Sunday, January 28, 2007

Slow News Week


Hmmm, let's see.

Bruce is better.

I think.


Oh! I dragged Cameron to work on Friday night thinking that the Obsidian Opera Company was going to do a full dress rehearsal of Fiddler on the Roof the evening before opening night, but sadly, no. The only entertainment we got that night was a lone belly dancer providing entertainment to diners at the nearby Taj Palace. The kids? FASCINATED. To the point of peering into the restaurant from outside on the cold, dark street, as you can see. That's Cameron with his new pal Ava. Ava's mommy works with me. They're becoming fast friends.

And today... I fully intended to take Cameron skeeting up at Hoodoo today, but I had a late night last night (afore-mentioned Fiddler on the Roof, but opening night) And Cameron slept in until 8:45 am this morning which I can count on one hand the number of times he's ever done that, so we were off to way too late of a start to make any headway.

So we went to the boat show. Because, you know, we're selling our boat. But that doesn't seem to stop us from going and looking at new ones. Fishing ones.

Not this boat though. This one is too small. Apparently.

This week: More boring then a slightly disturbing succession of family birthdays all two days apart from one another. As in, I have to buy HOW many gifts by Tuesday?

Stay tuned...

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Best Cousins


Cameron and Isaac, January 16


And?

I'm just going to say it.

There once was a time, many moons ago, when Cameron wore



that

very

outfit.

*sniff*



Hello, everyone. Please allow me to introduce you to Bruce, our fish. See him? "Swimming" up there at the top of his tank?

I think Bruce would like very much to go live with a family who actually cares about him. And feeds him regularily. And doesn't accidentally leave THE BACK DOOR OF THE HOUSE OPEN WHEN IT'S BELOW FREEZING OUTSIDE ALL DAY, CAUSING HIS WATER TEMPERATURE TO PLUMMET TO 48 DEGREES OR SO AND ALSO? HELLO? I'M STARVIN' OVER HERE!

He's actually been floating around near the top of his tank for the past week and a half, prompting me to scratch my head every other day when I remember to feed him. Today I finally googled beta+fish+illnesses and found that these online diagnos-y type websites for fish are nearly as complicating as those for children.

I learned that my water may be too hard, my water may be too soft, the water may be too cold, he may have fin rot, he may have some sort of bacterial infection in his bladder, he may be eating too much (although highly unlikely, what with the feeding patterns around here and everything.)

My diagnosis? For a $2.99 fish that I rescued from a Wal-Mart glass of brown and blue water that was approximately the size of my fist, Bruce has lived a good life. Three years, in fact, which is about 2.5 years longer than I thought he would. So, I changed his water, warmed it up and didn't feed him tonight. We'll see how the advice from Google University pans out.

Maybe he can go live at Mangy Moose Acres. I hear the feeding's good over there.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

I Have a Dream

Monday, January 15

Scene: Our kitchen, around 6:30 pm. Having our daily what-did-you-do-at-school-today discussion...


Cameron: "Mommy."

Me: Mmm-hmmm?

Cameron: "Today we learned about DOCter Martin Lutha King, Junior"

Me: (a bit taken aback) Really? What did you learn?

Cameron: "Well, he had a BIG dream. And he wanted people to love each other and be nice to each other."



Yes he did, Cameron. Yes he did.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Cameron's Post

Or, I appear to be having trouble with my scripting all of the sudden.


jutuyfgmv


lhyhrr,pl,rkpptpppl5,moppoepopo4kpokpo5kpk5plkpkpkmp
er
xvd jfsfaaaaa

I'm giving up and going to bed.

Taking a Friend's Advice


In this post, a friend reminded me to stop and smell the roses every now and then.

I just so happened to do that this past Friday, a crisp winter day in Bend. Having lived here for six winters now, I have rarely seen any part of Mirror Pond freeze, since there is such a strong current that runs through it, which continues the Deschutes River along its long path through Oregon.

But on Friday, I glanced at Mirror Pond while I was waiting for my car to warm up and noticed that a small section of the pond had frozen over. And, to add to the amazement, the ducks that normally winter in the pond were trying to cope with this weather phenomenon. In what turned out to be quite a show, they continued their regular ducky lives: walking along the ice instead of swimming, flying from one place to another and attempting to land while skating across the ice, twirling and knocking other ducks over as they went.

It was truly a hilarious five minutes. I'm glad that I listened to my friend's advice. It put me in a great mood for the rest of the day and the weekend ahead.


And now, a word from Cameron:

pppppppppppppppppppppop

Cam's new room

I forgot to take a "before" picture, so here's

"During:" Jeromy setting up the complex web of trundle bed and frame

And "after..." perfectly suited for a bit of jumping!

The Week in Review

It's been a combination of excitement! excitement! excitement! and boring boring boring this week. Plus, I forgot to tote my camera along with me. I even forgot to take my keys to the building when I left for work on Friday morning. Needless to say, I've spent much of this weekend Getting It Together. But here's what went down at the 'Castle this past week:

Sunday: Decorated Isaac's room. With their leave date from Ohio quickly approaching, I decided it was time to get in gear and decorate Isaac's nursery. Charlotte and I schemed up a plan to surprise the new parents and add some monkey and jungle-themed items that I had been picking up in my travels for months to his nursery and so Sunday evening seemed the best time to do it. A couple hours later (and with Randy, Carey's brother playing with Cameron for much of the time) we knocked it out. Here are some pictures...

Monday: Found out they were coming home on Tuesday!

Tuesday: Big welcome-home party for Sarah, Carey and Isaac. After getting on a plane at 4 am our time, they finally got into the Redmond airport at 5:30 pm and arrived home around 6:30, to a bunch of family and a great dinner courtesy of Jean and Blakley. I, of course, forgot my camera, but there are lots of pictures lurking about and I will be sure to get a couple asap.

Wednesday: Wine tasting at work. Did I mention I love my job? Karin in concessions is adding premium wines to our beverage selections and so we just had to all get together to put a plug in for our favorites. Cameron tagged along and played with my co-workers' kids. The guys at Columbia Distributing were kind enough to bring us a dozen choices to select from, and we were happy to oblige and give our opinions. And polish off said dozen bottles. Then! Since our dear President was giving a televised speech later that evening, our tech guys lowered the movie screen in the theatre and plugged the cable feed so that we could all get together and heckle him, his advisors and his general policy. We stopped just short of throwing popcorn at the screen, but only because we would have had to clean it up ourselves.

Thursday: Jeromy taught in the evening. Cam and I stayed home all day because it was so cold! Shopped online for Cameron's new bedroom... see below.

Friday: Forgot my work keys. Very cold in the morning, standing outside ringing the bell for someone to come open the back door and save me. After picking Cameron up from school, we ran a couple of errands and then met Jeromy at Costco to pick up Cam's new big boy bed.

Saturday: Cameron's room. But suddenly blogger won't upload any pictures. I'll see what I can do in another post, but let's just say that Cameron got his big boy bed and then we added some items (like window treatments, finally) to help with the planes, trains and automobiles theme. Our Pottery Barn Kids items are due to arrive in the coming week, which will help as well and now finally, Cameron's room is done. I can check that one off the list and move onto another room in the house.

Nobody tells you that when you build a new house, it could take months to get it just right. Months!

Sunday, January 07, 2007

She's Having a Baby

NO! NOT ME!



Apparantly, it's baby season for our family and extended family. First, Blakley had Aaron on December 5, then Issac arrived on December 25. Shortly after, Nicole Roth (Jeromy's cousin's wife in Redding, Ca) delivered their daughter three weeks premature, and Carolyn Spencer (Charlotte's sister) is due in late February. I went to her shower yesterday.


Guess what we bought for the nursery?

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Stop Me Before I Hurt Myself




Things I have done so far in 2007:


Gone to a real-live New Year's Party complete with Adults, New Year's Rockin Eve, a Casino, Friends and Acquaintences, Grammy and Grampy babysitting Cameron, Our Girls' Poker Night Dealer's Roommate and my eyelids actually open at the stroke of midnight.

And Also: Soup.

This is the first pot of turkey noodle soup, made from the carcass of an actual turkey, that I have ever made. Shout out to Mark, Charlotte, Courtney and Bailey for having the courage to come over and try it out with us.

I went to work today and it took me a full ten minutes to realize that I've been off since the mid-afternoon of December 20th and, wow, that was a long vacation.


Me taking a picture of Jeromy taking a picture of Cameron. Wow, that was a long vacation.