Christmas Comet

Sometimes it's better not to think too hard about something.  Case in point: getting a dog.  KLC and I have been talking about it for a while.  The reasons to wait were obvious.  We have two four-year-olds in the house, a very strong-willed older cat, and limited amounts of time or energy.

Still, it's been a topic that we've floated back to from time to time.  Until last Saturday (yes, Christmas Eve) when we saw that the Seattle Humane Society was open.  KLC's mom was visiting for the holiday and we decided to go.

The original intention was to get an older dog (if we got one) because they would be potty trained and also it's harder for those dogs to find a home.  We realized, however, that just about all of the older dogs has a major restriction or two, ie, couldn't be in a home with a cat or young kids.

We waffled about just going home and waiting to try to find a dog.  (It was heartening to see that the Humane Society was super busy and lots of animals were getting adopted -- so much so that there was a wait to talk to someone.)   In fact, we were about to walk out the door when our name was called.

We decided to stay and that we would be willing to think about a puppy.  Well, at this point, you know it's a done deal.  We met and fell in love with this little guy who is just a handful of fur.  For a sample of his amazing cuteness, take a look here.

His name is Comet, both after Santa's reindeer (we sing the Rudolph song 12 months a year to the kids) and the astronomical object (a nod to my profession.)  He is all puppy.  He likes to play, chew on toys/toes/fingers, eat, and sleep.  He's also just about perfect in every way.  Sometimes it pays off not to let your brain get in the way of doing something really smart.

Visitors from the East Coast

Last week, my parents arrived for their first visit to Seattle since I moved here.  With a whole area to show them, we took them on a bit of a whirlwind tour.  They got to see downtown Seattle, a quick peek at Bainbridge Island, a sample of the parks on both the fresh and salt water sides of the city, and more.  They also got a taste (sorry for the pun) of lots of our favorite eateries, and it's a good thing I can get back to the gym this week ...

In particular, we tried to plan some things to take advantage of their being here just a couple of weeks before Christmas.  One of the highlights was going out to the foothills of the Cascades to cut our own Christmas tree.  The twins were very excited to zoom around the trees, picking out ones from about 18 inches high to about 14 feet off the ground.  Luckily, the adults were in charge and I think we picked out a great one.  My parents were able to help us with the lights (including a couple of trips to Ace Hardware for some replacements) and the ornaments.  

We are all thrilled with the tree, and we are very happy that my parents were able to make it out.  It was a great pre-Christmas gift for all of us.

Misc. Fall Photos

Now that it's December, I decided it's time to post some of the miscellaneous pix of the kids that I took throughout the fall but never managed to post.

At the start of their soccer careers.  Or at least the start of their first session of indoor Lil' Kickers.

Being their own monkeys at the zoo.

Sporting their new winter hats.

And, finally performing solo feats not at all possible this time last year at one of our nearby parks.

Thanksgiving in PDX

Last week, we headed down to Portland to spend Thanksgiving with KLC's family.  Aside from the regular 3-hour trip taking 5 hours -- thanks to holiday traffic and typical rain this time of year -- we had a really good time.

After gorging ourselves all day on Thursday, we took the twins to the Macy's parade in downtown Portland.  This version of the Macy's parade doesn't have giant floating Sponge Bobs or anything like that, but they do have lots of middle school and high school bands playing Christmas carols.  And, most importantly if you are 4 years old, Santa is on a giant float at the end.  The twins couldn't have been happier.

Woefully Behind Schedule

This should teach me a lesson in trying to do things after the fact.  I had some grand plans to keep a detailed account of our trip to China.  Things got slightly derailed when the Chinese government wouldn't let me get onto blogspot.  Since then, I've been meaning to come back and finish my account, but things have been more hectic than usual.  With the holidays coming up, I want to start to blogging about things happening right now.

So that means I'm going to wrap up the China account by saying go and look at KLC's blog -- http://hootnhowl.blogspot.com/2011/11/china.html -- for all of her pictures!  (This is a bit of a cop out, but I can live with myself.)  I will say that I strongly encourage anyone who has not been to China or Asia for that matter to go if possible.  It's an incredible experience, even if it's not the most relaxing trip much of the time.

Whew.  Now that I don't feel a nagging feeling about that, I can focus again on updating current things.  We are off to Portland next week for Thanksgiving to visit with KLC's family.  I can't believe it's already the holiday season ...

KFC Here We Come

Friday, October 14th

This was our travel day to the southern Chinese city of Guilin.  We had read that Guilin is a "small" Chinese city.  By this, I mean it officially only has a population of 750,000.  But then we found out the Guilin metro area has more like 5 million.  Even then, it's still considered small by Chinese standards.

So driving in from the airport, I was really impressed with the countryside seemed relatively uninterrupted -- and that the air seemed clean.  This impression changed once we got into Guilin itself, which has quite a bit of noise and traffic.  It was certainly less overwhelming of a city than Beijing, but I realized that you just have to recalibrate when you are dealing with a country with the immense population like China.

We had a great room at the Riverside with our own bathroom and balcony with a view of the Li River -- all for the equivalent of about $30.  After getting settled, we were pretty tired and didn't want to venture too far, so we ended up a couple of streets away where there was night market.  We had dinner in one of the restaurants -- with English on the menu! and pictures! -- and tried one of the local specialities: Li River fish cooked in beer.

Saturday, October 15th

In the morning, we were picked up by a van that took us to a bus that took us to a boat.  All of this was for our trip down the Li River.  I have to say that China is very good with its organized tours (at least the ones we experienced.)  The one involved a four-hour boat ride down the Li to the "village" of Yangshao. This entire region is spectacular.  It's famous for its natural beauty -- mountains, rivers, etc. -- so much so that a scene of the Li River is on the back of their 20 yen note.

As I mentioned, the tour ended in the "village" of Yangshao.  This was another time that I was reminded to recalibrate my expectations for the size of things.  Yangshao has about 100,000 residents, and then is visited by 15 million people a year.  Lonely Planet says it is the jumping off point for all things outdoorsy in the region.  That means also that there are tons of Western-aimed, tourist-oriented shops and restaurants.

We only stayed there about an hour before we left in a van (again) to what truly fell into my definition of a village.  In this village, we were able to get rides on a bamboo raft.  There were some contrived things set up for our benefit, like a demonstration of how they use cormorants to fish and a herd of water buffalos waiting for us to pet them.  But overall, it was nice and relatively calm.  While it was a bit manufactured, it did seem like we saw a little sample of how people in the small villages live.

When we finally got back to Guilin, we were exhausted.  And this is when we experienced our high or low culinary point -- depending on your point of view.  We went to KFC for dinner.  Let me preface this by saying I don't think I've been to a KFC since I was a kid and thought their mashed potatoes and gravy were the best thing ever.  However, after putting in lots of effort finding restaurants in China, it was like a dream.  Absolutely the best chicken sandwich/french fries/7-up meal I have ever had.

No Great Wall. Not Even A Pretty Good Wall.

Thursday, October 13th

This must have been our most annoying/infuriating Beijing transit experience of the week. Before we left Seattle, we had booked two tours through this highly recommended company called the China Culture Center. The first was on Tuesday through the hutong, Tiananmen, and the Forbidden City. The second was supposed to be to the Great Wall on Thursday, with a stop at the Ming Tombs. (The bolded "supposed to be" is thinly veiled foreshadowing.)  Since the one on Tuesday was really good, we were really excited to see the Great Wall with them.

We were supposed to meet at 8:45am in front of the China Culture Center office. We had an address, a phone number, and plans for the subway. I should mention that the subway system in Beijing is great – clean, lots of English, cars that come every few minutes. But Beijing is an ginormous city, so it just takes a while to do anything. We got off at the subway stop we thought we were supposed to at 8:30. We thought we could just jump in a cab and get the rest of the way by 8:45 or 9:00 at the latest, which is when the bus actually left. This was one of those times when we just couldn’t catch a cab. We went into two nearby hotels asking them to help us get one (they just basically pointed to the street). One conceirge was really nice and helped us call the number we had for the tour group, but no one answered. They were also nice enough to write down the address in Chinese.

We decided to give it one more try with the cabs -- still no success. When none of the regular cabs would come over, we decided to do something we had avoided so far: take one of the motorized pedicabs. When I saw “pedicabs” in this context, I mean a tin box attached to a WWII era motorcycle – and I’m not even kidding. KLC and I were not even sure it would hold our weight. We showed the driver the Chinese address and she motioned for us to get in. We went for say, less than a block, when the motorcycle sputtered and died. She motioned for us to get out and then we were back on the street trying the whole routine all over again. A few minutes later, she pulled up in front of us and told us to get in. Being even later for our now likely departing tour, we went for it. She took us quite a harrowing distance – especially in the context of what we had seen the night before. She dropped us off on the street we thought we were supposed to be on, but she couldn’t take us the whole way because the motorcycle started sputtering again. What we thought would take only a few minutes, ended up being probably a half an hour of walking and wandering looking for the right address. We finally found it – at 9:45am. The tour and our day at the Great Wall were gone. The people at the CCC were extremely nice and gracious, but there was nothing they could do. In hindsight, we could have planned a little more, but I think it was just one of those things that happens in a megacity like Beijing.

We were both pretty disappointed about not getting on the tour. However, we had some free time in Beijing and we decided to take advantage of having a less taxing day. We went back to the CCC and asked them for some recommendations of what to do. They directed us to another hutong, but one that has been renovated to include lots of shops and cafes. It was a little westernized, but at this stage of the game, we were good with it. We found some things for the kids, postcards to send back home, and were generally relaxed since there were no cars zooming past us at a million miles per hour.

After lunch, we took a taxi (successfully!) to the Temple of Heaven. This is a rather big park just south of Tiananmen Square – basically in the middle of the city. There are obviously temples and other structures, but the main thing for me was that there were trees and just lots of green space. It finally dawned on me that I just hadn’t seen much of that in Beijing and it just added to the stress of being in such an urban environment.

That night, we had the conference dinner at a restaurant that served the famous Peking duck. I pretty much stuck to my regular eating repertoire of eating vegetables and fish on this trip, but food is a big part of travel so it's worth venturing out a little bit. I wasn’t that blown away by the duck, but then again, it’s not really my thing. It was still a very nice dinner and a good way to end the conference and basically our stay in Beijing.

Getting Settled in Beijing (Sort of)

Tuesday, October 11

Our first full day in China included work for me (giving a talk at the conference), then an excursion with KLC in the afternoon. The idea was to go to the Summer Palace, which is relatively close to our hotel to give us something manageable to do for a couple of hours.

Let me start by saying that Beijing, as everyone probably suspects, is massive. I’ve heard estimates of the population between 17 and 22 million people – at least two times that of NYC. And so far what have I’ve seen, it doesn’t seem nearly as dense as New York. There are some tall apartment buildings, but it feels more spread out yet completely congested with people, bikes, and cars all at the same time.

I say this because it turns out that the Summer Palace was relatively close to our hotel as far as being in the same neighborhood, but it was still a good ten metro stops away. We made it there after a while and did find an entrance (there are several to this giant former complex for the emperor). We wandered around for a while and then headed back to the hotel. Our small trip ended up being a ridiculous amount little more tiring than we expected.

The next day was one of the big days that we had planned outside the hotel. KLC had researched reputable tour companies and we had booked a day-long trip through the hutong (dense old neighborhoods), Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City. There is a lot to say about this very full day, but the short story is that we saw a lot. I really liked the hutong portion of the day – that included my first ride in a pedicab – and the Forbidden City is overwhelming in just about every way. It's a giant, truly enormous, complex designed to demonstrate the power of whatever particular dynasty was in charge. Mission accomplished. I was exhausted just walking across it.

We finished off the day with dinner on Ghost Street – a busy street with lots of restaurants and bars – with my cousin Paul. I haven’t seen Paul in at least twenty years, but it turns out that he’s living in southern Beijing. It was quite a random thing to get to see him again, but we had a lot of fun catching up.


Wednesday, October 12th

I went back to my conference for this morning, while KLC explored the Lama Temple on her own. In the afternoon, she met up with us when the conference took a field trip went to the Beijing Planetarium and the ancient observatory. The Planetarium (which was right next door to our hotel) is a fairly typical modern one with exhibits and a digital theater. The ancient observatory, however, was much more interesting. It was built in the 15th century and looks great for its age. Today, it sits in the middle of uber modern and urban Beijing.

The eye-opening experience was the bus ride from our hotel on the northwest side of Beijing to the observatory roughly in the southeast of the city. Beijing has a series – maybe five? – of ring roads. These are multi-lane highways that always seem to be full. When we left for the observatory, it was bumper-to-bumper, crawling traffic and it took us over an hour to get a few miles. Basically, the traffic in Beijing always seems horrible unless you are driving around at midnight (like we did in our cab the first night we landed.)

That night, KLC and I left directly from the observatory because we had bought tickets through the hotel for a kung fu show. We left ourselves plenty of time (we thought) to grab a cab, get something to eat, and make it to the show. Here’s when we encountered another problem we found most of the week: it’s not always simple to catch a cab in Beijing. There are long stretches of very busy roads where you think you should be able to hail one of the seemingly zillions of taxis whipping down the road. However, many times we were obviously doing something wrong because we could never get a cab when we needed one.

The next frustrating thing -- at least for those of us who don't speak Chinese -- was that if we did find a cab and driver parked on the road and they agreed to take us, it was off the meter for some huge price. The last major, but perhaps the most significant, issue is that most of the cab drivers we found don’t speak English. And, of course, they don’t read it. Unless you have an address written in Chinese, then chances are you are going to have a really hard time getting there.

We did finally get to a good place for dinner (recommended by Lonely Planet which was our saving grace the whole time) and then, after much walking, we found another taxi to the show. On the way, however, we saw what we realized was an inevitability in Beijing: a taxi (not ours) crashed into a scooter. Hard. Like one of the scooter guy’s shoes was in the grill of the taxi and the other was flung down the street. When we drove by, he was on the ground not moving. Hopefully he was OK …

If you saw the way traffic works in the city, you would realize this must happen all of the time. The intersections are huge, the drivers are super aggressive, and no one on bikes or scooters wears a helmet. We were late to the kung fu show, but it was really good. No matter what the entertainment, however, the image of the guy on the street after being nailed by the taxi is something that was hard to put out of our minds.

Wake Up Early. Wait All Day.

[I wrote this on Monday, October 10th, which was really Sunday, the 9th, for everyone else in the US. Whatever. This describes the first day or so of our trip.]


Let’s start with the punch line: we are in Beijing! Now, let’s back up. We were supposed to fly from Seattle to San Francisco around 7:20am to get our flight to Beijing, which left SF around 11:00am. I say “supposed to” because I got a text – not even a phone call, mind you – saying our flight from Seattle to San Francisco was canceled when we woke up at 5am. Thanks, United!

So I immediately got on the phone with the airline reservations while we scurried around to get ready for the car that was coming to get us at 5:30. We figured that we should just go to the airport because, surely, there had to be a flight that could get us to San Francisco before 11am.

I was told by the first human being on the phone at United that I was able to speak with that, no, there were no more flights that would get us there for our Beijing trip. However, they had rebooked us through Chicago on a flight the next day that would arrive in Beijing at 3pm on Monday. Since my talk at the conference is at 11am on Monday, this was not a good option. When the representative put me on hold to “look again,” my call somehow got dropped. Thanks AT&T/iPhone!

By now, we were in the car on the way to the airport and I was on the phone with a second agent, going through everything from scratch. Soon we were in the airport with everyone else from the canceled flight, and United staff looking like they’d rather be anywhere else than in front of a semi-irate mob.

After the second agent on the phone told me (again) that there was nothing, I unconsciously tried a new tactic: I didn’t say that was OK. Instead, I just reiterated we needed to get to Beijing before Monday. Silence had some effect because, magically, she said there might be a direct flight on Delta from Seattle to Beijing leave that night. And maybe she could get us on it.

Well, we got on the direct evening flight. We went back home and actually had a nice day in Seattle, got to see the twins a little, and then headed back to the airport late afternoon. Other than having a gaggle of high school kids in front of us, the flight was fine. We both slept a little, got to the hotel and slept a little more (as I said), and we ready to start our first full day in China.

We're Back!

What, you might be wondering, happened to posting regularly from China? Well, it turns out one of the first things I learned is that you can't access many sites from mainland China including things like blogspot, US/everywhere else Facebook and Twitter. I'm sure there are many more websites that just don't exist for most Chinese people because they've never seen them, but those were sort of shocking to me.

Since I didn't get a chance to post while I was there, I'm going to put up several entries retroactively beginning tomorrow. It won't be exactly a day-by-day account, but it will give a pretty good idea of what our trip was. KLC will be sorting through her many photos and so those will get uploaded in the not-so-distant future as well.

At the moment, KLC and I recovering from just making it back to Seattle after a fairly grueling 12-hour flight to Beijing with another several hours going through customs and the connecting flight from San Francisco. There's a difference of 15 hours between China and here so, when combined with all of the flying, we're a little bit out of it. The twins are being dropped off tomorrow morning so we're hoping to get ourselves together and restock the house with food before then.

Past Surgery, Onto China

Thankfully, KLC is through her surgery and on the mend. When I say that, I think it somehow minimizes how painful and involved this surgery is. I had surgery last summer to repair my torn meniscus, but that was nothing compared to ACL reconstruction. We both have family members who have had worse surgeries (ie, knee replacements), so let’s just say we’re going to do everything we can to avoid that for us if at all possible.

Anyhow, it’s a good thing that KLC is healthy and a quick healer (not to mention a committed PT patient.) That’s because we are less than two weeks away from our trip to China. Yes, China. I am giving a talk at a conference in Beijing, which means my flight and the hotel are covered by work. So once we found a relatively reasonable flight for KLC and their Co-Parent said she could watch the kids, we’re off.

We’ll have a few days after the conference on our own and we just booked flights from Beijing to Guilin for a long weekend with frequent flyer miles. (Don’t even get me started on their hidden fees, etc. in these airline programs, but it was still cheaper than buying the tickets. I think.) I am super excited about Guilin, but this is just based on a handful of websites that I’ve looked at in the past few days. We’ll have to see if they just have a really good photographer who works for the chamber of commerce.

First up, however, about six days in Beijing. I think we’re going to have too much to see and too little time – especially since we’ll try to keep the walking to somewhat of a minimum because of the new ligament in KLC’s knee. We’re extremely excited for this trip. I’ve never been anywhere in Asia and KLC has always wanted to go to mainland China after spending a year teaching in Taiwan.

I’ll try to update everyone back home on our whereabouts on the blog so you may want to skip the entries beginning on October 8th if travel write-ups bore you.

Now we just have to take of seemingly a thousand or so details for our usual lives before we can head out a week from Saturday …

Out With The Old (Sooner or Later)

We try our very best to keep the house -- and our lives -- as decluttered as possible. This can be an uphill battle. For everything we get rid of, it seems like there is some toy or piece of clothing that is already there to take its place. And that goes for the kids' stuff as well as ours.

One area that we are pretty vigilant about are the shoes for the kids. The goal is that have one pair of whatever they need per season. For example, we try to have one pair of sandals, one pair of sneakers, and one pair of winter boots in the right size for each kid at any time. (KLC and I say one day we might hold ourselves to the same standard, but so far we give ourselves a lot a little more latitude for footwear.)

This works, more or less, until it comes time to actually get rid of last year's pair. This is a picture of the twins' shoes that they wore virtually every day last fall, winter and spring. They spent most of the summer in their sandals, but these were really their every day pair for a year. They just got their new pair so it's time that these get tossed, but they are super cute and they do remind us of their year of being three.

In other news, this will be a busy week for us because KLC is heading in for a little ACL reconstruction. It was a fluke injury -- especially for someone who works out as much as she does. I had surgery on my knee last summer (torn meniscus), and then Zeek, the cat, had essentially the feline equivalent to KLC's surgery last spring. After this, we're hoping everyone in the house can avoid joint issues for at least a year ... or ten.

Goodbye Mingo

While the East Coast deals with Hurricane Irene today, we are enjoying some rather spectacular weather here in Seattle. It's been a bit of a sad day, however, because this morning we lost our first chicken.

Mingo -- or, more properly, Flamingo -- was part of the second pair of chickens we got. (The two original chickens were part of the package deal that came with the coop when we bought it.)

She was always a little bit different than the other chickens, including having some odd feet that didn't have any claws. This made it harder for her to sit on a perch and sleep with the other chickens. She also went through a few weeks of brooding not too long ago.

For those of you like me who had never heard of this term before, brooding is when a hen stays in her nesting box. Sometimes it's because she wants to sit on an egg, but not necessarily. In the case of Mingo, she didn't have an egg, but just spent most of her time in the nesting box. Brooding is normal behavior for a chicken, but in hindsight, maybe there was something else going on.

Anyhow, KLC and I noticed that something wasn't right with Mingo on Friday night when she was sitting on the ground at dusk. (For the non-chicken people out there, they will instinctively go inside as it gets close to being dark.) Yesterday, she was acting very lethargic and barely reacted when we picked her up. We put her in the yard and let her wander as much as she wanted. Sadly, she barely moved, though she did stand up for a while.

This morning, we found Mingo in the coop. We explained to the kids that she died, which led to a bunch of questions about death in general -- not the most light-hearted way to start a Sunday morning. Of course, this is what happens when you have animals, and, as we explained to the kids, chickens often don't live that long.

So thanks, Mingo, for being a good chicken -- wherever you are.

Summer Update

It's been just over a month since I last wrote on this blog and I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do.

First, the twins are now 4 years old. They will readily tell you this -- both verbally and with a display of their fingers (sometimes with the correct number, sometimes not.) We had a backyard BBQ for them in mid-July, with lots of kids and adults. Let me just say, it was a lot of fun, but much more exhausting when you actually do the hosting of one of these things versus just showing up, which I've done for the first 37 years of my life.

The next major event was our vacation back to Massachusetts. We were back East for almost two full weeks. This meant the following: the kids' first airplane ride, meeting a slew of my family and friends, and living in humidity that just doesn't seem to exist in Seattle. They got to swim in the Atlantic Ocean, visit the Swan Boats and ducklings in the Boston Public Garden (twice), and generally get exhausted by a ton of new experiences.

It was great because KLC and the twins both got to meet many of the people that are so important to me in my life. (KLC had met some of them before, but others were just the subject of stories until last week.) It was by no means a complete census of all of the people I miss from back East, but it was a good start.

I think I'm a little extra thankful for this because almost to the day of our getting on the plane for Boston, I heard some horrible news. A friend of a friend of mine in DC, who I had dinner with several times and spent a few quality days in Maine with, had a completely random, tragic accident on her bike. The bottom line is that she is gone, through absolutely no fault of her own -- or really anyone else's as far as I know. It was just one of those unexpected, unpredictable events that takes someone out of this life before anyone who knows or met them wants to accept.

So, in honor of this extraordinary person, I want to say how grateful I am to everyone in my life wherever they might be. You never know how much time you or the people you love have, and I hope I can make a decent -- even if sporadic attempt -- to remind my friends, family, and friends who are family ("framily"?) how much they mean to me. And I am particularly glad that we had an opportunity to go back to Massachusetts this month so that some of those important people to me could at least start to get to know each other.

Doe Bay

This past weekend, KLC and I were sans children and were finally able to use our thrice-changed reservations since October at a place called Doe Bay. (The relatively uninteresting reason why we had to change the reservation three times involved moving and some other domestic duties.)

Doe Bay is an area and the name of resort on Orcas Island in the San Juans. For those of you are unfamiliar with the San Juans, they are a chain islands just about 1.5 hours north of Seattle. To get there, you need to drive to the town of Anacortes and then take the ferry. (BTW, the whole Washington State Ferry system is very extensive. It's not like the couple of ferries to Nantucket and the Vineyard. There are ferries leaving from multiple land locations and going to a slew of different islands and other parts of the region -- including Canada.)

The bottom line is that we had a great time and Orcas Island is beautiful. Doe Bay itself is a resort that's been around for decades. It definitely retains some of its original semi-hippie vibe, with some modern updates. For example, the hot springs are apparently a little more formalized with a new sauna to boot.

One nice thing about Doe Bay is that they have a range of options for where to stay. You can rent a house or a cabin on the higher end, or just stay at one of the many campsites. They even have a group kitchen if you want to save money on meals. I do have to say, however, that the Doe Bay Cafe is one of the best reasons to go. We had two dinners and two breakfasts there and it really is fantastic.

As far as where we stayed, we went the middle of the road and slept in a yurt. There is a bed and chairs, but no electricity. Or heat. You would think this wouldn't be a problem in July, but I will say that it gets a little chilly at night in the San Juans. We also had some sort of critter(s) scurrying around the outside of the yurt, but other than that, we slept great. Plus the view was fantastic. (My iPhone died so I never took any pics, but KLC did and I'll link to hers once they're up.)

So that's my plug for Doe Bay. They apparently eschew traditional advertising (again, the original mentality shining through) and rely on word of mouth from people who stay there. If anyone makes it over to this neck of the woods, I definitely think it's worth a stay.

An Unhealthy Habit

Many of you may not know this, but there is a deep dark secret that KLC and I carry. It's shameful and embarrassing, but it's time to come clean: every Monday night we watch every single second of The Bachelorette (or The Bachelor, depending on which season it is.)

I'd love to say this is KLC's bad habit and I just tag along, but that's no longer the case. While it's true she was hooked before I moved to Seattle, I have gotten on this terrible, terrible show's bandwagon wholeheartedly. Of course, this is one of the most ridiculous shows ever made, and there is no earthly reason why we should sacrifice two hours every week to this nonsense. Except we do.

I think I may have hit rock bottom last night because this season is even extra insulting. While the women on these shows are never portrayed in the greatest light, everyone (man, woman, host) is treated as superficial pieces of fluff so it's at least somewhat egalitarian in that regard. (BTW, if you want proof that this is the best worst show on television, I suggest you read one of the recaps. It's all abundantly clear after that.)

This season, however, the Bachelorette (Ashley is her name, for those not in the know) is so insecure and virtually apologetic for asking these guys to like her, that it's painful. KLC and I have contemplated making up a drinking game every time she says "Bentley" (again, a reference that only a Bachelorette watcher could appreciate), but we abstain since it's Monday and we're no longer 22 years old.

OK, the first step is admitting you have a problem, and now I've done that. I'm not saying I can give up this addiction easily, but I hope I will be able to one day. Or at least by the time another excuse to celebrate Monday evening on the couch comes along.

Spring Bounty

Word has it that spring is almost over and that summer is around the corner. We've heard these rumors here in Seattle, but have seen very little evidence that this is truly the case. Actually, I have seen kids being out of school and the temperature has cracked 70 degrees here -- for at least 15 minutes.

Now that I am involved with growing things in a garden, this new season means excitement in the form of vegetables. These pics show some of the bounty we're starting to reap. First off, the spinach has been great. We pick one of the rows every day or so, and then it's ready for more a couple of days later. Next up, the swiss chard should be ready to go, maybe even for a few meals starting this weekend.

With the delay in warm weather, our tomatoes are not really happening yet but we'll be patient. (I'm told this is atypical and that it should be a little warmer here by now. Really.) The peas -- solidly supported by KLC's trellis -- are visibly growing daily it seems. I'm not quite sure when we get to actually eat them, but I'm looking forward to it.

Meanwhile, the chickens continue to be a source of entertainment for the children (not to mention eggs, which are rather awesome.) Speaking of the twins, they had an end-of-the-year performance at their dance studio. I took a bunch of little videos on my Flip camera, but the blogger website doesn't seem to want to cooperate in letting me post them. Luckily, KLC has a bunch of pictures of the gala event on her blog so take a peek if you're interested.

Misc. Updates

I realize there a few outstanding issues worth updating. First, the clock (nicknamed "Bug" for some reason by the children.) Bug has totally been worth the cost. There was one morning -- I think it was only the 2nd day we had it -- that the twins decided to ignore Bug and got up when they felt like it. We had a quick, but serious and semi-sleep deprived talk with them about how this was not OK.

Somehow -- without inventing anything or being even mildly threatening -- this was enough to work. Because other than that, they have obeyed Bug's color commands like a dream. They are so excited to bust into our room to tell us that Bug has turned green, it's even cute. It will be even cuter as we secretly advance the time Bug turns green to slightly later and later times. (On the parental scale of deception, we figure this is fairly low.)

So the twins' sleep situation has been at least temporarily resolved. This brings us to the other dependents in the family: the chickens. While I was away for a few days for a work trip, KLC decided to pull the trigger on getting two more chickens. Yes, we are now up to four. (For those keeping track, the old ones are Buffy and E.B. The new ones -- once again named by the children -- are Fluffy and Mingo, which is short for Flamingo. Again, this is our fault for letting the children pick the names for anything beyond their stuffed animals.)

All is now well on the chicken front, but the doubling of the population did bring some new issues. For one, we needed to expand the footprint of the accessible outdoor area for the chickens. This involved rotating the coop by about 45 degrees and going to my worst nightmare favorite store, Home Depot, for even more "poultry mesh," aka, chicken wire. All of the "ladies" seem to be getting along now, so I think we once again have a happy hen home.

Finally, there's Zeek. The cat has seemingly made a full recovery from his uber-expensive surgery. From here on out, however, Zeek will be an exclusively indoor cat. While this doesn't always sit well with him, it's the only way we can ensure he doesn't do something similarly painful (for him and us) again. This does keep him safe and sound, but he does protest -- wait for it -- sometimes at 4am. So between the twins, chickens and cat, we plan on getting a solid night's sleep some time later in the decade. Or maybe the next one.

Our Great Hope

It's a little strange to put so much of your future in the hands (no pun intended) of a piece of plastic made probably in China, but this is what we've come to. Here it is, the sole hope for our sanity. Meet Teach me Time, the talking alarm clock.




Before you realize think that I've completely lost my mind, let me tell you how one of the twins apparently does not need as much sleep as the other. And, this translates into this twin -- who has long since figured out how to dismantle any doorknob obstacle -- coming down to our room at varying unacceptable hours.

Now, I'm a morning person. I was a rowing team in college that meant I got up before dawn for years (for some inexplicable reason.) But there's something completely different about being woken up by a little person who really wants to talk/play at this dark hour, versus waking on my own or even choosing to get up to exercise. I can't explain it, but I'm sure some parent out there has documented this.

Anyhow, we've tried eliminating naps, which has gone fairly well. Both kids are tired in the evening when they should be, but it's the morning that seems to make no sense. Because it seems the later we have them go to sleep, the earlier (at least one of them) seems to get up.

This brings us to putting all of our hopes and dreams for complete sleep cycles into this little guy. It is supposed to change color to let the kids it is "wake up" time and, therefore, ok to leave the room. (If you've ever tried to tell an almost 4-year-old kid that it's not appropriate to get up at a certain hour, you'll know how successful this is.) If this device keeps the twins in bed until a reasonable hour, I'll buy stock in the company. I promise.

$80 and a 6-pack of Beer

That's what it took for us to procure a chicken coop (delivered -- details to be discussed later), a bunch of accessories, feed, and, of course, two chickens.

Before I go further, let me back up for a minute. For quite some time, KLC has been semi-obsessively somewhat intensely talking about getting chickens for our yard. She went a took a class on a recent Saturday, has read books and blogs, stalked neighbors who have them (no, not really), and basically done as much research on the topic as one could reasonably do.

The general plan was to finish our yard this year and consider getting them next year. It's not exactly that I didn't share her unbridled enthusiasm for the chicken plan (ok, maybe not to the same exact level). It's just that I have the tendency to get overwhelmed when there is more than one thing to do around the house. Since we are still trying to finish up planting in the front and back yards, I was taking the wait-a-while approach.

All of that changed when we went for a walk in our neighborhood on Saturday evening sans children. We passed a yard sale less than two blocks from our house with lots of stuff for sale, including their chicken coop, etc for the above mentioned price. Now, I'm not sure if this is happening in other parts of the country, but having chickens in Seattle is a common occurrence if not a borderline epidemic. I'm not quite sure why this is, but the city recently passed an ordinance that allows up to 8 chickens on properties within the city.

Back to our story. The people selling the coop were a couple of hippie/hipster 20-somethings who were moving to Alaska in a week or so (you know, the type that can make you feel very old and boring for having a mortgage and a minivan.) Anyhow, they were very nice and offered to deliver the coop if we wanted it.

We went back and forth on this for a little while. Certainly, the price was right (it can cost many times more for a new coop, or even a used one on craigslist, not to mention the chickens and accessories.) The main problem was our new fence. The we-are-total-yuppies fence that we cringed at hurting because the coop would not fit in the gate. Yes, the coop had to go over the 6-foot fence.

Here's where the beer comes in. Never underestimate what friends of 20-something hippie/hipsters will do for a beer. That's right, this guy and his friends essentially hoisted this rather heavy small building over our fence, with a little help from us, and placed it into the backyard. And we did, after that, give them a beer.

So we are now the proud keepers of Buffy and E.B., two chickens that have each produced one egg every morning. This is exciting for many reasons, not the least of which is that we eat a lot of eggs. (KLC and I are both pseudo-vegetarians who eat fish and dairy and definitely eggs.)

The girls, as we call them, don't make too much noise (the city of Seattle was smart enough to ban roosters) and eat a lot of our food scraps. Not to mention that they are pretty cute and kind of funny. I'm sure my Nebraska ancestors who actually farmed for a living are somewhere laughing at the idea of my learning how to corner a chicken to get them back into the coop while living in the middle of a city, but that's where we are.

That's it on the animal additions. But maybe we shouldn't go for any more walks for a while, just to be sure.

Vacation 2.0

The last time I posted, I reveled in our upcoming mini breaks for the week. I should have knocked on wood. That's because on Friday, two days before we were supposed to leave for Suncadia, our cat Zeek came in from a brief jaunt outside limping badly.

A note on Zeek for those who have not met him. KLC found him as a kitten curled up on her scooter while she was living in Taiwan about 10 years ago. She fell in love with him, nursed him back to health, and flew him back to the US after her year there. He even has a passport. Zeek, in short, is a survivor -- and basically like one of the kids.

We took him to the vet that Friday afternoon and they told us he managed to completely tear what is the equivalent of ACLs in humans. He would need (ridiculously expensive) surgery ASAP -- meaning Monday. So, this meant our trip to Suncadia was out.

Zeek had successful surgery on Monday and returned home on Tuesday after a tormented night at the vet's. (Every time we talked to the vet's office while he was there after the surgery, the staff would describe him as being fine but "crabby" or "grouchy." Clearly, he was not happy about the accommodations.) Once home, he quickly tore off his bandage that held his morphine patch that should have stayed on for 5 days, whined about being in his crate (did I mention we're not supposed to let him jump for 8 weeks?), and otherwise did everything he wasn't supposed to do post-op. And, Zeek, being Zeek, is totally fine.

The good news is that we were able to find someone to take Zeek in so that we were still able to get to the Oregon Coast. We drove down to Portland on Wednesday, picked up KLC's mom, and headed to the beach house on Thursday. KLC has some great pictures of that salvaged trip on her blog, so I won't duplicate the effort of describing the trip too much here. I will say, however, that it was a great break and I only wish we were there for a full week.

And Suncadia? They let us rebook so we'll be heading there for that night a bit later this month. Vacation 2.0 turned out to be just as good as the original we planned -- just slightly modified with a little bit of stress thrown in.

Spring Break?

Clearly, it's been a long time since I've been in school, so the whole concept of 'spring break' is a little foreign. However, I'm beginning to see the value in it -- even for (or especially for) those of us who haven't been in a classroom for decades.

It's been a bit of a whirlwind since last summer when I sold my place in Boston, moved to Seattle, bought a house, got acclimated to 3-year-old twins (and, more importantly, vice versa), adjusted to working remotely, and a million other things. Factor in the rain we've been having seemingly non-stop for the past month or so, and it comes down to this: I want a spring break.

While we're not planning anything crazy, we do have a few things in the next week or so that I think will serve that purpose. First off, KLC and I will be going this resort/spa type place for one night (without kids) on Sunday. Neither of us has ever been, but it's one of those you-can-be-pampered-as-much-as-you-want places called Suncadia, which is about a hour an half east of Seattle. Can. Not. Wait.

After that, we will be going to the Oregon coast for a long weekend with KLC's mom. For those East Coasters who have never been to Oregon, it is very spectacular and unlike the coastline in New England that I've seen. I've only been once several years ago, but I thought it was great. We got a great off-season/last-minute deal on a house in Lincoln City and you don't need to say the words "firepit" and "beach access" to me more than once. I promise some pics, if I decide to exert enough energy during either of these excursions to press the button my camera.

Bikes!

One of my first introductions to pedaling came from the very sophisticated machine known as The Big Wheel. I have very specific memories of blazing around Peter Circle on it (ok, I might not have been going quite as fast as I thought.) From there, it was onto Schwinns and 10-speeds and the rest. I have used a bike regularly as an adult for commuting and traveling, as has KLC, so we both were really excited to get the twins out there.

In anticipation, KLC and I bought the kids their first bike helmets a while back. The problem until this weekend was a lack of, well, bikes. No longer. This past weekend, we were able to find two nearly matching -- one slightly used, one new but on sale -- 16" bikes with training wheels. One is even a Schwinn, bless its heart.

These pics show the first day out. It took a little while for them to get used to the idea of not pedaling backwards -- hence stopping -- but soon they were both getting the hang of it. (As an aside, I know that push bikes are all the rage these days for getting kids on bikes very early. I'm sure they're great, especially for learning balance. However, I stick by my Big Wheel experience as a way to get the whole pedaling thing down.) We're looking forward to this rain stopping so we can get out there for the next round.

Future Farmers of America?

As you can tell from these pics, the twins like the yard so far. We're going to put them to hard work, er, I mean, get them to help once we get things growing in the ground. These garden boxes were already here from the previous owners and we plan on taking advantage and planting lots of vegetables in here.

To continue the edible garden theme, KLC and I just planted some raspberries and blueberries (they look like sticks at this point -- who knew?) in one of the newly constructed beds on the west side of the house. We're not expecting much of a yield, if anything, from these this year, but we think the kids will have fun picking the berries in the years to come. Also just in the ground: two dwarf pear trees. For someone who has been living in condo buildings with no yard of my own, this is a whole new adventure.

Finished Product

OK, the yard probably won't ever be "finished," but this phase of it is. We are very happy with how it turned out. Now all we need are a few plants back here ...

Progress

These guys work fast -- you can see progress on our patio in just the past couple of days. (These pictures are taken from our kitchen and playroom windows so I won't be stumbling in and around them while they are actually trying to do work. They are a little awkward but you can get an idea of what things are starting to look like.)

Plan B: No Shed

So a bit of a course correction: we are having them take the shed. KLC and I had gone back and forth on this topic, and had decided just to keep the shed for some storage. The idea was it would be there for a year or so until we could figure something better.

Well, after seeing the start of the demo, we realized that the improved yard would look weird with this ancient, somewhat decrepit shed in the middle. Plus, it would have been a pain for them to make a clean edge around it on the concrete pad. (For the record, my mom, without having seen the situation except through a few photos, was advocating the shed's removal for quite some time.)

Anyhow, the shed is gone. We're off to Portland in a couple of hours and we'll back on Sunday. Hopefully, we won't encounter any surprises when we get back ...

More 'Before' Pics

A few more shots of the yard for history's sake.

The 'Before' Pictures

As promised, here are some photos of the yard/carport as they currently look. Notice that the carport is painted a lovely red while the house is blue. This is not the reason why we're tearing it down, but it's a hint of the amount of attention given to it and the yard in recent years. (By the way, we will be keeping the shed that's attached to the carport. One of the projects we'll personally undertake later this spring or summer is painting it a reasonable color to actually match the house.)

So, first up, demolition is scheduled to start on Thursday. They say it should take them a day or so to rip off that roof, jackhammer the concrete, and haul everything away. I hope they have a big truck. They are going to need it.

Next Up: Home (Yard?) Improvement Project

When we bought our house, we did so for a variety of reasons. One of the main ones was that it needed virtually no work. The same can't exactly be said for the yard. This will all make more sense when I post some pictures (hopefully in the next couple of days.) Without the visuals, however, imagine a hodgepodge of efforts, probably spanning several decades, and at least two owners.

The moral of the story is that we and the kids will be living through various seasons of mud and dirt -- not to mention an unused carport -- if we don't do anything. Hence, the impetus for what will be known as The Project. It involves demo (of said carport and current semi-crumbling brick patio), leveling of the yard, the installation of new stone patio, laying of new sod, and hopefully, eventually, living plants.

We signed the contract on Saturday with our chosen company, so it's full speed ahead. The crew is supposed to show up on Thursday to get things going. For me, these things are always fraught with a mixture of anxiety and excitement. Start writing large checks to relative strangers? Sure. Hope everyone shows up on time and does what they are supposed? No problem. Well, maybe ... *

(* As a footnote to this bout of neuroses, I should point out that we did research this company, which does give a warranty for their work for 2 years, and they sound great. Therefore, this bit of panic is simply related to a condition that arises within me whenever committing to something that costs more than a quarter of a paycheck.)

Better to be Lucky

Like about 93% of the citizens of the United States, I had a run-in with a little storm this past week. The monster that hit the Midwest and East Coast managed to impact, but not completely ruin, a quick trip I had planned back to Boston earlier this week.

For the record, KLC predicted that I could/would get stuck since New England had already experienced so many storms this winter already. I was casual and said that surely there couldn't be many more, and I was positive that I would have no problems on this quick trip back. Um, yeah.

The plan was to fly in late Sunday night and leave Tuesday night. The first part worked fine. I got to see my parents and then went into the office on Monday for the meetings that brought me back East. Then people in the office started mentioning the changing weather reports for Tuesday, and by the early afternoon it was clear that I stood a very strong chance to proving KLC right.

This is where being a government employee comes in handy. We are able to change flights without penalty, so I got myself on the first flight out (6:25am) to Dallas and then back to Seattle. Surely, I figured, Dallas was southern enough to miss this storm. (If you see a recurring pattern of me being wrong here, you are picking up on something.)

Getting to the airport at 5:30 am, I saw my flight was listed as "on time." By the time I had gone through security, however, and was waiting for my bagel and coffee, things had changed. In that 15 minutes, my flight and nearly every other one to Dallas and a lot of other cities were now cancelled. Imagining myself in the masses trying to wait in line at American airlines, I decided to seek out any human being in the concourse where I was suppose to fly from.

The only counter with anyone at it? The 6am flight to Seattle ... through Chicago. I knew this flight existed but didn't pick it the day. I had thought Chicago wouldn't be a good place for a connection because a blizzard was supposedly headed that way. Knowing I was on a perfect streak for wrong until this point, I decided to go with my anti-instinct and get on the plane. (There is a Seinfeld episode about this with George, but I digress.) After all, Chicago is halfway to Seattle, right?

Well, it turns out that not listening to myself works wonderfully. The flight to Chicago landed without a problem (and it was virtually empty so I had a whole row to myself). The connection to Seattle took off less than an hour later. It was early enough in the day that it was barely snowing. In short, I got back to Seattle by 11:30 am Pacific -- hours or probably days if I had not changed my flight plans. I might have been more lucky than smart on this little adventure, but I'll take it. And, I think I will wait until spring or, better yet, summer before I risk another trip back to New England.

The Faux Nap

The kids are tired. They even lie down in their bed. Then, thinking we can't hear them (even though we are in the next room and hear everything), they start to whisper. That turns into full-on conversations. Now, it's simply bouncing around.

The thing is they actually slept for an hour yesterday. At 3 1/2, are they done with naps or what?

Astronomy Descends on Seattle

Every year, the first full week after New Year's is consumed for me with an annual astronomy meeting. It's the biggest one in the US and means I get to spend lots of time in a convention center/hotel. This year, coincidentally, the meeting was in Seattle (it rotates through several cities and won't be back here for a while.)

I don't think this meeting was ever in Boston in all of the years while I lived there, so it was a new experience to try to go to the meeting and all of its secondary activities (believe it or not, but astronomers and the press who report on them love to be social) while also being at home. Throw in some sickness in our house and a little snowstorm on Tuesday night and it's been a bit of a messy week.

The 2,000+ astronomers are leaving, however, as we speak. So the astro-geek factor will go down in Seattle by just a little bit very shortly. And I can get back to the day-to-day business of dealing with scientists over the phone and email. Until the next meeting ...