Monster Tracks

For Christmas this year, our friend Jaime gave Anders, Bridger, and Lauren each a pair of "monster" snowshoes. They are a kids snowshoe in the shape of a giant monster foot. We've had plenty of snow this winter, and Corinne and I have been able to take a few snowshoe walks around our property. But now that Anders has his own, we can take the whole family out. (At least in theory...)

Jaime and Lauren came out one snowy afternoon, and all five of us ventured outside for our first big snowshoe walk.

There was quite a bit of falling down from both kids. A lot. Much of it was on purpose, of course, because falling into the snow is pretty fun.

It took a while for them to learn how to get up on their own, but once I convinced them that if they fell down on purpose that I wasn't going to help them up, they were pretty motivated. Before too long, they could fall down and get up themselves as much as they liked. I think Lauren fell into the snow so that she wouldn't have to go as far for a snack. She ate a lot of snow. (Good thing it all appeared to be white snow.)

The snow was fairly deep, so the kids would follow in the trail of at least one adult ahead of them. Anders' endurance for snow shoeing has far surpassed his endurance for all other snow activities so far, but that really isn't saying very much. We need to get him outside in the winter more so that he gets used to it.

Before we had made it a quarter of the way around our property, the two kids were ready to head back inside. So I lead them back toward the house while Corinne and Jaime continued on their walk. I walked them back through the woods and tree wells, partly because I thought that it would keep them interested, but at least partly because I thought that it might be funny. As it turns out, I was right.

Watch this video on YouTube or
in the original blog post.

My help came in the form of 'words of encouragement.'

The monster snow shoes were a big hit this winter. We hope that this enables us to get the whole family outside into the snow more often!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Best Recipes of 2012

Here it is: our annual Favorite Recipes edition for 2012. We didn't do a great good job of keeping track of new recipes in 2012, but we're going to bend the rules a little bit to make it more interesting.

Quick-Fried Zucchini with Toasted Garlic and Lime
Source: Rick Bayless
This is a delicious vegetarian taco filling that was passed to us by our friends Simon and Lindsey. Great use of summer squash!

Sweet Potato-Peanut Bisque
Source: Eating Well
I really like the peanut and squash flavor combinations from West-Africa. This soup is easy and freezes well.

In lieu of new recipes that we discovered this year, here are some of our longtime favorites that we returned to this year.

White Chicken Chili
Source: Adapted from Trim Kids
This is a quick, weeknight-friendly and hearty soup/stew that our friends Malinda & Jean turned us on to. It's made mostly from pantry or freezer staples. If you don't have leftover chicken, poaching is quick and easy. (Or you can pick up a rotisserie chicken, if you are so inclined. I am not.)

Sauteed Green Beans with Smoked Paprika and Almonds
Source: Cook's Illustrated, November 2008
This is our favorite way to have green beans, hands down.

Spicy Sichuan Noodles (Dan Dan Mian)
Source: Cook's Illustrated, May 2001
Cook's Illustrated is not exactly known for their ethic foods, but this one is a real winner. We love udon noodles. While the recipe mentions the possibility of a substitution to a thick spaghetti, thankfully we have never been forced to make that substitution.

Stir-Fried Beef and Broccoli with Oyster Sauce
Source: Cook's Illustrated, September 2003
Oddly enough, here is another Cook's Illustrated non-American dish that has been in our regular rotation. It may not be authentic - we actually have no idea - but it is certainly reliable and delicious.

You can check out the recipes from other years through the recipes tag.

Happy Eating!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

"Christmas Eve"

First off, a confession: we celebrated Christmas Eve this year on December 25th.

We spent this holiday at home with minimal visitors. Both Corinne and I had late-breaking sinus infections, and Anders wasn't paying close attention to his Christmas chain. We had just started our antibiotic prescriptions a couple days earlier so we decided to celebrate Christmas one day later in the hopes that we would be further on our way to recovery. (I suspect this will be the last year that we will be able to pull that one off undetected.)

Our Christmas tree had been up and lit for about a month, but it was otherwise only lightly decorated. So one of the "Christmas Eve" tasks was to finish putting ornaments on the tree. Anders was an active participant in the decorating but often had to be reminded that ornaments could also be put in DIFFERENT places. Case in point: his placement of the candy canes on the tree.

These are all of the canes that went on the tree

I guess he will know where to go if he wants one

While decorating the tree, Anders would tell us where various animals lived in the tree. According to Anders, the tree was divided into quadrants; Bunny, Owl, Bobcat and Anders - who is actually a Bear named "Crunch" - had their houses in each section respectively, and crow's house was on the very top. As he put ornaments on the tree, he would tell us whose house he was decorating.

Anders also suggested that we should hang some of his matchbox cars on the tree as ornaments. Why not? We loved that he was thinking creatively and making suggestions.

A little string and a hook, and voila!

Perhaps one of the most remarkable events of the day was the puzzle. Anders has always been a big fan of puzzles, and he has done all kinds from the 12-piece wooden Melissa and Doug puzzles, to the old-time Playskool wooden frame, and as big as a 50-piece floor puzzle. But on this day he decided that he was going to do a "real" puzzle, of the 1,000 piece non-kid variety. Grandma Donna stayed with us for the duration of the holidays and is a puzzler herself, so she and Anders sat down at the table with the "real" puzzle.

Anders worked on this puzzle uninterrupted for over an hour. For real.

Overall it was a low key day, which suited us just fine. In the evening we made candy cane cookies and left a note for Santa under the tree. The note included the first mention of a number of new LEGO construction toys. I hope Santa can handle last minute requests!

We also left the obligatory carrots for the reindeer on the stoop outside the front door. Anders counted the total number of reindeer - nine - to ensure that we put out enough carrot pieces for each of them to have their own.

Anders was excited for Christmas, but he still had his full negotiating powers on display. At bedtime, Anders announced that Santa was getting ready to get in his sleigh, so he should go right to bed without brushing or flossing his teeth. Somehow reading stories at bedtime was still okay, though. He eventually relented when Corinne told him that "Santa only puts candy in the stockings of kids with sparkly teeth." Even after all that, he still had no problem getting in bed and falling asleep. He must have inherited Corinne's good sleeping genes.

Sometime later that night, Santa did arrive. Since we were celebrating a day later than just about everyone else, he probably didn't have much else to do that night.

Merry Christmas (Eve)!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Smoked Out

We've had gorgeous summer weather all September which has unfortunately been counter-acted by smoke.

On September 5, a wildfire started in White Salmon. Just three days later while the crews were getting the White Salmon fire under control, lightning sparked a fire on Mt. Adams (and 200+ other places in Washington). Dubbed the Cascade Creek fire, it has grown to 16,000 acres and is still burning.

The day before the Cascade Creek fire started, we spent a lovely Saturday at Takhlakh Lake on the northwest side of Mt Adams. Unbeknownst to us at the time, we watched the culprit lightning storm move across Adams that evening. Corinne decided to see if she could catch a photo of some of the lightning.

So beautiful and yet so destructive

The first few days of the Mt Adams fire was pretty interesting to us. We can see the columns of smoke from our house and yet were still far enough away - ~10 miles or so - to not be terribly concerned about the fire reaching us. Corinne was able to play with her new intervalometer to construct a time lapse from photos taken at two minute intervals. The night sky gets brighter at one point when we changed the exposure.

Watch this video on YouTube or
in the original blog post

When the fires are active, the glow is pretty easy to see at night. You can also see a shooting star in the upper right, and two satellites on the left-hand side. (The line of light on the very bottom is a car headlight.)

The smoke has been settling in the valley almost EVERY morning. The incident response crew that is coordinating the fire has installed a smoke sensor in Trout Lake, with the data published online. According to the fire officials, a concentration reading above 300 (ug/m3) is considered very unhealthy. For short periods on most mornings, the levels in Trout Lake spike to near 800.

Ordinarily, we would have our windows open and spend all of our spare time outdoors this time of year. But this fire has us cooped up avoiding the smoke. One day last weekend the air was relatively clear, so we took a chance that night and left the window above our bed open. Bad idea. We spent the following day with irritated eyes and sinuses.

And then last week, another fire started near Hood River. Fortunately, that one didn't last long.

We've never been so ready for rain.

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Quotes From Anders

Everyone knows that kids say the darndest things. (There have been several television shows to prove it.) Thankfully, Anders is no different. Here are a few gems from this fall.

While playing with his toy horses:

Like helicopters, horses can be tricky.

Well, I can't argue with that.

While riding on the see-saw at Guler Park in Trout Lake:

I want to shoot a watermelon off of this see-saw.

Oh yeah, now we're talking.

While in the kitchen eating a bowl of blueberries:

Woah - look at this huge blueberry.
[Eats it]
It was 70 degrees big.

Units make all the difference, don't they?

Conversation with a friend:

Ashland: What are hot dogs made of anyway?
Anders: Lots of long cylinders.

Keep 'em coming, Anders. This will make great material for your wedding someday.

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Mechanic In Training

Anders surprises us pretty frequently with what he constructs. As an example, Anders built these two tools with no help from us and proudly showed them off by name:

Oil Filter Wrench and Impact Wrench

These are not exactly your everyday tools. But I recently had to buy an oil filter wrench, so that is where he got the inspiration for that one. As for the impact wrench... he apparently learned about that one from one of the "shows" that he occasionally gets to watch. They almost always involve some sort of heavy machinery.

Over the next several days, Anders used the impact wrench to "fix" the tires on our cars. He even did a pretty good impression of the sound an impact wrench actually makes.

Anders already has more mechanical repair knowledge than I do, and he's not even four. Looks like somebody is going to be getting a small engine repair book for his birthday this year...

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Camping Dry Run

This summer, for the first time in a LONG time, we pulled out our camping gear. My brother and his family were coming to visit us in August, and our plan for their time here included several nights of camping in Oregon. Since Anders has never been camping, we thought that it might be a good idea to do a "dry run" at home before we ended up in a strange campsite far from home.

Thankfully, Anders was pretty excited to sleep in the tent. We weren't sure if he would be happy in the tent all night; he sleeps through the night maybe 75% of the time, but this would be something entirely different. That's why we're trying this at home first, right?

We set up our 2-person tent in the yard, laid out our sleeping bags and blankets, and Anders and I climbed in for the night.

Not a bad place to camp, huh?

Just big enough for two sleeping bags (barely).

Anders had a great time. He slept through the night with no problem, and he actually fell asleep fairly quickly. (He appears to have inherited Corinne's sleeping genes in that respect.)

I learned a few things on this trial run as well. I woke up with a few kinks in my back, so we will definitely be buying some sleeping pads before our next camping outing. For some odd reason, we actually have three different tents, with this one the smallest. To camp with the whole family, we will need to use one of the larger ones.

I think this is a rite of passage for any parent and child. And I can say that it was unequivocally a success.

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Summer Reading

On hot summer days, we all like to sit in the shade with a beverage and read. No matter how hot it is in the sun, the shade is always quite pleasant. (Try that on the East Coast!)

Anders chose his own reading material

On this particular day, Anders chose for his reading material the Audubon Society's Field Guide to Birds. A few weeks earlier, Anders threw their Field Guide to Insects and Spiders into a stack of kids books for Granddad to read him.

Interestingly, we learned about cormorants and then that night discovered that cormorants are mentioned in one of our children's books. A guess we had always glossed over that in the past but that night we had new understanding.

- Corinne, Mike and Anders

Anders, The Photographer

Earlier this year, Aunt Goie gave Anders his very own kid-friendly (aka drop friendly) digital camera. It took him a while to warm up to it, but now sometimes when I'm taking photos he'll grab his camera and join in.

On this particular day, we took pictures of each other taking photos.

The view from Anders's lens.

The view from Corinne's lens.

And then we swapped cameras. Yes, you read that right: we handed a DSLR to a 3 year old.

The view from Anders's fancy lens.

The view from Corinne's lens.

Most of the time Anders's photos look something like this:

"Still life in thumb, foot, and floor"

But every once in a while he'll capture a few winners.

Look out, Annie Leibovitz!

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders

Bubbles

Today we discovered that Mike is that master bubble blower. Capturing the bubbles on film provides one the opportunity to admire the reflections in the bubbles and their disintegration.

It was Anders's idea to bring out the bubbles. "When the bubbles are in the air, it looks like I'm swimming."

- Corinne, Mike and Anders

Happy Mother's Day!

This year we had the pleasure of celebrating Mother's Day with three of our mothers at the same time: Grandma Lee, Grandma Donna, and 'Mom' (aka Corinne). An early arrival of summer weather made for a nice day of sitting in the sun and BBQ-ing. We decided to add a representative of Mother Nature to our celebration and took a brief excursion to The Big Tree on Mt. Adams, the largest known Ponderosa Pine.

84 inches as of when?

While Corinne set up her 10mm wide-angle lens, Anders led a parade around the tree.

Here we are at the same tree back in July 2006. Can you tell if it looks any bigger? (We didn't bring our tape measure.)

Happy Mother's Day!

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders

The Big Four Oh

Mike celebrated a "big" birthday this year: 4-0. Our spring had been incredibly busy with early mornings, late nights, and some travel, so the birthday boy decided he just wanted a low key weekend at home. As a special treat, he asked for a new (to us) lemon dessert. Anders and I delivered with a lemon custard pie.

Listen to this audio on YouTube or
in the original blog post

In honor of the landmark birthday, Aunt Anita and Uncle Lewie sent a stack of Washington State lottery tickets - quite a feat considering that they live in New Jersey. Anders joined in on the scratch action.

Unfortunately, the tickets only yielded a $5 payout. We were hoping for more of a return from those tickets, which we could then put toward the big birthday gift: a new TV and home theater receiver. We hadn't yet upgraded to the flat panel scene, and the receiver was Mike's original that he bought in 1995(?) at the MIT Coop Bookstore. Are we really that old? Well, according to this birthday, we are.

Happy Birthday, Mike!

- Corinne and Anders

Jumping in Mud Puddles

Today was a beautiful day, and seemed even more so because it came right after several weeks of nonstop rain and snow. In the late afternoon, we decided to take a walk to enjoy the last bit of the day's sunshine.

Sometimes on these walks, Anders will walk between us and hold our hands. He then wants us to "jump" him, which is basically lifting him into the air by his hands as he jumps. We did this several times on this walk. But as we were "jumping" him over a big mud puddle, his right mitten - through which I was holding on to his right hand - slipped off. So instead of jumping over the puddle, he landed right in the middle.

Since he was already dirty at that point, he had fun jumping, running, and walking through the puddles for the next 15 minutes.

Thank goodness for bright lighting that enabled high enough shutter speeds to freeze the action! These remind me a bit of Doc Edgerton's famous stop motion photography. Of course, he was doing it 60 years ago and a lot more scientifically than we did.

At the end of it all, Anders just stopped and said simply: "Now we need to get me some dry pants." Indeed.

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Max's 2011 Critter Count

With each new year comes a report of Max's "critter count." He's had some impressive numbers in the past, with 2009 as his peak year. But alas, it would appear that his best hunting days are firmly behind him.

Max's total critter count for 2011 was 2 gophers. Just 2 gophers. That's it.

He is now officially an old cat. He spends the vast majority of his day sleeping. He still jumps up onto windowsills and counters, but it is no longer a graceful act. And he even developed a fur mat just above his tail where he has difficulty reaching.

But whatever Max has lost in hunting prowess, he has gained in tolerance and companionship for Anders.

Anders loves Max, and Max will pretty much let him do anything to him: hugs, pets the wrong way, you name it. For a cat who at one time used to hide from just about everybody, this is pretty unexpected. After Anders was born, Max started to get more social with everyone; I think he realized that he now had some stiff competition for attention. But in reality, I think that it's a "win win".

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders