Out for a great bike ride/jog then to the playground for HOURS, then to ice cream!

This is what Ben called it the other day, trying to remember the name of what we’ve been saying! He makes me recite it every morning after Sam heads off to school 🙂

Mom just sent this note – she has such a great way of capturing all the sights, sounds and experiences. Thanks for the memory mom – that was a sun-washed, salt-sprinkled memorable day for sure!

What memories we have. Double-stacked grandchildren in a jogging stroller pushed by Alli, the unbelievable traffic, our (Mom and Richard’s) $20 backyard parking spot near the market, Alli running the double-stacked stroller 2 miles thru creeping traffic, texting to find each other, masses of tanned humanity, bull horn-sounding announcers, astounding waves, a close-up pic of Kelly Slater, the emergency power boats careening around, Eddie Aikau T-shirts, warm water and sand, sunny skies, a surfer coming in safely but carrying only half a board,  . . . What else?

http://m.ocregister.com/travel/hawaii-342557-contest-big.html

Thanks for finding this, Richard!!!

At E Day (engineering day) sponsored by the Keyport Naval Undersea Museum. Great job hosting the event and attracting all those young engineers to inspire the next generation! Sam made an electromagnetic device, a straw cantilever and a few other events. It was really interesting. We bumped into at least 5 other families from school.

I don’t have much time to write because I am waiting for a contractor help me raise the chicken run roofline so I can stand up and walk around without a hunchback (we had to cover it at long last due to hawks swooping down for chicken nuggets). I also have some complicated work on my desk for later. I thought I’d record some little glimpses of life around here so I remember how much fun, and how stimulating these years are. In the kitchen every morning we continue learning the Gettysburg Address. I have it taped up to the pantry door so I can peek when I need help. Often, though, Sam is the one to act as prompter. I remember memorizing this in fourth grade. I also memorized Romans 12 in sixth grade. I think memorization is a great workout for the brain, and kids are really quite good at it with repeated exposures. Who knows what lessons will be embedded in these neural pathways, but I really enjoy filling their brains with high-fiber, low glycemic index stuff. Sometimes I also do “kitchen burpees” and the kids laugh like crazy as my head pops up above their counter horizon 🙂

At night I pray for the young patriots growing up all over this great nation who will take over leadership in the 21st century and hopefully improve upon our lead. I pray for their parents, and hope that we will all find the way to fill their lives and their hearts with real substance, remind them of the incredible efforts upon which this great nation was founded, give them real-world superheroes, and even supernatural ones (we’re reading about angels, too). I’m reading what is essentially a long essay by Friedman and Mandelbaum (That Used to be Us…) so I can relate to my peers, but not to disparage the authors (it’s a decent read) I think most of us know the lessons intuitively without reading this book. The contemplative American already knows that the answer lies in creativity and hard work, teamwork and optimism. I wonder whether affluence has bred laziness and aspirations of entitlement at unprecedented levels. Dave – feel free to  edit and correct me here. I am usually the one saying generalizations and opinions are essentially worthless. This is just the stuff I think about while I’m out chopping wood.

All that aside, I am quite proud of my ability to memorize Gettysburg again! And Sam used the bow saw yesterday to saw through 3″ limbs – ALL BY HIMSELF! He worked through the initial frustration of getting that long, thin blade sunk into the wood a bit to get a groove going, then the tendency of it to bind up as he got nearly through. I was very proud of him. Too grubby to grab a picture, I am sorry to say. Finally, Sam remembered to pray for our friend who is deployed on the USS Lincoln right now. We learned the Gettysburg in honor of Lincoln’s example, and a contemporary hero serving on his namesake – you, Tres!

Prayers are with mom as she undergoes surgery today at 2p PST. LOVE YOU, mom!

“Who is Mister Rumpinpants?” Says Sam, lying on the floor laughing hysterically. The boys were completely out of their gourds tonight starting with dinner and all the way through bath and beyond. They are 30 hours into medication for sinus infections and the fog of fatigue and gloom is starting to lift. We were all in tears laughing in the office as Sam and Ben flopped around madly saying the weirdest things. At dinner Ben said “Salad and soup and potato salad and bread are ALL FOR FLAPPING AROUND THE HOUSE!” They were just bonkers. This after I cancelled a trip down to LA to be there for my Uncle Skene’s memorial service. This morning when I had to make the call to continue with the trip or abort Dave was feverish and looking like he was heading down the road of being really sick like he was once in Saratoga (same thing – sinus infection and fever and just completely wiped). So I decided I needed to stay and get well myself while getting everyone else back on their feet. By tonight Dave was still feeling awful, and  he is on his way to bed now (8:30p) but the twinkle in the boys’ eyes had started to come back and their mischief was unleashed! Sam’s statement about the “real mystery” had to do with Ben’s jammies – they were hidden on us!!! What cute boys. I am so thankful to see them starting to come back to life after weeks of trudging along. Blessings came in tears of laughter to kick of Lent. And we are all looking forward to a rescheduled trip down to see the family in early April!

A bit of a postscript here – Sam is standing next to me talking about his Lego projects. I wanted to share what he is currently working on for far-flung family who only get blurry images on Skype or pictures.

Sam finished this creation a few weeks ago (link below).  954 pieces, ages 10-16. He estimates that 99.5% of it he built on his own. I would concur – possibly I’d estimate 98%. Hours and hours spent focusing, then waiting because the company sent us two sets of the 2nd instruction book so we were missing the 3rd book. We had to wait at least a week to get a replacement. He was checking the mail daily in anticipation!

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pick-up-Tow-Truck-9395

Now he wants to build the Lego Technic 8110 Unimog – 2048 pieces!!!!!

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Mercedes-Benz-Unimog-U-400-8110?langid=1033&p=8110

A tug-o-war to kick off an afternoon of fun and games with 10 of Sam's classmates. Click for more pictures...

Dear Sam – very happy birthday to you! We can’t believe  you are 7 already, but then again, we certainly can. We have seen you grow and mature so much each year, and have so many happy memories it is equally hard to believe it’s been a mere 7 years. Haven’t you been a part of our lives from the start? We hope you had a really fun time with all those guys over today. They seemed to enjoy themselves and we had a lot of fun with them. I’m exhausted now. I had no idea just how much physical work it is to keep up with 11 guys. I really loved playing kick the football with them, and soccer. We hope you have a wonderful seventh year, and we look forward to seeing what you do next. Just for the record – in case you ever want to know what you were up to when you turned 7 – you are soooo excited about marble runs, you play your electric guitar really well and even have a portable amp to go with it now, you are a great student in school and reportedly only get the “sillies” every now and then but quiet right down when you do, and have fun at recess. You are a mature, loving and intelligent boy. We couldn’t be luckier parents – we respect  you and admire you, and love you so very much. Happy birthday!

I gave myself a new haircut, and I LOVE it! Lots of layers. It dries quicker after my early morning swims. Highly classified technique...

Instead of sneaking into the boys’ room and waking them up this morning, which seems to take forever, I decided to crow in the kitchen while I sliced their bagel and got it toasting. This made me laugh – so they heard crowing and laughing in the kitchen as they roused themselves from sleep. When I got into their room, Ben was sitting up and rubbing his eyes and Sam was lounging, I think with a smile on based on his tone when he did finally speak. I think that’s a good alarm clock – mom crowing! I lit their candles at their places and served up some blueberry kefir along with bagels and strawberries. Not a bad way to start a Friday. I even managed to send Dave away with a lunch bag, and Sam has a delicious lunch of huge Oli-Ednamode hard boiled egg, carrots and hummus, Greek honey yogurt and …something else…in that fourth Bento box. Not sure… Anyway – it was a lunch to be proud of. I always feel better when I feed my family well. Dave will be laughing as he reads this. Sometimes I do actually get the day off to a good start! That kefir was pretty good. It is made from fermented live microbes…Ben was burping a lot later. Hmmm…cold here – hoping for snow!!!!!!!!!!!

Ooops! I was allowed to kick Sam's football using his new football tee and had a really horrible first kick. I begged for a second one and Richard teased "Is this going to be the mother of all kicks?" in response to my blustering about how big this one would be. Sure enough. It did turn out to be a good kick, solid contact, soaring right over the fence around the chicken run, then RIGHT THROUGH THE WINDOW OF THEIR COOP!

Thankfully the repair was fairly easily accomplished with a run to ACE (thanks Mom and Richard!), a piece of glass cut, glazing tacks and glaze. I learned how to do it. The glazing job is not pretty – kind-of “rough hewn” you could say. But it works. They chickens were very interested in all my tools. I had to rush in there quickly to ensure they would not eat the shiny glass. They love shiny objects. One of them grabbed a piece of glazing, though – the Rhode Island Reds (RIRs) are VERY piggy hens. They are not very sharp but very attuned to finding food. All four of our brown-egg layers laid eggs today – Jersey included! All in the same nesting box. There is a lot of clucking and talking down there when they are all feeling like laying. They all like the same box. Funny to watch them wait for another hen to be done. Like the line in a women’s bathroom – very tightly packed, poking beak into nesting box, clucking a “hurry up” every now and then.

We are planning a snowshoeing outing in the next couple weeks with another family, and Sam is back in school and doing well. He works on extra math or reading at home most days of the week, is attending PREP class at church (to prepare for first communion) and is taking guitar lessons with his dad on Thursday evenings. Over break he passed two swimming levels and is ready to pick up again when we enroll in class. He’ll be a sting ray in case anyone cares or knows the Red Cross swim levels! Cousin Leslie knows 🙂

I am really missing family – cousins, brother, sister-in-law, brothers-in-law, Dave’s parents. Now that my space-a days are over and Sam is in school it is a bit of a rough adjustment. I think over the summer I will pack the truck and go on “deployments” with the boys to see who we can visit. Family – please know we love you and think of you all the time, trying to figure out how to dig up enough money to build a bunkhouse or something so you can come and stay as long as you please and be comfortable. In the meantime, we have plenty of Hawaiian-style futons we can throw down in front of the fire in the large living room, and we have a guest room/office. Please make plans to come visit. I am also thinking about a kayak/camping trip in the San Juan Islands in the summer. That would be so much fun!

I am mystified by how heat pumps work. I figured out the septic system to my satisfaction, but heat pumps have defied my understanding for some months now. A cursory review only confused me more – “the heat pump extracts heat from air – even cold air – and pumps it throughout the house; the process is reversed when it is warm outside and you want the house cool” – or something to that effect. Ok – I get that but how exactly, at a molecular level, does that happen? I understand ion channels and NaK pumps, or at least I did and still basically get it (concentration gradients) so can I apply that knowledge to heat pumps? Is there a wizard in the pump with a wand? Dave tried to explain the thermoelectric principles behind it – that you can create an artificial thermal gradient – and the Peltier-Seebeck effect which has something to do with different metals in proximity creating a thermal gradient (and even a magnetic gradient). Anyway – can someone explain it in plain English to me? Oh – the touch lamp is another mystery. Thermostatic effect there Dave says…

The inaugural hubby with boys picture at the Seattle Aquarium. If we take one every January we'll see how much the boys have grown each year!

Happy 10th Anniversary to us - celebrating with our friends at a local microbrewery! Click on this picture to go to the Dec album. It's a new format - be sure to scroll down as there are new pictures under the folder thumbnails, plus photos in the folders.

From L to R: John Groves, me, Dave, John’s wife Christine (we’ve known them since NR-1 days in CT 10 years ago – they were at our wedding!), then in front, Melodie, Mom, Richard, Matt, and in back new friends and neighbors Jeremie and Beth. We were at Sound Brewery in Poulsbo enjoying a beer sampler then dinner at Campana’s across the street. I think that is a wonderful new tradition! We had so much fun catching up with friends and having a celebration before the night gets crazy with all the impaired drivers. We were home by 7pm! As I was doing year-end reporting for my business and posting pictures to the web, I was enjoying the happy sounds of Sam and Ben building Legos in their room, playing the electric guitar, and now reciting Twas the Night Before Christmas from memory! They are taking turns switching back and forth filling in the lines! How amazing they are together. A beautiful start to the New Year – reminders that a star was the sign long ago of good things to come and a promise fulfilled. May your New Year be full of promise as well. We remember those in prayer who could use a big bolus of good in 2012. God Bless!

The first look at all the Christmas presents - new electric guitar and Marble Run Maxi - both big items on his list for Santa arrived!

Thank you, Uncle Doug, for my new axe! (Uncle Doug crafted it from a mallet and even used a woodburner to carve an enscription on the handle for him). Mommy loves her book, too 🙂

Merry Christmas, family and friends! We hope you had a joyous holiday, and time spent relaxing with your family and friends. We were certainly blessed by family (Mom and Richard staying with us, and phone calls with our East Coast family), Dave’s amazing cooking (standing rib roast, spinach, mashed potatoes and Yorkshire pudding), and lots of laughs. The boys were so grateful for their presents – they didn’t “Hoover” them in a manic feast but rather enjoyed them one by one and only turned to the next when prodded. They are very appreciative of their blessings. We’ve spent the last two days just relaxing and splitting wood, eating leftovers, chopping more wood, more eating, stacking wood in the rain, chicken coop remodeling (moving a roosting bar to a cozier place), etc. It is raining here and we’re listening to Beethoven now as I write. Tonight I asked Ben something and he said he couldn’t tell me. I asked again and he replied, smiling “I can’t tell you because my back hurts.” Wonder where he picked that up? 🙂