L put together a lovely Cinderella party for our daughter. She smiles well, although not necessarily for the camera.
She's at the age where she LOVES wearing this dress routinely and also LOVES making weird faces.
She got presents from lots of her fans.
Security at the party was provided by Spiderman. Cousin L came appropriately-dressed for the festivities.
So it seems to be a frequent occurrence these days that we get some serious winds out here. Just this last Monday, at 4:30 in the morning, we awoke to loud whooshing, the power going out, and our daughter crying upstairs because her night lights weren't working. So nobody really got to sleep after that . . .
So then I got up and got ready. In fact, I still used my beloved elliptical trainer even though there was no power to give resistance and stuff. Hey, better than nothing. I checked in with the office and, sure enough, they had power. After I got there, Dr. H said "I've been here 8 years and we've only gone home once". So, I began a rather major project. Before doing so, though, we made sure we could back out of anything we might start (like put temporaries on and stuff). Needless to say, it was about the time the storm really seemed to be dying down that we lost power. I was basically done preparing the patient's top four front teeth for crowns, and I had begun the two canines. (we were planning to get all 6 ready) Man, we were so close. So, we worked a bit more with the remaining air in the compressor and I used my headlamp (which I recently used at Camp Meriwether :-) for some light to help us make the temporary crowns and stuff. It was pretty wacky, and hopefully we can get things finished up soon so my patient can have an awesome smile for the holidays.
Our power here in Hammond seems to have stayed out longer than anybody else's I've heard of. We were out for about 21 hours, and it became fortunate that we had the generator hookup installed a month or so ago (thanks Art!). The generator is pretty noisy, and we found out that the washer does not want to spin when you're using it. I was able to vacuum out the Scout camp debris from the GTI, though. And, I hopefully made up for the noise by letting the neighbor on that side plug in her fridge and freezer. I guess gusts were up to about 85 mph . . . I was surprised we didn't lose any shingles this time. Four or five pieces of my neighbor's shed ended up in my backyard, and their back fence is leaning a lot now. My new fence, with the 3 foot concrete post burial and 4x6 posts, held firm. Yay! One tree on our street is no more, and a large sign at a nearby intersection had its posts snap. Very exciting . . . and scary.
For the first time in about 17 years, I returned to Camp Meriwether as adult help for our Scout troop. It was really neat to go back, and although the weather was semi-cooperative, we had a lot of fun. It's a beautiful place, and you can see more pictures of us enjoying it over on the Venturing blog here.
Although we didn't choose to see our child's gender today, we did learn some interesting things. Like, this image shows us that our baby might enjoy spending time in a recliner watching football. I hope, though, that it's more an indication of an inclincation to enjoy riding recumbent bicycles and bigwheels.
We promise to love our child even though the nose is pretty grotesque. Yikes! Is there an Extreme Baby Makeover? ;-) Seriously, though, the tech said it's just the arm up there. Pretty funny . . . quite the little joker this one.
It's a few days after Halloween, and our youngster has yet to take the costume off. This year's outfit must have been Skeletor.
Finally, the kid put his/her foot down and said he/she'd had enough!
At the end of September, L and I drove up to Vancouver, B.C. and got on a 3-day Holland America cruise. It was a mixed bag . . . we're not immediate cruise lovers, but we're not so un-stoked as to never want to do it again. We'll see. If we do, I think it needs to be to someplace warm! We enjoyed wearing our life vests around for fun . . . OK, so they had a drill early in the voyage. Really sets your mind at ease. :-)
The Vancouver, B.C. memorial sulfur pile wishes you a fond farewell as you depart toward the Lion's Gate Bridge.
I also found the life vest so comfortable that I wanted to just keep wearing it and wearing it. What I was going for here was Derek Zoolander ("I'm pretty sure that there's more to life than being really really good looking"), but it looks more like Arnold Drummond ("What choo talkin' 'bout Willis?").
North Vancouver seems to be having a competition to see who can build highest on the hillside (and who needs snowmobiles to get home in the winter). I think the clump in the middle is slightly ahead . . .
One of my favorite memories of the cruise happened the first night as we went from Vancouver, B.C. to Victoria. Over my shoulders you would see the white foamy water streaming by as we listened to this talented string quartet and it seemed like a grand Atlantic crossing from days of yore. (Yes, it's fun to say yore. Also, yonder.)
The Oosterdam is large. Holland America's info on the ship can be found here.
Welcome to the (damp) Butchart Gardens (umbrella in photo intentional).
This is the view before you descend into the sunken garden. Originally it was quarried out for rock, and you can go up by the tree in the middle (photo later).
L captured this one with her super photo skills. Very arty and symmetrical and stuff.
The fall colors added some extra beauty to the gardens. L and I got all warm and fuzzy reflecting back on the dating years when we used to go to the Arboretum in the fall in Portland.
This is in the sunken garden area as you turn to ascend the path up onto the rock in the middle.
They have a large fountain and right in front of it is a big bushy green plant with really gigantic leaves. It's notable enough that when I recently had a patient into the office (who owns a nursery and landscaping business) he asked me if I'd seen it when I told him we'd gone to the Butchart Gardens.
Some of the furnishings on the ship were pretty odd. This one was so straight-out-of My Big Fat Greek wedding that we had to get a photo (and clean it with Windex).
In spite of inclement weather, we were very much impressed with the Butchart Gardens. This little high-tech contraption was some sort of device to scare wild boars. Water fills it up, it tips, water dumps out, and then it drops down and makes a thunk. Pretty sweet.
I've never considered sturgeon a majestic subject for a beautiful garden fountain . . . but this is cool.
Unfortunately, when L says I have "a body like a Greek god", she's referring to this one (the skinny one with the boyish physique). I suppose it's Hermes because I think he had wings on his feet. I believe the important message he's conveying is, "Bring an umbrella to the Butchart Gardens!"
They have a buffet on the Lido deck and you can eat pretty much any time you want. This is what I was doing when I ate this pizza. The food was good, but the main problem was that you'd end up with the "Lido Shuffle" by Boz Scaggs in your head relentlessly.
We hopped off the ship and went for a little walk in Victoria. They have this crazy crazy causeway which you can venture out on. It's like a flat jetty, and it struck me that in the US they'd have barriers to keep you off because of lawyers and stuff. In Canada, though, they just have a gate and a sign that says to keep off in stormy weather and be careful. Cool country . . . :-)
Here we are at the end of the causeway with the Oosterdam in the background. It was really windy and the hoods helped keep us a little warm.
Sometimes the waves would make things interesting. Never too interesting, but damp for sure.
I was reassured that someone would come rescue me if I became entrapped in the toilet.
(spoken in Napoleon Dynamite fashion) "This is pretty much the worst cruise of all time!" (to which Kip would reply, "Like anyone could really know that, Napoleon). Just thought I'd photodocument the fun we didn't have when we were forced to disembark in Seattle at about 8 in the morning and sit on hard chairs in a warehouse while they inspected the ship. We found this out at about 1 AM. This was a drag, and I've since let Holland America know how I felt about this and some other less-than-pleasing aspects of our cruise. I could post a link to the letter, which has more details, although I'm sure no one wants to hear me whine about this. No word back as of yet.
Here's us in our room! Whee!
The last dinner's dessert was Baked Alaska and they brought it in with sparklers. It was very dramatic. Not that delicious, but dramatic.
We had a great time carving pumpkins! We were glad that Grandma and Grandpa J had bought these small ones because my wife couldn't find any bigger ones at Freddy's when she looked. And, nobody got cut . . . yay! E wasn't very jazzed to reach in for the guts, though.
My people, my pumpkins, and guts strewn all across the table.
L took the kids to the Seaside Outlets for some less-chaotic trick or treating (as opposed to downtown Astoria). I wanted to put this picture in because W's got his boots, which makes him look especially like Woody. Jackson and Kayley are the pirate and the mermaid, and of course E is Jessie. My kids LOVE Toy Story 2.
Gotta love the expressions. Megan has joined the photo fun.
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