Doris – Page 366 – Just regular folks.

Cello and violin duet.

Jeremy’s dad (aka Kappa) is a professional cellist and has always been excited and quietly encouraging us to start music lessons for Vince. I think Kappa gave Vince a 1/8 size student violin for Christmas almost 3 years ago. It’s been hard trying to fit lessons and practicing into our schedules. We’ve tried a few times to start lessons, but it hasn’t worked out in the past. Anyhow, things came together this summer, we found a teacher in the neighborhood (though Ruby’s connections, she is friends with the teacher’s doggie Inky) and we got in 3 lessons this summer.

So this is the happy result! A little duet with grandfather and grandson this past weekend.

Picture of Edda & Rena on Canvas

Mom love the picture with Edda on our June 28, 2010 blog. Finally, with the original one from Jeremy & Doris, it was printed by them on canvas. We just received it yesteray and we hanged it on our “grand kid wall”. Look, Mom was enjoying it. I think I will put a black frame around it if I have time.

The other picture is “The Sun Rise on Columbia River.”

National night out!

Last night, while Vince was at Yankee stadium awaiting A-Rod’s 600th homer (which, alas, happened tonight), we went to out to our neighborhood National Night Out.

There were proclamations:

There was food! We brought a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies and, in return, ate burgers, hot dogs, samosas, tuna sushi, tabbouleh, fruit salad and cake. We are so lucky to have found this neighborhood. You never know when you buy a house that you have nice neighbors, we were just fortunate in this regard!

Fruit picking.

Mead farms!

Blueberry picking:

Sampling the goods:

On Dad’s shoulder peach picking!

Walking around.

I love walking around the campus of Bard College. You never know when you’ll run into an Airstream trailer called the “MFA Cafe”.

Back from Chelsea Clinton’s wedding.

Just got back from a whirlwind trip to Chelsea’s wedding. Kind of. Jeremy’s parents live about 5 miles from where Chelsea was getting married this weekend and we had been planning on driving up this weekend for months to drop Vince off for a week of county livin’. We didn’t see even a single person dressed up all fancy, so we missed the whole thing – but it did add a pleasant buzz to the weekend.

Vince seeing his grandmother come up the driveway of the house:

Edda exploring the front yard:

Inside the house:

Backyard!

Multnomah Falls along the Columbia River, Oregon

Today, we went hiking with 5 friends at Multnomah Falls which is about 40 miles away from us. If we could cross the river directly, it is even closer.

Mulnomah Falls plummets 620 ft. It is the second highest year-round waterfall in the United States and it is the highest in lower 48 states.

The first picture is at the basin of the fall. The second and the third are on the over hanged deck on the top of the fall. The Columbia River can be seen in the background in the second one.

It is 1 1/2 miles up and 1 1/2 down. After coming down, I consumed a buffalo hamburger in a local restaurant with river review. The view is great but the food is okay.

Crazy week and stuck in a rut.

Today, another thunderstorm rolled through the neighborhood, and we lost power AGAIN for about 2 hours. Yet another branch fell across wires near the house, this time I saw the electrical fire which lasted for 5 seconds, a huge plume 4 stories in the air of bright blue/yellow flame. I couldn’t work (obviously), so the kids, Eliana and I played a board game called Flapdoodle. Everytime it’s your turn, you pick a card and it makes you do something silly, like sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in the voice of a dog or do 4 jumping jacks while chanting a silly phrase or pretend to take a nap on the floor while snoring loudly. It was really more fun than I thought it would be, we adapted a lot of the tasks for Edda and she had a grand time doing her part.

Vince is having a tough time learning to be a gracious loser. He wailed and cried in the middle of the game when he was in last place – we had to take a 15 minute break for him to work through it. Then we restarted and he was a good sport! In the end, he was the loser, but no tears, no complaints. Perhaps even a compliment to the eventual winner, Eliana.

I have been in a funk the past week or so. I can not place a finger on why. I’ve been in a rut – thinking, if only I had X, then I would be SO MUCH HAPPIER! I have been trying to reframe my attitude, to be happy to be alive and to be grateful for what I have, because I know in the grand scheme of things, I am a very lucky person.

Oregon Coast

Last week days, we went to the coast of Oregon. Here are several pictures to share.

1) Fort Clatsop (re-built) in which Lewis & Clark stayed for 4 months in Winter before heading back to the east next Spring. As part of demonstration, a volunteered lady actually fired an antique rifle in front of all visitors. Boy, it was tedious to prepare and really loud, not like modern guns.

2) A stream with built-in fish ladders. As engineers, we couldn’t quite figure out why? There is no dam, no obstacle along the stream in sight?

3) Mom in front of Tillamook Cheese factory, there were a lot of cheese in that factory. Their no sugar ice cream was delicious.

4) Mom in front of a Mig-17 in the Air Museum of Tillamook.

5) Mom inside the museum. It was built using wood entirely in World War II because steel was scarce and there were a lot of timbers in the Pacific Northwest. It still is the single largest wood structure in the world. It was a hanger to house 6-7 blimps which patrolled up and down the coast to spot Japanese submarines. The blimp could stay up for 48 hours at 50 miles/hr and, amazingly, this hanger was completed within 29 days. These days, a “green” report probably would take up 29 years or, maybe, longer.

6) Mom and the sand buggy she rode in.

7) The sand buggy on its way along the Oregon Coast line.

8) Mom, sand buggy and sand, more sand 🙂

Well, the weather was very cool along the coast – see Mom’s jacket. May be, we will take another short trip to the mountains in WA this week. But, no during the weekend.

Mom is thinking that, if next year summer time, all the kids plus rubby can come here. It must have more fun and less heat 🙂

Photo montage of blackout!

Heavy grill blown over:

Huge branch on neighbor’s deck:

First night, reading in the dark:

Next morning, where the hell is my TV?

53 hours after the power went out, there was the great fridge purge:

This is what caused it all, a little branch between two uninsulated lines. Pepco guy came in a bucket truck, grabbed the branch, made a phone call and we were back on the grid.