Alana feeds us again

We told Andrew and Rian we'd go out for dinner and a movie, but it was easier, cheaper, and quicker to go to Alana's for her dinner leftovers: Pork roast and gravy with potatoes and vegetables. Then we all (except Maiara) went to see The Golden Compass, Alana for the second time. It was great - pretty close to the book and very well done. Andrew noted that it ended slightly earlier than the book, probably so it could end on a high note. The books are pretty dark.
Mali was happily sucking away on Rian's soda - not knowing it was coke. So she was caffeinated and giggly all the way home, and started cleaning her room at 10:30. Maybe caffeine will be good for her, but I'd still prefer she wait before joining the mass of caffeine addicts blanketing the globe.

Dinner and Stardust

Alana invited us over for dinner and a movie: A bean soup and a bean/sausage/rice casserole, and the movie Stardust. I loved the movie - kind of like Princess Bride, though a bit weirder and not quite as funny. The stuff about stars reminded me of the book DogSbody.
Andrew went to dinner and a movie with Rian and her parents. They went to see the second National Treasure movie.

Partied out.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon painting the bead board in the downstairs bathroom, and Andrew spent the day at Rian's playing on her new Wii. Susy took Mali and her sewing machine to JoAnne's, where it has been shipped off to the sewing machine hospital.
Last night we all just vegetated, after eating Susy's delicious meatloaf. Well, everyone but Andrew, who was frightened of it. He put together his own dinner from apples and peanut butter, bread and cheese, and carrots. Afterwards we just watched our last Veronica Mars of the disk and went to bed early.

Mali and Andrew are both over at Rian's now, Wii-ing. I brought Rian home with Andrew after swim practice to ensure he ate a decent lunch. I cooked eggcakes/Swedish pancakes for both him and Rian while they played a rousing game of Candyland with Mali. Then they all walked to Rian's.
I am about to fight with the bathroom sink and install a new faucet. Woohoo!

Dog Birthday!

December 27th: We had a bithday party for Moose and Max, who turned one year old. No cake, though Alana brought over all the leftover desserts from her Boxing Day party, along with Maiara, Samira, Ryan, and Max. Nancy made a salad and brought the dog's honored mother, Tinkerbelle, along with Paul and the kids. Pablo was healthy enough to come over too, along with Rocio and Matias. And of course my newest daughter Rian was also here for the festivities.
The people and dogs all had a great time. Alana brought presents for the dogs, and the kids helped play with them. Susy and I contributed teriyaki pork, garlic green beans, and brown rice to the dinner. Kids took over the kitchen and adults captured the dining room, except poor Ryan who got stuck in the kitchen with the kids.

Tinkerbelle sadly did not get to go home with her family, who were leaving in the morning for a long vacation in Arizona. We are watching Tink for the next nine days. So far it's been a breeze - she's pretty mellow, yet good at entertaining Moose. She tried to trick us into carrying her up the stairs, but we didn't fall for it. She makes it up and down fine, but only after it's obvious that she's not going to get magically transported upstairs, and that no one is coming back down.

Boxing Day

Alana's traditional Boxing Day party was a great time! About 35 people were there, and we knew most of them. Mali had fun with Rachel and Zoë, and Hannah and Rachel's sister Julia discovered each other. Moose had fun with Max, though they were shuffled outside for much of the party. Tinkerbelle did not come for the party this year. Last year she came because she was pregnant with Moose and Max and several other puppies, ready to pop, and required monitoring. She popped the next day, which made for exciting times.
Andrew brought Rian, and Matias disappeared with NancyD's twins to play pool downstairs. Sadly, Pablo stayed home sick. Alana's friend Cookie made a fantastic chocolate ameretto cake, and NancyD brought delicious appetizers. Alana made her standard salmon, which everyone loves (except the fish-haters.)
Paul went second in the gift exchange and won himself thong underwear, picked out by Maiara and Alicia. No one traded with him. Nancy won a Candle-Topper - for retopping candles, of course. Susy was pleased with her vibrating neck pillow, NancyD with her paperwhites, and I came home with a can of poppycock.

Merry Christmas!

Mali slept until 8:16, so we had until 8:30 before she and Andrew roused us for the great opening. Andrew said they have a deal: whoever wakes up first wakes the other one. There's really not any question as to who that would be.
At 10:00 we headed to Tsulan, Tom, and Tiana's for breakfast, and met Pablo, Rocio, and Matias there. We all stayed and watched A Muppet Christmas Carol. We just got home, and Rian is here. In an hour we're going to Paul and Nancy's for a ham and smoked turkey dinner.

Merry Christmas Eve Day!

Here's some pictures from GrandmaLil's 95th Christmas Birthday. We had a great time at Bob and LIana's house on Oyster Bay. Andrew hid out downstairs on the X-Box 360 with his cousins for most of the night. Mali was a great sport helping Grandma open her presents.

Holidays Begin! and Jesus Christ, Superstar

The kids are out of school until January 7th! They are upstairs watching a Charlie Brown Christmas right now. Susy's off until January 2nd. I'm not done until tomorrow, but then I will hopefully be off until the 7th too. WooHoo!

Last night we stopped for Thai food on our way downtown to see Jesus Christ, Superstar at the Schnitzer Concert Hall. The Thai food was the highlight of the evening, with lots of laughing and some delicious food. We split two orders of their wonderful salad rolls and an order of the spicy eggplant with chicken. Andrew ate the salad rolls and an order of fried won tons.
JCS was okay. The kids were less than thrilled with it in general, though Mali liked the King Herod/Elvis scene, and the second to last one with the heavenly cool Judas and the dancing girls.
Paul (we didn't know they went too) summed it up this morning by saying at the start it looked like they needed two more dress rehearsals. The start was a little shaky, but Susy and my biggest problem was with the lead. Ted Neeley played Jesus in the movie - thirty-five years ago. Apparently this is his farewell-to-the-role tour. Possibly he should have bowed out after his last national tour in the 90's. Crispin Corey (thanks, Bette!) Glover, of Living Color, was great as Judas, and the rest of the cast did well. I just kept wishing that we'd gotten an understudy for the big Jesus role. Neeley only nailed it when coming across as a 70's heavy metal rocker, which isn't something we ever appreciated. The rest of the time his voice was just old and grating.
Susy and I do love the music, but there were a number of miscues with microphones and the sound quality in general was pretty spotty. I remember similar problems when we saw an uninspired tour of Cats at Iowa State in 1987. We saw Les Mis in London in the 90's and were blown away by how good it all was. I think we'll stick to the Broadway shows on Broadway or in London.

Mali goes to school! and: Fun with sleep.

Mali appeared symptom-free this morning, I think because she was heading to school with a huge bag of presents for her teachers.

I went to bed early last night, while everyone was still in the room wrapping presents. It was kind of fun drifting in and out listening to them figure out how to wrap large spherical objects - though the one time I woke with Andrew staring an inch away from my face was a little disquieting.
So of course I woke up at 2:30, sure it must be somewhere near morning. By 3:00 I was up and working. At 4:45, just as I decided it was time to go back to bed, I heard Andrew's alarm go off. So I kept working until he hit his alarm two more times, then convinced him to eat breakfast and drove him, Eric, and Rian to their 5:30 swim practice and got bagels for Mali. THEN (6:00) I went back to bed. Then I got to sleep until Susy got up, showered, and started poking at boxes: poke, poke, poke, looking for a small one for some reason. THEN I got to sleep until my daughter decided I needed to get up. At least her bright and bobbly head at 8:00 AM was a reasonable alarm.
Now it's time for caffeine, and more work.

Mali is sick.

Mali's night at Tesia's got cancelled because Rochelle is sick, and it looks like Mali is getting sick too. Susy and Andrew were both sick for about an hour. I've been sick since Friday and am finally recovering. Hopefully Mali's downturn will be brief.

Swim meet: Andrew's best so far.

Andrew had a great meet yesterday, and got his best times ever. He took third in the 100yd fly and backstroke, and his freestyle relay came in second. Here's his times:
100yd Butterfly: 1:08.6
100yd Backstroke: 1:09.4
100yd Freestyle: 58.8

It was an exciting meet, with the teams switching leads back and forth, but in the end Southridge lost by 10 points. I timed lane 3 with Rian's dad. She got several PRs too. Westview must have had 30 girls on their JV team, there were never-ending heats of 50yd free and breaststroke.

Today after school Mali goes to Tesia's with Rochelle to have their Christmas celebration. They moved it from Thursday because we're going to Jesus Christ, Superstar, Thursday night.

Bunko night

Susy was invited to Tsulan's for Bunko tonight. Andrew pleaded to go, and was thrilled when Susy called to say he could come over and play too. He won $15 AND the loofah door prize. Not sure how Tsulan's teacher friends felt about that.
Here they are cracking up after they tried to pose with their winnings, only to have Andrew accidentally shove the loofah in front of Susy's face.

Samira's birthday!

Mali and Moose walked over to Alana's yesterday afternoon, to help with her Christmas decorations. Well, Moose romped around with Max, while Mali decorated one of Alana's two trees. They were there all afternoon. Alana invited us over for dinner and birthday cake for Samira, who turned 23 on Saturday. I forgot my camera so didn't annoy anyone, though since Samira and Maiara are both beautiful enough to be models maybe they won't be annoyed by incessant picture taking.
Rocio and Matias also came over for cake. Matias brought along his Rubik's Cube, which he has just figured out how to solve. He demonstrated and explained it to all of us. Mali took pride in scrambling it up for him so he could re-solve it. Andrew thought a Rubick's Cube would be nice to find in his stocking.

We have tree.

Mali requested a tree this year. We have tried placating her in the past with several of the small, two-foot high, pre-decorated, artificial trees, but apparently that has not done the trick. We stopped getting Christmas trees after we had spider infestations three years in a row. Nothing like sitting down on the floor Christmas morning to discover those tiny black specks on the carpet are moving, and are really tiny baby spiders. Now that we have hardwood floors in the living room I thought it would be easier to monitor the spider situation. Or at least clean up afterwards.
The first words out of Mali's mouth this morning were, "Where are the Christmas lights?" We didn't decorate last night because we were across the street at a holiday party to meet the new neighbors.

Our new next-door neighbors are great. Jeff and Allison, and their kids: Andrew(4) and Holly-rhymes-with-Mali(1), the same age our kids were when we moved in. Other similarities: Holly was the happiest baby I've seen since Mali, just thrilled to be crawling her way into every cabinet and drawer she could get her hands on. She is late to walking, like Mali, whereas her brother was an early walker/runner like Andrew.
The other relatively new neighbors have a tiny kid too, but Molly stayed home with her dad.

More News: I finally got to see Maiara and meet Samira! Alana brought them over on the way to the Saturday Market downtown. Maiara is the skinniest girl I've ever seen. She looked like a model, which cannot possibly be healthy, but is very striking. Samira is her older sister - 23 and also beautiful.

Alana also rescued us by bringing over a box of appetizers for us to take over to the party. Mali really didn't want to go, because she knew she and Kelsey were going to be stuck watching the four mobile little kids, Lucy, Alex, Abby, and Andrew - only Holly was trapped in the kitchen with the adults. They did a great job, playing hide-and-seek, and of course Mali put on a show for them involving her and Kelsey in a sleeping bag moving around like a giant worm. I think she even had fun. We stayed after everyone left and talked with Dave and Gayle for awhile, finishing off the wine and eating too much of the artichoke dip that Karen brought.
We came home to find Andrew's roving party had been pared down to Rian and Tiana, Eric and Hailey had gone home. They were watching Pirates of the Caribbean 1. We crashed on the couches and watched the rest with them. They had started out at the nearby House of Good Fortune for lunch, and were all playing poker in our kitchen when we left for Dave and Gayle's house.

Home again, and the great ear-piercing event.

I drove straight from Redmond to Andrew's swim meet. They swam against two good teams. Andrew had his fastest time yet in the 200yd Butterfly and he still came in last in the fast varsity heat. The other kids were not freshmen, and they were BIG.

The big news here is that Mali got her ears pierced. Susy took Mali's friend Rachel along too for support, and they got a nice afternoon of shopping out of it. The interesting twist was that Mali fainted about three minutes after her piercing was finished! Susy got hers pierced too, and while she was up in the chair, watched Mali go from bouncing around with Rachel to laying out on the floor. She is fine, and actually quite pleased to both have earrings AND to have experienced fainting.

Maiara arrives!

I just dropped Moose off with Alana so he can play with Max all day, since I am heading up to Washington for work. Mali is excited to pick him up after school because Maiara will be there too! She arrives from Brazil at 11:00 today with her big sister. Susy and the kids have been invited over to dinner tonight to celebrate her arrival. Sadly, I will miss it. Instead I will be at my work group's holiday celebration tonight, drinking beer and playing darts.

Last night we had dinner at GoGo's to celebrate Andrew's straight A report card. Rian came along too, which made it that much more festive.

Amy and Stathis: The Reception.

We drove up to Mike and Anna's house Saturday for Amy and Stathis' wedding reception. Lots of folks were there, and their house was beautifully festive. I took a few photos. Below are the happy couple, and the gaggle of grandkids. Click here to see more.

Heading North!

We're braving the recently-flooded/just-opened I-5 highway to go North to Amy and Stathis's wedding reception. They were married last month in Hawaii.
We leave as soon as Andrew's morning swim practice ends.

Crisis: Mali has no outfit! Actually, she did find a backup outfit, but Susy stopped and bought her a new one this morning. After careful evaluation, Mali decided that, though she loves it, it's a little too slinky for today's party. Alana is on her way over with a dress she just bought for her. Here's Mali's slinky new outfit.

Straight A's for Mali!!!!!!

Since Mali was in 3rd grade our standing offer has been that as soon as she gets a straight A report card we would let her get her ears pierced. This was very convenient for us, since elementary school gives out only S's and O's and other random letters.
Today, Mali's first middle school report card came in the mail. Tension was a little high. She has taken the start of this school year very seriously, paying a lot of attention to her grades.
She took her report card up to her room to open it in private, you know, just in case. I knew we were okay when I heard a squeal, quickly followed by much dancing at the top of the stairs.

Mali chose Chinese food for her celebratory dinner, and we just returned from China Bay. She's up in her room now with Led Zeppelin cranked up on her stereo. Her friend Rachel's favorite song is The Immigrant Song, and apparently Mali has been influenced.

We've got Saving Grace from Netflix. I hadn't updated our queue lately. We're going to watch it tonight so we can quickly get back into Veronica Mars.

Subs, Yoga, and Chicken soup

Last night:
Andrew had subs at Rian's house.
Theresa took Susy to her first Yoga class.
Mali and I split a can of chicken noodle soup with added peas, onions, and carrots. She wouldn't touch the chicken, said it had been "machine-chopped, pressed, dried, cooked, frozen, thawed, and canned."
This morning Andrew's satellite-set clock is all screwed up, so his alarm didn't go off. He was ready and out the door in 6 minutes to make his bus.
Here's Mali after losing a round of hide-and-seek camera tag. (This is her winning.)

Hearts

Andrew invited Rian over for dinner, and afterwards the five of us played hearts. Rian lost and Andrew won after Mali shot the moon to end the game.

Stupid storm

Flooding has closed I-5, and Amtrak has no service from Portland to the Puget Sound. Not sure how we'll make it up for Amy's wedding reception Saturday, but we will. At worst: there is a 1-hour detour on Hwy 12 to get up to Maple Valley.
I have canceled my planned trip up to work tomorrow - I may still make it for Friday and December's poker game.

Andrew got a ride to early morning practice this morning. He felt strangely obligated to come wake us up to let us know he was leaving at 5:00 AM. I guess it is just too unusual for him to get up when I am not already awake. Last night I was up from 1:30 to 4:00, so didn't get to see him off, and was finally back to sleep when he came in.

The weather was nice here yesterday. Actual sunshine, and no wind and very little rain. Moose got to romp, so he was happy. Today is very foggy, and calm.

First day of new classes

Andrew replaces chemistry and Japanese with health and CAPS - Critical Analysis and Problem Solving. I remember he thought CAPS would be dumb, but he says it is surprisingly fun and interesting, though the teacher has a lot of rules. He brought me the list of them to sign. The rules remind me of our Freshman Engineering classes: assignments for grades must be in pen, pencil is only okay for homework - which must be done in a spiral binder and never removed, etc. It was Matias's favorite class, and Andrew has the same teacher.
The first day everyone had to give one interesting fact about themselves. Andrew's was "I put peanut butter on pancakes." Then they got to bring up any question they wanted for classroom discussion. They spent a lot of time talking about why they are here - why people exist in the universe.
Andrew says health looks like a lot of busy work. It sounds uninspired, not much different than the health class I took as a freshman in Springfield, Virginia. At least my teacher was a cool old lady paramedic.

Mali's new class is art. She says the first day is always boring, and has high hopes for the rest of the class. She asked Andrew if he signed the exacto knife pledge. She looked for his name, but only found Olivia's because hers was really big.

New Trimester -AND- Storm cancels swim meet

I drove Andrew and Eric to school early this morning after we bought bananas for the pre-meet, carb-loading breakfast. He called soon after to say tonight's meet is canceled: Forest Grove doesn't have school today because of the storm.

The new trimester starts today! Mali gets to start Art, and Andrew is done with Chemistry and Japanese for awhile. Yesterday they were out of school to give the teachers a chance to pull the trimester grades together. (Oregon is a teacher-friendly state, for the most part.)

Andrew complained about yesterday's day off not being a day off. He woke up after 11:00 and the next thing he knew we were in the car to meet Susy for allergy shots and lunch. We went for shots at noon since Andrew had swimming practice later in the afternoon (coaches don't get days off.) It took Andrew and I a long time to get to the hospital for the shots. Here's why. I exited the highway there, after driving through the edge of the massive puddle in the photo, which was still a couple of feet deep. if I'd seen the photo I would have known to just re-enter the highway, but instead we took a long detour. Getting home wasn't much better because we got stuck behind a fire truck removing a fallen tree from Greenway Ave. I dropped Andrew off at Rian's and they got to hang out a very short time before I picked them and Maddie up for swim practice. Afterwards Andrew had time for a shower and then was off to the boy's swim team party, where they watched 300 and ate pizza.

Mali was at Zoë's all morning making a gingerbread house out of graham crackers and anything else they could find. She says it came out really nice, and wants to save it until after Christmas. She had lunch there and then came home to change and go ice-skating with Rachel. She loves ice-skating, and must be getting better - she was happy she only fell twice.

Andrew got home from the party in time for us to watch Veronica Mars. I limited us to one episode so the kids could get to bed before 10:00. Andrew was very unhappy about that, but was in bed asleep before I was done saying goodnight to Mali.

Storm and Symphony

Wind has been shaking the house and tossing rain against the windows since early yesterday. Poor Moose sits by the sliding door like he wants to go out, until we open it. He's been outside twice for about two minutes each. Mali slept at the opposite end of Andrew's bed last night (their idea) to hide from any falling trees in the backyard. They moved Moose's bed in there for the night too.

We ditched the kids Saturday night for Robert and Jennifer's going-away dinner at Alana's, with all the usual suspects and also Annette's friend Jason. We ditched them again last night (their choice) for a trip downtown to hear the Oregon Symphony play Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Zoë, Hannah, and Matias all came along, along with their parents and Alana and NancyD.

Rian had some reason for going to the ceramic place down the hill and invited Mali and convinced Andrew to also come and paint stuff. Susy picked them up and dropped Mali off at Zoë's for the afternoon - they haven't done much together lately. I'm driving Mali back to Zoë's this morning, but she's only getting a ride because of the wind and rain.
Rian came over for the afternoon yesterday, and we all let Andrew convince us to play a game of Euchre. Susy and I won, of course.

Swimming Time Trials

Saturday, Southridge hosted time trials and swam along with Hillsboro, Lake Oswego, and Jesuit. Susy timed the second shift with Mike, while I took pictures and tried not to annoy everyone. It was fun watching Andrew have fun. He loves being on the swim team.
Here's a photo of Andrew standing in front of some of his teammates. Below is Rian cheering Andrew on during his freestyle relay.

Friday Movie Night for Andrew

Andrew's social studies teacher put up a list of movies in class last week. I'm not sure what the motivation for this was, the only movie Andrew remembered from the list was Remember the Titans, so I thought maybe it was supposed to be recent socially relevant movies or something. Andrew hadn't seen any of them (we're not big on social relevance here) to the amazement of his classmates. They decided to educate Andrew, and so scheduled a movie night last night.
Hailey picked him up at 5:30, and they met up with Alex at Kat's house. Andrew contributed a movie-sized package of red licorice to the festivities, and they had pizza for dinner. The movie they chose: A Walk To Remember. Andrew said that he mostly talked with his friends throughout the movie, but he seemed to have picked up the gist of it.
He called at 10:00, but was in no hurry to have me pick him up. I picked him up at 10:30, and now he's up at 6:00 here this morning so Rian can take him to time trails for swimming. Susy and I are both going for the start at 8:00.
The rest of us spent Friday hanging out. Mali and I met Susy at Marshall's to do some Christmas shopping. Moose came along and sat in the van and discovered a giant macaroon and a peanut butter cookie. (I fed him his dogfood at home before we left.) We were sure he was going to get sick, but there have been no apparent ill effects. The only difference was he seemed awfully energetic when we got home last night, and this morning there is no "I'm starving, feed me now" performance.

Finals week.

Not much happening here today. Last night we watched Veronica Mars, all four episodes on the DVD.
Today and tomorrow Southridge gets out at 11:00 because of finals. I'm expecting Andrew soon, with news of his Japanese and Chemistry tests. Then he goes back for swim practice this afternoon sometime.
Today's theme for Highland Park's week of craziness or whatever is: crazy colors. Mali did not rise to the bait this morning.

Car Accident - Updated

Susy called: She got rear-ended on the way to work this morning. She is fine, but the camry will need a new bumper. Susy was talking to her mom on her cell phone when she was hit, and the phone flew from her hand and closed. Now Irene's phone is busy. I just called the Sarasota PD so they could go check on her. Update soon to follow.
UPDATE - Everyone is fine. Irene just left the phone off the hook. She got the expected fright when the two, very nice, police officers showed up at her door, but they fixed her phone and all is well.

Crazy Hair Day

Rachel didn't come over. Here's what Mali came up with for Highland Park Middle School's Crazy Hair Day:

Update - I like this photo better:
(plus she's got that eye-twitch thing going on.)

Another Early Morning

Andrew was up before 5:00 to go to early practice this morning. He has a math final today, but tomorrow is his hard day: Japanese and Chemistry. My perfectionist is worried, but he has a solid A in all his classes.
Mali has finals coming up too, but I don't know much about them. But I know that tomorrow is some kind of crazy hair day, and Rachel may come over before school so they can coordinate.

First Swim Meet

Andrew swam with the varsity, and did great. He got second in the 100yd Butterfly, and missed winning by a hand. He also got second with his friend Eric in the freestyle relay.
Susy and I were both timers, which was surprisingly fun, but didn't leave time for taking many photos. The Beaverton Swim Center is also really dark, so most of the ones I took were blurred. The too-dark photo above is of the sign we saw hanging at Southridge when we went there after the swim meet for the end-of-season soccer party.
The party was more fun than I expected. Since we'd been at the swim meet all afternoon, our contribution to the potluck was a well thought out pizza order. Our two pizzas joined the half-dozen or so already there. Mali sat with Andrew and some of the freshman players, while Susy and I sat with Kyle's, Ethan's, and Eric's parents. Kyle received the Most Improved award - as voted by his teammates, and the coach said lots of nice things about all the players. It was a very fun team. I hope it works out as well next year.

Swimming prep.

Andrew's up way early. There's a potluck breakfast/carb-loading festival for the swim team this morning. Andrew's bringing the peanut butter cookies Susy made last week. Their first meet is this afternoon. Susy and I signed up as timers because they couldn't get enough volunteers, but I will escape that duty if possible so I can take pictures. Susy needs some now for the new website she set up for the swim team.

Winery Saturday

Saturday we ditched the kids and went winery hopping with Alana, NancyD and her friend Joe. We made an unscheduled stop at Ponzi just down the street - none of them had been there before, which is amazing since it's only two miles away. It's good wine, but pricey, partly because it's so close to Portland.
Robert and Jennifer found us at Elvenglade/Remy picking up our futures, and tasting them now that they're bottled. Susy bought a nice print of the painting they used for their labels, and I had a long chat with their photographer, bagribs, about Flickr.
From there we all headed South to Carlton and stopped at Ken Wright Cellars and drank expensive futures we declined to buy, and then walked over to the Utopia tasting room where it was my turn (I was jealous of Paul's purchase last time) to buy a case of their tasty and reasonably priced Napa Malbec.
We returned home and Susy fed the kids while I (Bad Dad!) let Alana drive me over to have more wine and food at Robert and Jennifer's house, and play Guitar Hero.
I came home in time for us to discover that Netflix sent us the wrong Veronica Mars DVD. And of course that is the one disk that has been unavailable at our local video store.

More photos

The sunrises over Mt. Rainier got me outside with my camera, and I've posted a few of the results at www.flickr.com/photos/oregondad/
There's also a few more Thanksgiving photos.
Here's pajama-clad Mali outside in the frosty morning investigating the frozen birdbath.

Conner is a big fan of games, just like his big cousin Andrew. They managed to get in a couple rounds of Uno with various other Thanksgiving guests.

Happy Leftover Day!

Mali and I had our favorite breakfast in the entire world: Poached eggs on toast with leftover ham and creamed onions. Delicious!
I've posted a few Thanksgiving photos on Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/oregondad/
I've got no photo software here, so they're straight out of the camera. I may post a couple more after a little cropping action.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sunshine is beating down on the water here in front of Grandma and Grandpa's house, but it's still pretty cold. There's a turkey in the oven and onions in the pot. Guests arrive in a couple of hours and everyone here is up and about except Andrew. He deserves a good sleep-in after yesterday's long day and dual swim practices. Moose has already had a visit with all the neighbor dogs.

soccer 2007 ends

Mali's team battled hard in their last game of the year, but lost 1-0 against their main rivals. They lost every game in this tournament, but they were playing against teams in the league above them - their coaches wanted to challenge them. Mali has been playing great lately, we're really proud of her. She plays defense, and they have a great defense, and they have given up very few goals while Mali was in the game. She's the speedy one. She is taking a break and is not going to play indoor with most of the rest of her team. We're all a bit burned out on soccer at the moment.

I just dropped Andrew off at his 5:30 AM swim practice. He goes again tonight for more time trials. Mali has her last drama/improvisation workshop tonight after school. We're picking her up and driving North to the grandparent's for Thanksgiving.

Quiche!

Susy and I went to Costco at lunch today, and I just missed the quiche sample, so Susy made us a feta and spinach quiche for dinner. Yum! Mali tried it and didn't like it, so joined Andrew in his chicken nuggets. Now Susy's making peanut butter cookies! The rain (and the day off) brings out the baker in her.
Andrew started time trials today at swim practice - they're doing them all week. He, Eric, and Rian walked home together afterwards since the rain had let up.
Mali went to Rachel's after school for awhile and they did their homework together.

Dark and Rainy Oregon Mondays

Susy is on vacation all week - yay for her!!! It's the random, use-it-or-lose-it end-of-year vacation choice, this one in honor of Thanksgiving. She is enjoying day one with a much-deserved sleep-in.
The kids were both moving slowly this morning. Andrew's lament over the darkness turned even sadder when he opened the door to see the rain pouring down.
The rains paused in time for Mali's journey to the bus stop (all the way to the corner - Andrew's jealous, his was (and is) farther). She was up an hour early, as usual, but it took her the whole hour before her normal morning perkiness surfaced, and even then it was a bit subdued. Mondays. Dark and rainy Oregon Mondays.
Moose has already had one paw-washing trip to the tub this morning. He may get a haircut today, to help combat the easy muddiness he comes by now. It's wet up here! The rains have hit their winter groove.

Wet soccer

We are back from a cold and very wet soccer game. Luckily it was on turf, so it wasn't a mudbath. Mali played great, and her team did okay but still managed to lose 3-0. They are playing in a tougher tournament than usual - their coaches opted for the premier league tournament. It's a big transition - a lot of the dribbling they could pull off in the lower league doesn't work here, and they haven't quite got their passing down yet.
My fingers aren't working too well either. They are still stiff from cold.
We're all heading out now to end-of-soccer-season party at Laserport. She still has one more game to go, on Tuesday, but next weekend is Thanksgiving and Coach Dean will be gone, so this was the last chance.

Sunday morning

Mali made me pancakes for breakfast, and now the whole gang including Moose and my newest daughter Rian are out shopping - mostly for new jeans for Andrew to replace his flood pants.
I'm home working (see me work...)

Mali's home!

Andrew was up at 6:30 this morning to go to swim practice. He was a bit groggy. Afterwards he and Rian walked to Starbucks and I picked them up and treated them and me to drinks. Rian stayed here most of the day, joined by Tiana for awhile. They played games - it rained all day.
Mali finally came home around 6:00 tonight, tired and grumpy. She'd been gone since 6:00 PM yesterday at Rochelle's sleepover. She eventually got ungrumpy, about the time the sugar from dessert hit her.
After dinner we watched our latest Veronica Mars DVD, and now we're to bed.

It's good to be home!

I love the sweet smile of my morning girl. Mali was happy to see me.
Andrew was too busy preparing for his field trip today to celebrate my arrival. I drove him to school so he could talk to his teachers, since he's going to be out. His language arts class is visiting an elementary school to read to third graders. He thought he was forgetting something - Mali had it pegged when she got up - he had a book he was going to bring: The Enormous Crocodile. He gave it to Mali for Christmas a few years ago, and was going to read it to the little kids.
Tonight is Andrew's swim team kick-off party. Mali has yet another sleepover birthday party, this time at Rochelle's. Hooray for Fridays!

Home from Texas

I got in after midnight last night. It was a very long day.
Yesterday Andrew called me on my cell phone while I was in a meeting with customers to tell me I'd gotten the date wrong for his soccer party - it's just his swimming party that is tonight. So I showed everyone his photo on my phone and told them he only called to tell me I was wrong. Strangely, they all understood. Then I turned my phone off.

Texas

85 degrees today, slightly humid. It's cold in Oregon, I hear.
Susy and Andrew are going to a Swim Team meeting tonight.
My demo went well, but lots of work still to do.

In Houston

Actually, The Woodlands, Texas. Big demo today.
I called home, and Andrew is all recovered and survived swim team. Everyone is fine, even without me. Amazing.

Veteran's Day (Observed)

Kids are home today. Well, Mali is home now from her sleepover at Tara's in Hillsboro. They did arts and crafts, which is the only thing I can think of that would keep Mali up until 4:00 AM!
Susy retrieved her at 11:00, and Andrew, Rian, and I met them at the Reedsville Cafe for lunch and the Mali hand-off.
Andrew is not feeling too well - his throat is bothering him - so he skipped swim team practice today. I drove Rian and Eric to practice, and then Andrew and Mali both took naps.

Blustery Day

Very windy here today! Some rain too. A big change from yesterday's cold-but-calm sunshine.

Sunday - more soccer

Mali's soccer game today went better, but they still lost, 3-1.
Afterwards Susy took her to the mall to get her a present for Tara, and she's at her sleepover birthday party tonight. No school tomorrow.
After we dropped her off at the party, Susy, Andrew, and I went to GoGo's for dinner.
Here's Mali, Rochelle, and Tesia after their game today:

Mali Soccer

I got home Saturday just in time to catch the last half of Mali's soccer game. They played well but lost 3-0 against a very good team. Saturday night (after hide-and-seek, see below) Mali went to the U of Portland Pilots game with her team, then spent the night with Tesia at Rochelle's house. They have another game at noon today, which will be the next time we see her.
Susy, Andrew, and I went out for dinner to Jopa with William's family on Larry and Theresa's recommendation. It was great food, and a good menu. We'll be back to try other things. Andrew and I split a pizza and fish and chips, and Susy had the yellow squash ravioli - all delicious!

Home from Redmond

I had a quick two day trip to Redmond for work, and now I'm home.
Andrew has his friends Rian, William, and Kyle over, and now they're playing hide-and-seek with Mali.

UPDATE: They left the house to continue playing up at the school in the dark.

Mali's Backpack

It's true what they say about kid's backpack's these days. I'm used to it by now (I don't have to carry one), but this photo reminded me. Too many notebooks and books, and they're lockers are tiny, and they have to share. This was taken yesterday morning, just before leaving for school. Note her new boots! (click to see the whole photo.) Also, the black top was the shirt I chopped in half for my pirate costume. My high-drama fashion princess has a pretty yellow shirt on underneath it.

First MORNING Swim Team practice

I didn't wake up at 3:00 AM this morning - of course - because I got up at 5:00 to drive Andrew and Eric to their first morning swim team practice. Their practice schedule is flexible - they get to choose 6 of 11 practices, but the coach wants them to have at least two morning ones. We don't know yet if Saturday's practice counts as a morning one. We're hoping! The weekday morning practices start at 5:30, but luckily they're less than ten minutes away. It looked like they were the first ones there this morning, other than the janitor opening the doors.
I stopped on the way home and got Mali two fresh bagels. She will probably like these morning practices of Andrew's.

Foggy Soccer

Mali's team got a practice in at Beaverton High School last night, complete with a scrimmage, scrambled with an older girl's team in the fog under the lights. Mali made her penalty kick while I watched, and her team won.
Got home to a very late pizza dinner and a showing of Veronica Mars off our latest DVD.

First Swim Team Practice

Swim practice contained no swimming. Girls waterpolo had the pool, so the first day was talking and running on the track. Rian and Andrew walked home together, then Rian stayed for spaghetti, with a game of hearts afterwards.
Mali's decided not to play indoor soccer with her team - she's ready for a break.
I can't decide which of these two photos I like the best, so I posted them both.

Here's Mali cracking Rian up just before they leave for swim practice (Andrew and Moose appear immune here, but that is not usually the case.)

No School Today

The kids are off today - this is Oregon, after all. Rian is over - She, Andrew, and Mali are playing hide-and-seek. Rian just looked in the drier for Mali - she's hiding under my desk (literally underfoot!) The best hiding spot was probably Andrew crammed into the cupboard under the kitchen sink.
The first swim practice is this afternoon at 2:30.

Elk Cove Fall Dinner

Here's Susy and I at the Elk Cove Winery last night. We went with Paul and Alana for the Fall Roosevelt's Club Dinner. The food was good, the wine was great, and the setting is spectacular.


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Andrew went out for dinner with Rian and her family to PF Chang's. Mali stayed home and hopefully slept - she was really wiped out after the sleepover at Tesia's house.
Before all that, there was another poker game at our house:

Friday Night Excitement

Mali is spending the night at Tesia's house. She went straight from school so I haven't seen her since this morning.
Andrew went to Tiana's to watch a movie with a group of kids, and now they're at the football game.
Susy and I went for a walk with Moose, Alana, and Max, and now we're home alone - so we're going to bed early. Wow, we lead an exciting life!
Tomorrow night we're going out for dinner to a winery, and Sunday we're going downtown to celebrate Nancy's birthday. So we'd better sleep now.

Hi

Mali made the cake yesterday afternoon, with hopes for accolades from Andrew and his friends. When he showed up alone she made him call Rian and invite her over. We ate most of it right then.
We received and finished the next Veronica Mars DVD - season 2/disk 2. It's posted back to Netflix today and we eagerly wait for the next installment.
Dinner was chicken noodle soup, since Susy and I weren't feeling well. Andrew was happy eating leftover spaghetti, since the rest of us wanted onions in the soup.

Post-Halloween Morning

I had to wake Andrew up, he went back to sleep after his alarm went off.
Mali is staying home - she has a fever. I guess she overdid it. She is back in bed now.
I'm not going to Redmond today as I'd hoped - I have too much work to do to spend 6 hours driving up there and back. I will be up next week sometime instead to review stuff before my trip to Texas and Arkansas before Thanksgiving.

Halloween Photos

Moose got into the act too, though he didn't go out with the girls. We did walk him over to Alana's in costume, but removed it so he could play with Max.
He's a construction worker, in case you couldn't tell. He didn't like the yellow hat, so we left that off.

And one more photo of the girls in costume:

Halloween!

Mali did her trick-or-treating with Hannah and Rachel - they left around 7:00, somehow returned to trick-or-treat our house around 8:00 with Andrew's friends Maddie and Joe, and then ended up at Alana's around 8:30, where Susy and I joined them and the full-scale party going on. There were over a dozen adults and what seemed like a hundred kids at Alana's - All the adult usual suspects and then some, plus scores of Olivia's friends. Alana had her usual gargantuan pot of chili, Jennifer brought an amazing apple tart, and of course Deborah brought more cookies and brownies then even the hordes could get through.

Andrew had Rian and Kyle over after school, then around 5:00 they headed over Kyle's party. Andrew, Tiana, Ethan, and Rian ended up at Tiana's house when the rest of the party went trick-or-treating, and Andrew finally got home around 10:30.

Supergirl Hannah, Waitress Mali, and Pirate Rachel.

Halloween Morning

Mali was up early this morning in an attempt to get Andrew to acknowledge Halloween in some way. We tried pushing him on some easy costumes: Funky velvet sunglasses, a pirate hat, or candy-korn horns. He wouldn't have any of it. Mali wasn't as brave as she'd thought she'd be: she brought her costume in a bag instead of wearing it.
Then no one was at the bus stop - she almost missed the bus. Perhaps all the other kid's parents drove them to school in their costumes.

Spoons

Spoons is a card game involving dexterity - you grab a spoon when you get 4 of a kind up, and then it's a race among everyone else to grab the other one. Andrew had Rian and Eric over to play today, and then Mali joined them. More photos at www.flickr.com/photos/oregondad/

Monday Night Festivities

Last night I grilled hamburgers for dinner, then we watched 10 Things I Hate About You. It's a movie about a high school romance based on The Taming of the Shrew. It was surprisingly good. It helped that we had just watched a movie of the play. Now we need to find a copy for Andrew to read. He has to write a paper comparing it to Romeo and Juliet to get honors in his literature class.

Mali got injured playing football in PE - she had to get a big strawberry bandaged up on her hip after sliding. She was very excited to have scored a touchdown, and has decided she loves football.

Leaf Attack

Mali had Rochelle over after their soccer game. They made cookies, then got out the blower and played in the leaves.
Afterwards, we all went to dinner at Alana's with all the usual suspects plus Annette and her friend Alita from Chile, and the big surprise: Deborah finally took a moment away from her new cookie store and joined us.

Halloween Continues - Saturday

More costume fun, as Mali and I returned to Party City to exchange the Gangster costume for a devil queen/bride costume. That was to no avail, as Mali stole Susy's new pirate costume to match up with Rachel for Kian and Koresh's party.


After Party City, Paul and I went on a bike ride. It was beautiful weather, but we took a few unintended hills circumventing a Google-Map error of a through street that was really a dead-end, very private road. Click here for a map of our 30+ mile route. It was getting dark quickly, so Susy retrieved us at Oak Knoll Winery.

I was in a good mood all day, even with Party City and unforseen hills, because my high school friend Angie - who I'd lost touch with - tracked me down and called me.

Oh - and the boy, who I hardly saw all day: Andrew spent the day with William and Kyle, first at our house, then at Kyle's playing pool and video games. We were in bed when he finally made it home around 10:00.

Halloween Begins - Friday

Mali and Rachel have been planning a Halloween party for over a month now. Luckily, it was at Rachel's house, which meant we provided pizza, chips, and pop, and then Rachel's poor mom did all the supervising. We couldn't help beyond that as we had Robert and Jennifer's farewell-we're-leaving-soon-for-Napa pirate-themed costume party to attend. We were joined on the first half's crazy Murray Hill treasure hunt by Paul, Alana, and NancyD. Susy proved brilliant at deciphering the clues - while driving.
Our pirate gang invaded Mali's party at Rachel's house to find a stranger to mummify one of our gang in toilet paper - a victory condition for the treasure hunt. That's when I got this cellphone photo of Mali in her Scientist costume:

Veronica Mars

We Netflixed Veronica Mars disk1/season2, so had a cozy evening last night with the first two episodes. We love this show.
Today is the start of the Halloween festivities. We're providing pizzas and punch for the Mali/Rachel bash at Rachel's house, then taking off to Robert and Jennifer's Wandering Pirate Party.

Mali has changed her costume AGAIN!!! Now she is planning a scientist costume, with not much time for implementation. Rachel apparently changed hers too, from a Federal Agent to a pirate.

Andrew will probably go to the final Southridge football game - his friends are all going and he's nothing else to do. His party is Wednesday - Kyle's family has a big bash at the club house.

Andrew's last soccer game!

Southridge JV2 beat Aloha 3-0 for their last game of the season. Andrew played good. He took one shot and slipped and wiped out a defender who had to leave the game. Kyle scored a goal, which Andrew said he'd predicted at school.
Andrew is now done with sports until November 5th when swimming starts. There's a meeting for the swimmers at school today, so we'll know more tonight.

Mali FINALLY has a Halloween costume. The Little Red Riding Hood one was too small and went back to the store yesterday. Now she is a gangster, which is a nice compliment to Rachel's Federal agent. Mali now has four parties in three days, but the two on Saturday are at the same time, so we're not sure how that will work out.

Here's a photo from last month - Susy and I at the '20s costume murder mystery party at WineStyles.

Back from Redmond!

I'm back from a very quick trip to Redmond. I spent the evening with David, Susan, Dalton, and Rylin - dinner and then Halo3 with Dave. Here's a photo of Dalton and Rylin. They were having fun shining the flashlight at me.

Work went well - Much better than the drive. All kinds of traffic problems there and back. I got to meet a Police Officer, a road rage nut, and Portland's Interstate Ave.
I made it home to pick up Moose from Alana's, and take him and Mali to Andrew's last soccer game.

Catching up

I am slowly catching up to real time. Our furniture is all in now, but nothing is put away yet. Here's a photo of Mali sitting in the lone furniture that made it down before Pablo helped me move in all the big stuff on Saturday.

Tara In The News

Tara had a busy day last Thursday! Here's the article in today's Kitsap Sun.

Oregon Caves photos posted.

I've posted the photos from the Oregon Caves, at
www.flickr.com/photos/oregondad/ as always.
Here's one:

Beckie's Cafe

We had fun at Beckie's Cafe, the restaurant at the Union Creek Resort. It seemed to be under different management than the cabins. The food was good -
Andrew: French Dip
Mali: chicken strips (?) and hot apple cinder (sp?) - she asked about the cinder and the waitress didn't bat an eye and just called it cinder right back to her.
Susy: Blue Cheese burger with Swiss cheese
Darrin: Fish and chips - two HUGE pieces of fish and great homemade tartar sauce.
The atmosphere was great.
Here's another photo from my cellphone:

Photos!

I finally put together my office yesterday, so this morning I was able to get the photos from our trip last weekend on the PC. I've only uploaded the first few from Crater Lake so far, the ones from my cellphone, so they're smaller than usual. I will do more this weekend. As always, there's a few more at www.flickr.com/photos/oregondad/

Furniture garden

Our furniture is slowly popping up again on the new floor. The smell is gone, though the first night back after the re-refinishing was tough. It doesn't help that the rains have begun - squeaky floors beneath wet shoes.
At least Andrew got sunshine for most of his game yesterday, but the field was a big muddy mess and kids were slipping all over the place. They lost to Westview 3-0, with all the goals coming in the first ten minutes. They play the other Westview team Friday, then Aloha next Wednesday and the season is over. His next and last practice is Monday, so it is definitely winding down. Swimming starts November 5th.
Mali had drama workshop after school yesterday, where they did a funky take on Cinderella and she had a good excuse for not getting wet at Westview.
Today: no practice for Andrew, but Mali will be out in the muck. Susy was up at 5:00 to get to a class at 6:00 this morning.

Home again

We spent Sunday night across the street, since our house was still full of fumes from the floor. The floor guys hadn't opened any windows. We also decided to have another coat of sealant put on, so we've still no furniture downstairs. We think we'll be able to sleep in the house tonight, with bedroom windows open and doors closed. I will work from the garage, which is stuffed full of furniture.

From Medford

We've been busy! I'm in the hotel lobby at 5:00 AM in Medford, awake early, as always. Here's an update:

We got out of the house earlier than expected on Friday - it really helps when the hardwood floor guys show up an hour early! They were really nice and helped us move all the furniture, which we had cleaned out and were just starting to move ourselves.
So at 8:40 we were on the road to Crater Lake, after getting gas and stopping for food for Moose because we finished off the last of his that morning. We stopped at a rest stop where I discovered, as I tried to take a picture of Mali at her second phone booth in two days, that my camera battery is still sitting in its charger in the kitchen. I wanted to be sure I could take lots of photos this weekend. Irony.

Crater Lake was/is beautiful, of course. We were very lucky as it was 60 degrees or so and there was a couple of inches of snow covering everything but the road, making everything exceptionally beautiful. We threw lots of snowballs, and took lots of pictures with my sad little cell phone camera. We stopped by the lodge to check it out - and of course they had openings because of cancellations because of the snow, but we were stuck with our reservations at the Union Creek Resort.
We made it there in time for a fun dinner at Beckie's Cafe. The cabins are very nice - it is an old, well-maintained CCC logging camp. No TV, which was fine. We played hearts, and we all laughed like crazy - I had tears in my eyes. EVERYBODY went back to zero except Andrew, who'd been ahead the hole game but ended up losing. It was the longest game of hearts I've ever played.

For Breakfast, Mali and I made S'Mores in the oven, a trick we learned camping with everyone at the coast. We experimented and made some banana ones too, which turned out surprisingly yummy, but of course very messy. We got a late start heading towards the Oregon Caves, but we had time to stop at Wal-Mart and buy me a new camera - the pocket-sized one I wanted for my birthday. Stopping was good, because we also got an important correction to our directions to the caves.
The Oregon Caves are incredible. The outside mountain was wonderfully green and mossy, and the inside was quite an experience. Even the cynical teenager in our group was impressed with the cave itself. Our tour guide - Suzan - was fun. There is a big CCC lodge there that is even better than the lodge at Crater lake. They had available rooms too, but we left to meet the soccer team at the Marriot Courtyard in Medford.
Mali was in the pool with her teammates before we had half the stuff in the room, since we ran Moose around outside for awhile. We left him in the car for a couple hours while we had dinner, and then snuck him in with us for the evening.
Dinner was take-out from Kalaidescope Pizza, which Susy, Dan and I picked up for the whole team, and we ate and drank beer and wine in the lobby until 10:00.

Post-Birthday Breakfast

Mali made me biscuits for my birthday breakfast, since she's off the rest of the week. Today we took her to the Blue-Moon diner for breakfast after dropping the car off - 60K check-up to prep it for our big trip to Southern Oregon.
The diner is a wonderful, shiny, reflective building, and I love the sign. The best part was Mali's discovery of a pay phone! She does not remember ever seeing one before. She thought she should call someone.

Maliday Schmaliday

Mali's maliday is turning into a bad holiday - yesterday we got another estimate for putting in hardwood floors, and it was good from a guy who's work we've seen, so we're having it done - This weekend - while we're gone to Crater Lake and Medford. So we have to get everything out of the downstairs today. Mali's plan was not to spend her extra time off cleaning and moving things.

Yesterday was extraordinarily hectic. We discovered Andrew's game didn't start until 5:45 instead of 4:30 like always, so our evening got all squished up. Andrew played great, and they tied 1-1 at Sunset High School (at sunset!). They went down by a goal right away, ferociously fought back to tie it at 1-1 in the first half, then got clobbered the second half but managed to hold on to the tie.
We rushed from the game to Mali's teacher conference at 7:30. Dinner was reheated pizza at 8:30. Happy Chompo to me.

Mali's conference went great: Her science/social studies teacher has Mali all figured out, and so Mali should be poised for greatness this year. And Mali talked to her large scary math teacher and sorted out her missing assignments. So the rest of her weekend is free and clear, except for the cleaning and moving part.

Susy took this great photo of the game at halftime. All my photos turned out blurry - it may have been too dark to capture all the motion going on.

Maliday - A holiday for Mali: She's off today

Today and the rest of the week. She made up the word - maliday. Susy is off too. Oh, and it's my birthday, but I'll be working. Andrew has school. He's off Friday, when we will drrraaaaaagggggggg him to Crater Lake. Andrew says it should be called Caldera Lake. The crater is really a caldera. I love my little nerd.
We're watching Veronica Mars most evenings now. We got the first disk from netflix and I now have the whole first season from the library. We love it.

Moose as Fruit

Moose found the wrong end of a Washington Apple sticker. He looks very noble, almost.


Mali won her soccer game 1-0. It was boring - the other team all sat back in their goal blocking shots. At least the weather held out - it was cool, but no rain.
Afterwards Susy and I took Mali to the Greek Festival downtown. The idea was to meet up with Rachel and her family, but they left just before we got there. And then the rains came, but it was mostly under tents so we were fine. Mali got to try gyros, baklava, and Loukoumades.
Andrew is still injured, so is not playing in his game tonight. He's walking around okay, as long as he's in shoes. Reportedly he ditched the crutches about two minutes into homecoming. He had a good time - lots of pretty girls in fancy dresses. The only complaint, from both Andrew and Matias: really bad music.

Homecoming Dance

I don't have the report from Andrew yet. Mali and I were sleeping when he came home, and he's still sleeping now. Susy said he had fun. Here's a picture she took when he got home.


Susy and I had fun at Christina's wedding. Willamette Valley Vineyards is a beautiful place for a wedding. It didn't rain on us, but was a little chilly during the ceremony. The dinner was delicious. Each table had their own cake as a centerpiece, which I thought was a very interesting way to do that.

Big soccer news: Susy and I missed the game in Canby, so of course it was the game of the season and Mali was the big star. They tied the first place team 0-0, and Dean said Mali was the MVP! Hopefully we'll hear more about it at her game this afternoon. Mali also had a fun sleepover at Rochelle's house before the game.

Andrew Injured again!

This time it's the other leg, his ankle. He made a great play clearing a ball out-of-bounds, but the big guy fell on him. Andrew got up and tried to play, but came out right away, and we had to help him to the car after the game. So: He didn't get to go to the homecoming football game, instead spending the evening on the couch while Susy and I went on our big date to the Portland Art Museum.
At least they won the game, 3-2. Since it was at Beaverton HS, Rian and Calee were there to watch. Mali was Thrilled to see them. Here's a photo of a great header Andrew made, shortly before getting injured.


The art museum was great fun, as it always is. We sat with some nice people, and I even got Susy up and dancing to a very fun band. They played old covers in funked-up fashion with a drummer who played everything from xylophone to a typewriter. Susy enjoyed hearing Pink Floyd played with nothing but mandolin, bongos, and bass. They also mashed up the Rolling Stones and Beethoven in a very cool treatment.
The food was pretty good - the salads were incredible. Dessert was brightly frosted cupcakes, I think to go along with the artistic theme of the evening, which was the preview of the Chuck Close Prints exhibit. Once again we never made it to the exhibit - the reception was just too much fun. We will go to see it later, it continues through January 6th.

Home from Redmond

Had lunch before leaving at the Celtic Bayou with Bob, Brian, and John and his kids. Made it back just after the start of Andrew's soccer game, and Jesuit was already ahead 4-0. Southridge lost 6-2. Alana nicely brought Mali and my camera when she came to pick up Olivia from her practice on the other field.

After the game we came home to get Susy and Andrew could shower, then we raced out to Deborah's cookie store to celebrate her taking it over and sample all the cookies. The macaroons were incredible. We all ate way too much sugar.