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Saturday, May 19, 2012

Chasing Waterfalls

Last weekend Michael's mom came to see us--which is always a party. We headed to Silverton, OR to see some waterfalls. Gotta love Oregon. The kids were troopers, as were the people carrying kids.

"So, Chloe has to go to the bathroom again, eh?"

First waterfall of the day!

 She was enthusiastically pushing Michael forward most of the trip and laughing at her siblings--who knew hiking could be so hilarious.


 Waterfall, number 2! You can't tell, but we're making our best waterfall faces.

 This picture looks conspicuously like a family photo. Nope, we're not parents (since Moose wouldn't get in the pack). 


Such a cute family! I'm going to miss them so much when I leave Oregon.


 Happy Mother's Day!
Morgan's showing off his missing teeth. He brought a stuffed frog on the trip, for obvious reasons.


This was our last waterfall. It was so loud!

Everyone was so impressed with the falls...

Well, almost every one.

This is when the kiddos sort of hit the wall. Check out Chloe's expression below.

"Pictures? Really?"

Wow! Last weekend is making this one seem pretty anti-climactic. I have grading and cleaning on the horizon--BUT I finished my thesis and sent it off to my committee this week. I'll hold for applause. I still have to defend and such, but it feels good to send it out in the world!

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Spokane Surprise

I drove to Spokane without telling Michael (although I told pretty much everyone else I knew, because I was so excited about my sneakiness).He was stoked, although there was a lot of head shaking and a little bit of frantic cleaning. This is the LAST TIME I have to drive to Spokane. Woo! We spent most of the day yesterday talking about how silly it would be to go out for Mexican food on Cinco de Mayo. After about three of these conversations, neither of us could support our cravings and we ended up driving twenty minutes and waiting for an hour to eat out.We hung out by the handicapped wagon, during our wait.
 
Overall, Cinco de Mayo was a raging success, probably because we got nachos, and had a very interesting conversation with a cardboard cutout.


Today, we watched the Bloomsday race, which is HUGE around here. There were 50,000 runners, which is a quarter of the total population. This is a picture from the bottom of Michael's street:

 Everyone in Spokane comes outside for one day, which is great for morale and fitness and such, but also brings the scary old ladies with their scary little dogs out from the gloom of their scary apartments. One old lady continually yelled at people running on the sidewalk "This is a road race, not a sidewalk race." Those vagrants! While another shouted a classic argument, "They should really learn to speak English before they come here to run our race," in reference to the elite runners (who could hear her by the way). Needless to say, awesome people watching. If I'd known I was coming up, we would have entered in the "kinda running, but mostly just wearing running tights" category.

This is a picture of my favorite costume--robots, with batteries on the back. The batteries were erasable, so they would slowly deplete throughout the race. We also really appreciated a couple dressed as swamp things that spent more time crouching in bushes and scaring people than running. In the picture above, just imagine an old lady just off screen, pacing up and down shouting "this is a road race, not a sidewalk race..." to get the full effect.

Moose and I are spectating. He got a lot of attention. I decided we should have dressed him up as some sort of flower, to encourage the runners, or bloomies as their called around here. We'll get em next time, Moose.

In other news, Moose is still adorable, even when he sticks his tongue out at you.


Saturday, May 5, 2012

Grey Whale to Red Fox: Morgan is 7

Last weekend Michael's nephew Morgan had a secret agent birthday party, which involved a laser field, disguises, marshmallow guns, and lots of karate-ish dance moves. So fun.

Get it through the target, Clo! 

 What a pro.

 Laser field obstacle course. Much harder for adults, I might add.

Ah yes! The classic scrunchy face disguise. 

Brynn thought I was teasing her, when I told her it was upside-down. But it was a party full of intrigue, so I can't blame her.



  Happy Birthday Morgan!