Ah, bachelorhood…when the beer was measured by the number of kegs full of homebrew and the the food was measured by the number of take-out boxes. Me and Todd’s reputation for homebrew grew to the point of attracting the local paper (it may have been a slow week in Cedar Falls). Thank you, Bruce for holding on to this all these years!
Well, it’s late in the season to send Christmas cheer
But I’ve been stuck inside home with Tess drinking beer
We read Dr. Seuss from a big Christmas book
’till I rhyme no matter where I smell, hear, or look
Even though we left Iowa and the wintry snow
It seems the snow follows us wherever we go
It’s white and wintry and cold outside now
And it seems that Portland has just one plow
Now that plow is ran by a competent man
He plows all the roads and covers with sand
But he’s just one man and as hard as he tries
He can’t keep up with the white stuff from the sky
So the snow has fallen on our city like soot
And it’s stuck to the ground till the depth’s near a foot
They say you can’t drive on the roads without chains
If you said that in Iowa they’d think you’re insane
But Portlands not flat, the hills are quite tall
And I work on Pill Hill, the tallest hill of them all
While it’s not hard to go up if you drive
Coming back down there’s a good chance you’ll slide
And once the slide starts it’s not likely you’ll stop
till you reach the Willamette river and splash with a plop
So rather than plop I stay home with a my Dear
Reading from Seuss and sipping my beer
It gives me a chance to think of family and friends
Spread out on five continents and back again
So even though the weather outside is a mess
We send out our love, Adam, Cara, and Tess.
Here’s some pictures from the beach, where we spent Cara’s birthday weekend…we stayed in Lincolon City, about halfway down the Oregon coast. The weather was great for winter in Oregon (60 F and sunny!). I’m not sure Tess knew what that big bright ball in the sky was…it’s been cloudy most of the fall. The way home was back to normal, 40 degrees and raining.
Tess watches her first christmas tree go up and get decorated in 26 seconds
Tessa went to her four month appointment last week. Shes off the charts for her length (2 feet 3 and 1/2 inches) due to the 3 inches shes grown in the last two months! I’m not sure what is in Cara’s breastmilk but it seems to be effective.
Cara has started back to work after 14 weeks leave and is slowly adjusting. She works 6-2 while I work 10-whenever, so Tess spends a 1/2 day in daycare. Her daycare is about a block away from the lab I work in, so I take her to daycare in the morning on bus and aerial tram…we get a great view of the city during our commute. She spends the day with two other children and a woman we really like, so it has worked out pretty well.
I can’t believe Tessa is now three months old! She’s changing so fast and starting to show much more personality, smiling and trying to crawl. Here’s some pictures from a hike a few days ago.
Some pictures of a beautiful day on the Oregon coast
For Tessa’s six-week birthday we went camping up by Detroit lake…just across the road from where we all camped a few weeks ago. For the first attempt to camp with a baby it went pretty well. I forgot a grill for the chicken, rained a little, and was cold, but everything worked out. I fashioned a grill out of sticks, we had lots of clothes, and we used the big family tent and sat in chairs inside while it rained (it was like camping Teddy Roosevelt style, except without the big game carcasses). Here’s some pictures
Today marks Tessa’s three week birthday! Alot has changed already. She is a pound heavier and an inch longer. She’s learned a bunch of new sounds (and how to really project her voice), and is much more alert and interested in the world. She’s also learned it’s fun to poop when your dipers are off…here’s some more pictures.
Along with the beaver these guys moved into the trees outside of our apartment…Timber and Penny are really excited, the racoons, less so.
