4/07: Spring break ski trip to Whistler!
We all had a great time, staying at a hotel right on the slopes and swimming in an
outdoor pool each day after our lessons. Then, the following week, I
rented a Cirrus 22 and instructor to help, and flew it to Sunriver, OR, where
Max and Eli skied and I boarded. They were fast. More pictures to
come, but the first group below is at Whistler (Julie on snowboard, Owen after
graduation, same for Max and Eli, those two jumping into the pool, Owen with the
creation of a chef from Vancouver where we stayed on way back).
The Sunriver pix:: the Cirrus and two from it on the way
back: the Three Sisters (all the Cascade volcanoes were visible on the way back); and the
Marshmallow Run on Bachelor (furthest right).
And here's a video of Max
and Eli skiing towards me rapidly. (2Mbytes, or the YouTube version is
below-- less quality, faster download).
As you can hear in my voice, I was
fearful of them hitting me, knowing that they had only begun skiing the week
before and they seemed to be coming quite rapidly. As far as the
snowboarding, I've learned to link my turns, but the cement-like snow at
Bachelor resulted in multiple layers of tail-bone bruises in the process.
Eli got the same injury, but got it because he tried a big jump (!) unlike my
failure to turn. He "went slow like Daddy" on his last run
because he was hurting. Julie was doing well at Whistler, but we'll both need some good powder days to
appreciate the new sport.
12/06 through 3/07: New: no
longer missing from this site : the 11/06 trip to Hawaii with Daddy,
Eli and Max; the 12/06 whole family trip to San Diego; the 12/06 trip of Daddy
and Owen to Baja; and the whole family trip to Hawaii in 2/07. Plus some
kiteskiing and some snow adventures with the cousins, all in the Google slide
show below. Also can be seen
here . Or, you can click to see a bigger picture of this collage:
11/23/06: Birthdays! In close order, Bard's, Max and Eli's, then Owen's
birthdays occurred. One month of boy b-days for Julie!
10/05/06: A movie
of Bard, Kip and Owen acting out getting a phone call that isn't from whom you
wanted...and when
you see someone stupidly missing a big opportunity-- click here .
(A small quicktime version is here .)
9/14/06: Summer
adventures in Hood River ("The Gorge").
Great fun! We white-water rafted and
hiked to waterfalls, ice caves, snow fields, arid meadows and museum sculpture
gardens. Bard got to summit 12,460' Mt Adams with
brother-in-law Carl, and also did a lot of kiting in pretty extreme winds
(usually >30mph) because it never got less (pic of Bard at Lyle here
or see my site brichmond ).
The town is really attractive and kid-friendly, with great parks, restaurants,
shops, and an aquatic center with a great view of Adams and warm water, deep
enough to encourage swimming without being scary. The boys spent some time
at Bambinos Learning Center, a somewhat bilingual summer school. All of
these activities are shown in the following slideshow, which includes shots of
all six cousins getting together to throw stones into the Columbia River,
with Julie's Mom Carol and sister Laura looking on. A few Seattle scenes
are thrown in.
Previous slide shows: Initial PR pix, Fajardo Getaway,
Park Time, PR Clouds, St Croix, US
Virgin Islands, bday shots, new: Eli
and Dad in Costa Rica (last one).
6/14/06: We're
BACK, via DisneyWorld (
5/29/06: We
move out tomorrow! At the last second, I learned to kite here:
5/17/06: Almost
three months since an update! In the meantime, we've visited some local
great places like Arecibo and the Camuy Caves, and taken side trips to Aruba,
Vieques, St Maarten and Martinique. Fun adventures at each. I'll
provide a slide show,
but here are a few pics to whet the appetite (from left: the caves; Arecibo
[where "Contact" was filmed and SETI is ongoing] with our friends'
kids from down the beach, Aubrey and Max; Eli with his inhaler for his
bout of bronchitis; the UV index when the sun was completely vertical here
recently; Eli and Max at our beach; and Owen at Vieques). April was a month of illnesses, capped with
Julie's terrible joint pains and nail-darkening...all of them
maybe Fifth Disease, a common childhood ailment that can be really bad for
adults. The kids have done great in school (one report card noted they'd learned
Spanish) and Owen's teachers have cried at his upcoming departure. Eli is swimming and Max has done it
once and both have just started to boogieboard. We were fortunate to
have Julie's Mom Carol and sister Laura visit us recently too. I've tried
to learn to kitesurf, which has been tough, but am now getting short exuberant
rides in both directions, albeit going downwind a lot, getting yanked violently,
and crashing the kite in the water frequently. We come home to
Seattle via Disneyworld (for maximum culture shock) on June 1. It
will have been just under 11 months.
2/27/06: Eli
and I went to Costa Rica last week, and had a great time. It's so nice to
spend time with a son individually, rather than being a referree for
three. But taking one away didn't reduce the burden for Julie,
unfortunately, since Max and Owen went at it the whole time we were gone.
I'm grateful to her for the special time with Eli. Below is a quick shot
of Eli in front of Volcan Arenal, an active volcano near my farm there.
More pics are here in my
experiment with blogging...not too successful so far, since it only allowed me
to upload 3 pix at a time. However, it's good for captioning. If
that doesn't work, use the slideshow above.
2/10/05: Wow,
it's been a long time without an update. We've been
busy! We went on a cruise boat in December, sadly interrupted by my
Dad's passing. I took Eli and Max to the funeral in Boston, where we had
to purchase coats to go out in snow. I'll write more about it on a
separate page. School has been going well. Recently I was
not understanding a workman's request in the house here, and in desperation I
turned to Eli and asked him. He said, "He needs a ladder, Daddy."
And today in school, Max
got 100% on a number dictation test. Simple, but progress
nevertheless. Owen was the king of his preschool recently when he
somehow charmed a baby lizard
Back to the cruise: we stopped in Aruba, and I brought the
family to the same restaurant where I had proposed to Julie in February of 1998,
the day before the total eclipse. Could it be only eight years from popping that question to the result on the
left below? Then, next pic, Bob Delf and friend Marla arrived for a few days-- the
boys were totally excited to see him. Next is of a couple of new
friends, Ronan and Carine. He flies for American, and is consequently
absolutely the guy you want to ask kiting questions of...and the only other guy
on the beach that wears a helmet besides me. The following three are Owen,
Eli and Max on the cruise boat. They enjoyed it a lot; great Kids'
Club. We were lucky to be close to the waterline, so we could work off a
few of the gratuitous cruise calories by climbing the nine floors to boat's
activities several times a day.
And oh yeah! Owen and I took a bonding trip to Aruba
two weeks before the cruise. Owen did the flying there on the 757:
11/28/05: In the new slide show above
("bday shots"), Owen is shown holding a paper on which he wrote
his name (pretty scrambled, but he was still 2!); friends and their twins at Max
and Eli's party; the big inflated slide; and some fudge-sundae-gorging at Owen's
dinner. Below: a recent shot of all three at local Parque Indios; and Owen
"using" the GPS at El Yunque, a USFS-maintained rain forest
park, where the whole family did a hike. Owen performed well, only
melting down in sight of the car on the return leg. It was nice to get
some solitude and quiet on this island of 4M people. The trails were
easy-to-walk cement, with many waterfalls and huge bamboo-trees.
Since it's only 45 minutes away, we'll be back.
10/29/05 and Halloween: The big boys (Max and Eli, newly 5) are in
a new school-- Parque Infantil. And they've been promoted; they're now in
K instead of Pre-K (we insisted, because there were too many very young kids in
the Pre-K). Here
10/05/05 Just got back from a great trip to
St. Croix, in the US Virgin Islands and very close to PR. The
whole family was up at 2am one night because of a spectacular
thunderstorm. None of us minded, because it was so fun to watch when safe
and inside: almost continuous lightning, much of it inside the cloud but some
landing very nearby; and solid sheets of rain. It's clear that the
energy of the hot oceans makes storms like this, and also why hurricanes are
born here. Also the food was very good, and Mommy and Daddy got to have a
dinner alone, looking out on the lights of Christainsted, below. More pix from St Croix in the slide show above
(except for the tent in our living room). The pic of me was taken by
Eli. There's a realistic one of Owen in mid-tantrum, despite all the
beauty around him. From the window of the airplane on the way back, you
can see how dense San Juan is-- our house is on the top left somewhere, 3 miles
W of the airport. There are some pool shots, showing that all the kids
are able to float, but the great news in the last few days is that ELI IS
SWIMMING, sans water wings or life jacket! He's pretty much taught
himself. Next, windsurfing.
9/15/05 We're getting more of a rhythm here.
And we have a new babysitter, Gloria (in the "Park Time" slide show
above), who's wonderful and has very good language abilities. I couldn't
resist putting in a set of cloud pix. The clouds here are truly amazing:
cumulus that build straight up at any time of day, and are lit in strange,
glowing ways as the strong tropical sun finds a path through them. The
last pic is a good example of that-- almost looked like an aurora as Eli held up
his rake, which the cloud made fluoresce. The pic of Julie and me at a
restaurant was taken by Eli.
8/16/05 We've met a great couple who are helpful
and fun to be with-- and on Sunday spent a day with them at the Westin Riomar,
close to the Fajardo resort (with improved pix here ).
They are sending their 19 mo-old twins (!) to a great part-time nursery school,
and told us about it, and thus we're moving Owen from his baby boot
camp. He wasn't liking it, and we couldn't blame him, because there
was no a/c, and a lot of noise. However, one thing we've noticed at all
these schools is how loving the teachers are. All of the boys appreciate
it, for sure. One negative is the use of TV. Only at Owen's new
school have they learned how bad it actually is for kids' brains.
8/09/05 First two days of school for Eli and Max,
and Owen starts tomorrow. The below is at Academia San Jorge with Maestra
Elvira and classmate Nashla. Owen will start at Colegio Loíza tomorrow. We joke about Owen already
going to college. Both schools are Spanish-speaking, but the
teachers know some English, and there's an hour a day of English instruction,
which should be a total break for the boys.
Note about pictures here-- they were totally washed out
and I had to darken them. The internals of
cameras, if left in air conditioning all day, get fogged up instantly in normal
air and take a while to dry out. Our landlords have added a sixth air
conditioner, and we're finally comfortable all through the house, and paying an
unbelievable bill for it, all the more annoying in that the solar energy here is
boundless, and no one is using it.
8/05/05 Here's
a slide show of our recent getaway to Fajardo, a town on the east coast of
Puerto Rico. It's really only an hour or about three giant malls away,
probably less time in less traffic, which never happens. The Wyndham El
Conquistador hotel was huge (1000
rooms) but very comfortable, and had a great funicular from its cliff-perch down
to a marina. And from there, you could take a water taxi to a beautiful
little island, from which you could snorkel to a beautiful teeny island (and
from there you could stand in the water and be the smallest possible
island). We had a baby sitter at dinner time and were able to get a great
tasting and incredibly fattening couple of meals, which we tried to work off in
their very fancy spa. I wish I had gotten a picture of Owen pulling
a rolling suitcase all the way from the rooms, something he couldn't be stopped
from doing.
7/23/05 We're in Puerto Rico! Some
pictures here! Well, there's lots
to talk about, but no time to do it: we have very little babysitter help, and we
certainly can't let them take care of all three kids, so one of us is always on
duty. Quick summary: it's very hot but we're adapting; the house was
in disrepair but we're repairing; and the beach is a block away,
beautiful, and we're enjoying it. The water is aquamarine, and
the sky deep blue, both made an even darker color by the bright white sand and
whitecaps and the sun very high. We live on a busy, noisy street, but the
trade off is that we are walking distance from lots of restaurants, shops,
Starbuxes, hotels, hospitals, etc.
So far we've had no chance at all to interact with the
culture or the people other than to try to get things fixed in the house.
So we've only seen the pure challenge and difficulty of a move to a mostly
foreign place, and none of the reward or learning. We're hoping it will
come soon.
More coming.
2/25/05 Recent ones: the family trying to pose for
the holiday card shot; Max and Daddy during the Phoenix trip around Xmas on a hike to
Fremont Pass; view from the Pass; with Wendy and Fred the next evening
celebrating their balloon ride; Wendy and Max; Kip and Max and Eli at the Tacoma
Art Museum; Eli then Eli and Max in the boat; and an amazing sunset from the
house; Max in the boat; Owen out on the beach; and finally with Doug Hopkins'
family on the Phoenix trip, taken by Doug.
We've spent a lot of time on the beach on these gorgeous
global-warming days in Seattle, turning over rocks to find the "mother
lode" of little crabs and taking the boat to Discovery Park. We all
look forward to low tide.
If you hover over some of these thumbnails, just before
you click, you can see a caption with more detail.
1/15/04 Some more shots from 2004, in no
meaningful order, but from left to right: Bard, Max and Eli after our flight in
a Cirrus-23, the only airplane with a parachute; Bard near Ingalls Lake, shot by
Tom Schworer; Eli, Max and Claire at the Obsidian Flow on our vacation with Ken
and Jeanne Boynton at Sun River; Eli in the Vancouver Art Gallery (the red pic);
the Richmond 2004 Family pic; Julie pressing Owen's hands into the new cement
near our new Sport Court; Ken and Bard, preserving our dark adaptation at the
furthest point of the Lava Tube, 1 mile in; and finally, Owen in our little 2.5
hp boat that we can now launch from the house.
10/09/04 Wow, I can hardly believe almost six
months have passed since the last update. I'm sure we've lost most of the
audience for this site! Well, it was obviously a busy summer. Here's
some of what went on. First, Father's Day 2004 was fun-- I took 2/3s of
the boys, Eli and Max, to Mt Hood for a hike. They weren't too bad except
when I had to pick them up to dodge the snowboarders. As we had lunch (see
bagels in 2nd picture), we saw three litters of injured skiers go by, towed by
the ski patrol. The boys still ask me if it's safe to ski.
Then, in July, we went to Mazanita, OR. Big, huge
beach. A shot of Julie and Eli, then Owen hiking with me and trying to
imitate how I used the hiking stick; Owen at the beach; my windsurfing buddies
back at Hood River just afterwards; Owen out for dinner; and a visit of Mom and
Wendy.
3/19/04 A few pics from our recent family trip to San
Diego, a new place to take care of three kids!
From left to right: Eli in airplane, four of us at Torrey
Pines, Owen and sunset, Max and Aunt Wendy, Eli and a sculpture in La
Jolla, and the shark that cruised above Max and me at SeaWorld. Here's
a 2Mbyte movie of Max and Eli driving for the first time!
More coming in the form of a slideshow.
1/12/04 I'm obsolete: they are now theoretically able
to access the entire world without my help, starting with this preschool
program. Both have mastered the mouse, with almost no training. The trick
was to make it cordless and slow it down a little. See the video
(1Mbyte). I might still be able to teach them a few things that are
not available in cyberspace, like how to play football...wait a second, I don't
know how to play football!
Click here for everything
in 2003 and before.
Yep, they actually got up. They instructors at Hanalei
Bay gave them a push at the right wave, but they were lying down on the board
and were able to jump up, get in position, and stay on, all the way to the
beach. They were very excited about it. They were angry at me for
insisting on their wearing lifejackets, but I of course didn't back down.
On previous days, I was able to get some kiteboarding in, and got some
air at Kapa'a (2Mbyte, Quicktime).