3/52 - Visit from Grandma Lee

We've had a glorious month of perfect, snowy weather. But this week, it decided to rain. A lot. After several dry winters (and the resulting summer fires), we can't complain about the rain too much. But it is sad to see the snowpack beginning to disappear, while simultaneously being uninspired to play in the snow in the rain. We'd much rather have the snow.

While I was in NJ, about 7" of new snow arrived in Trout Lake. Unfortunately, since I wasn't around to clear it before the rains came, the driveway is now impassible. It will likely stay that way until it either dries out enough to not jam in the PTO snowblower, or it gets cold enough to freeze solid again. So when mom and I arrived in Trout Lake with our luggage, we had to trudge up the driveway through several inches of wet snow. Welcome to winter in the country, mom!

During her visit, the weather kept us inside most of the time. We played a few games, including Boggle. Anders has a great time and occasionally even finds a few words that we don't! When the precipitation finally broke, we managed to convince mom to go on a snowshoe walk with us through our property.

Way to go, mom! Thanks for the visit!

---

This week, Anders and two of his classmates were moved to the next higher grade for reading. They are all really enjoying the challenge of 2nd grade reading but we are having to coach Anders a bit on expected answers versus accurate answers.

Apparently, the 2nd graders don't reliably turn in their homework. On particularly bad days, those who completed the assignments and turned them in receive prizes. Anders enjoys that, too!

Anders's plastic snake and lizard collection, courtesy of 2nd grade

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

Happy Birthday, Anders!

It's hard to believe, but Anders is now one year old! When other parents have said that the time goes fast and we should enjoy it while we can, they were sure right. We invited over some friends to celebrate our little guy turning one.

At the party, Anders's "big brothers" Zak and Daniel spent most of their time with him. Since Anders couldn't walk by himself, Daniel would hold him up by his armpits while Anders "walked" around.

The kids all had a good time playing together, and the adults enjoyed the ability to socialize a bit while they played.

Then it was time to bring out the Rocket cake. Before singing Happy Birthday, we instructed everyone to not clap at the end of the song since Anders has on occasion started crying at sudden noises, and no one should be made to cry on their birthday!

Corinne decided to be "brave" and put the cake right down at Anders's level on a footstool. You'll have to watch to see what happens...

Watch this video on YouTube
or in the original blog post

I'm still amazed at the way he handled that. Now that the obligatory song had been sung, it was time to eat! Anders sure did like that cake.

There were some gifts to open as well. Wheels... lots of wheels.

Thanks for a fun birthday party! Time to eat more cake.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders One-Year-Old Rocket

Date: September 20th, 2009

Dalys at Timberline Lodge

In keeping with our unofficial every-three-months schedule, my parents flew out to visit us this August. The weather was still pretty hot when they arrived, but we hadn't planned to do anything in particular while they were here, so staying inside most of the time was just fine with us.

The one event that we did plan was a trip to Timberline Lodge on Mt Hood. In all the five years we've lived here, we have not once visited there. (Our mountain trips always stopped at Mt Hood Meadows.) Since the 11,000' mountain-top promised to be quite a bit cooler than the 90+ degrees at home, we figured it would be a good place to retreat.

Plus, some of the exterior shots for the movie The Shining were filmed at Timberline. Since my parents had already been to the location on which the inside was based, it seemed justified to finish the job.

Of course, it turned out that the heat wave broke just the day before our trip to Timberline. And when we got up the mountain, the fog got pretty heavy and the temperature was in the 40s! So we stayed inside and didn't get to take the lift. We did enjoy some pretty good food, though.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Date: August 12, 2009

Visit from the Lunds

In July we received the first visit from "The Lunds", aka Taryn & David. We didn't have anything in particular planned, and we didn't do anything in particular, either. Taryn spent time teaching Anders to make noise by beating on his bowls with his hands or one of his many cooking utensils (wooden spoons, spatulas, etc.)

The rest of the time we just enjoyed the summer weather.

Notice the styling T-shirt that I'm wearing. That was a Father's Day gift from Anders (logo design by Loren).

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Mike's Birthday

Mom, Aunt Patsy, and Mark & Carol all decided to make a trip down to the Gorge while Aunt Patsy was out west visiting. So for the weekend of Mike's birthday we had a full house.

The weekend consisted mainly of playing with Anders. Carol & Mark brought him a new cow toy for his activity gym. Aunt Patsy brought him a story and shirt from the Seattle aquarium. And Mom brought him a new set of swaddling blankets that she had made as he had outgrown his first set. (We are doing a modified swaddle these days - arms out.)

One of the projects for the weekend was making Taryn's veil for her upcoming wedding. Mom (super-seamstress) had offered to do that and now she had help from Aunt Patsy (uber-seamstress). Carol is about the same height as Taryn so she ended up being the model.

We did actually celebrate Mike's birthday as well. He received gifts of cheese, wine and kitchen gear - perfect! And Aunt Patsy made him a delicious banana cake with cream cheese frosting.

Happy Birthday Mike!

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders Rocket

Donna Visits

For some reason we've been getting quite a few more visits from family recently... ;) A few days after our return from Boston, Donna came down for the weekend for some "quality Anders-time."

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Christmas, Delayed

This year we planned Christmas to be smaller and more low-key than any previous years. Little did we know precisely what that would mean, and that Christmas would be delayed not once, but twice.

We put the tree up on Christmas Eve but decided to wait until Christmas Day to finish decorating. Meanwhile, the winter storms kept coming. Seattle and Portland were continually blanketed with snow and ice, crippling the cities. We certainly were getting our fair share as well. Earlier in the day on Christmas Eve I had gone out to plow the driveway only to discover that I had neglected to plug in the engine block heater on the tractor. Diesels don't like cold weather, and they show their displeasure by not starting. So I plugged it in and had planned to plow the following day. Yes, snow plowing on Christmas Day. But it gets worse.

At 2am Christmas morning we awoke not to the sound of a crying baby - thankfully that is becoming more rare - but rather the sounds of beeping. We instantly recognized them as the "warning" bells on the UPS units that protect our electronic equipment. Power outage! Corinne, always a few steps ahead of me in terms of disaster planning, pauses for a few moments and says something like: "I hate to even mention it, but do you think you should try to start the tractor?" Where we are, a power outage in December could last for a few hours or a few days. As cold as it was, the tractor would never start without the electricity to heat the engine. And without the tractor, we could be snowed in for quite some time. After a few moments trying to come up with an alternative plan, I get out of bed, put on my gear and trudge out to the tractor at 2:30am to try to plow.

The tractor still won't start. So I head back to bed, and we both start to stress a bit about what that could mean. Somehow we managed to fall back asleep.

Thankfully, the power returned at about 8am on Christmas morning. A quick call to Reidar confirmed what I had been thinking, which is that the battery probably needed a stronger charge in order to start in these temps. A few more hours on both the battery charger and the engine block heater fixed the tractor's woes, and the driveway was clear again. But we decided to postpone celebrating Christmas to the following day, hoping for a more auspicious start. Christmas would officially be celebrated on December 26th this year. After all, Rocket doesn't know the difference.

The two guests we were sure we would have for Christmas were Donna and Leif. But that wasn't working out so well either. Donna had planned to drive down to visit us on Christmas day, but she had been stuck on Mercer Island for several days. It wasn't looking very good for her to get out on Christmas either. Leif, on the other hand, had been stuck in Portland when I-84 closed for three days. He was still there.

December 26th arrived and we were still by ourselves. We had a few more brief (several minutes to an hour) power outages, but nothing lasting. So we took a walk. By this point the weather was starting to look up, and I-84 had re-opened. Donna was going to take the train to Portland, traveling with Taryn who was heading to Eugene to spend time with David's family. When Donna arrived in Portland she would be met by Leif, and then the two of them would head our way and be here by dinner. In theory.

Train travel being what it is in this country, Donna's train didn't arrive in Portland until nighttime, so she and Leif opted to stay there for the night. We decided to delay Christmas once again so that they could share in Anders's first Christmas.

Finally, late on the morning of December 27th, our guests arrived! Christmas was saved!

This year we convinced both of our families to forgo the massive gift-giving that usually occurs at Christmas. Instead we went with a "kids only" approach, so virtually all of the gifts under the tree were for Anders. After all, we had already gotten our big gift for this year:

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Visit From Grandma and Grandad Daly

Sometime last April, when Corinne was about 3 months along, my parents booked their first trip to meet the soon-to-arrive addition. Since they had to book a flight to get here, they decided to play it "safe" and schedule their trip to start about 3 weeks after Corinne's due date of October 14th. Of course, that's not exactly how it went. When they arrived in early November, Rocket was already a month and a half old!

We spent most days at home with lots of napping and snuggling. After all, the main purpose of the trip was for Grandma and Grandad Daly to get to know Anders and give Mom & Dad (that's us) a little time off.

By November the weather had turned pretty rainy so we didn't spend that much time outside. However there did happen to be an apple tree in our orchard that somehow still bore fruit - many weeks after all of the others had dropped theirs and been eaten by the deer and coyote. On one of the less rainy days, my parents used the orchard ladder to pick what was left, and dad (aka Grandad - I still can't figure out which one to call him!) made applesauce. We even sent some of the apples home to Drew, Michelle, Katya and Nadija. We're looking forward to the first time Anders gets to meet his cousins!

My parents also made a point of telling us that we should plan to go out a few times while they were here, and they would watch Anders. We took them up on that offer and went to town on two occasions for dinner with friends, including to a make-your-own-sushi party. We did make it out a few times as a group as well. Anders is still relatively easy to take out: he doesn't cry unless he's hungry or has gas (or gas+), and best of all he stays where you put him! We went to lunch in Hood River at the Full Sail Brewery.

Watch this video on YouTube
or in the original blog post

My parents also brought more than just themselves with them from NJ. Mom brought the rust-colored blanket and matching hat that she made for Anders and are featured in several of the photos. These were the replacements for the pink-themed ones that she made back in September... They also brought some Italian salamis and hams that my brother picked up at a local deli in NJ. We can't figure out why, but it's more difficult than it should be to get good cold cuts on the West Coast! Thanks, Drew!

Anders must get his love of eating from his parents; here he is eating his own arm, his mother's chin, and contemplating his next meal.

The weather cleared up towards the end of their visit, so we did get a chance to walk down to the river on one day and take some family photos before they left. Three generations of Dalys!

- Mike, Corinne, & Anders Rocket