PEPS in the Park

We'll be sad to be taking a leave of absence from our PEPS group. (PEPS = Program for Early Parental Support) We've been meeting every 2 weeks for 5 -1/2 years now. We are the first family to leave. The children have grown up together since they were infants. Here's one of our recent gatherings in the park.

Nelson and Grace on the "swing-thing" (I'm not sure what it's called. This is the shot of the end, where the swing stops abruptly and we are catapulted into the air.)


Kids awaiting their turn as Grace pulls the swing back to its starting position.


Training for the next Matrix sequel:


The organized chaos of eating pizza in the park with a nearly a dozen children ages 5 and under. The parents are outnumbered and outgunned.

4th of July

We spend 4th of July with our friends Mark & Amy out in their new home in Kingston, Washington. Holden was feeling patriotic that day.



We picked cherries for dinner from the ripe fruit tree in their yard.



Grace and Peri played until they were exhausted.


We watched the Kingston 4th of July parade.




The absolute highlight of the day was the pony ride.


We went home in the evening - oddly, the ferry was practically empty.

The Moving Pods

Today the moving pods arrived - 4 of them set down in our backyard. We spent this afternoon, along with Nelson's brother Eric and our friend Valerie (who bravely served as baby holder despite that fact that the new Harry Potter was released today), packing the pods. Seattle is sending us out in style by raining in July. It makes packing adventuresome. They will be picked up on Tuesday and shipped to St. Paul, where we get to unpack them. Next week at this time we won't own a house anymore. At least, we hope that's the case.

Clowning Around in the Car

Matt & Robin's Wedding

We went to see Nelson's friend Matt get married to Robin in Hood River, Oregon two weeks ago. (Nelson has known Matt, he is shocked to reflect, a quarter of a century.)

Hood River is located in the Columbia River Gorge. It's a spectacular gorge. Nelson has driven up and down the gorge countless times, growing up in Oregon. It was the rest of the family's first trip.



Waterfalls line the gorge. If you get off the main interstate and take the old historic Highway, you can stop to see them.





Here's Grace learning how to play horseshoes at the rehearsal picnic. Grace made her presence known throughout the picnic. "Nelson, your daughter seems to be enjoying herself," I was told many times. She waited until the groom's father speech to shout my name at the top of her lungs because she wanted more watermelon. There is Tony in a touching moment, complimenting his son and daughter-in-law, competing with Grace's voice, shouting, "Daddy?... Daddy?... I want more watermelon."





Matt and Robin were married at Mt. Hood Bed & Breakfast, located, not surprisingly, in the shadow of Mt. Hood.

Mutual Agreement

After dickering through the inspection and negotiations thereof,
accompanied by no small quantity of anxiety, we have mutual agreement
on the sale of the house, as of this morning. We have some work to do
now with a series of minor improvements/ fixes.

Offer

We received an offer on our house yeterday - for less than our asking
price. We sent a counteroffer to split the difference between their
offer and our asking price. Today, they accepted the counteroffer,
contingent upon inspection. So good news, and we'll hold our breath
until after the inspection.

Grace is completely oblivious to all the drama.

Grace and Holden Portraits

Grace and Holden had portraits today. Katie and Aimee took them this morning. Click here to see a sampling of photos. We have ordered prints of the best portraits. Not all of these posted photos are the best - some are just funny. We'll be mailing these when we get the photos back.

It's Grandpa's Fault

Some evenings, Grandma Katie comes home from work and takes Grace to
the YMCA. Grace is positively apopletic about going to the YMCA. She
can hardly control herself, she is shaking with so much glee. Today,
they went swimming. Grace put her head under water and came up
choking on water. "Why did you breathe in the water?" Grace was
asked. Thinking quickly, displaying the well-honed instincts of an
experienced politician, she replied, "It was Grandpa's fault."

Over dinner, we tried to get her to elaborate on that statement, since
Grandpa wasn't in the swimming pool with her. She maintained her
story, elaborating further that "Grandpa is silly." And pointing out
that Daddy, too, was silly. She'll be a great witness before Congress
someday.

Dotcom Paradigm Shift

"I want to go to Dotcom," Grace told Aimee today, as they drove around
looking for an open restaurant on a Monday. "Dotcom. Dotcom." she
said. Dotcom? "Do you mean McDonalds?" said Aimee. "Yes!" said
Grace. As you can tell, we don't take her to McDonald's for food
often - less than a handful of times. This day has every appearance
of being a paradigm shift for us.

The Curious Incident of the Cats in the Morning

Our cats, Mango and Chutney, have gone to live with Nelson's brother
and sister-in-law (Jaime and Michelle) in their condo in Bellevue.
The cats are doing well as they adjust to their new home. Those of
you who know Jaime know that nothing short of igniting dynamite under
his covers can get him out of bed consistently in the morning. We
have exhausted every possibility of getting him out of bed, with, as
it turns out, one exception: hungry cats. They do what a human can't
do: they relentlessly pester Jaime each morning, meow at him, and walk
all over him until he gets up to feed them.

House for Sale - Photos

We changed our minds over the weekend and decided to stage the house empty. So we have all moved in with Katie and Milt while the house sells. The house went on the market yesterday. There are quite a few photos of the house you can view by clicking here. We are very tired from packing up the house and finishing all the various projects.

Staging

We are starting to stage the house. Today we completed two rooms, Grace's room and the third bedroom (also known in our house as Peri's room, since Grace's friend Peri slept in that room two years ago).

Grace's room:


Grace's room:


Peri's room:

Goodbye chain link fence

To make the house welcoming, we removed the chainlink fence today (Nelson cut it out with the sawzall without losing even one finger).


We replaced it with a picket fence: (also pictured: Mark and Milt)

Grace's celebration of last day of school

Grace and teacher Alice:

Grace is very happy that preschool is over for summer break.

Grabbing a Camel

Holden is beginning to figure out what his hands can do.

Bedbugs

House Update

We definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are close to
having all our possessions packed. The shed in the backyard is
filling up with boxes so we can show the house. Thank heavens that
shed is so big. It means we don't need to rent a storage unit to
store our boxes for a few months. The remaining work that needs to be
done has shrunk to the level that the human mind can almost, but not
quite, conceive of it. We plan to work hard on the upcoming Holiday
weekend and, hopefully, be ready to put the house on the market by
next Wednesday.

For all of our enemies out there that have ever hoped that fixing up a
house would exact some sort of vicarious revenge for you, you may
sleep peacefully in your vicariousness. Also, please note that your
vicarious revenge has hit fringe targets - the various friends and
relatives drafted into helping this rather large effort.

The Final Push

Through some small miracle, we might get this house on the market by the end of the month. This weekend we focused on the kitchen.

Mark, our home repair expert, otherwise known as "Mops":


Milt changing a light fixture:


Our new granite countertops (and the hole where the sink used to be):


We did have a classic home repair moment. I turned off the water supply to the house to remove the sink and to replace the broken water shut off valve at the sink. After we installed the new valve, I went back to the basement to turn the water supply on - and nothing happened. No water flowed to any faucet in the house. This was disconcerting. For an anxious half hour we investigated and tried to determine why the water pressure wasn't coming back on. We have an old system - so finding replacement parts would be difficult. Also, it's hard to sell a house without water. We removed the flow valve in the basement, looked at it, determined it still worked, and reattached it. Then the water started flowing again.

Why do you do hard things?

This morning Grace was up with me at 6:30am. Just before I walked out
the door, she asked me, "Daddy, why do you do hard things?" At 6:30
in the morning this is an extremely difficult question to answer.

Obligatory Sleeping Baby Pictures

We're contractually bound, as parents, to inflict sleeping baby pictures upon an unsuspecting public. (Photographer's note: The difficult part in these shots to somehow capture the peaceful image of a sleeping baby while framing the picture to exclude the piles of moving boxes and the piles of miscellaneous stuff waiting its turn to be put into a moving box.)

New floor tiles

We are putting new tile floors in the basement and in the laundry/pantry room as we get prepared to sell.

Old basement floor:


New basement floor:


The laundry room getting its makeover:


So - now, does anyone want to come over and grout a couple hundred square feet of tile?

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Saturday Morning, May 12

Here's a quick video of two happy children, Holden & Grace, on Saturday morning.



Click here to view this video directly on youtube.

Haircuts, Bedtime Attire and Happy Baby

We all have new haircuts.


Here is Grace with her new elephant towel and on Thursday night when she insisted she had to go to bed wearing bunny ears.



And here is just a great photo of one happy-go-lucky baby boy.


*As always, click on any of the photos to see full-sized pictures.

Scenes from a Baptism

Here are some of the highlights of Holden's baptism, including a 5 year old girl who was ecstatic to see her friends standing in the pews on the balcony. (Holden was baptized on Easter 3 weeks ago.)



Click here to view this video directly on youtube.

Holden Video - 3 Months Old

Here is a video of Holden at 3 months. He is smiling a lot now and trying to talk back when we talk to him.



Click here to view this video directly on youtube.