Friday, July 15, 2005




More tomorrow



Doesn't fall asleep on us, but on my father in law...

Thursday, July 14, 2005


Tired babies!

Bad Blogger, no Biscuit!

Right, it's been a month since I sat down and focused on a solitary task, but I'm doing it now, so I suppose I can be forgiven. The last few weeks have been a little chaotic, what with planning for the move and the vacations and the job placements... It's been just one thing after another, keeping us running like hyperactive rats. But anyway, here's the nuggets of over information.

Vacation

We went to our annual Family Camp Out, which really should technically be deemed the annual Family RV Lot Out, since only a small percentage of us are actually outside in a tent. Most of them are instead the RV garage in tents, and special people like out-of-towners and people-with-babies get to sleep in RVs. We're just good like that. Anyway, this years was a little more special because of the aforementioned out-of-towners, my sister-in-law Ramona and her husband, Rocky, plus their daughter Jennifer came from Kansas for a little bit of the Great Northwest. I never told Rocky this, but there were too many times whereby I was singing to myself softly, "Rocky Racoon, went into his room, only to find Gideon's Bible..." I'm sure I'm not the first person to think that, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who thought about it that much.

Also present was my brother-in-law, who hasn't gone for a couple years, so that was cool. It was only my second year (along with Alex), so I knew what to expect a little bit. Oh, and my barely mentioned older stepdaughter and her husband and my step-grandchildren went together for the first time too, so there were about 21 people floating around at maximum levels.

There are several highlights on the trip, notably the addition to the campout that was my sister-in-law's daughter's boyfriend, a sleaze by the name of Brian. He was a day late because he broke probation from being arrested for drunk driving. And he admitted that he was a recovering meth addict. And evidently his cure from that was cocaine, or some really souped up nasal spray, according to a couple family members witnessing that all too familiar nose twitch. At any rate, that jerk ass, who never had a kind word oozing out of his pie hole except smart-alecky bile, really dampered the otherwise good spirits that were around the campsite. I never made any allegiances with him because I just felt that it was foul that he even showed up, considering there were a bunch of kids, not just mine, that were around.

So we went to Mt. Rainier for a 3 hour hike, which was quite the adventure when you're carrying or coaxing babies, and we went to see Mt. St. Helens, which was clouded in save a short moment. We also went swimming, the driving range whereby we spent about 35 bucks total whacking balls aimlessly into the open range. I tried to redeem my manhood by killing a spider since my wife was whackin' em about 100 yards further than I could. More aggression in her, I suppose.

The poor boy did get a burn on his hand, after getting it burned on a woodstove. We try to watch him like a hawk, but I guess there was a lapse here and there. None of us, Superboy included, even knew that he had done that. I just picked him up and walked in to get him washed up when he started crying hysterically, and that was went I noticed that a couple of his fingers were red. After sticking his hand in agonizingly cold water for a few minutes, we went or a walk to relax him, despite the pouring rain. Little did I know that that was my best memory of the trip. I was trying to cheer him up, since I was pretty damn upset myself, and so I stuck my tongue out to catch some raindrops, which he thought was comedy gold. Then a little later, we both splashed around in the puddle and I had to give him a shower in the world's smallest shower stall, but he was cool about it. But I'll just remember that moment with him, jumping around in the puddle with him, which I later regretted because hiking in flip-flops because your shoes are wet - no fun.

You know what else was no fun? We were crossing a stream where glacier water was flowing, when Jennifer and Rocky fell in the water, dislodging a log and see-sawing it up, with the other end smashing and pushing my testicles into my body. I think they're just starting to descend just now.

Yeah, it was a relatively good trip, though I was cranky and we had to leave one day early. Just got tired of Brian and got tired of the tight routine we had to adhere to, because the babies had their routines in the morning and they are condusive to, well, life for adults. We stopped in Renton on the way back home and I showed my wife the first restaurant we ate at when we first moved to the States. Taco Time. I still remember my mom and us trying to figure out the currency exchange rate, since we had no basis for comparison to what a taco should cost. I also showed her the Safeway where I worked at, which has sinced turned into a weird, brownish store with low lighting. I think the decor was supposed to be relaxing.

But we're burned, we're sore, and we're still readjusting to our schedule even today. But we had fun.

Zoe, the Wonder Walker

Zoe's walking about 80% of the time when she's commuting now, almost giving up crawling entirely. Somehow she's just evolved over a matter of a few days from just two steps, to confident stepping from A to B. She still gets caught up in walking and fail to stop at will, causing her to topple or land on her bum, but she's not even 1 and she's up and walking. I feel bad that we don't document her progress as much as Alex's but I'm very proud of Zoe. She's just a cutie and a go-getter.

Moving

I've secured a position for myself at the Redmond store, and my wife finally got the green light for a position there as well, so we're financially set for now. It still bothers me that I'm not getting the head start I was hoping to achieve with my videography business, namely the website and its many subdomains, but I'll get there. Tough gig, building a business with no money. I hate moving, I really do. It's so disconcerting and displacing, if that makes any sense. Just scrambles my mind into more directions that it can handle. But only about a week and a half left, in fact, two weeks from now we won't be in Bellingham anymore. It's a little sad, but I think it'll ultimately be a good transition.

And now, photos!