Corinne gets a haircut

This is something she's been contemplating for some time, and since her hair has been long for such a long time. This December, she finally did it!


before...


...and after!

Too bad it was an inch too short to donate (10" minimum). Maybe next time.

- Mike (& Corinne)

West Coast New Years

(the holidays continued...)
Soon it was time to return west and spend a week visiting the other half in Seattle. Although the West Coast is known for its slower pace, at least compared to the East, things tend to move pretty fast in this family.


Mmm, our favorite. Food.


Cousins (no, not that kind.)


A night at the IMAX for "Polar Express 3D". This was just before we discovered that our car stereo had been stolen. (Merry Christmas!)

Our New Year's Eve plans involved relaxing in Lake Washington in Reidar's new boat. ("The deck is teak, you know.") Unfortunately those plans were aborted earlier that day by a sudden loss of rudder control... so instead of Lake Washington, we took to the Washington State Ferry system. Hey, we were still on a boat, right?

She looks perfectly relaxed, doesn't she?


Hey, where's Leif?

- Mike (& Corinne)

East Coast Christmas

Boy, it's hard to believe that we're more than a month into 2005 already. It seems that the holidays get busier every year! With the number of trips and visitors we've had these last couple months, it's no wonder this is our first post since early December! As our neighbor Jeff Lemley recently told us, "I think you guys are secretly running a B&B over there." For now, I'll try to catch us up to New Years.

Let's see... ah yes, Christmas. We're still doing the "split coast holidays" thing, so we spent the week of Christmas in NJ visiting my family.


We helped Drew & Michelle move into their new house. It's a small house - smaller than the apartment they moved from - but hey, they own a house! More than we can say...


Cooked (and ate) a 7-lb Northwest Salmon ordered by Drew from Pike St. Market. (Dad sometimes gets a little carried away...)


Saw an opera at Lincoln Center. The opera, Les Contes d'Hoffman, involved a guy who fell in love with a robot. Seriously.


Visited with some extended family and their enormous pets. Mindy's cat is one of the largest I've ever seen. (BTW: She is an amazing artist.)


And just generally had a good, relaxing time.

Stay tuned for "West Coast New Years"...

- Mike (& Corinne)

Ships passing in the night

Why do the holidays always get so crazy? Since Thanksgiving, we've had lots of long hours and two business trips between the two of us. And of course, the end of my trip overlapped just enough with the beginning of hers - 6 hours - that we missed each other at the airport. Ah well.

Corinne was in Orlando for an AIAA conference and committee meeting, while I was sent to Slidell, Louisiana for a flight exercise. Not as an operator, but just to ensure that the results of those late night coding sessions didn't do bad things to the aircraft. :)

Thought you might enjoy a few photos from my trip.


Inside the Winnebago that acted as our ground control station. Pretty sweet setup.


The outside of "the Winnie". We spent some long hours here. (Luckily, nobody slept here)


The plane, ~1 second before capture. (That's the Skyhook it's about to fly into)

- Mike (& Corinne)

Thanksgiving in the West

So here it is 3 weeks after Thanksgiving, and no updates? What gives?

No, we didn't die during our long weekend in our small house with guests. In fact, the house didn't seem so small at all; I think that says more about what we think of the other 6 people who stayed with us than it does about the house. :)


My favorite photo from the weekend. :)

Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. The food was all "yummy" (as Corinne would say), and the number of desserts rivaled the number of dishes in the meal, as it should be. Even our kitchen proved to be up to the task, despite its diminutive stature. And in true Northwest fashion, we consumed buckets of coffee throughout the weekend. Huzzah!


Three cooks in the kitchen? Don't worry - the "pot" turned out just fine.


AJ & UP, clearly excited for the meal.


On your mark, get set... Eat!

Carol and Mark brought their two Westies, Fannie and Chloe, with them on the trip. 6 extra people + 2 dogs = no Max. He spent virtually the entire weekend under our bed. He really is a fun, energetic cat. Really he is! By the end of the weekend, I think he was starting to get desperate for attention. He finally started to venture out, but it was too little, too late - if only he had come out earlier, he could have had 8 pairs of hands petting him! He hasn't quite figured that out yet.


Carol & Chloe

We packed quite a bit into a short time - Uncle Pete of course was very excited to get in some fishing, bringing us to his favorite local fishing hole: Drano Lake. No kidding. While we didn't catch anything in our attempts, we had a relaxing time on the beach watching the water (and avoiding stepping on the dead salmon washed up on the shore.) And I learned what a "backlash" was, to Uncle Pete's chagrin. Oops.










I don't think I've mentioned DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) in my posts yet, but it became a big part of the weekend. With a little coaxing, we managed to get everybody up and dancing, even the "adults". By the end of the weekend, everybody was hooked and feeling the groove. It's a pretty good workout, but I still don't think we quite burned off as many calories as we consumed. I guess that's what New Year's resolutions are for, right?




Quite a bit has happened since Thanksgiving, and Christmas is just 2 weeks away! But that's another post...

- Mike (& Corinne)