Early Spring

Erika and Takara take rest after jumping on beds at Takara's house. Erika looks strangely small in this picture, although Erika is older by 6 weeks.

T minus 40 days and 40 nights and counting...

Easter 2008

Erika and Jackie relax on the couch.


Easter egg hunt time with Kaemon and Ilene Hayatsu! An annual tradition. Note that Erika is not happy about any of this. Although she did pick up three eggs which marks the first time she at least tried to pretend to care about this event.


Thanks to Uncle Mark for introducing Erika to the giant chocolate bunny.


Erika also has babies in her tummy. They just happen to be cats, but still, you get the idea.

Jak Video, e-life

This is Erika's absolute favorite video since Jak and Daxster are characters in our favorite video game.  Someone set scenes from the game to some cool music.  Turn up the volume and start jumping on the couch until you are out of breath!

Train trip to Grandma Glady's

Grandma Glady and Erika have not seen each other for some time now, but Jackie is not in the best shape for long trips. What to do?!
Erika and I (daddy) took Amtrak from Seattle to Oregon City, Oregon all by ourselves. We stayed with grandma for only one night, but we timed it so that we could visit the same time Aunty Jayne and John were visiting as well.
Oregon City is the end point of the historical Oregon Trail, and that's what the covered-wagon-style memorial in the background is all about.

Our departure from Oregon city was delayed by a few minutes, but this gave us some time to exercise!

Here is the main terminal in Portland, OR. Erika and I had a lay-over here which was just long enough to enjoy a popsicle.

We traveled business class because I felt that we could probably indulge in the extra $50 charge for the two of us since this was our first trip.
It was so dang quiet in business class that it was like traveling in a library. Erika had a lot to say the entire time, so it was more like a library with a chatty toddler in the middle of it.

Train trip continued....

The Amtrak ride from Seattle to Oregon City takes about 4 hours. It costs under $90 for the both of us round trip. I calculated that the gas for driving would be $70, so it's a great deal! $25 each to upgrade to the business class car.

The great thing about the train is that you don't have to be buckled in. You can walk around, and go to the bathroom at any time! Also there is a dining car with tasty snacks and tables.

Sure, a lot of the scenery between Washington and Oregon is not always magnificent, but you do get to see some very interesting sites.

This red ship was actually getting filled with grain as we passed. Coming and going! We could see the grain going right in there!

The tracks skirts the southern portion of Puget Sound between Tacoma and Olympia and this was certainly the most scenic part of the trip. The winter skies are ominous, but the air was so fresh! We passed through lots of wooded areas and if you are fond of ferns and moss, this is the ride for you. Also we got to see which towns are full of people who like to collect discarded household appliances and pile them in their yard. I didn't get a photo of that! Maybe next time!

The most surprising thing about the train trip was the amazing friendliness of the Amtrak staff. They were so nice to everyone! This mode is travel is very laid-back, and every single Amtrak person acted not just like they were tolerating us (the best you can hope for on American Airlines) but they were actually happy to see us. The conductors all thought Erika was the cutest thing ever, and told us so. It was a very pleasant trip and Erika did so well, that we will certainly do this again.

Rock store, art, t-minus 64 days and counting

We (Erika and Jackie) have been exploring more of the Seattle area. Last Monday, we went to the Scratch Patch with our friends, Bethany and Takara. The Scratch Patch is a store where they buy all sorts of neat polished rocks and put them on the floor for kids (and parents) to pick their favorites. Erika and Takara had a great time and both took home a nice bag of "treasure". Here Erika shows us the foot method for sorting through rocks.



Erika has also been going to pre-school two days a week. One of her favorite things to do is painting. Here, she is showing Daddy one of her masterpieces.



Finally, the twins and I are doing well. I can't believe how big I'm getting and there is still 2 months to go. So to document my new physique and to add to the twins' pre-birth pictures, Jason took a few shots. It will make a nice before picture.

Video from Siblings Class at Evergreen Hospital

Crazy for Peeps

How much happiness can 59 cents buy?
A lot, if invested in Peeps.

Siblings class

Erika is a fairy princess a lot of the time. She takes great care in picking out her outfits for such activities. The three favorites are one of her dressy jumpers, her pink tutu, and her fairy wings. Lollipop wands are optional.

No news there, but below is a photo from Siblings class. Erika learns about being a big sister. The class taught the soon to be big sisters and brothers how to change a diaper and how to swaddle the baby. Notice Erika's "baby" had her arms pulled back to facilitate wrapping the blanket around the body. :-)

Lunar Eclipse and Moon Madness

Tonight we witnessed a lunar eclipse. As with many 3-year-olds, Erika is very interested in the moon, so this was quite an event! As the moon turned to red, Erika exclaimed, "The moon looks like Jupiter!" which I think is a pretty insightful observation!
We don't have a telescope...yet, so we made due with binoculars as best we could.

After we got cold and came in, (notice that mommy needs no jacket since her oven is cooking along at about 400F. Just try sleeping near her!) Erika wanted to watch a "Cosmos" DVD. This must be where she picked up the idea of what Jupiter looks like! Indeed, while we had the stomach flu the week before last, we watched the whole 13 episode series of Cosmos from 1980.

In this final picture, Erika is showing signs of moon madness: she has pants on her head, is chattering about rockets, and is expressing desire for more Carl Sagan and the planet Jupiter. Who says the Wetzels don't know how to party?

As a side note, this "Cosmos phase" in her viewing habits has been going on for about two weeks so far. I'm sure it will pass like the other phases have, but just in case something sticks, I'm saving this picture to show at her doctoral dissertation.

Band-aids, Skittles, and drawing thing.

Erika loves band-aids.  This is what happens when you leave the box unattended. Whoever thought of putting cartoon characters on band-aids has cost us a lot of money.  Below is Erika lazily watching Saturday morning cartoons and putting band-aids wherever she can.  

Uncle Mark joined us for our Sunday ritual of going to cross-roads mall in Bellevue for Thai food.  Afterwards, Erika is rewarded with a handful of Skittles candies.

Grandma Kathy sent Erika this lovely drawing thing.  It's the kind where you paint with plain water, but the picture magically appears.  I don't know exactly what these things are called, but Erika simply loves them.

Rotavirus: 3; Wetzels: 0

This past week was brought to us by the letter V for Virus.
It was ugly, but here's what I have learned about projectile vomiting:

3) You get an instant abdominal workout without the hastle of going to the gym.
2) It's a quick way to loose 5 pounds overnight
1) Eat applesauce, it's good the second time too.


Figure 1. Microscopic Evil.

The good news: Erika took 5 days to recover, but recover she has. She laid down Monday morning and vomited every 20 minutes for several hours. She did not get up on her own until just this morning (Friday). She asked for Pizza.
Jackie is tired, but this is a huge improvement from the earlier explosive action from both ends which is a joy while pregnant I'm told.
The Twins, still in there and ticking away. Jackie had another ultrasound visit today and little A and B are in excellent shape having missed all the fireworks.
As for me: I missed 3 days of work.. well, I tried, but people kept calling me. It's good to feel needed, but I'll admit during the darkest 8 hours of this virus, I could not have possibly cared less. Lying motionless and cursing repeatedly seemed to be the only thing I was capable of doing. Yes, I know, that's not much different than a typical day at the office.

Stomach virus. Again with the snow?

Last week it snowed again! ..for a day. Erika looked out the window and excalimed "What a great day to stay inside"

But this week Erika is one hurtin' cowpoke. She has her first really impressive stomach virus. She was throwing up about every 20 minutes for several hours. She could only tolerate the tiniest sip of water or Pedialyte. As of tonight, she has turned the barfy corner but has no energy whatsoever. She just lays there and dozes. So sad!
Last night, she was looking particularly pathetic and I asked if she needed some loving. There has never been a tinier, sadder "yeah" uttered. I picked her up and she cuddled into a ball in my arms. Now *this* is the sweet part about being a dad! Then she barfed impressively all over me and I had to take a shower. You gotta be ready with the towels at all times.

From the Archives: Kruses past

And now for a little romp through the photo archives. This is from grandpa Doug's genealogy collection here we have the William Henry Kruse family. From what we can tell, Great Grandpa George is not yet born when this photo was taken.
There is just something about this scene. The six of them peering out at us from a hundred years ago. Clearly they take raising a family very seriously!
Recently I've heard some idle chit-chat around the office by people saying that they could never have children right now given the state of the world. Consider our ancestors at the turn of the last century, WWI has not started yet, there has yet been no flu pandemic, the Great Depression was not even imaginable, and certainly anything as all-encompassing as WWII was beyond speculation. 100Million people were killed in conflict in the 20th century. Is the world now too dangerous for babies? Good thing those pictured above didn't think that way. It's one thing to be stoic, but quite another to be a cynic.

Bed-time Stories

Story time is crucial. Since Erika has turned three, she can express lots of preferences for books, and will correct me if I miss a word on her favorites. The hard part is keeping story time on track and not off on a tangent. In this picture, Erika is in her bed. Note that she is using her insane cuteness to manipulate me (her father) into reading an extra book, or really just about anything to stall for time. I got the camera out to document what I'm up against! Nonetheless, we do not deviate from the routine. 15 minutes of books and a brief poem from a German story book and lights out. Schlafenzeit! There is no better way to end the day.

Another half day of snow in a year!

Twin update

We finally know the gender of the twins: female.
So, we are expecting identical twin girls in late May. For those keeping score at home, I'm told that the chance of having identical twins is 1 in 285.
Erika was informed of the news, but responded angrily. She insists that those are not girls in mommy's tummy but babies! I asked her if she is a girl, and she denied that as well. I found that no matter how you finish this sentence: "Erika, are you a ____?" she will emphatically deny it, turn away and become very agitated. I'm not sure what that is, but there you have the psychology of our 3-year-old.

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.