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.

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?