Halloween

Alisa made this great costume over the last couple weeks. The neighborhood does a great job of celebrating Halloween around here, beginning with a parade. Our neighbors were all out last night as well with great weather.

Portland, OR

Alisa and Phoebe crashed a while ago. While I'm tired, I'm clearly still on Pacific Time. We had a GREAT trip out to Portland to see Mat, Laura, Ava and Jack. Phoebe and her cousins had a great time finally meeting each other, but I think her cute looks wore thin after an endless streak of potty talk that only she seemed to think was hilarious.

We visited Ocola (I think) Park on the coast and took in a very appropriate day with much fog and cool weather. But the kids had a blast and we enjoyed running around on the sand.

The large group pic near the bottom is not supposed to be in a cloud, but rather be a lake with a beautiful mirror image of Mt Hood. But a nice cloud rolled in and gave us this great shot.

We loved the weather as it was insanely hot here in Mpls (105 heat index!). But everyone else was disappointed in the daily rain, temps in the 60s and 70s, and cloudy skies. I feel like I saw Portland :)

Finally, Phoebe did take a little nap on the flight home today. We had horrible delays (2-3 hrs) both going out and returning. She handled them like a trooper.

Thanks again for the great hospitality Portland crew!

Summer?

It hasn't exactly been summer-like around here despite that it's officially here. Today we barely hit 60 after being about 102 degrees just 2 weeks ago. We've got like 3" of rain in just a few days, but at least it's not flooding here.

We've got a 95% complete garage, a nice garden planted, and plenty of other small projects going on. I'm avoiding anything math and teaching related for a while after a heavy spring of both moderating an online course and mentoring a student teacher. I'm reading fiction, moving lots of dirt, digging deep holes, and cutting stair rail lately. It's very relaxing.

If you're not aware of what's going on in Minot, check out the news. It's quite sad. My uncles will lose their home (if they haven't already) and about 1/3 of the city's residents will lose them too. This isn't a water-in-the-basement sort of flood; but rather a cover the roof sort. Most people won't recover. The home we grew up in will be gutted. My parents, however, are fine. One uncle is living with them and they have some provisions.

The Children's Museum was a great place to escape the cold rain today (see below). Phoebe is a turtle if you can't tell what it is she's wearing.

Summer!!!

Summer is here and in full force! As we are cleaning out old garden beds and tearing up new ones (you can see in the garage picture the half yard that currently has basil, kale, about 25 tomatoes, 6 broccoli, and a couple of squash plants. Out of view is a second garden plot with 7 squash and pumpkin plants), we are clearing out old bulbs. As a result, we had some nice irises on our table for the week.

Our garage is coming along. Our builder is doing a superb job. Anyone need a builder or remodeler, let us know. We'd recommend this guy in a heartbeat.

Phoebe was thoroughly enjoying harassing me with the spray hose yesterday while I was trying to get a few more plants in the garden. I was soaked. Today we went to a graduation party for a co-worker's son and she was quite shy, until I asked her what we did in the garden yesterday: "did you spray dad with a hose and get his clothes soaking wet?" I'm sure we'll be out there some more today.

Long awaited update

We've been enjoying spring now that it's finally here. Phoebe and I picked "Dandi-o-lions" yesterday. She wanted to pick "all of them" but as you can see behind her, I wasn't up to that task.

Ring around the Rosy was led by Tona at Siobhan's birthday party last weekend.

At dinner tonight, Phoebe went with a green theme. She's really into color-coding her dinnerware these days.

And as you can see, our garage was demolished, and a new pad is to be poured Thursday. We're looking forward to a roomy garage that I can build some quality shelving for storage, a nice workbench for gardening and woodworking, and of course a place to park both cars. After last winter, this project moved to the top of our list.

The massive brown area is our newly tilled garden with a fresh 6 cubic yds of compost (aka "horse poop") all over it. Good thing our neighbors are cool. It smelled like the state fair cow barn around here until the rain last week :)

Otherwise, I have been working like crazy: I'm moderating an online class currently while also teaching all day. This summer I'm going to venture into the world of "consulting," for lack of a better term. I will work with teachers to improve teaching practices. The work will be with a small corp now owned by Scholastic. I'm travelling to Ocala, FL and Texas twice this summer. Really? Ocala, FL on the Summer Solstice? Not my idea of comfortable.

Remodeling's coming along here with not much planned after the garage. Alisa's painting and I'm still doing trim upstairs--neverending!

We're off to Portland to see Mat's family this summer. Phoebe talks about "flying on a plane when it gets hot outside." Should be fun! We're looking forward to the visit!

Andy

C'mon Spring!

We've been spending a lot of time indoors, but it's slowly, very slowly warming here. And snow is melting! But since it's going to flood anyway, a nice quick warm up and a huge meltoff would be great. I'd love to see some green grass again. The picture with her bib is my screen backdrop on my phone. Phoebe's taken to saying, "see picture of cute Phoebe on dad-dad's phone." I must have said something once :)

Breakfast with Eliza, Jane and Jen.

Elmo stickers from Grandma being put to good use.

A long, cold, snowy winter . . .

and I'm not enjoying it. Alisa taught me how to x-country ski and enjoy winter after being a winter hater. But this winter I have to say this stinks. Tons of snow, constant shoveling, cold temps (a colder than average January), and Phoebe seems to have back-to-back colds with terrible coughs.

Anyhoo . . . enough complaining! Again, I've been bad with the updates. I've been playing with my new cell phone too much and not taking good pics of Phoebe. Our phone pics are definately inferior quality, but they capture a good picture in a pinch!

The last entry is a pic I took with Alisa's old cell just minutes after Phoebe's birth. I finally was able to text it to our new phones, which allowed me to save the pic to our files. A good save indeed. This is the only picture I took of her first day of life as our camera was in the car at the hospital.

December Recap

December flew by and I haven't posted since Phoebe's 2nd birthday. So here you go. Pics with Grandma and Phoebe checking out her new playtable (my parents' gift to Phoebe . . . an MCC sale item), Christmas Eve babysitting Eliza while Jane and Jen both had to lead services at their churches, Phoebe wearing her blanky as a coat, and finally her nap at the Westby house on our big snow day last month.

We've finally moved upstairs and are enjoying the house despite the unfinished trimwork. Someday it'll feel more complete. But Phoebe loves "Phoebe's yellow bedroom."

Happy Birthday!

Unfortunately, Alisa had to work today . . . and is still there wrapping up paperwork at 10:15pm. We did have a nice breakfast this morning. Alisa made Pancakes (Phoebe's favorite!) and we gave her the gifts that arrived and that we had bought for her.

Phoebe's babysitter Kami and her daughter Ava gave Phoebe Ava's old Snow White dress. I picked up the puppy winter hat, grandma and papa sent some "starry tights," and Alisa bought some new block-beads. The Martinsons (we assume Laura made it)sent a "stripey puppy" and Oma and Grandpa sent Phoebe a book. Thanks everyone! Phoebe was well spoiled today.

See below for pics matching the following descriptions:
We got plenty of nice snow last night! Phoebe and I shoveled and then did some "tromp-stomp" up the block.

Matthew and I took the crew of kids to the Walker Art Center today. The most interesting thing was clearly the locker storage. After, Micahiah insisted on wearing Phoebe's new dress.