Christmas Day

 
 
 
 

Christmas Eve

The house has been without power for a few days before Christmas, so we spent it down in Forest Grove with Nai-Nai. Daughter was set on being in her own house for Christmas day, so we returned power or not. As it turned out, power was on when we got home, but as we were getting out of the car it went off again! We were bummed. It came back again a little later, and except for one blip it's been on since. Keep your fingers crossed!

Here are some scenes from our place today.

 
 
 
 

Tonights Forecast: Tooth Fairy

Came out this evening just before dinner. She's been excited about it for several days now, asking frequently when it would come out. The last few minutes involved a bit of pain and blood, which she didn't enjoy a bit, but afterward she was all excited again. The other pic is unrelated and from a couple weeks ago, but the ones I did of him this evening weren't as good.

 
 

Fall Fun

Working on a construction project in the waning days of "outdoor weather":

 

Friendly neighborhood baseball game:

 

Cry Uncle

A visit by the California Uncle occasioned a dinner at McMennamin's. Son with uncle --- daughter was on the wrong side of the table, but I like the Chinese dress with the Outback hat.

 
 

Scenes from Harvest 2008

Winemaking and pumpkin harvest! We had a good crop of grapes and an unexpected crop of pumpkins. Lots of friends stopped by this slightly rainy day.

 
 
 
 

Relaxing on an Oregon Beach

Here's September on the beach in Oregon:

 
 

Catch Up: County Fair

I'm waaaay behind so I'm playing a bit of catch up: here's the first installment, our visit to the county fair with our "practically family" friends R and T, from a couple months ago.

 
 
 

Highland Games

Last weekend saw us at the Highland Games in Enumclaw, Washington. There's Aunt and Uncle with T and Son and Daughter; Cousin on stage being a Wicked Tinker (he's on the bagpipes); Son getting into the act on the drums; and Aunt with Son, me with Daughter watching the show from the sidelines.

 
 
 
 

Expedition to the Source of the Nile

Captain, Mate, Able Seaman and Ship's Boy journeyed far up the Nile in search of the source, but turned around short of our goal because our supplies were running low.

Or, at least, a nice day paddling the canoe on the lake. And yes, I've been re-reading Swallows and Amazons again ....

When you can't find the right words ....

Bath time. Daughter was done, but still in the bathroom: touching things, asking questions, typical 5-year-old things. Nothing major, and typical of Daughter. Son was goofing around as I was getting him into bath: again, nothing major, and completely typical of Son.

Dad (me) is going with the "it was a brutally hot day" excuse. I become a little grouchy with Daughter and asked her to leave, and closed the door behind her. I could have been more patient.

Later that same evening, Daughter comes out with the following drawing. There she is, on the left, with a sad face. Dad and Son on the right, separated from Daughter by a door. Notice the angry expression on Daddy. Mommy is nearby, in Daughter's words, "trying to help."

I was feeling pretty crummy about the whole situation, but I managed to come up with "Thank you for sharing your feelings this way with my, Sweetheart. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings." This apparently was the right thing to say, because Daughter proceeded to change the frowns into smiles! (You might have to click to see the larger version because of the light pink she used for this.) I think she wasn't sure how to draw the door opening, so she gave it a smile-face too. There's a heart too, and I think the line shows us all holding hands.

Suddenly I felt a lot better.

Hero

S. has been asking to ride a horse at Aunt B.'s stables, and I. made it clear that he would like to go also. Today at 3pm it happened! Both kids were very excited and looked forward to it all week. At the stables, they listened to and followed instructions, so I think they might be invited back. In interviews afterwards, I. said he enjoyed it; S. didn't answer, but I think she was just concentrating so hard during the experience that she doesn't really know yet if she enjoyed it --- she'll take some time to process it, and we'll know in a day or two.

This horse is said to like taking little kids, and is very patient and cautious with them. His name is Hero ... and hero he is in our eyes!

Working the System, Age 5.

S. is usually up at 5-5:30am - anything past that she considers
sleeping in. This morning she was kinda cute – I [that's T. speaking - ed]
leave the house at
6:30am and drop off both kinds at Nai-Nai's (Grandma S.). Kids get
carried to the car only if they are still in bed 'sleeping'. S.
has only been carried once – I. usually gets carried. About 6:15 I
heard 'pitter patter' (PITTER PATTER) of little feet out to the
playroom, 10 seconds later 'pitter patter' (PITTER PATTER) of little
feet back to the bed room. She had figured out that it was very close
to leaving time so she might as well get carried out.

We had a good giggle together about it as she got carried down to the car.

A Change of Pace (NKP)

"NKP", by the way, stands for "No Kid Pics" in this post :-)

Just a point of personal interest, I've started doing compositing on the show Coraline, from the book by Neil Gaiman. So far it's been a nice change of pace from the Python programming work I've been doing for the last couple years. As Terrie will attest, back during my time at ILM I was much happier while working on a show than I was during the times in between shows. I'm sort of "on loan" from the R+D department to the production, with the expectation that I return to R+D when I'm done here, to continue working on Pipeline tools for Laika's first CG animated feature, Jack and Ben (IMDB's info is terribly out-of-date ...)

It's good to be working on actual images from an actual movie again! Wish me luck.

Dancin' in the USA

S. tries on her costume for the upcoming dance recital. Excited doesn't begin to describe it! She's been talking about it for
weeks and weeks. One week 'til showtime, we had a bit of a scare when she said she didn't want to go on --- we'd read a library book about how
some kids work through stage fright, and I think she thought she'd try it on for size.




Her big number! Clearly, she decided to go through with it. (Okay, I'm cheating, this is the final rehersal, where I was sitting much closer to stage.) After the rehersal, she said excitedly "Mommy, I wasn't even stage fright!"




Nai-nai and Brother enjoying the extravaganza. Isaac had a blast: he loved the way the curtain opened and closed, and all the
dancing and music. He particularly liked the tumbling! He's really enjoyed watching Sister's class practice, and I think he would like to try it out himself.




When I first heard that her class was doing a performance, I thought "ok, a dozen 5-year-olds in a caffeteria or some such."
Nope. Must have been 70 kids performing in two dozen numbers, in as well-appointed a theater as I've ever worked! It was impressive.

S. had fun, I. had fun, Nai-nai and Daddy enjoyed the show. Mommy got a terrific bruise around the eye working backstage ... S., coming offstage: "Mommy, why are you laughing? You're hurt!"

Daddy: "Are you going to do backstage next time?" Mommy (long pause, thinking about 3 hours with 30 kids late in the evening on rehersal night): "You never know!"

Last Day of Preschool

Some pictures from S.'s last day at preschool. What struck me was how unremarkable she found the whole thing: apparently, until we teach them otherwise, children understand that endings are just part of life, and take them completely in stride. I think there's a lesson for me in this! I did try not to make too big a deal of it (believe it or not).

Drop off in the morning.
Teacher hugs ...


She had a great time here and made some good friends.