about traveling and planes.

Now Sophia may have topped them both, as well as every other karaoke hack on this planet. Last night at dinner, Natasja was eagerly telling us about her upcoming third-grade field trip to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. Not two seconds after she uttered the word "Alabama," Sophia broke into song.

"Sweet'N Low, Alabama..."

What would the boys above think of that as a new – and slimming – tourism slogan for their beloved state?

Caught somewhere in time

Just like Casey Kasem, we're kickin' it old school this week with our two little princesses.

First, Cindy got Sophia to sit still long enough to take some Valentine's shots. Then, Geert and Natasja went to the Girl Scouts' daddy-daughter dance, which had a '50s theme this year.

There, they danced the twist, the cha cha, the electric slide and the macarena – well, dad sat that last one out. And, as has become tradition, they chilled out to "My Girl," although this year's twist was that they ate a moon pie while doing so.

Rock around the clock, y'all...

Dorothy lives

It's been a busy and action-packed month. Geert started his new job at NashvillePost.com after New Year's, the kids got back into the learning thing soon after, Cindy took a road trip to hook up with some old Cincy friends and Sophia's been playing dress up pretty much ever since we got back from Texas.

Other notables: We had to scamper to the neighbors' basement during the recent nasty storms and Natasja is on her second Harry Potter book of the year. Oh yeah, and the Patriots got their butts whipped on Geert's birthday. Let's move on.

The picture at left shows our No. 1 Dorothy fan before she and Cindy went to a performance of the Wizard of Oz that featured our neighbor Jacque. She was - no surprise here – the center of attention after the show as she and Jacque toured backstage and met the 'real' Dorothy.

During the show, Cindy said she also had a few choice comments, including a classic, crystal-clear "AGAIN?" during the reprise of "Somewhere over the rainbow." If they ever bring back the Muppets, there's a place for her alongside Statler and Waldorf.

West Texas grab bag

Before we headed back to Franklin and Veerle and Line jetted back to London, we had a few more lovely days of chilling, eating and enjoying the fine (if incredibly dry) air of El Paso. (Wanna have a few hours of fun? Pick up Apples to Apples and a few bottles of vino and you're set.)

The sweetly adorned P-40 Warhawk pictured here is from the cool War Eagles Air Museum in Santa Teresa, N.M., just a few miles west of Oma and Opa's house. The specimen below? We're still not quite sure where she came from.