27/52 - Another Lost Tooth, Cascade Mountain School, Ravelry Fame, Visit from Jim & Julia

Just a week after one of Anders's front teeth fell out, he has lost the one right next to it! He wasn't eating at the time, so it was easier for him to hold on to it. In his note to the tooth fairy, he let her read the "tooth journal" that we've been keeping describing each of the circumstances surrounding his lost teeth.

Depending on how quickly the permanent teeth come in, the timing may work out for him to actually ask for his two front teeth for Christmas this year. We'll see what Santa can do about that.

---

Corinne has gotten back into fiber arts over the past few years. She recently finished a baby sweater for Rosemary, her cousin's new baby, and posted the photos on the social networking craft site, Ravelry.

Only a day or two after she posted the photos, my mom noticed that Corinne's project was FEATURED on the Ravelry front page! The sweater looks perfect, and the well composed and executed project photos certainly didn't hurt, either. Congrats, Corinne!

---

Cascade Mountain School is an outdoor science school based in the Gorge. They offer a dozen or so camps throughout the summer, and Anders was just old enough to participate in some of them this year. And the best part is that the camps were located in Trout Lake! No commute!

For Farm Camp, the kids spent time at a small-scale animal farm. Each day focused on a different aspect or set of animals on the farm.

By the end of camp, each child had created a box of "observation card" artwork based on what they saw and learned.

Next up: MacGuyver Camp. (Yes, that MacGuyver. But alas, Richard Dean Anderson couldn't make it.) A collaboration between Cascade Mountain School and Gorge MakerSpace, this camp featured all sorts of creative building and outdoor survival activities.

They learned about solar ovens, then built one and made banana bread in it.

They each made an outdoor survival kit containing such items as: waterproof matches (which they waterproofed themselves), fishing line and hooks, string, an LED light and battery flashlight, a paper and needle compass, and foil.

The kids erected small tarp shelters between trees, explored the local streams for animals, and just generally had a good time outdoors.

---

We received a visit from Corinne's Uncle and Aunt, Jim and Julia! They were passing through on their way back to Wyoming and spent a day with us.

Anders enjoyed showing Jim his LEGO train set, but I think Jim may actually have enjoyed it more.

Great to see you! Stop by any time.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

26/52 - Lost Tooth, July 4th

Anders lost his third tooth this week, and it was a big one: right maxillary central incisor, aka top front tooth. This one was a long time coming. He first mentioned to us that it was loose about four months ago, back at the beginning of March. He was eating dinner on Tuesday when he noticed something funny in his mouth; by the time he had connected the dots, he had already swallowed it. He was pretty disappointed, but not disappointed enough to take us up on our offer to look for it when it... came out.

Once we explained that the tooth fairy doesn't actually need the physical tooth in order to make her appearance, he calmed down and wrote her a note.

Dear Tooth Fairy: I have swallowed my tooth eating noodles.

She didn't disappoint.

There's something about a kid missing front teeth that is timeless. I think he could convince anyone to do just about anything with this face.

And if the first face doesn't work, here's his "fierce" look.

Anders hasn't been too curious about the tooth fairy; in fact, he hasn't really even noticed the sparkles that she leaves on his face when she visits. But this time, Anders decided that "We should go to the non-fiction section of the library and check out a book about the tooth fairy." Good idea. I wonder if they have one?

---

Anders has always enjoyed books. But now that he can read many of them on his own, he has taken it to a new level. He is participating in the library's summer reading program, keeping a log of all his time reading. On one night in particular, we had a hard time convincing him to come to the dinner table.

But Mom, I don't want to waste time eating dinner. I want to finish reading my book!

His kindergarten teacher would be so proud.

Aboard the library bookmobile.

---

Summer has arrived early this year, and unfortunately so has the fire season. Mount Adams has its first wildfire of the season: the Horseshoe Fire. It was probably started by a thunderstorm in late June, but that hasn't been confirmed. It is still relatively small at only about 250 acres. But the 100° heat and remote location of the fire means that it may be a while before they can declare it contained.

Here's a time-lapse video of the smoke blowing over our house on the first day. Thankfully, high over our house.

Watch this video on YouTube or
in the original post

Whenever we hear a helicopter, we run outside to watch them fly over with their water buckets suspended beneath.

---

Another quote from Anders, while eating outside at the Hood River Tacqueria this past week:

This is the most peaceful restaurant I've ever been in. No loud talking. No music. No TV.

Yep, he's our kid.

---

Anders learned the word 'prosthetic' from a certain They Might Be Giants song, but of course he had many questions.

Anders: Is there such thing as a prosthetic forehead?
Corinne: I don't think so.
A: Is there such thing as a prosthetic toe?
C: Probably not.
A: How about a nose?
C: Maybe?
A: How about a prosthetic penis?
C: Yes.
A: What?!? Seriously?? There is really such thing as a prosthetic penis?
C: Yes.
A: Do you know anyone with a prosthetic penis?
C: No.
A: That's crazy.

We'd love to be there when he tries to explain this to one of his friends. I hope we don't get in trouble from other parents!

---

Happy 4th of July! We spent the day enjoying two local parades, catching up with neighbors at a block party (for large values of 'block'), then capped it off with a fireworks display over the Columbia River.

Anders and BoBunny

Happy Birthday, America!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

18/52 - Official End of Winter

Now that we've had two straight weeks without lighting the wood stove, we can declare officially that we have survived our Winter Without A Furnace!

It was a very mild winter in Trout Lake, both in snowfall and temperature. In fact, we didn't have to clear snow from the driveway even once this year, a first in the ten winters we've lived here. While we missed the snow, we did appreciate the moderate temperatures.

The wood stove held its own keeping the house warm on most days, with only occasional electric heater use. The default house temperature with the wood stove seemed to be 2-4 degrees cooler than our furnace setpoint (68°F), but we decided that it was easier and more economical to wear our down vests in the house than to fight the natural order. In total, we burned about 2.5 cords of maple, doug fir and oak.

We fell into a pretty regular routine. Starting the fire each morning was job #1. The indoor wood storage area near the stove holds about 3 wheelbarrows full, which will last about 6 days (give or take). Having to haul wood in only about once a week definitely made me happy. Occasionally we would have to read an old (but previously unread) issue of the White Salmon Enterprise so that we could use it as a firestarter. Once the fire was going, it was a relatively simple matter to check the fire hourly and adjust as needed. Having a fan next to the stove also made a huge difference in how well we were able to distribute the heat throughout the house. We woke up through the night to feed the fire exactly ZERO times this winter; we just like our sleep too much, and it was easy enough to start a new one in the morning. I think the coldest morning we had was around 54°F, but that was a bit of an anomaly. The average morning temperature was in the upper 50s.

The weeks we spent away from home this winter were the most trying. We used our "smart" thermostat as a remotely-monitored thermometer, while two electric space heaters successfully kept the indoor temperature out of the freezing zone until we returned.

We did wear out one of the metal grates on the bottom of wood stove, and I'm sure our chimney will need a good cleaning before next year. But overall, it wasn't as difficult or as tiring as we feared. So while we don't plan to repeat this winter anytime soon, it's good to know that it's possible.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

10/52 - Toronto Potatoes, Chimney Caps, Christmas Tree?

We asked Anders to make a list of the items he needed from the grocery store for a particular school project. Little did we know that we were going to get something more like a work of art.

---

It's really fun to hear Anders play with new words and try to use them in sentences. Of course, his first few attempts may not be quite right.

Example #1:

Yum. This pork is really brittle.

We think he meant tender.

Example #2:

These Toronto Potatoes are too spicy.

That may be the first time in recorded history that phrase has been spoken. (They were actually chorizo potatoes, but who's keeping track?)

---

Sometime earlier this year, the metal cap on our chimney blew off on a particularly windy night. It appeared to be a homemade cap, so it was a little difficult to tell what size we would need in a replacement. We needed to see what the top of the flue looked like. Neither of us really wanted to climb up our old 25' wooden ladder to look ourselves. But we're engineers, so we engineered a solution.

A camera with programmable timer, a 30' pole, and some duct tape...

...and voila!

We ordered the cap in the correct size and hired someone to install it for us. Because as we said, we're too chicken to climb our 25' wooden ladder. Done.

---

We've discovered that we like to keep our Christmas tree up for quite a bit longer than the average family. Last year our tree came down around Valentine's Day, but this year we beat that by about 2 weeks! When March rolled around and we were preparing to travel to Arizona, we decided the time had finally come.

Goodbye, tree! You served us well.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

9/52 - Seeq Week in AZ

This past week was one of Seeq's week-long meetups, when we all travel from our individual work locations across North America to spend a week together. We converged on Fountain Hills, Arizona for team discussions, demos to investors and potential customers, and social activities and events.

One particular discussion topic focused on what we wanted our company and team cultures to be, and what specific things we could do to achieve them. The company has roughly doubled in size over the last 9 months and expects to continue growing, so there's no time like the present.

Software team discussion on providing feedback, with the namesake fountain in the background

We also took the opportunity to celebrate a recent milestone: our first publicly available software release, code name Orion!

Ordinarily spending a March week in Arizona would be a nice change of pace from winter in the Northwest, but this year it was actually warmer in Portland when we left than in Phoenix when we landed. It was definitely more of a respite for our East Coast coworkers, giving them a bit of an escape from the Northeast winter that doesn't want to end.

While we were in Arizona, Anders enjoyed extra time with friends and a week of sleepovers.

By the end of the week, we were all ready to relax at home. Of course, after being gone for a week it took the wood stove a full day to warm the house back up to a "normal" temperature again.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

8/52 - Birthday Cake, School Lunch, and Alton Brown

We've been long-time fans of Alton Brown, even hosting our own Alton Brown Dinner Parties over the years. So we jumped at the opportunity to see his Alton Brown Live tour.

He used the same crazy props and weird camera angles that were a signature feature of Good Eats.

His live show featured all of the things that he couldn't do on television. As one example, his Food Network censors required that his yeast puppets (see above) emitted 7 burps for each 1 fart. (Who knew?) So for his live show, he reversed the ratio. He made ice cream in 10 seconds with a CO² fire extinguisher, and cooked pizza in a 54,000W, 1 million lumen Mega Bake Oven made from stage lighting, his adult homage to the Easy Bake Oven. The show was great fun.

Sometime between when we bought the tickets (last year) and the night of the show, we started watching Good Eats episodes with Anders. Since we have the episodes from all 14 seasons, we would have Anders choose a food or cooking topic and then consult the Good Eats Fan Page to find a relevant episode to watch. Anders is now also a big fan and thinks Alton is hilarious. Anders kept asking why we didn't buy him a ticket, but we didn't know he was going to be such a big fan! We will be sure to make it an all family outing the next time he comes around.

---

Happy Birthday, Grandma Donna! To celebrate, we baked a chocolate cake with coconut butter cream frosting and decorated the top to remind us that spring is on its way.

For her birthday, we gave Grandma Donna a cool picture frame for housing Anders' artwork. The day before the celebration, she and Anders had this conversation:

A: We have a birthday present for you.
GD: What is it?
A: I can't tell you! It's a surprise! ... but the first word is picture and the second word starts with an f.

---

Anders's school is small; each grade is only about 12-20 students, and everyone is in the same building from K-12. They didn't have a "hot lunch" program in the school until about two years ago. They have some of the school lunch standards, like hot dogs, fish and chips and the like, but they have worked hard to make their menus more interesting than the average school. For example, currently they have an "International Tuesday" theme featuring different cuisines.

On one Tuesday in February, they featured Thai Chicken and Rice:

A few weeks later, Indian Butter Chicken and Dal:

Parents are welcome to join the students for lunch, so we jumped at the chance.

It's the only place in Trout Lake to get ethnic foods! Besides the school, there are only two other places to eat in town. And at a cost of $3.25 per adult, it's the best meal deal going. I'm sure we will be back.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

Best Recipes of 2014

2014 was a good cooking year, and we have lots of favorites to share! You can access previous years' favorite recipes from the recipes tag.

The Whole Bowl
Source: The Whole Bowl, PDX (deconstructed by Sweet Phi)

If I had to pick the "dish of the year", this would be it. There's a food truck turned restaurant in Portland called The Whole Bowl, and all they do is a veggie bowl. It is delicious. If I lived closer, I would go there frequently. Instead, I was excited to try to reproduce it at home. Thankfully, someone had already done the hard work of recreating the magical Tali sauce for me. Feel free to add whatever other ingredients you like to this base; I have added various leftover roasted veggies (broccoli, romanesco, etc.) and it always turns out great.

Sweet Potatoes with Warm Black Bean Salad
Source: Eating Well

Just a few ingredients, no complicated instructions. Yet somehow it comes together into something incredibly delicious.

Healthier Shepherd's Pie
Source: Iowa Girl Eats

I have always liked Shepherd's Pie, despite it's "mystery meat" reputation. This one adds cauliflower to the potato, and no one is the wiser.

Authentic Chicken Tikka Masala
Source: AllRecipes

We're usually skeptical of recipes with "authentic" in the title. Thankfully, this one holds up to scrutiny. The chicken is baked in the oven (after marinating), to mimic the clay tandoor cooking method. The sauce comes together quickly and doesn't require anything but standard kitchen ingredients. (I'm assuming that your kitchen has garam masala, of course.)

Loaded Twice Baked Potatoes
Source: Eating Well

Broccoli, ground beef and cheese in a twice baked potato. Anders called this one "mashed potato salad", and he loved it.

Chopped Tandoori Chicken Salad
Source: Eating Well

This is a nice combination of chicken salad and greens, with some Indian flavors thrown in. It's mostly pantry staples and standard grocery fare, so it works any time of year.

Sesame Noodles with Chicken
Source: Food Network

This is just a nice, simple noodle in a peanut sauce.

Creamy Mexican Kale Salad
Source: iFoodReal

I was drawn in by the beautiful colors in this one. Oh, and we had a bunch of kale that I didn't know what to do with. We made it in the summer when the requisite produce was in season.

Here's to more great cooking in 2015!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

Happy 2015!

Our New Year's celebration this year had no fancy parties, no balls dropping, no crowds, just some quiet time at home. We had so much fun with our activities last New Year's Eve that we just had to do it again.

First, party hats! Construction paper, glitter, scissors, glue sticks, tape and ribbon. I think our hat-making skills have improved since last year.

Once the hats were made, it was time to make pretzels! Or as Anders says, "prentzels". I forget how easy it is to make soft pretzels; we really should do it more often. Corinne can put as much salt on her pretzels as she likes, and I get an excuse to eat mustard.

Time to get the drinks ready! Italian sodas in champagne flutes with sugared rims.

Before we knew it, it was time for the countdown to midnight.^† 3... 2... 1...

Happy 2015 to everyone!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

^†Per tradition, we surreptitiously set our clocks ahead by one hour, celebrating the transition to the New Year one hour early. Anders got to stay up until midnight, and everyone got an extra hour of sleep. Hooray!

52/52 - Christmas Dishwasher

A Christmas gift we gave to ourselves this year was a new dishwasher. (I know, exciting stuff.) Our old one was a hand-me-down that never did a great job and had recently gotten worse. So we decided to start over and get something that we would truly love.

We read lots of reviews and polled our friends and family. Along the way, I read a really interesting article on the changes to the dishwasher industry in the last 10 years, including a description of how you should be using your dishwasher. I recommend everyone read this article on what makes a good dishwasher (and how to use it). After an extensive search - including a trial dish loading in a store - we ended up with a Bosch.

We picked up the new dishwasher shortly before Christmas, but holiday preparations delayed installation. When Shane and Leif were here for Christmas, they offered to help install it. "We think we should be able to finish it in about 45 minutes." Unfortunately, once we pulled the old one out and tried to push the new one into place, we discovered that our kitchen island (technically a peninsula) wasn't quite deep enough at the bottom. It would have to be modified.

Our 45 minute project then turned into a two-day affair involving three kinds of power saws (oscillating, mitre, and jig) and two trips to the local hardware store. Thankfully, Shane has lots of experience in home building and contracting, so he quickly became our foreman.

We cut a new hole through the subfloor into the crawlspace.

We furred out the toe kick and trimmed it to fit over the hardwood, then reinstalled.

In the end, the effort paid off. We now put dishes straight into our dishwasher with no pre-washing. They come out clean, even when caked with egg!

Thanks for all of the help, guys!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

46/52 - Winter Without a Furnace

With the temperatures dropping and winter approaching, we finally broke down and turned on our propane furnace in October. But within the hour, it started emitting some loud banging noises. Not good.

We hate our furnace. Every several years, it seems to have one problem or another, requiring expensive parts ordered from the east coast. The majority of the local heating service contractors don't seem to have much experience with this brand (Heatmaker), so either they can't figure out what is wrong or they have to make multiple trips - one for diagnosis and a second after replacement parts have arrived. This time, I was going to try to diagnose and fix it myself.

Over the next week, I disassembled various parts looking for the culprit. I figured that there probably aren't too many moving parts that would cause such a loud noise. First suspect: blower fan. I ordered a replacement, and a week later when it arrived I successfully replaced it. But the noise was still there. My second hypothesis was that something was banging around inside the combustion chamber, possibly some buildup on the heat exchangers. But when I started to disassemble the chamber and realized that I wouldn't have any confidence that all of the seams were sealed up properly, I decided it was time to call in a professional.

After a week and a half calling contractors and getting nowhere, I finally got one to come out and take a look. (What is with contractors in the Gorge? You should at least answer your phone or return phone calls. Sheesh.) After 2 hours exploring, the prognosis was not good. Sure enough, it was buildup on the heat exchanger coils, but on the INSIDE. He described it like kidney stones, rattling around in the pipe and obstructing the flow of water. With no good way to clean it out, it would need to be replaced. The cost of the replacement part? $2,000 for the part alone.

This was it. This was finally the end of this furnace. We would pump no more money into this monstrosity. But what now?

With winter still on its way, we decided to take a chance. We're going to wait until spring to research and design the replacement heating system. So for this winter, we will have no furnace. We would heat the house with our wood stove, supplemented by several electric heaters as needed. We have some wood seasoned and split, but we had planned for "ambiance fire" wood, not "heat the whole dang house" wood. So we will be buying more this year, at least once.

Other than during power outages, this is the first time we're attempting to heat the whole house solely with the wood stove. And it is only our work-at-home jobs that makes this feasible at all. We can start a fire in the morning and tend it all day to get the whole house warmed up. I don't think we would be attempting this if we had to drive to an office.

Coincidentally, the first snow arrived at about the same time as the furnace death knell.

Here's hoping for a mild winter! Oh, but still with lots of snow, of course. That's not too much to ask, it is?

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders