Conclusion of 2007

Aunt Jayne had our main family Christmas dinner on the 26th at her home on Vashon Island. Here Erika enjoys the easy lifestyle afforded by the magical combination of a minivan on a passenger ferry. A lovely banana is prescribed for just this situation.

How we really spent the holidays... This is us playing a video game. We are playing Jak and Daxter on our old Sony PS2. Erika gives me advice on where to go in the game and what to do.

It is clear why the Seattle area is a major player in the video game realm. It gets dark by 4:30 in the winter. Anyway, have been playing everyday for the past few weeks from 60 to 90 minutes at a sitting. We could quit at any time....I kinda hope. In case there are some amateur child psychologists out there poised to condemn our fun, I'm saving for therapy already, so there is nothing to worry about. After a good session, Erika bursts into a creative mode in which she interacts with imaginary characters taken from the game. She also runs around activating eco vents which only makes sense if you know this game.

Christmas Eve 2007

No sign of sleigh nor reindeer yet; the full moon shining over our blurry neighborhood.

Inside, Erika has put milk and cookies out for Santa. The carrots are for the reindeer. She had to have one herself to assure quality control.

Erika's new guitar

Dance Like a Penguin

Sure, grandma and grandpa are smiling now.

They have just started on the "dance like a penguin" marathon.
It's easy to forget the toddler rule #291: Never do anything unless you are prepared to do it 100 more times.

Gingerbread House Construction

Obviously Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Keith are visiting. Their gingerbread house construction skills are in high demand right away.

Video from the snow day.

Sorry for the sounds quality. Wind was blowing, but you get the idea.

Golden Curls

I finally snapped a shot of Erika's curls. This is what we are up against with a brush every morning!


She actually posed for this photo! Afterwards, no more. Just this.

Bothell wetlands

The flood waters subsided and here are pictures from the wetland next to our office park in Bothell today. This is supposed to be a meandering creek, but you can still see that there is a lot of water. It's designed to soak up run off from the office park and create an environment for nature to do its thing.

This last picture was unintentional. I must have gripped the camera while I was falling flat on my back. That is my pant leg and brown shoe up in the air. Notice in the lower left is my left foot slipping on a black plastic tarp. At least I didn't go into the drink! That's the corner of our building which lost power during the flood, by the way.

A Surprise of Flood

The thing about living close to nature, is that occasionally it tries to rub you out. The odd snowstorm I wrote about lasted one single day. Then the snow turned to rain and it kept raining until just now. The result being that we have had some serious flooding around here. I didn't expect to be sandbagging at work today, but that's what I did. At least for a little bit. There is this lovely creek and wetland that winds its way lazily through our office park in Bothell. It's a place for birds to nest (I saw a bald eagle last week!) and a place for salmon to spawn. It's also a channel for run-off. The berm around it is high enough so that the water never nears its top which is a delightful paved trail- until today.

We were told to evacuate our buildings around 10am and volunteers were asked to stay and help with the sandbags. I had a project to complete, so after a few sandbags I got wet enough and I went home to work. At first I wished that I could have stayed and helped, but it's just as well. Around 4:30 the battle to keep the lights on at our datacenter in Bothell was lost and it went dark. Utility power failed, and our diesel generator was swamped as its transformers blew- many millions upon millions of dollars of equipment, which should never sleep, fell silent. The 40 guys who remained on site put up a valiant effort, but there they fought a losing battle. In case you don't know what a data center is, it's a very expensive building with hundreds if not thousands of computers in it. It takes two days to turn it back on properly because of the complexity of the technology involved. Thankfully, we have a handful of these sprinkled in secret places across the country so that no more than one ever fails due to some catastrophic event.

The city of Bothell has no more "road closed" signs to deploy. The flooding is too wide-spread. I don't know the entire extent of the damage since it's advised to not go out. I'm anxious to find out how the guys got out of there tonight, or if they are still fighting to keep water out of our building. At least it's a pleasant 55F out, so it's not as bad as it could be! That really is the perfect temperature to bag sand.

A Surprise of Snow

This sort of thing is something of a treat for us - snow! They say it will only be here until tomorrow evening, but at least for now, there is nothing more fun. Erika is finally learning what it means to be uncomfortable. All this time she would just be cold or hot and never admit a thing. Now she can tell us what she's feeling. We played outside for a whole hour, then Jackie made some hot cocoa and it was time to come in.

Volvo say bye-bye

It was inevitable.

Please welcome our new transportation device. It is alarmingly large.
Toyota Sienna LE (all-wheel drive)

Happy Thanksgiving!

We attended two Thanksgiving feasts this year. The first was with Wetzel cousins and the second with the Hayatsus.

My cousins Maria and Rose with Uncle Ed and Aunt Marian.
Ed and Marian are the last of the 8(?) of my father's generation.

Here Erika sticks out her tongue.

At the Hayatsu festivities, we see Ilene and Erika sharing a special bonding moment.
Whatever game they could possibly be playing is beyond all conjecture.

Strategic Milkshake

Once again, Erika did not want her picture taken, but she will allow me to photograph the back of her head all I want; not what our blog readers want to see! She had just gotten her hair cut for the holidays, so I wanted to get that documented before the little hair clip went flying.
Anyway, here we see Erika sharing some of mommy's new diet. Jackie is eating a lot these days, as the twins seem to be sucking down the calories at an amazing rate. A large Jack-in-the-Box milk shake is deployed strategically here. The novelty of two straws has lasting appeal.

Twins?

I don't usually post internal pictures, but this one is quite interesting.

Jackie had her first ultrasound this evening, and behold, two tiny Wetzels. Yes, two. One, two.
Hearts are beating and all that, so that is a good sign! They took my (Jason's) blood so they can compare genetic markers to Jackie. Since we are old (over 35) and having twins, we are high risk. The genetic counsellors are standing by.... Have your insurance card handy.

Jackie is on a strict protein and haagen dazs diet now. Steak and ice cream! She's eating for herself and 2 very hungry little peanuts.

Video games, anyone?

It's never too early to start with the playstation.... is it?

Halloween - take it or leave it, apparently.

What was Erika for Halloween? Not interested that's what.

I'm wondering if Jackie and I didn't really sell it properly. Despite the "news" reporting that Halloween is the new Christmas, we spent less than $10 this year including candy. Besides our lack-luster approach, having just returned from our Boston trip yesterday, Erika is still short on emotional resilience, enthusiasm for novelty, and tolerance of any inconvenience.

I can't blame her since I don't really have much enthusiasm for the holiday myself. This is not because of an affected piety like that sported by the neighborhood evangelicals in the face of a decidedly non-Jesus-y holiday, but more of a realization that it's cold and dark outside and there is plenty of candy already within reach. Why dress up for it? I think this sentiment is well captured in the photo above.

The one thing about Halloween that Erika does enjoy is the cat imagery. Thanks to all of you who sent her Halloween cards! As a side note, be assured that no card goes unnoticed. They are discussed often and recycled- recycled as just about anything. Standing on them is big right now. Some favorite cards are considered as books and need to be read and re-read aloud. One particular "Happy 1st Birthday" featuring the Care Bears is still going strong after nearly 2 years of use.

Visiting Aunt Kimi

Hard to believe we made it all the way to Boston this weekend. Aunt Kimi showed us a density of things you don't get to see in our usual suburban environment

We got a chance to visit with Jackie's long-time friend, Juliette, who happens to have a daughter also named Erica. The East Coast Erica and the West Coast Erika finally meet!

Uncle Chris played a key role in the fun on Monday night. Kim, delirious from pharmaceuticals after her hand surgery, shows Erika art someone gave her.



Getting around Boston is easy if you master the "T". Erika is not much for the noises, so it will take a bit more practice.

Halloween fun?

Erika has yet to enjoy a pumpkin patch. We are 0 for 3. However this year there was a giant, inflatable cat at least.

20-20-21

Mommy was measuring herself and Erika wanted to be part of the action. For those interested, Erika's measuremeents are 20-20-21.

Autumn Sun

This photo has a very 1960s feel to me. I played with the color focus for dramatic effect. I wish the weed bucket and other stuff was not behind there, but oh well. It's hard to plan photo ops!

Pensive in the park

Trying on Dresses

It's certainly autumn now; best to stay in and try on summer dresses.

Erika's wings

The theme for today is wings!
And magic wands if you have such a thing handy.

As often happens, Erika is not interested in being photographed right now; being discovered after the first flash, I received a rather harsh wand pummeling.

In fact, if you have never had an angry 2-year-old try to beat the snot out of you with a magic wand then you, my friend, are missing something.

She has blue wings too. I only watch about 15 minutes of TV regularly. Here Erika is as fascinated as I am with uncle Jimbo and his Mad Money show on CNBC. Dow 14,000! Wow! Again.

Who wants cupcakes?

It's finally Autumn! Time to stay inside and bake cupcakes! This is the first time that she is truly helping in the kitchen. She dumped the ingredients in (she's an expert at dumping things) and mixed everything together as best she could. Licking the spatula followed.

I would also like to record here one of our many seemingly random conversations with Erika. While we were eating dinner on Saturday, the below conversation transpired:

Erika: Mommy, mommy, mommy!
Jackie: What is it, Erika!?
Erika: When is my birthday!?
Jackie: Your birthday is in December.
*pause*
Erika: I want a candy cane.
End conversation.

Spider and Moon

It is really, really hard to take a picture involving the moon!

Have you ever tried it? I don't know how to do it with our non-professional digital camera.

Anyway, Erika likes to watch bugs. Who doesn't?

Sci-Fi Anyone?

Erika has been carrying around this book quite a bit recently.

Here she is, fresh from the bath before bed time getting in a little last-minute "reading" on the stairs.

Those of you in the know about this particular book will find it an interesting choice I'm sure!

Erika's First Day of Preschool

Today was an important day for Erika; her first day of preschool. It's a co-op preschool where I (Jackie) go with her one day a week and she goes by herself one day a week. Today was an orientation and she did very well. First, there are three rooms. One is the quiet room with books and puzzles, one is the active room with all sorts of fun toys, and the third is the art room. Here Erika is showing her budding artistic technique. She had so much fun in the art room that Daddy will be given 4 new paintings for his office.

Below is the active room with some of her new friends. Erika found something very special in the cabinet she is opening. Could it be? Yes, it's a . . .

A Cash Register! With plastic coins and laminated money! O Joy! Remember last year's interest in such things? Erika spent a good 15 minutes in the noisy active room playing with it. The active room is very loud so I thought she would just look around and demand to be taken back to the quiet area, but no. I'm sure Daddy will want to comment on this too.

All in all, it was a good first day of school. Erika seemed sad to leave.

Russian Doll or Cupcake?

Lavender-scented and fresh from the bath, Erika wraps up to dry.

This particular evening she insisted on wearing the towel as shown.

Happy Birthday to Daddy

Uncle Mark and Jason in 1972.
Note the blond hair and curls!

Flattering Picture Please

Jason, please post at least one flattering picture of me! Unlike Erika, I no longer look great from every angle.
Your beloved wife.

Picnic at the neighborhod park

This morning our neighborhood held it's anual picnic. Erika was quite interesting in the bouncy thing, but not brave enough to try it all by herself. Jackie spent some time inside there too, just trying to get Erika warmed up a bit. Later, during the sack races, Erika had clearly had enough of the tom-foolery and requested that she and Jackie retire to a safe distance for some peace and quiet. You can barely see them in the sack race picture. (They appear right above the kid with the red shirt.)