Baja Mexico

Well I must say we had a simply wonderful time in Mexico.  I had my doubts as to traveling with the kiddos, but they loved it. The plane flights were easy, and getting to experience the trip with them made it that much more amazing.

Nick and Gabe handled most of the organizational business, all though I instigated a 3-day stay at a resort in La Paz.  We spent most of our time in Todos Santos in a rental unit owned by Gabe's parents.  It really made staying for 2 weeks possible and kept me from feeling guilty for splurging a little here and there.  The Todos Santos house was beautiful and surrounded by an amazing garden full of flowers and wild birds.  The kids had a blast exploring the garden and getting muddy in the canal watering channels.  The beach, a lagoon, and the Tropic of Cancer were just a short walk from our door.

The resort in La Paz was top notch and we all got a little spoiled with the swim up bar and poolside service.  In La Paz we hired a boat to take us out to the island of Espiritu Santo, it's a protect nature reserve and was the highlight of the trip for me.  We watched a pod of dolphins jump and dive around the boat for about 30 min, saw a whale, leaping manata ray, sea turtle, frigate breeding colony, and Sea Lion colony.  Gabe and Cythia even jumped in for a quick dip with the sea lions.  The boat stopped off at a secluded beach for lunch and pointed us to a great snorkeling reef and all the adults took a turn and then since it was shallow enough to walk Moira even took a gander at the undersea world.

We certainly made some memories to last a life time.

Disc Dog Logos

So every couple of years I get tasked with creating a logo for a disc dog event.  Since I'm not an artist by claim or by trade I somewhat dread, but also delight in the process.  The first step of simply coming up with an idea always takes some time.  The thing that surprised me this time around was my trepidation at even starting the project.  First off I have zero graphic arts training so I'll need to watch online tutorials and do most aspects of the project in a round about sort of way (like tracing stuff on the window).  I envision it taking me much longer to complete the project then someone with actual training.  Once I finally get up the gumption to get started it usually only takes a day to produce a near finished product (so I'm not sure why I always hesitate at this step). 

This year I finished the logo on the left (salish dog) and proudly put it out there for the others on the event committee to agree on.  I had a few slight variations, but they were all fairly similar.  So one guy never responds, another likes everything, and the last say in the matter said "what's up with the robot dog?  and can we get a coastline instead of mountains?"  I was pretty bummed, but I thought if you are going to ask for people's opinions you better suck it up.  So Yesterday I produced the one on the right.  I really like both of them, but feel the logo to the right is more representative of the event (clubs from 3 states are hosting it together), and better in the end.  I have not heard back from everyone yet, but my guess is we'll go with the newer version.  I'll still recycle the artwork from the first version so all is not lost.

It was a good exercise for me to actually listen to criticism (even if it was a bit harsh), and use it to produce something better.

Valentines Day

I had fun setting up a little Valentines Day surprise for the girls.  Roses for both of them and pink donuts with sprinkles, what could be better.  They both had a great day and really enjoyed exchanging valentines with their friends.

Christmas 2012

We enjoyed a wonderful holiday season.  Nick stayed home with us for the duration of Christmas break.  Our days were a mix of lounging around and exploring fun stuff to do around town.  Highlights included playing at the indoor bouncy house park, getting to see real dinosaur bones, lunch at Chuck E. Cheese, sleep overs at grandmas, and of course lots of Christmas presents.

We celebrated Christmas Eve in Bellingham with family and had a small dinner at home on Christmas.  Mom brought over a massive Prime rib, which Nick cooked to perfection.  He even made yorkshire puddings to accompany the amazing meal.






The butterfly wings were a big hit auntie Carol






The dogs even got in on the act :)


We wrapped up 2012 with 3 days of gaming and feasting with good friends.  Thoroughly enjoyed playing Cards Against Hummanity, MTG, and Race for the Galaxy.  Had an awesome NYE dinner, and a fun 8:30 pm toast and celebration for the kiddos.
We woke up to a cold clear New Years day and took the kids to the park for one last romp before our friends headed home.

Bummer

So my attempts to be more active on the blog have been stymied the last few months by google.  They recently purchased both youtube and blogger.  They have a very invasive policy of sharing multiple online accts if they are shared on one computer.  They have linked the family blog, my private youtube, picasa accounts, Nicks gmail and google plus acct and some defunt accounts from a website that doesn't exist.  This has put the blog way over its storage limit making it impossible to add pictures.  Google has been no help in resolving this other than to remove Nicks gmail and google plus acct from the mix, which basically did nothing. 

I have however figured out how to add flickr images to the blog, so I should be able to post more often now.  At least until google takes over the rest of the world

no training wheels!!

Last summer Moira made a few feeble attempts at riding her bike without training wheels.  She took a few tumbles, scraped her knee and decided to wait.  After talking with her she was ready to try again, especially if she had some wrist and knee pads to help keep her from getting banged up. 

I got Moira geared up in her battle armor and after about 15min she was making short 20-30ft solo rides.  I had a dog training class in the evening so she went out and practiced more with Juju and Dad.  By the time they managed to drag her inside she was able to start out on her own turn and stop without assistance.  We're all very proud of miss Moira, and she is just pleased as punch with herself.  Took me outside first thing this morning to show off all her new skills.  Here's footage of her first few moments of riding free.

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

So it just so happened that the entire family was up by 7am last saturday, and it was sunny, so I suggested we all head out to the tulip festival.  The girls were game so we hustled everyone in to the car and off we went.  We arrived at the first field by 8:30 am.  Kiah had her first face plant in the mud by 8:31am.  Luckily she handled it well and took it as a free pass to wallow in the mud some more.  After checking out the flowers for a bit Moira asked where the festival was . . . whoops apparently she was expecting a full on vendor/crafter fair.  So after getting over that little set back Moira settled in to checking out the flowers.   The first field we stopped at was just that a muddy field w/lots of flowers.

The next stop we made was Tulip Town.  This is the tourist version of the festival.  You had to pay $5 for adults to enter, but hey they had bathrooms.  Tulip Town was much less muddy and had statuary, music, manicured grounds, and many other things the girls thought enhanced the experience.  We rolled in a little after 9am and there were maybe 25-30 other people milling around.  The clouds finally started to break up and out came the sun.  You were allowed to go down the rows a bit here, which made for great photo ops, and it was a hilly piece of property, which also allowed for some pretty fantastic scenic vistas.  After several warnings about playing the "puddle jump game"  Moira had a spectacular fall in to a puddle and was not only covered in mud, but soaked.  After a fair bit of crying Nick managed to convince her to walk around a bit more, and we madly shot pictures in an effort to beat the kiddo clock.  We left the 2nd field just after 10am and it was getting really crowded, and difficult to get a shot without some random person walking through it.  The roads were also insanely backed up as we left town.  So the lesson for next time we go is to bring mud boots, towels, and multiple changes of clothing.