Aloha oe

We're nearly two weeks back from our family vacation to Maui. The tan has already faded and that blissed out holiday feeling is long gone, but we're left with photos. Photos and delicious Kona coffee!

The view from my beach towel

We all enjoyed our visit to the aquarium. They had one of those cool glass tunnels where fish and sharks swam past on all sides and beneath. Plus lots of crazy ass fish, seahorses (my favorite), jellyfish, sea turtles, hammerhead sharks, and octopuses.

We spent a great deal of time at our hotel pool which was pretty great.

And the beach!

We saw an astonishing number of humpback whales jumping and blowing and splashing. Every time we looked at the ocean, I swear, another whale was making a scene.

Getting wild at the luau

Catching the last sunset of our trip

Now we're back home, greeted each day by some early spring snowbells and that smooth Kona coffee.

Resolute

"Music" has been wafting through the house this week. It's me practicing the piano! I've already tackled this year's resolution and started my first ever piano lessons on Monday. It's been a long time coming--I'm pretty sure learning the piano was also last year's resolution. I bought an old upright off of craigslist five years ago and had it tuned a couple years back. It just takes me a while to get to it, I guess. I quickly slipped back into student mode, rushing to finish my homework and lapping up praise from my teacher who seemed impressed by my progress (compared to her usual 6-year-old students no doubt!). Ole seems less than impressed though, hollering, "Stop playing!" to each rendition of 'Yankee Doodle' or 'Ode to Joy'.

The other music wafting through the house this week is from Free to Be...You and Me, my favorite childhood album. I didn't remember much of it, just a few snippets, but it has been such fun listening to it again after finding it re-released on CD. There are a lot of gems in there. Marlo and friends certainly helped shape my feminist ideals. As an adult I'm especially fond of 'Parents are People'--Ole referred to me as "just a mom" the other day.

Outside, the boy is still busy arranging and rearranging the parking situation. Must be one of those jobs that never feels finished.

And in the house, we're always happy to play with Play-Doh as you can clearly see in this self portrait.

Christmas Eve

We had a lovely day today, celebrating Christmas Eve in ways we all enjoy.

Pancakes with blackberry syrup.

A walk/bike around Beacon Rock State Park.

Lincoln logs

Legos. He's already obsessed with them.

Popcorn snack with mead. We sampled a bottle of the new batch of mead...too soon! We'll let it age several more months.

At bath time I asked, "How many presents do you want to open tonight?"

Hey! Those are for the big guy.

Ready!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We're in full Christmas spirit here, all right. It started with the annual tree hunt where Ole spied a real beauty.

We chopped that thing down, strapped it to the car, and got it home without incident. Win! After a spot of trouble with the tree stand and the lights, we even got it decorated.

We made a visit to Santa, too, where Ole found lots to say about toys I've never heard of. He brought his buddy Bun Bun along--that lucky bunny gets to do all the fun stuff.

We've been counting down the days until Christmas with a Santa calendar from preschool. Ole's mom didn't have any cotton balls on hand, so our Santa has a very colorful pompom beard.

Now my little elf has lots to do. Lay off the candy canes and get back to work!

The barn

I've been holding off telling of the work we did on our barn, hoping to finish it completely first, but that is simply not in the cards this fall. It was mostly finished, though, in two October weekends with the help of family and friends. Perhaps next spring we'll invite them out again (hint, hint) for the last section.
Here it is before--a disintegrating shell of painted plywood. We patched up the worst spots with fresh plywood so there would be something to attach the new siding to.
We ordered rough-cut Douglas fir 12" wide boards and 3" wide battens from a local sawyer in many different lengths. I was curious how they'd deliver and unload so many and such long lengths of boards, so Ole and I were both delighted by the cool dump truck that arrived. It was a delicate operation to slide all the boards off in one piece, but they seemed to know what they were doing.


Dave, the lumber man, full of jokes and ready for payment.

The stack of bound lumber provided an evening's entertainment before the work began the next morning.

Work started slowly as we figured out a rhythm, but by the afternoon it was starting to look very promising.

David and Patrick on the rickety deck.

Josh and Dad adding battens to the upper level.

Dad and Alex rounding the corner of the wood shed.

Forcing a pose at the end of a long day.

By the end of day two it was a beautiful sight! The freshly cut boards glowed in the evening sun.

 My dad came down for another weekend of work (Thanks, Dad!) and with the help of the neighbor's scaffolding (Thanks, Dale!) we were able to finish the front up to the peak.

Ta da! The after...for now

We took advantage of a sunny November weekend to spray it with sealer, so now we just need to build and hang doors to close it up. Just don't tell our secret shame...the back side!