Liam's most recent recital.

 

 

Liam played beautifully. No mistakes! I wrote a simple clarinet accompaniment....

Lake City

Nice to see Aunt Elizabeth.  We had a nice walk around the lake in the center of town.  Lots of water birds and turtles.  No alligators.

Rainy Days in the Northwest

We were all out at Shadow Lake today clearing brush, and working on the sleeping porch addition to the tiny house. I am trying to relocate the native Salal and grasses that will have to be destroyed by the porch decking. Ultimately there will be a deck, and collapsible screen porch.

 I forgot the keys today so we had to walk in the rain from the gate, and couldn't get into the tiny house for cloths/ hot chocolate makings, etc. We stopped off at McDonalds on the way home.

The roof is hinged, so if we want to transport the house in the future, we can.

We all went to a Halloween party on Friday. Bob and I chose costumes that reflected our alter egos. Bob called himself a bankster. Liam is some sort of video character, Ben's costume entailed a work coat, and fake cigarette made from a straw (?I didn't get it either. Whatever!) Anyways, he took the photo.

 Me and my Daddy-o

 

The boys and I spent last Sunday at a work party for the Duwamish River. The river is a superfund site. It drains out into Elliot bay just South of Downtown. There has been a big push to clean it up since 2001, and the efforts are starting to pay off.

 Ben worked very hard and planted many, many native plants. Here he is working on putting in a Salmon berry.

 Some of the clean-up crew worked from kayaks. We plan on doing that next Spring.

 Liam was very into trying every kind of tool.

 

 That's all for now. Looking forward to seeing everybody in Mexico!

Istanbul

 Our two days here have been very full.  We forgot the cameras the first morning, so no interior pictures of Hagia Sophia, one of the most spectacular churches/mosques of all time.  Here it is from afar.

Here's our afternoon cruise of thr Bosphorus to the Black Sea.

Here you can see the ships waiting in the Black Sea to be piloted thru the Bosphorus to the Marmara Sea.  The bridge is just being constructed.

The most interesting things in Topkapi Palace were the Harem and the kitchens.  They served 4000-5000 people two meals each day.

This is a reception room in the Harem where the Sultan and his wives greeted guests or just lounged.

Wives and concubines and their families all lived in the Harem under the administration of the queen mother.

The Blue Mosque, so called because of the blue tile work and Windows.  It was built to copy Hagia

Sophia over 1000 years later (early 1600's) and is still in use.

San Diego for the weekend

Very fortunate to get some consulting work in SD and make it back for a weekend.  Spirit Airlines for $140 RT if you do not need miles to make certain status levels.  We paid $20 extra to get emergency exit row seating.  Our company was notified today of an SBIR entrance to negotiation,  The letter indicated "A committee of government scientists, engineers, and technical managers reviewed a field of 320 proposals submitted in response to the SBIR xxx solicitation and recommended your proposal as a promising approach . . ."  This highlights that we have some great technology.

Relaxing afternoon with Mom and Dad.

No fish were harmed in the making of these pictures.

The dock turned around in the storm

This happened last weekend.  We spent Wednesday morning maneuvering it into the swale.  The picture is taken from the bottom of the swale.  It was a beautiful day and we went paddle boarding afterward.

Nathan on the front page

The Union Tribune in San Diego did a story on the epic fishing season in San Diego due to the warm water and Nathan made the front page.

Overnight trip to Austin

We went to Austin last weekend for a quick trip.  This is about a 3 hr drive from Dallas. It is a great town with a lot to do.  We stayed downtown which was fun as they close down one of the streets on Saturday night and there are people all over.  Live music in every bar.

On Saturday when we got there, we went directly to Hamilton Pool.
 

Swimming was closed at the pool due to the flooding that they had earlier in the year.  We were able to walk a trail to the Pedernales river and go swimming.  The air temperature was 103 so it was refreshing even though the water temperature was ~85 degrees. 

We then checked into our hotel and walked up to the Congress street bridge where millions of bats come out at sunset.  Below is a picture and a video (Not sure if this made it but you can see clouds of bats in the distance).  The smell as they flew by was strong.

 

The capital building was quite nice at night and day.

 

Live music for dinner.  A good jazz band.

 

 Sunday we finished off with a drink at Lake Travis.  Austin is a lot more hilly than Dallas.

Fun with Liam

We had only one more swimming day at the lake but Grandpa and Liam played a lot of badminton and we went to the Medina Railroad Museum where Liam was allowed to control the whistle and bells of the train.  Now he is thoroughly enjoying DC.  Tomorrow we will go back to the Natural History Museum because, on our previous visit, we were so exhausted from walking around all the monuments that we only watched IMAX films.

The Little Princess

The kids were reading a new book last night - The Little Princess. 

Catching Up

We had a great time in Vegas with Jeff and Missy celebrating our 50th birthdays this year.  Temperature outside was 115F during the day so we spent a lot of time in the pool.  A friend from San Diego got us free blue man tickets which was a fun show.  We won on the first night which made for a good weekend.

We found another nice park in Plano.  It has a nice wooded section following a creek.  There was signs that the water along the trail was above our heads in the storm.  As the creek was 15 feet lower in a ravine it gives the sense of the dangers of flash floods.  Also nearly stepped on a copper head snake.  It turns out there is a bike trail to the park from our apartment so we did this this weekend.

We attended July fourth at the Laos temple.  They had about a two hour firework show and concert.  The grand finale was great.  I think fireworks are cheaper in Texas.

Tui has started work,  She starts every day at 6:00 so I have been getting up at 5:00 and making coffee.  She got her first paycheck yesterday.

Today we went back to our favorite place, the Dallas Arboretum.  Lots of new flowers.  The Crape Myrtle really is blooming well in Texas.

 

 

 

Great Visit with Kalyani, Hannah, Jo and Susie!

Here are some highlights from Kalyani's visit last week. So nice to see them.

 Reflections on the EMP

 Pondering Chihuly

 Good way to cause a family feud is to rent a triple kayak!

 This year's sockeye run through the Ballard Locks.

 BOB.

 Tough Girls.

 A quick dip in Puget Sound (or, now who's tough?)