"The most anticipated premiere..."

You know what I'm talking about!
LOST!
I can't wait for tomorrow!

If you aren't the Lost freaks that we are, you can get caught up on the show here.
All 3 seasons, in just 8 minutes 15 seconds.

On the other hand, if you are the Lost freaks we are, give this a try. It's tough! I only got 6 right. Gabe beat me with 7! No cheating...seriously.
-h

still hoping...

for a snow day. It seems like the entire Willamette Valley is covered in lovely white powder, except for the Portland Metro region. That sucks. This picture shows the extent of our snow fall today. Pretty pathetic. Gabe's dad reported almost a foot of snow in Eugene. All I'm asking for is one stinkin' snow day! Is that too much?

In my hopes for a snow day this year, I guess today didn't matter very much. We had a work day without kids today anyway. But it sure would have been nicer to be at home in my PJ's all day, rather than sitting in meetings. My staff was suppose to head up to Cooper Spur for our "work day" (sort of a staff retreat). But that was canceled as soon as the forecast looked questionable. It's a good thing because Mt. Hood got pounded all weekend. Sadly I can't say that I was too disappointed, the drive up there could have been a nightmare. I'm very relieved that I didn't end up arriving home around 8pm and then have to turn around, get up and teach tomorrow. Instead, today was somewhat relaxing and I was home at 4:15!

So...here's to a deep freeze tonight, lots of lovely snowfall, and a call from the phone tree at 6am. (A girl can dream can't she?)
-h

Who else is tired of crap TV?

Browsing through one of my favorite websites, Boing Boing, I read a post about a mock trial on the writers' strike put on by the writers of The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. The article linked by Boing Boing goes on to talk about the mock trial, which sounded pretty funny, but also made some good points. I, like many others, wish the strike was over. I count on something decent being on TV to get me through the dark times of winter. There are only so many reality shows I can handle, though the reruns of Scrubs, The Simpsons and That 70's Show has helped a bit. Heidi and I have also started watching the first season of Heroes, which is very good. Not quite as good as Lost, but something to tide us over until Lost starts (Thursday!). If the strike didn't happen, maybe we wouldn't need a $150 billion economic stimulus package. I mean, think of the money that isn't being spent in LA and New York right now. Okay, yeah, the economy would still stink, but there would at least be something on TV to keep our minds off of it. Speaking of the stimulus deal, we should see our check just about the time we will be headed to Greece. There is something I like about spending that money in another country.

-G

Brrr...it's cold!

I went outside for a few minutes in an attempt to take a picture. It seems like it's been FOREVER since I've picked up the camera. I guess that's what happens when you take a picture almost every day for a year and then you quit cold turkey. Well, I didn't last long out there. It is currently a cold 37 degrees and the wind is blowing something fierce. Thank God the sun is out, but I'm not really enjoying it on my extra day off because I can't stand to be out in the cold and wind. So...here's one of the few shots I managed to get before I had to make a run inside.
We haven't been up to much lately. Winter is my least favorite time of year. To be honest, it actually puts me in a weird funk. Gabe has to drag me out of the house or I'd spend the entire weekend on the couch.
We both spent some time at the dentist today. Yes...I finally got Gabe to the dentist!!!! I just had to give in, and make him an appointment while I was there for my cleaning after Christmas. I don't know anyone who avoids the dentist like that guy does. I can't believe he was going on 5 years....Well, today Gabe got a crown on one of his front teeth and then went to work. While I had yet another cavity to get filled. I really hate the whole "fat lip" feeling. I was done at the dentist 2 hours ago and I'm just starting to regain feeling on the right side of my mouth. Not to mention that I'm hungry and I don't really want to eat. What exactly can you eat when you can't feel your lips? Sounds like it would be a disaster waiting to happen.
-h

All Our Free Time

Some of you may be wondering what we've been doing with all our free time now that we don't have to blog everyday. Well, mainly we've been playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Okay, it's not been every free minute, but it has been about 20 some odd hours since we started playing a couple weeks ago. To be more precise, it's been me playing, with Heidi offering suggestions and encouragement. I have to say, it's an amazing game, definitely the best since the original The Legend of Zelda. The gameplay is much like the original, puzzles to solve, huge areas to explore and secrets to find.

In other news of the day, who's ready to eat some steak from the offspring of a cloned cow? (Eating the clone would be to expensive apparently) The news from today I was more interested in was the new MacBook Air that Apple announced today. Though combining them doesn't sound bad, BBQ a steak, and eat it on the patio while browsing on a new MacBook Air. I guess it would have to be summer for that to happen.

-G

Viva Las Vegas

We made the commitment. For spring break we'll be visiting Becky in Las Vegas. My one, and only, experience with Sin City was terrible! (Boy is that a long story...and there's something depressing about people sitting in front of blinking machines 24 hours a day.) But since my sister's been there for almost 2 years, I decided I'd better give it another chance. We found a really good deal on 2 nights at the Luxor. I'm very excited to stay there. I vaguely remember it being my favorite casino when we were there last time. But, it's possible that the yard-o-margarita might have had something to do with that. Anyway...we're also hoping to camp out on Lake Mead or Valley of Fire State Park for a few nights too. It should be much better the second time!

Since we aren't doing the whole "Photo-A-Day" thing this year...I'm having a great deal of trouble thinking of anything to write about. Being that this is my 5th year teaching middle school, I thought I'd share with you some of the things you might be missing out on. So, today I'll begin what I'm going to call...

Middle Schoolers: They Say the Most Random Things.

On his way out the front door this afternoon, one of my students says to the girl walking next to him, "My hair smells like lavender." Where did that come from? This is a classic example of the way the middle school mind works. Thought enters head, it immediately exits through the mouth. No screening process needed.
-h

Change of plans

What was I thinking? Why didn't someone slap me? I really thought that the reason people sew things is because it's cheaper than buying them. Boy was I wrong. We went to Fabric Depot this morning...big mistake because they were having a huge sale and every one was there! Not only that, the fabric I found, the one I really wanted, was (gulp) $21.99 a yard. Even with the 40% off sale that would have made the new curtains I wanted to sew $150...just in fabric! Not to mention if I messed it all up somehow and had to get more fabric. Seriously, what was I thinking? I couldn't take the madness of fabric hell so we went over to Joanne's. I needed a simpler and cheaper first sewing project. So, after much "debate" I decided to try sewing some napkins.

Of course, I didn't run home and start this project immediately. We went to see Juno and now I'm sitting here blogging. Killing time before we go meet Dave and Carley for dinner. If you can believe it, I didn't even mention the worst parts of my day. Yes...there is more. I'm trying to put it all behind me now. Let's just say, I'd be better off never leaving my house. I don't like people much. Especially stinky people in movie theatres.
-h

My new "hobby"

Thank goodness for instruction manuals. Or should I say the pictures in the instruction manuals. I sat down yesterday with the manual to the sewing machine and actually figured out how to get it all threaded. It was a proud moment. Sadly, something was amiss because my stitches looked terrible. When Gabe got home, he noticed a small mistake I'd made in the threading process. After that I cranked out some amazing straight stitches.

So, here's my project for the weekend...new curtains for the living room. Sewn by yours truly. The curtains that are currently hanging in the living room have been destroyed by the wild animal we let run our home (aka Jupiter). Plus, they were pretty cheap ones we got at IKEA. Time for something new.

Even though we aren't doing a photo a day this year, I'm not sure I'll be able to bring myself to post without also posting a photo. After 183 posts, it's pretty much habit at this point. Plus, our skills did improve a lot last year. Looking at some of our pictures from January o7, you can tell we came a long way! Since I'm still not as skilled as I'd like to be, it makes sense to keep boring you with my photographs.
-h

New Look for '08

There's probably some tweaking that will happen over the next couple days, but we felt a change was needed. Let us know what you think.

-G

Final Post...of the year

Well, this is it. The last post of 2007. So yeah, maybe it wasn't published until 2008, but close enough. What a year it's been. I have to say I'm pretty proud of the job that Heidi and I did, posting a picture a day for an entire year. We've both learned a lot, it was a heck of a way to really learn our camera and different photo techniques.

This is a picture of my champagne glass from last night at the celebration Jen and Craig were hosting at their house. It was a pretty small gathering of friends. It was nice because you got an opportunity to talk to everyone there. There was plenty of Wii getting played, food getting eaten and drinks being downed, all in all, a great evening.

As Heidi mentioned, we aren't done with the blog forever, just don't come looking for daily updates.

-G

Something's Fishy

And that something is the ornament I noticed on our Christmas tree today.
I've been thinking lately about when we'll have the time to take the tree down and put the Christmas decorations away. When I was thinking about it this morning, I noticed an ornament I've never seen before. This strange phenomenon happened last year as well. After our Christmas party, I found an owl ornament. This year...it's a fish. Last year the surprise "gift" was left by Dave and Carley. We suspect they left us another surprise this year. It only took us 2 weeks to notice! (Let us know if we're wrong you guys!)

In other news...Gabe's cousin Brooke stopped by for lunch today on her way home to Bellingham. She was dropping of a sewing machine Gabe's mom said I could have. I'm excited to get it out and experiment this week. Anyone know where I might take classes to learn to sew?

Well, this is my last post for the year. I can't believe we're almost done. So that we don't disappoint our loyal readers (all 3 of them), we will not be ending our blog completely. I'm not sure what I will do with all the extra time I'll have every other day, when I'm not obsessing about what to take a picture of. I guess that's where the new sewing machine comes in.
-h

Red Hot

The photo challenge today on one the sites that Heidi reads was warm. This burner is certainly more than a little warm, in fact, it was warm from a couple feet away. I had taken pictures of a couple other things, but the idea from Heidi was the best.

We finished The Golden Compass today and headed out to the theater to watch the movie. Boy was that a let down. Not only the movie, but the whole experience of going to the newly renovated Clackamas Town Center. Apparently they put a lot of thought into the mall, but not the parking lot. We spent nearly 45 minutes trying to get out of there. Maybe it was just crazy because of the holiday season and it being the weekend. It seemed more to me that there are too few exits for that large of a parking area.

As an aside, check out this video that popped up when searching for Clackamas Town Center.

-G

My phone

You know you're a really huge geek when you're blogging about a picture of your blog. Good thing we only have a few days of this year long blogging adventure left.

This was what I opened up on Christmas morning. I had no idea what Gabe got me for Christmas this year. I've wanted an iPhone since they came out, but they were crazy expensive and we don't use AT&T. Well, I guess Gabe figured it was time to get me one. I really think he just wanted one. He's actually been playing with it way more than I have! :)
It's super cool. I have my calendar, address book and iTunes music from my computer all synced up to it. Awesome! Plus, we used it when we went to Beaverton tonight to have sushi with Peggy (she and Paul are in town from LA) and her family. Love to have google maps right at my finger tips...all the time.
-h

Pomegranate

This is half of one of the pomegranates that was left over from our Christmas party. I'd never really seen one, let alone eaten one until I met Heidi. In fact, these are the first ones I've ever purchased. I can't believe how popular they have gotten, I mean, there's a 7-Up that's pomegranate flavored! After reading about them in the Wikipedia article, and seeing an episode of Good Eats where they were featured, I can see why they've become popular. They are tasty, and pretty good for you. But, what fresh fruit isn't?

-G

Battle it out

We got this game for Christmas from Heather and Ryan. We decided tonight would be a good time to get it out and give it a try. What was I thinking? Gabe had me beat in 4 moves. Let's just say that geometry was my worst subject and chess is my least favorite game. It's going to take me a lot of practice to get good at this one. Maybe Gabe will just have to find someone else to play with since I'm no competition. Any takers?
-h

Merry Christmas!

Photo by Gabe

We hope everyone had a very happy Christmas.
Here's our Christmas story:
We got up "early" to open gifts and there was a very light dusting of snow. A white Christmas doesn't happen in Portland, so being in Oakridge we had a better chance. Gabe's Christmas wish came true. I think I had him pretty fooled into thinking he wasn't getting a Wii. "They are just too hard to get your hands on." He was thrilled!
After watching part of A Christmas Story, took off to drive up to my parent's house. About Salem the snow started. We couldn't believe it! Snow on Christmas! Of course, none of it was really sticking. After all, it was 34 degrees...but it was fun anyway. It did slow us down just a little bit.
We got to my parents and started opening gifts. Becky couldn't wait any longer! We had a big meal and played. Gabe hooked up the Wii, and even my dad gave bowling a try. Gabe and Jory had a great time playing with the RC Helicopter we got Jory for Christmas. Then we played the longest game of Battle of the Sexes possible. Seriously, I think we were playing for an hour and a half! At that point it was getting late and we needed to get home. Gabe had to go to work today. (Although, I called him an hour ago and he and Ross are playing with the Wii on the projector at work. Apparently, a lot of work needs to get done today!) We came home, gave Jupiter some love, opened our stockings and went to bed.
It was a great day filled with time spent with our family.
Happy Holidays!
-h

Christmas Eve

We went up Salmon Creek with the dogs. Gabe's cousin Megan had her yellow lab, Sitka, with her. And little Flora had never played in the snow. They had a blast. Chasing each other and wrestling in the powder. We didn't end up going up the pass to snowshoe because it was snowing up there like crazy. It's really not very fun to snowshoe while the snow is pouring.

After our adventure with the dogs, we got cleaned up and went up to Gabe's Aunt and Uncle's for Christmas eve dinner and gifts. I bravely tried the oyster soup, a family Christmas eve tradition. I'll just say it's not my favorite and now I know for next time.
-h

Flora's First Christmas

Flora got to open her first EVER Christmas present this afternoon. Yeah, it's a little early, but we couldn't wait. She was being a very "nice" girl, so we decided to let her open it before Christmas. I wish I was being nice enough that Heidi would let me open my present. Flora got an awesome new food dish, we couldn't resist it when we were doing some other shopping at Cost Plus. Hopefully she puts it to good use.

-G

Shake it!

Come on...shake it!
Gabe got to open his first gifts Saturday. Finally!
He was pretty excited about getting a new beer brewing apparatus and a video game he can't use. Sadly, he still doesn't own a Wii. Too bad...so sad. Maybe he'll be able to find one around his birthday.
After the Christmas celebration with Tom and Joanne, we came up to Oakridge this afternoon. We brought our snowshoes in hope of finding some snow around here, but it's gotten really warm today. We'll see...
-h

The Aftermath

So, here it is. The sewer work is inspected and done. Well, the work isn't done, but the sewer is installed and working. What you see here is whats left of our backyard. In talking to the contractor today, they won't be able to fully be done for another month or so. When you dig big trenches and then fill them in again, they need to settle. The trench is actually a raised mound at this point, but it will apparently settle out to the point where they may need to add more dirt. I really wish they would have been able to bore under the ground for this job. I know that things will get back to normal, it'll just take a bit longer than I wanted it to.

-G

What is it?

Or...what could it be? Gabe really wants to open our Christmas gifts tomorrow night since we'll be leaving to go see his family early on Saturday morning. And we won't be back home until Christmas night. For some reason, he doesn't think he can possibly wait that long. I think it's terrible to open gifts that early, but if he doesn't stop bugging me I may just give in. I have absolutely no idea what he got me for Christmas this year. It should be a huge surprise!

We went to see A Christmas Carol tonight. Gotta do something to really get us into the Christmas spirit! The Gerding Theater at the Armory is fairly new and this was our first time there. It's a really beautiful venue and the play was fun.
-h
Only one more wake up!

Bands of Rubber

What we have here is a collection of rubber bands I found in a dish on our window sill in the kitchen. They seem to mostly be from vegetables bought from the store with some others probably from random newspapers or ads that we get dropped at our door. I ended up throwing some away because the sun they get in the window had deteriorated them to the point of no longer having any elasticity. I'm not sure why I decided this would be what I took a picture of tonight, just something that I thought might look interesting.

-G

Gingerbread House

For girl's night, we had our annual holiday baking night. This year, instead of doing sugar cookies, Jen brought this boxed gingerbread house. Boy did we have fun decorating it! Maybe it's because nothing is more fun then endless amounts of candy and frosting. Plus, all of us were discussing the fact that we never did gingerbread houses as a kid. Guess we're making up for it now. After the excitement of baking and decorating, we opened our gifts. I know, I know...it's still a week until Christmas. It's just that for the next 2 weeks we're all going a million different places and won't have time to see each other, let alone exchange gifts.
-h
Only 3 more days of school!

A Flavor

Jupiter has it. Much like these other cats. I took the camera and new lens to guys night tonight, but I've posted enough pictures of us playing video games. We did have some awesome homemade double decker tacos and drink some of Mike's awesome eggnog, but that's about it for interesting things. When I got home Jupiter was being cute on the chair, so I decided to take some pictures of him. Somehow I caught him with his tongue out, which makes for an awesome flavor picture. Although my favorite and the original is this one.

-G

Here's the damage...

that was done last night. You'll notice very few of the bottles have much left in them, I think we did a pretty good job last night. And by the way, I've now mopped the kitchen floor 3 times...it's still sticky!
This picture was taken with our new lens. Gabe picked it up on Friday. It's a fisheye and it's really cool! We used some of our kicker check to purchase it. Let's just call it an early Christmas gift. The rest of our kicker has to go to paying off the sewer project that's now taken a year to get done! I decided to just play around with the lens a little today. I can't wait to try some landscapes with it.
-h

Mistletoe

The tardiness of this post and picture is due to the extensive preparations and celebration that was done yesterday. There was much to be cleaned and many things to be made. Plus, a few last minute errands.
Our house was filled with friends, food, laughter, and even a little dancing. We had a great time, but now we'll be spending the rest of our weekend cleaning up. My feet are literally sticking to the floor in the kitchen.

Before I put up the mistletoe last night, I got a quick picture. Sadly, I didn't get any kisses under it...
-h

Must Not Fail

So here's a picture.

-G

As you can see...we're both pretty ready to be done with this challenge. Neither of us were up to taking a picture. I had a tough day at work, we went out to dinner, and then went to the Live Wire Radio Show. The best part of the night was singing Puff the Magic Dragon with Peter Yarrow! It was really fun, but you can't really take a picture at an event like that. The show got over really late and then we headed over to Lola's Room to celebrate Carley's 30th birthday. Unfortunately, we never made it there. Traffic and parking were terrible. The line to get in was around the block. I wasn't feeling that great and I couldn't take it all. So we came home.
I'm feel so badly that we never made it...sorry Carley!
-h
The air date for the shows we saw is Saturday December 29th at 7:00pm on OPB radio at 91.5FM. Or you can download it from itunes!

Sheet O Peppermint

This is the final step to the brownies that Heidi linked to last night. This is a sheet pan of Star Brites melted in the oven until they became a continuous layer of peppermint. As it was melting it even smelled like peppermint in the kitchen, something I didn't expect from melting candy. After they are all melted, you score them into squares so they can be placed on the brownie squares. I'm pretty excited about them, can you tell?

-G

O' Christmas Tree

I know, you can't see the whole tree...but I do like how this picture ended up with twinkly lights. It's a much better "natural" tree than the one we ended up with last year. I'm very happy.

I've been up to all sorts of "holiday" activities the last few days. Yesterday, the girls and I met at the Pilsner Room for dinner and to watch the Christmas ships go by. It was fun. The ships are such a nice Portland holiday tradition. Watching them from inside the warmth of the restaurant is a wonderful thing. Tonight, Gabe and I have already started the great preparations for our cocktail party on Saturday night. We're pretty excited, this is our 5th year having our friends over to eat, drink and be merry. I'm making these brownies right now and am hoping to get some other things off the list of things that need to get done.
-h
Only 7 more school days before the holidays! Can you tell what I'm looking forward to the most?

'Tis the Season...

for wrapping presents. This is one of my least favorite activities relating to Christmas. I think mainly it's because I'm terrible at it. I just never learned to wrap presents with any sort of skill or style. Gifts that I wrap tend to be a little sloppy and usually only include a stick-on bow. It's a miracle if I manage to tie on a real ribbon and curl the ends like all the fancy present wrappers do. If I had it my way I'd hand over the gifts in the bag the store gave me. Is it just because I'm a guy? Are there guys out there that like wrapping presents?

-G