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I'm back fom Roatan. I had a great trip! It was crazy to be in a one bedroom apartment with my entire family for a week. That's the first time all 7 of us have taken a vacation together. and we actually got along ok...... We had many adventures,

Roatan, Honduras

I am on the island of Roatan, off the coast of Honduras. Staying at Infinity Bay where my parents bought a condo. It's really beautiful here, and it's really wamr now that it stopped raining. I'm going to spend today snorkeling and laying on the beach.I head back to Portland tomorrow, so I need to soak up as much sun as possible before going back to the rain.

Plumbers in Training

I've had many adventures over the past few weeks, some good, some not so good.
Believe it or not, this was one of the better ones..... We had a new hot water heater put in, (Yay! tankless! Endless hotwater, it's AWESOME!) but changing out the hotwater heater kicked up some sediment and clogged the hot side of the faucet. We didn't have any water pressure with the hot water in the kitchen, not even enough to keep it running hot. So first we took apart the hot water valve under the sink, because it wouldn't shut off all the way. So we turned off the water to the house, assuming the hot water valve was goign to be our problem, took that all apart and cleaned it out. Got the wire brush stuck and had to take apart more of the valve to get the valve out, then finally put it all back together to have nothing different. though we did have a great time turning the water on and off to flush out the pipes. Jeff didn't quite believe me that it would come shooting STRAIGHT out of the wall.



Next, we took apart our faucet. We disconnected the whole big ugly old thing. Only to find out that there was no way to clean out the little pipes where the clog must be. Now since we couldn't turn our hot water valve off at the sink, since it wouldn't turn off all the way, we had to re-connect our faucet, just to leave it dangling there under the sink, so that we could turn our water back on. Because, by this time, it was late and Home Depot and Lowes were closed.



In the meantime, we also realized that our P-trap was leaking. Very poorly put together, the plastic piece going up into the first pipe that comes down from the drain was not actually secured, just kind of shoved up there...

I go to Home Depot the next day and buy a new faucet, a new valve and a new p-trap. We also had this weird water filter thing in our sink that we didn't use, so we were going to take it out. The filter dispenser was at a fourth hole, so I assumed it was a regular 4 hole sink. So I bought the faucet with a sprayer. We go to install our new faucet, and remove the water filter only to find the hole for the filter is teeny tiny. So Jeff goes ahead and manages to cut the hole big enough for our sprayer. Yay! We install the faucet with much success.



On to the P-trap:
we discover we have two, I guess I will call them female ends though its kinda hard to figure with plumbing..... two female ends that meet where there should be some sort of male end.
Another trip to Home Depot, in the meantime we have a 5 gallon bucket under the sink as our drain.
After some good advice and some cheap parts from the Depot, we manage to put the whole thing back together. And it doesn't leak!
I got to do the laundry basket full of dishes and put the garbage back under the sink, it's all much better now. It was fun, we learned a lot and it was a funny interesting debacle.

on the side of bad adventures, Rosie got in a dog fight and I owe some people a lot of $ for vet bills. That's not a fun story though. Plumbing is much more entertaining.

who knew pipe cleaners were this much fun?

Xmas tree adventures

tree cutting



tree carrying



Emme's a tree!



Rosie helping



ornament hanging



We got our tree out on Sauvie Island. I chatted with the tree farmer for a little while. He bought the place in the 70s with his wife and their 6 kids. They went on to have 2more kids. This last spring he fell out of one of his tall trees, really tall trees, and fractured his skull and broke his back and pelvis and other things, all in multiple places. He said that was it for his wife, and they've sold the farm. So this was their last season. He was telling us that Anthony Keidis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers flew outa few times. He didn't know who he was, he asked keidis what he did for aliving and he said "I write and sing songs." i guess keidis didn't buy the farm, he bought a downtown condo for his dad instead. Some people from California bought it. It's highly unlikely they'll be farming Christmas trees on it though.

Thanksgiving and more!

here's a brief recap of the highlights of the last couple weeks:

We had a nice visit with Anatomist and baby Jack, Jack just loved Emme, it was the cutest thing. Whenever she would get in front of him he was all smiles!


(sorry I didn't rotate this picture, I'm lazy)




We visited Silver Creek Falls, looks like this is where we're going to have the wedding! We're going to see if we can rent out their Youth Camp for a weekend in September of '08.





Thanksgiving dinner at the fam's! We spent a couple of days down in Eugene, it was nice and relaxing. Just hanging around not doing much of anything. Except eating. and eating.



We had a thanksgiving sequel at our house with Jeff's family, it was fun. Kids playing Twister! it's funny to have to tell them which is their right and which is their left every time.



here's me, Emme, and a very sleepy Rosie.

Halloween addendum

For those who didn't know and couldn't tell - I was dressed as Inside Out Girl. "I've got what every kid's got inside: GUTS!"

Halloween

Here are some pictures from Halloween. It's been a long time since I've gone trick or treating!






We had a good time chasing a group of 5 year old's around the neighborhood in the dark for almost 2 hours.

squirrel jerky

This morning Rosie was out in the backyard chewing on something. I saw that she had this large black thing, and I instantly knew it was something old and dead. Emme said it looked like a big piece of bark. I got some newspaper and retrieved it from her. Thankfully she let me take it. It was indeed a dried out mummified, and I assume, was a squirrel. Or a giant rat. But they're pretty similar anyway.

what a weekend!

Friday morning I got up early and made my way up to Seattle for a brief visit.

I hung out with Sydney



I finally got to meet Anatomist's baby Jack! Here he is sporting the baby bolero I made for him. The sleeves are extra wide to accomodate the big biceps he's working on. This was also the first time he held a toy!



The impoetus for my trip was a baby shower for Ms. Khya, here she is sporting Jack on her shelf.




Khya and her baby daddy have a ghosts and monsters theme going on. So I designed a little hat.....



Here's it's close up



the shower was fun, I wrote some haikus:

Khya once lived a
life of booze and partying
that is now over

Baby bumps are hot
Celebrities say it's so
Khya's bump is best

I took off shortly after the shower and headed back to Portland. I got home and started cleaning.
Today I have been super duper productive! besides lots of cleaning, organizing, and tree trimming, Jeff and I went to Costco and got a Costco membership! We bought way too much food of course. Should last us through the winter...... A few weeks ago a co-worker gave me a little freezer. It's really the perfect size for an extra freezer, it's shorter than me and not too heavy. So I finally cleaned it up and we got it into the basement. To put our frozen Costco goods in of course. I suddenly feel very grown up. Like all the other stuff, the career, the homeowning, the PTA meetings and step parenting, none of it quite did it. It was the Costco membership and the extra freezer.

Rosie pic time

Kindergarten Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

On top of the hay pyramid



In the hay maze



on the hay ride



warty pumpkins?

Baltimore!

Jeff and his Momma



My first ride in a limo



These ladies boogie down! Some of these dancing beauties are about 75 years old!



Jeff and his uncle, the father of the bride



It was a flash in the pan trip, but it was a total blast!

patience

Lately I feel like I'm always waiting. Waiting for some kind of answer/plan/timeline/date. I'm waiting today to see how our childcare plans will work out to find out whether or not we're flying to Baltimore tomorrow at 5:30 am. We have the tickets, but might not be able to use them. Waiting to see whether or not I need to pack...... I'm waiting to find out other things to figure out when I can plan a wedding. When we can pick a date. Everything is on hold and I'm so tired of waiting. I seem to possess a patience I either did not previously have, or it's just never been tested this way. I give full credit to my mom, I'm sure I learned it from her.
I have been overwhelmed this week with our stuff, as well as with co-workers, close friends, and family who are dealing with tragedy. So much in one week, it's unbelievable.
But when the worst happens to people you know and love it does seem to have the effect of bringing out the good things and putting many other things in perspective. I know I am lucky lucky lucky and I will wait and wait and wait if that is what I have to do.

storytime

Ahoy Matey's!

Today we went to the Portland Pirate Festival. It sure was piratey! We got to see Captain Bogg & Salty, which was very exciting. If you have never heard them I recommend picking up an album. We also saw parrots, sword fights, puppet shows, big ships, pirate treasures and cannon battles!

dancing a pirate jig



treasure hunters




a pirate and his parrot



a true pirate parrot



a parrot and a pirate



argh ye scurvy scallywags!



pirates pirates everywhere

bling bling

Thar it is. He went and popped the question and I said yes!





Actually, I think what I really said was more like "Oh baby you know I will."

what's new

Emme started kindergarten today! This picture really sums it up.



I built a patio over the last week. With a little bit of help. We're trying to get corsican mint to grow in between the rocks.



I recently had the pleasure of meeting this goat:



and this llama:



but that's another story.....
I am enjoying taking pictures with my new digital camera, the Canon SD1000. It's the simplest feature-less camera ever, totally basic point and shoot. At first I thought I'd hate it, but now I love it.
Of course a million other things have been going on. Some I just don't feel are appropriate to blog about and some are too boring and then there's so many other things that don't get blogged because I'm just too dang busy!