Vacation pictures

For the Fourth of July, we visited Brian's parents and did the traditional barbecue on the beach. For me, it just doesn't seem like Independence Day without lighting marshmallows on fire. (I've never had the patience to toast them "properly" for smores. Light 'em up and blow them out before they completely turn in to charcoal, I say.)

We introduced the Mimi to her first-ever smore. "I'm covered in sugary goo and I want to share!"

She also recently learned how to feed herself semi-liquid foods with a spoon. Oatmeal got everywhere, but she did it all by herself.

I saw this sign at the Black Sheep Gathering last month. It's an important distinction, but there were so many shops selling handmade baskets that I can't help but wonder if it's just a clever bit of PR.

We visited Mom last month. It's hard to tell what the Mimi's expression is when she has her fingers in her mouth, but note the matching maniacal grins. Insanity is hereditary--you get it from your kids!

Due to other pressures this year (like work) I'm not doing the Tour de Fleece. Mostly because I found out about it (although I really shouldn't be surprised that July happens every year) two days ago and don't think I can "compete." As I see it, the whole point of spinning is that it's a relaxing activity that makes yarn. And when you get right down to it, in spite of the joy yarn gives me, it's just string. Unlike nursing, in which you're regularly reminded that if you screw up, you can kill people (and the board of nursing regularly publishes helpful vignettes of people who have done exactly this) yarn doesn't matter.

If I spend weeks and weeks knitting a sweater out of lace weight yarn on size 3 needles only to get to the armpits and find out that my bust is more than 26 inches, I can rip it out. I can turn it back to yarn, I can use it for stuffing in a decorative pillow, I can cut it up and make coasters out of it. Why? Because it's yarn! I've never punished a failed project by setting it on fire, but I've removed the needles from more than one and just thrown it in the Dumpster because I was that disappointed with it. No one died, and I went on to happily complete other projects.

Photos from Wyoming trip

We drove 2550 miles in six days! I took a lot of pictures, mostly of things that amused me.

Like the Pioneer Post ginormous playground in Pendleton Oregon. Oh, to be six again!

Alpha Omega Services was a Christian book store and gun shop when we lived in Nampa three years ago. It appears that they've decided to go with just the weapons and gunsmithing, although I notice their window also advertises free Bibles. It is Idaho, so I guess they know their market!

These interesting rocks were in Utah. Utah was the land of lousy drivers, scarily clean gas station restrooms, and undrinkable water. The rest stops we were at all had signs from the health department saying the water was "nonpotable" due to the high coliform bacteria count. This might just mean that the health department checks the water more often than in other states, but still is worrisome.

Grandma had surgery Saturday and by all accounts is doing much better. It was good to see her. Shirley kept running up to random nurses and hugging their legs trying to get them to pick her up. Social baby!



We got to see our dear friends the Mwiingas. Nathan and Tasha have grown a lot since we were there in 2006!

I'll post more random pics in the next post, as the photo upload function is annoying me.

Billy's wedding pictures

I haven't posted since right before we left to drive to Coeur d' Alene for Billy's wedding. As a surprise for Billy, we arranged for our college buddy LeeAnn to car-pool with us. We also had Brad's fiancee Carin riding with us, as well as the Mimi.

All was well and good until the Mimi got carsick all over the backseat before we'd even picked up Lee! (How can someone who doesn't even weigh 25 pounds yet acheive that level of projectile vomiting?!) Thankfully, this turned out to be a one-time occurrence.

Lee's date Josh had to work and couldn't go to the wedding, so she found a "new date." (Don't put a garden gnome on your wedding registry unless you want something like this to happen.)

After seeing Billy and Sabera married and dropping people off with their respective rides/airports, we headed south to visit Mom and Aunt Tig.

We also visited Palouse Falls. It's most spectacular in March or April when the spring floods are in full force, but it's lovely any time of year.

The canyon below the falls:

Seeing this really makes me want to take up oil painting again, but I'll have to stick with yarn and other non-toxic art mediums for now while Shirley is in the "It's pretty--I wonder what it tastes like!" stage of development.

Mini-vacation!

I had to work Memorial Day Weekend, except for Monday. But because I work night shift, I got paid 7.5 hours of time-and-a-half from 0001 to 0730 on Monday for working Sunday night! Very nice.

Monday was also Brad and Carin's engagement party in Eugene.

I still question Carin's sanity at wanting to marry my brother-in-law, but I'm very happy for them. I was less happy to attend their party, as I got home at 0800, and then woke up at 1130 to ride to Eugene for their party. Fortunately, by the time we arrived, my Pepsi had kicked in and I managed to get through the party without saying too many stupid things.

Then on Wednesday, we piled in the car and went to Crater Lake. Shirley was very happy at getting to climb on a new bed.


We'd planned to meet with friends of ours from San Francisco, but they weren't able to come after all. This was the view from our window at the Lodge:


In spite of the 70-plus degree weather, there was still five feet of snow in places. So we bundled up the Mimi and let her experience lots of snow for the first time in her life. All went well until she ate some.


Apparently snow that's been on the ground for Lord knows how many months doesn't taste very good!


While we were on the trip, I also started on yet another version of the Sonnet cardigan done with my bulky weight handspun yarn. I've got the body completely done and I'm working on the sleeves now.

How I spent my September vacation

Right after Labor Day, we drove 590 miles north to visit Brian's parents. Shirley had a fantastic time, as this effectively doubled the number of people available to hold her.

We also managed to introduce the Mimi to Brian's adopted grandmother Shirley. So far, we've introduced her to two out of her three namesakes!

Then, Brian's mom drove back to San Francisco with us to help us pack. We took a couple of days off to see some of the sights of the city, such as an exhibit at the De Young art museum by my favorite sculptor. Extra points if you can guess who it is and spell his name correctly!

(Although he's really not a bad painter.)

This is from his Persian Ceiling installation. It was like imersing myself in colored light. The entire room pretty much looked like this:

We have safely reached our new home in Albany, Oregon, for those of you who were curious. I will be regularly posting vacation pictures until the novelty of them wears off or I locate the camera so I can take pictures of my current knitting projects.

more family pictures

I visited my family and some of Brian's family about a month ago.

Grandpa Honn (Mom's father) was in the hospital again with sepsis and pneumonia, so it was good that I got to visit him. I told him that if there was any way I could finagle it, I'd make it for Christmas. Unfortunately, as the newest person hired at work, I am working Christmas Eve, Christmas, Boxing Day, and the day after that. I'm afraid that by the time I'm able to request enough days off in a row to go visit, I'll be too pregnant to travel!

I got to spend lots of time with the "parents" (Mom and Aunt Tig.)

Aunt Tig is one of the three women named Shirley who we're naming the baby after.

And the obligatory grandma and baby-to-be picture:

Since these pictures are all a month old, (baby) Shirley is now much more obvious. I had to go pants shopping again this week. Tomorrow, I plan to go shirt shopping, as I'm down to three long sleeved shirts that still fit. (And I refuse to wear scrub tops out in public if I'm not working.)

Brian's sister Meegan quit smoking 25 hours before this picture was taken!

(My somewhat manic expression is explained by four plane flights in five days.)

We're slowly but surely getting the house set up. The living room looks quite nice right now.

We've still got many boxes of books to unpack, but the two large bookcases really helped make the place feel more like home.

And unlike any of our previous residences, we have a BACK YARD! (This is the view from our bedroom window.) I was so excited I went out and bought books on gardening.

I'd love to make it look like the neighbor's yard. Hopefully the plants will feel the "peer pressure" and decide they want to live.

Family ad nauseum

You can't fit three adults in the cab of a Ford Ranger. Well, I suppose you could, but only if they were all midgets and on exceptionally good terms with each other. But when these are the three adults in question,

driving cross country together seems a remarkably bad idea. Toss in the fact that it's a standard transmission and as the shortest person in the vehicle I'd get to sit in the middle, and it wouldn't be pretty. Faced with the prospect of spending several days squashed between two Mackey men and getting elbowed in the stomach every time someone needed to shift, I quickly developed a plan B.

While Pop and Brian drove the Ranger from Overland Park to San Francisco, I'd take advantage of the chance to visit my family for a few days, and then visit with Brian's family for a few more.

Like other Plan Bs, however, this had a few side effects. One of them was that, due to a layover in Denver, I had four plane flights in five days. I don't mind flying, but that seems a bit excessive.

Because my new job will be day shift (thank you God!) I've been trying to make myself less of a nocturnal creature. I was hoping that doing things in daylight and sleeping at night would also make the "evening sickness" much less of an issue, and it worked--kind of. Except for one spectacular episode where Shirley made it blatantly obvious that she was not in the mood for Subway, I didn't have any "moments."

I did, however, get to spend five days of pretty much constant nausea in strange houses. It got so bad that when I did my usual 0300 meanderings and realized that I WASN'T NAUSEOUS, I generally made a piggy of myself. (No matter how good the book is that you're reading and snacking by, you do NOT want to eat an entire box of Aplets & Cotlets in one sitting. Don't do it. Just eat the serving size the box recommends and call it good.)

I'll post pics and stories from the trip in a few days. Right now, it's 0445 and as I'm not currently nauseous, I'm going to go eat something. In moderation, of course.

Vacation photos

The battery charger for the camera is missing a few important parts. Specifically, the part that plugs the battery pack into the wall. So until we track that down, there won't be any new pics of my projects on the blog.

Might I distract you with photos from the Oregon Coast?

Brian grew up ten miles south of Newport, Oregon, and his family still lives in the area. Conveniently enough, his parents run a bed and breakfast so when we come to visit, there's always the chance we'll get to stay in the suite. (When there's guests, we sleep in Brian's old bedroom. Which means that we still get the home-cooked breakfast, but we have to forego the comfort of an attached bathroom.)

This group of sea lions was on the Newport docks. They like to laze around and bark, in the hopes that someone will be so enthralled with their charms that they'll drop their lunch. I think of this particular group as the alley cats of the sea. 800 pound alley cats.

Brian's father taught me how to use a spinning wheel during this trip, but I sadly have no pictures to commemorate the event. However, here's one of Pop and our friend Meghan and the spinning wheel.

Haceta Head Lighthouse:

40 miles to the north, Yaquina Head Lighthouse:

And my favorite sunset picture (out of the ones that I took) of the trip:

Some of our friends from Nome came to visit us for the week. As it had been so cold in Northern Alaska the week before that 20 people had dropped out of the Iditarod, Hayley, Kara, and Meghan were very excited to be somewhere where the daily low temperature was 35 F, instead of minus 35 F.
And because no seaside vacation is complete without building a beach fort:

Families that lead to insanity

We visited my parents and family in Washington state last week. Now, I love my family, but the fact remains that they will drive you crazy if you spend too much time with them. And after spending the first 18 years of my life with them, is it any wonder that I'm a bit off the wall sometimes?

When I say "parents," I really mean "Mom and Aunt Tig."

Aunt Tig (on the left) is Mom's older sister, who helped raise my brother and I after Mom and Dad's divorce. Voila...parents! (Although I've gotten many uncomfortable looks from friends over the years when I introduce these two women as my parents. I guess the fabled open-mindedness of college students only goes so far.)

Nope, no pictures of EJ from this trip. Following his latest Army-sponsored surgery, my favorite Purple Heart recipient is using his convalescent leave to visit Dad's family in Wisconsin. I'm sure he's having fun with them, since they're just as crazy as Mom's family, but with more aunties and uncles and cousins to increase the noise and insanity levels.

I did get to see my little sister Christy (we adopted each other in first or second grade, a la Brian, Billy, and Brad) and her little girl Brooklynn for the first time in two years. Did you ever stop to think about just how hard it is to take a picture of two adults when the only other person in the room is a two year old?

Christy is, of course, the one on the right. She's far more photogenic than I am, but she's such a wonderful person it's impossible to hold it against her.

And I bet you don't need to be told who this is:



Doesn't Brookie look just like her mother? I swear she's Christy's little Mini-Me.

Unfortunately, even though we were going to Washington for five days, Brian still had to do his grad school work. So he spent much of the time we were there sitting on the couch typing on his assorted assignments. (And getting cornered into sharing hunting stories with my grandfather for two hours, but that is a story for another day.)