MBKS’s Neighborhood

Evan's Cub Scout Troop sang Christmas Carols at the retirement home down the street from our house last night.  John took this picture with his phone.  He said he did a really good job and the old folks loved it. 

We surprised the kids with an overnight trip to the Great Wolf Lodge near Charlotte.  We told them we were going shopping and then when we pulled into the parking lot Evan read the sign and they were so excited.  This place was amazing and just the reward we all needed for a long, difficult and challenging year.  The water park was fantastic and the restaurants and game room were a lot of fun.  It definitely earns its 5 star rating for a resort.  There aren't a lot of pictures because believe it or not, I actually joined in the fun!

 

Audrey is super excited to announce the arrival of her latest "babies".  She recieved a set of twin American Girl dolls from Grammy for her birthday along with a kickin double stroller.  She has named them John and Ally.  She is in Heaven with these things.  She loves their hair and that she can comb it.  She got an outfit for each of them and we are going to take her to pick out a pair of pajamas for each one because she loves to put all her babies to bed at night and they have to have pajamas.  What a great little mommy she is.  Except when she sticks them in her play oven.

We had a great Thanksgiving with our family.  The food was wonderful and it was great to just hang out and chat with everyone.  The kids had so much fun running around and playing with their cousins.  Audrey really took a liking to baby Jacob (my sister and brother in law's grandson).   But when I asked her if she wanted a baby brother she said "no way".  Good to know.

We studied the eruption of volcanoes a few weeks ago . . . here are some shots:

We're off to see the Wizard......................We took the kids to their first big theater show today.  What a great time we had.  Great seats in a beautiful theater that is a big part of Greensboro's history.  The kids did great, even with the show lasting 2 1/2 hours.  We had wonderful seats and the characters came out into the audience many times and Audrey loved waving at Dorothy (who she calls Lucy for some reason and Lucy even waved back a couple of times on her way past us).  After we had a fun family dinner.  What a great way to spend a Sunday.  Definitely a big memory created today ... for all of us.

First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!

The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.

A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.

Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.

On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.

And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!

~ daisy

 

As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.

The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.

When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.

It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.

Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.

As always, thanks for your patience.

~daisy