Quiet

The house is quiet this week. Way too quiet.
When Travis is away we miss him terribly, but he is generally so silent and low maintenance that his absence doesn't significantly affect the conversation/noise level in the house. Katie, however, is quite chatty, and without her the house is silent as the tomb. The cats' snores are actually a comfort, though Travis, out of sympathy, is putting extra expressiveness into his "hmmm"s this week.

Speaking of Travis, his box of goodies from the E3 Convention, which he won in a sweepstakes, arrived today by FedEx. I had expected that he would get a t-shirt and maybe a poster or a couple of bumper stickers, but it actually turned out to be a very impressive haul! He's got it spread all over the dining room table, and I'm planning to let him keep it there -- he looks so darned happy, standing there caressing all his pretty video game merchandise!

 (He got three hats -- the two in the picture, plus a baseball hat.)

 (He got five new t-shirts. So, with the two we gave him for his birthday, I guess he's pretty well set for a while!)

 (I'm told this is a very fancy mouse!)

 (The red and white box is a game system. NES/SNES/Sega Genesis emulator system. Sounds useful!)

 (Cool poses!)

 (The sweatshirt is quite nice, and Lord knows we could use another in the rotation!)

 (The book really is called Jesus for the Win. And yes, Jesus is holding a game controller.)