Hi.

Wednesday was full of work for me. Children played, once swim team practice was over.
Rian came over for awhile and played Scrabble and Clue with Andrew and Mali.
After dinner Susy and I played Andrew and Mali a game of Clue, then Scrabble. (Guess who won!?! Right! It was me!!! Both games!!! WooHoo.)
Mali still refuses to play Hearts, which is Andrew's first choice every night.

Game-filled Sunday

Moose and I jogged down to the drugstore this morning to pick up pills and eggs. I didn't need the eggs: for breakfast I made us smoothies with Mango Juice, bananas, and feggs. (What we call cholesterol-free liquid eggs.) It was surprisingly yummy.
Afterwards we all played Hearts - and Susy won after Mali took all the tricks.
Then Susy, Moose and I walked down to the store to get shortening so Mali could make chocolate chip yogurt cookies. We ate most of them, and then played Scattergories, which Susy always wins so usually she won't play with us, but this time Andrew won the second game!
Now I'm taking the kids to the pool, even though it's cool and cloudy outside.
UPDATE:
We swam a bunch - the pool was warmer than the air - then we sat in the hot tub for awhile. We walked home, Susy made bulgogi (Korean Teriyaki) with rice and peas and I ate waaayyyy too much. Then we played hearts again, and Andrew won after I took 25 to lose.

Hearts

After dinner we all played hearts, but only to 50 because 100 takes too long. I won in 3 hands! I took them all, Susy took 24 to hit 50 to go back to zero, and I took them all again. Then everyone went to bed. Woohoo!

Mali Fever, day two.

Mali is still sick with a fever and sinus issues. Susy is staying home today instead of tomorrow so she can hang out with her.
Last night after dinner (pizza), we couldn't decide what game to play. Mali was up for Puerto Rico, which Andrew and I always want to play, but Susy adamantly vetoed it, mostly because it takes around two hours to play. Instead we made little slips with all the games that at least three people like and no one vetoed (every one got one veto, but only Susy and Mali used theirs.) The winning draw was: Liar's Poker. We played for half an hour (instead of the initially thought hour) because Mali got too tired. (She won the first game.) So we quit at 8:00, and Mali was asleep soon after.

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.

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.

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.

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/

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.

Tuesday Poker

Susy and I met for lunch at Shiraz - a little hole-in-the-wall Persian restaurant - the only indoor seating was a long and very tall counter. The food was delicious! We had gyros and hummus and baklava. Moose came with me, but sat in the car while we ate. He loves to go on car trips.
Tonight we played poker - Susy quickly ran out of her dollar of chips, and I lost 15 cents. Mali eeked out the win, beating Andrew by 20 cents. She was pleased.
Dinner was sausage and macaroni and cheese for the kids. I combined the leftover zucchini soup into a can of tomato-basil soup, and it was really good. Of course, it's hard to mess up when you start with Susy's Zucchini soup.

Andrew soccer

Andrew played well yesterday except for scoring an own-goal in their 3-1 loss. Afterwards we went to GoGo's for dinner, came home and played hearts. Andrew lost. It really wasn't his day. But he does love GoGo's.

Labor Day

I cooked Grandpa's salmon for dinner - it came out great. It was intended for the smoker, but Paul's been gone all week and his smoker has been giving him troubles lately. Below is a photo of Susy and Mali peeling the corn for dinner.
After dinner all four of us played Monopoly. Mali won again.
The kids are nervous and excited about school starting tomorrow. Andrew's worried he won't sleep again.

Monopoly

Yesterday, Susy and I disappeared with Pablo and Alana and played golf. On our return, Susy went to bed, and I made dinner for the kids. Then we played Monopoly, where Mali cleaned our clocks. This morning, she's playing against herself, practicing.

Birthday Beginning

For my (first) birthday dinner I let my parents take us all to my favorite restaurant - Swagats. It is a very low-key Indian restaurant. The kids weren't thrilled but they found chicken pakora and tandoori edible, at least. They also brought me a delicious apple cake, and brownies for the kids. And zuccini bread for breakfast. All wonderful, and all but a few slices of bread are already gone.

Saturday was busy:
Mali had a great soccer game, her team winning 5 - 2. It was wet, but didn't rain. Erin scored the first goal, and Heather got one and almost two others. Mariah scored on a pass from Chandler. Amazing how these former wallflowers have come alive to play good soccer. That is my favorite part of coaching. Very similar to track - teaching the littlest, most timid kids how to long jump. It is hard to go wrong there. Mali was a force for good, playing great defense as usual.

Andrew and I left soccer immediately to get him to his cross-country meet. After sitting in traffic on I-84 until the actual start of his meet, we sadly decided there was no way we were going to make it, and so exited the first chance we got. I asked Andrew if there was anything we should do downtown, since we were already there. He asked me if there was a bookstore.

SO: I took my boy to THE bookstore, Powell's, for the first time. He liked it, and was properly impressed. We had a good time. We bought a dozen half-priced books, then went across the street for some gelato. He wasn't too broken up about missing his meet.

For dinner Saturday we joined the A's and S's at Alana's house for dinner. Paul was missing, because he's down South trying to help hurricane victims. Alana made tortilla soup, and I picked up a pizza for the kids. Rocio had picked up a pizza too, so there was an over-abundance of food, as usual. I was stuffed for the second night in a row. I didn't eat much today. I think I'm on rabbit food for awhile.

Sunday was lazy. We watched Gilmore Girls, then Kyle came over. I played one game of Settlers of Catan with the boys after I put some purple paint on bedroom walls. Then William came over too, along with Larry. Larry and I had a beer while Susy napped and Mali played Apples to Apples with the boys.