Thanksgiving '09

For Thanksgiving this year we spent the evening with Jen's sister Annie, her boyfriend Chris, and his mom Rhonda.  We had a great meal, we brought salmon for me and made mashed potatoes, apple pie, green bean casserole, and we brought hummus and crackers.  Annie took care of the turkey, which was gigantic, and made pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, and salad.  I'm sure there was more, but that's what I can remember right now.  The kids enjoyed themselves and it was great for everyone to have a chance to hang out.

 

The next day we went to Fort Stevens for some yurt camping.  We brought along Annie's daughter Jasmine and Andrew's friend Frank.  The first night we got ourselves warm in the yurt and watched a movie.  Saturday we went swimming at the Astoria Aquatic Center and the kids played a lot of tag with glowsticks we bought them.  Sunday we went to the Peter Iresdale shipwreck and stopped by the outlet mall at Seaside.  We had a great time and the kids did a great job.

 

The yurts typically have a set of bunk beds and a futon.  The kids slept on the bunk beds and we tried the futon.  Turns out that because of the way it gets folded up it had a huge ridge down the middle that made it impossible to sleep on.  The second night we folded it into a couch and slept a lot better.

Andrew's Fencing Classes

 

Andrew has been taking fencing lessons for almost a year now.  He's now taking classes twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays and he's gotten quite into it.  He goes to the Studio of American Fencing with his friend Frank, and it seems to be a sport he can really get into.  No surprise - it involves swords! 

Wii Fit

We finally bought a Wii fit.  More accurately we finally saw fit to expend the enormous amount of energy and resourcefulness needed to locate a Wii fit to buy.  After calling 4 Best Buys and 5 Targets I finally located a Wii Fit at the mall.  Nothing taps into my American consumerism more directly than scarcity.    I realized as I worked through this process that there are truly very few instances in my life when I want to buy something and can't go do so almost at will.

The kids love the game(s), which I'm really glad about.  I wasn't really sure that they would be into a game that is pretty much based on exercise but luckily they are.  If nothing else, Andrew and I keep going back and forth on who can set the highest score on the balance games. 

And nothing is quite as funny as watching someone else play a game on Wii fit.

Halloween '08

We've had a bit of a tradition going on for the last few years where we head over to the Sauvie Island and pay a visit to the pumpkin patch.  It's quite well known and well attended in Portland.  They've got hay-rides, pumpkins, a corn maze, a haystack, and etc. 

Brianna was really happy about her pumpkin.

Andrew and Brianna playing on the haystack.

They have this thing called the cow ride that's pulled around by a tractor.  The kids were very impressed.

After Sauvie Island we carved pumpkins.

Andrew, Jen, and Brianna with the final result.

  

On the big day our friends Keagan and Kai came over to join us trick-or-treating.

Of course, we got a great haul candy-wise.  I've been trying hard to make sure I don't eat more of the candy than the kids do.  :)

Back in the Swing

Let's just clear the air and admit what we're both thinking.  It's been a really long time since I've updated. This kind of self referential thought is kind of boring so let's not give it any more thought than that.  I'll start writing more.  You'll start seeing more.  It'll work out, don't worry.

So without much thought a whole month has gone by.  The kids are back in school, Brianna is now in 4th grade and Andrew began 6th grade.  They both have plenty of extracurriculars  to keep themselves entertained.  Andrew is in fencing once a week, is playing the saxophone in band still, is taking piano lessons, and is taking an after-school spanish class.  Winter swimming starts in a couple of weeks for both of our kids.  Brianna is participating in a program at school through SUN where they visit a nursing home once a week to visit their adoptive grandparents.  Brianna is still participating in the I Have a Dream program, which she will continue to do up through her graduation from High School. 

With school starting for Jen this fall I'm now working earlier shifts at work on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  Jen and I are also training for the Christmas marathon in Olympia Washington on December 21st.  This means that Wednesday and Thursday nights Brianna accompanies me on my runs - last week she did six miles and three miles.  This week we'll do 7 miles on Wednesday and 3 miles on Thursday.

My longest run so far was on Saturday, when I ran 13 miles.  It took me two hours and fifty minutes.  Definitely this will just be a marathon where I'm trying to finish.  I'll worry about increasing my speed after the beginning of the year.  The biggest thing I've noticed about training for the marathon is the gigantic time commitment.  Between the running and riding my bike to work I'm also hungry all the time, but in a good way.

Anyhow, that's the scatter-shot for now.  I'll be doing more specific updates as they come up.

Summertime and the livin's easy

With the exception of the broken arm we've had a pretty kick ass summer so far.  The kids are doing great.  Brianna is taking swimming lessons, and tennis lessons.  Andrew is on swim team, as well as taking tennis and fencing lessons.  In between times we've had barbecues, dinner with friends, and bike rides.   As a matter of fact, we bought a bike for Jen last weekend, which she loves.  It's a Specialized Stumpjumper with a super light frame.  We put some commuter tires on it for now and Jen is good to go.

As for the arm, it's healing just fine.

Jen, the kids, and Jasmine had a good trip with one of Andrew's friends and family to the Oregon Zoo.  The pictures aren't the best - it looks like something may have been on the camera lens and one of the settings wasn't quite right.  But while the fidelity may not be 100%, of course the content is.

Brianna and Jasmine both got to hold a bird:

 

The kids goofed around on a tractor:

This picture cracks me up because it reminds me of a picture of Supergrass, minus the beer bottle:

Andrew's Band Concert

Brianna wasn't the only one with some end-of-the-school-year musicianship to show off.  Andrew's end of the year band concert was quite interesting.  He's taken up alto sax and is doing quite well with it.  He's a naturally talented musician who can pick up just about whatever he puts his mind to, and so for most of the year he was far ahead of most of the band.  He would make up his own songs or figure out Morphine songs on his sax to keep himself entertained.

The highlight of the night was the Laurelhurst Elementary perennial favorite "Let's Go Band".  Here's his feature (you can see him with the blond hair and the sunglasses):

White Christmas

I know it was a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to mention that here in Portland we got a great Christmas gift - snow!  For those of you reading this from east of here that doesn't seem like a very big deal, but it only snows here once or twice a year - and usually just a tiny dusting.  Getting snow on Christmas was magical.

Here's a pic of our back yard:

 

And the front yard:

Of course, we had to get out there with some of the new gifts.  For Christmas Brianna got a scooter and Andrew got a ramp for his BMX bike so we headed out into the snow.

Also Andrew got some cool spikes to put in his helmet.

Of course, I'm no stranger to the scooter-jump myself.

Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.

Here's me on guitar and singing one of my favorite Ryan Adams songs, Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.  Andrew's on harmony vocals and Brianna's on hand claps - her specialty.

Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.

AZA Interview

We again plumb the depths with this hard-hitting interview.  We cover the topics that are important to _you_.  Very special thanks to our sponser, da-da-da-da DA.

Interview with AZA

Andrew's Birthday

Andrew's birthday is October 17th, and this year we celebrated with a party for his friends at Mt. Scott pool.  The pool is incredible - it's like the one we ritually go to in Astoria when we do the SOLV beach cleanup each fall.  It's got a huge twisty slide where you can go really fast, especially if you lie down real flat and point your arms down... well, you're just going to have to try it for yourself.  But when you do you'll agree that the slide is cool.

There's also a great current-thing where you can back-float and be pulled along in a channel and a really cool shallow area with tons of fun things for the littler kids.

  After the pool we headed over to Justin & Amy's house where we had a chance to hang out with Andrew's friends, have a little bit of food and open some presents.  It was weird because this was the first birthday where the boys weren't running around all nuts but were just more chill and trying to impress one another.  Strange change.

Andrew got his favorite- a chocolate ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins.  I think ever since he became aware of these things he's asked for them on his birthday.

This year we got Andrew a new bike for his birthday.  It doesn't have shocks, but it does have pegs - and Andrew was lucky.  He even gave Brianna  a ride on the pegs.  :)

Brianna's Funny Glasses

A couple of weeks ago we were having a Daddy & the kids night where it was just me and Brianna and Andrew.  We were screwing around with these joke glasses we have when the Ryan Adams song "Everybody Knows" came on the stereo.  It's a really sad song. 

Brianna looked at me with the joke glasses on and with a totally serious face goes "Dad, this song makes me feel too sad."  The only problem was, she looked like this:

I said to her "it's really hard for me to take you seriously with those glasses on."  We all laughed so hard that we've been joking about it ever since.

Andrew in the joke glasses: