Dinosaur&Robot

It’s always fun when grandparents come!

2012-01-26T22:34:00.001-08:00

My parents were able to come out for a visit this year after Christmas. Magnus had a good time playing and snuggling with them.

We went to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville to see the Spruce Goose (the largest plane ever built). It was impressively large.

Here is Magnus and I on the platform next to the door.

There were a lot of planes to see, several were parked under the wings of the Spruce Goose.

Thanks, Dad for taking us to the cool museums! Magnus really enjoyed the space museum where he got to chat with the spacemen and touch a moon rock.

Dana especially wanted to see the blackbird.

There is also an interesting water park there (that we did not go to). They put a 747 on top of the building, then built stairs up into the plane. From there you can take a waterslide down.

Thanks for coming to visit, Mom and Dad! We love you!

Magnus Thor Takes His First Steps

2012-01-04T23:02:00.001-08:00

Tonight Magnus took a few small steps and then we got him to walk between Ruth and Farmor while I filmed it. Magnus is 8 months, 1 day old today.

Video 1

Video 2

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-30T15:52:00.001-08:00

We hope you all had a merry Christmas! We did! We started with Christmas Eve at Else’s house. Magnus came in and got right down to business examining and tasting all the presents.

Dinner was ham and fingerling potatoes followed by the traditional Christmas Eve dessert, ris a’lamond. Else won the first time in many years. Magnus gave out high-fives to all.

After dinner we took the obligatory pictures by the tree. Aren’t we cute?

And Dana read us the Christmas story.

We opened our presents and Magnus made sure to help corral the wrapping paper.

The next morning Santa had brought us some gifts so we opened those before going to church with Else. It was a nice (and very full) meeting.

Dana was especially pleased to get this Lego Star Wars minifigure encyclopedia.

After brunch we drove down to Salem for Christmas dinner with Ivan and Terry.

The table was set beautifully for a dinner of spare ribs and all the fixings. Many thanks to the various cooks who helped out in the kitchen!

We didn’t get a chance to get a picture around the table before we were done eating; we were just too excited about the yummy food!

Merry Christmas from the Jensens!

Christmas Wishes

2011-12-25T22:15:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas, loved ones! We hope The holiday was meaningful and enjoyable; it sure gave Magnus a lot to think about.

Magnus Stands Alone

2011-12-22T23:01:00.001-08:00

Magnus stands alone

Magnus has many fans cheering on his efforts towards walking. Anton stopped by and helped with some of the practice.

Ruth’s birthday bash!

2011-12-22T14:41:00.001-08:00

It was my birthday last week and we celebrated in a grand fashion.

On Wednesday we went ice skating with Ivan and Elina. Magnus was good and napped during the majority of the outing, being swapped from person to person as we took turns skating.

Here is Dana and I on the ice.

On Friday we went out to the gorge to see pretty things. We went to Latourell Falls and hiked up behind the falls. It was chilly but not too cold.

Magnus had a blast riding on Dana’s shoulders in the outdoors. He giggled and bounced and talked during the walk up. On the hike down, I carried him in the baby carrier and he fell asleep almost immediately.

We came home and went to dinner at Red Robin and then Else took me shopping to get some socks (yay, new socks!) and then we went home and ate chocolate-peppermint cake. I made it myself. The filling is like York peppermint patty filling and the frosting has candy canes in it. It was yummy!

Thanks for the great birthday, everybody!

Day of Thanks for all the fish! And everything else.

2011-12-04T16:54:00.001-08:00

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving…we did! We have so many things to be thankful for, like all you guys!

We were able to go down to Salem on Wednesday to relax and start making some food. Magnus helped by crawling all over the place and entertaining the dog, Chuck. He really loved to pet Chuck. Chuck did not seem to enjoy it as much.

We also took a break to dance. Here Elina and Ivan are doing the Monster Mash.

Terry worked very hard and made a wonderful meal. But she made it look like it took no effort at all! Way to go, Terry! The turkey was wonderful!

Our Thanksgiving feast (Magnus was taking a nap).

Magnus got some after-dinner-climb-on-Grandpa time:

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it’s time to get ready for for Christmas!

End of our trip! (It’s about time!)

2011-12-04T16:22:00.001-08:00

So we’re finally getting the end of our trip posted about… After Colorado we made a stop in Salt Lake City to see the things we missed.

We stopped by temple square and got to go to the top of church office building, something I had never done before.

We also stopped to see some friends of ours. We saw my former roommate, Jackie and her family. Her baby Gordon is two months younger than Magnus. We stopped by and saw my friend Bethany and her baby Dylan.

And finally we stopped in to see Dana’s former roommates Devin and Jordan and his family. We had fun seeing everybody.

On the drive home we stopped in Brigham City to see the temple under construction! It was pretty.

Thank you to Aunt Mary and family for letting us crash the night there in Boise! Magnus was excited to meet his Great Grant-pa! And we all had a good visit.

It was a good trip and we are glad to be home.

Day of the Dinosaur! 2

2011-11-16T22:43:00.001-08:00

October 4 marked the 96th anniversary of Dinosaur becoming a National Monument. This was also the day that the park held the grand opening of it’s new Dinosaur Quarry building. Five years ago they had to close the old one due to the poor structural integrity of the quarry (to the point that windows were falling out, walls exploded, and one side of the building was 15 ft. higher than the other). We were happy that we were able to go to the opening of the remade Quarry and new visitor center.

Inside the Quarry is the famous Wall of Bones. It is a hillside that contains over 1500 dinosaur bones that were left where they lie. There are about 15 species of dinosaur, including the stegosaurus (pictured below on the far right). There are also baby dinosaurs. It is very cool to see.

Magnus helped to celebrate by breaking in his Halloween costume. The costume didn’t specify what sort of green, spiny creature it was, so we decided he was a dinosaur.

There was a very nice ceremony that included a blessing from a Uintah Indian Chieftain. The keynote speaker was Governor Gary Herbert of Utah, who also cut the ribbon.

We got to meet him and he was impressed (as was everyone else) by Magnus’s dinosaur awesome-ness.

After the ceremony we headed out into the park again.

We stopped by some very nice petroglyphs that are over 1000 years old. You try and figure out what they are pictures of (we liked the jazz hands):

We had a good time wandering around trying to find as many as we could. They were all over the cliff face.

We thought this view of Split Mountain and the Green River was cool. Dinosaur really has some neat rock formations.

We couldn’t pass this up:

We did one more long drive down a dirt road to see the well-known McKee Spring Petroglyphs. They were very cool. The first spot had some sort of buffalo on it.

These are the main ones. I really like the little guy by the big one’s left foot. He seems so excited about something. Also, The big one has a cool shield.

That was our Dinosaur adventure.

This is Halloween

2011-11-11T12:09:00.001-08:00

This year we had many fun Halloween activities…and many of them included yummy food of all things.

We started our Halloween food fun by making marzipan candies. Ruth recently learned to make cute little candies that looked like fruits at a Relief Society activity. But since it was for Halloween, our little marzipan sculptures were themed appropriately.

Here is a close up. Ruth made most of them since I spent most of my time making the one on the right:

On Sunday, we went to Else’s house for dinner. For dessert we made Boo-rownies. Magnus really wanted a taste.

We also carved pumpkins that day:

Here is our finished products. The one on the skull is Pumpkin Magnus.

On Halloween we had our annual Halloweenie Roast which included hot dogs and grilled squash. And we watched Nightmare Before Christmas as we waited for trick-or-treaters. But we only had four of them. Which means more candy for us.

Magnus did not go trick-or-treating on Halloween, but he did dress up and crawled around. He even seemed to like the dinosaur hood.

Happy Halloween!

“Ships, rivers, and mushrooms, what could be better?”

2011-11-11T11:31:00.001-08:00

We wanted to see some nice fall colors, so we headed down to Kelly Point Park where the Willamette River meets the Columbia River. There weren’t many fall colors, but the sunset was pretty, and the ships were large and impressive.

Here is Ruth and Magnus hanging out on a log.

And then there were the very large mushrooms we found:

Not for eating.

Day of the Dinosaur! 1

2011-11-11T11:08:00.001-08:00

Here is some more on our trip:

So, one of the reasons for the timing of our trip was to go to an exhibit re-opening in Dinosaur National Monument. They have a wall of bones from many different dinosaurs on display. 5 years ago the building was deemed too dangerous to be open to the public and since then they have been refurbishing the building and fixing the many issues (more on this in the next post).

The first day in Dinosaur we went to the Colorado half of the park, just outside Dinosaur, Co…where they even have a Dinosaur speed limit of 25 mph.

The Harper’s Corner drive is a very pretty one that was newly paved.

We hiked out to Harper’s Corner where the Yampa and Green rivers meet. The view was great and the rocks were very interesting.

Magnus made sure to dress accordingly. Here are some ancient sea life fossils in the rock.

After our hike we headed back to the highway and on to Utah again. We stayed the night in Vernal and visited the temple there. It was a good day.

Rocky Mountain High

2011-10-22T20:24:00.001-07:00

On our way out of Colorado we decided to drive through Rocky Mountain National Park. It was pretty busy with visitors from Estes Park’s Elk festival.

We drove along Trail Ridge Road that takes you above the timberline and over 12,000 ft.

Dana did a short hike at Rock Cut, a ridge with some odd rock formations.

Here Magnus contemplates existence:

We got a chance to stop at the Continental Divide and Magnus enjoyed the view.

We passed the Colorado River; it was certainly not the canyon-carving behemoth that it becomes later on.

We enjoyed the wildlife and fall colors. Hooray!

Colorado!

2011-10-21T10:58:00.001-07:00

We made it to Colorado! We stayed with my sister in Colorado Springs (Thanks, Emily!) and had good times letting the cousins visit. (Emily’s post).

The first day we went to Garden of the Gods. It was deceptively hot and we were warm as we walked around the pretty rocks.

I thought this one looked like a gargoyle:

The next day we went up to Denver to visit the US Mint. We didn’t take a tour because you have to have a reservation to go, but we saw the austere exterior and went in the gift shop.

We also stopped at the Capitol in Denver. We walked up the 99 steps into the tower and took a picture on the mile-high step. Apparently there has been some second guessing about which step is actually the mile-high one.

On the way home we stopped at the Denver temple. It was closed for renovations, but the outside was very pretty.

The next day we went to Florissant Fossil beds, west of Colorado Springs. They have lots of fossilized insect specimens, so this was a must see for Dana. Their other famous thing is their petrified redwood tree stumps: not exactly visually amazing, but kind of cool. (Emily’s post).

Here we all are at Big Stump:

Outside of the park we found a lady who lets people hunt for fossils on her land (for a small fee). Dana and Emily had a good time opening the rock layers looking for fossils and Matthew and Anna had fun bringing them rocks, at least for a little while. We found lots of neat things in the rock. (Emily’s post). The rock wall is where the fossils are.

The last stop was at the May Insect Museum. There were lots of pretty (and weird) bugs, all very well preserved. Included in the ticket price was the Space Museum. It was less cool than the insects. (Emily’s post).

Here is the entrance to the Space Museum:

Fossil Butte

2011-10-21T10:34:00.001-07:00

Our first real stop on our trip was at Fossil Butte National Monument near Kremmerer, Wyoming (home of the 1st JCPenny). Dana’s sister had stopped here on one of her field trips and told us how cool it was. We watched the video in the visitors center about the layer where all the fossils are found. There are lots of plant and fish fossils. They also had metal casts of some of the fossils so people could make rubbings of them.

Near the entrance of the park they start showing the geologic timeline. 9 inches = 1 million years. Here is Magnus at the end of the timeline that reads, “recorded history.” The picture on the right is when the Earth was formed (you can just see the visitor center in the back, where the end is).

Dana went on a short hike up to one of the buttes. It was very pretty.

After we left the park and were driving through Wyoming we saw many many antelope: more than either of us had ever seen. There were even some at a rest stop we stopped at. The male is the one on the far right.

And here is the Wyoming state house in Cheyenne.

Up He Goes…

2011-10-15T21:04:00.001-07:00

Magnus pulls himself up.

This is what Magnus decided to start doing yesterday evening. The first time we looked over and he was standing. So, we made him do it a few more times to get it on film.

Bugs. Berries. Battlestar Gallactica.

2011-09-19T00:12:00.001-07:00

A week or so ago I went on a fun and exciting excursion. It had been a while since I had gone out in the woods to look for stuff, so Ruth was nice enough to let me go. So, I went out to an area I have come to like a lot near Trout Lake, WA.

The first stop I made was by Little Goose Creek Canyon, to see the waterfalls and the awesome cliff face with basalt columns. That’s Mt. Adams in the distance.

The larger of the falls was hard to see from the side of the canyon I was on, but I was able to get down to the upper falls. The river was very pretty and flowed over a solid sheet of old lava.

It was a very hot day (94°F) so being by the falls was very refreshing. I also saw this nice little red beetle on a fern.

I then went huckleberry hunting and found quite a few. If you have never had them, they are something worth trying. Many of the bushes were already turning red.

While picking berries I came across a small lava cave in a a clearing that was not on the map. It had a small marker naming it Cave 5. It was nice and cool inside, and I found some cave crickets. Here is Mt. Adams again, and the other peak to the left is Sleeping Beauty.

Next, I headed over to the Ice Caves. There are some very special insects in there that I like to find, and I like caves. The bugs are interesting because they have to live in cold temperatures, so we now have some pets that live in the fridge. There was still a good amount of ice and snow in the cave since it was only 32°F.

I also did a short hike near the Natural Lava Bridges. It was a very pretty day.

I just wish I could have picked more huckleberries…

Every Day Adventures

2011-09-02T23:11:00.001-07:00

Here are a series of pictures we’ve taken over the course of the summer that didn’t make it into other blog posts.

Magnus at the coast. He charmed all the lady-hikers in that hat.

Dana got me this stuffed sheep and Magnus and the sheep are now good friends. Magnus enjoys it when she sheep rams him in the head and “baaaaa”s.

He is getting better at standing, but usually need assistance. He needed help trying out riding mowers, too.

At Farmor’s house he likes looking at the red flowers. He has tried to eat them, but has been unsuccessful as of yet.

These are the yummy berries that come out of Farmor’s garden. We put the currents and the raspberries into a traditional Danish jelly dessert served with cream. Super-yummy!

Dad makes a good pillow.

Magnus received his first set of Duplo blocks and Dana showed him how to play with them.

We got together with my brother and sister which was great. We had fun times!

At St. Helen’s we all enjoyed the pretty views.

Magnus really loves bath time, more so when Dana is there. He gets his own washcloth to eat in the bath and has a grand ol’ time.

Magnus likes eating other things too. Like my face… and the arm of the chair… or other people’s arms… it’s all very slimy.

So those are the good times we’ve been having lately. Stay tuned for further adventures.

Our Trip to the Fair

2011-08-22T15:28:00.001-07:00

As mentioned previously, we had the chance to go to the Clark County Fair with Ivan and Terry.

We started with a stop at the beekeeping demonstration. I was very impressed with the beekeeper’s composure. I guess you have to be very calm to work with bees.

We made sure to visit the animals, including the chickens and rabbits. I love to see the rabbits. The baby chicks are pretty nice too. We wanted to show Magnus what the chick on his chair is based on.

This rabbit was out for people to pet. He was the best behaved rabbit I’ve ever seen. He did not even seem nervous to be among the hustle and bustle.

With some cows

Dana likes to visit the piglets at the fair. I have much more sympathy for that momma pig than I ever have before.

We also caught the hypnotist show, which was OK. Not super-funny. We ate kettle corn (super-yummy!) and Dana and I had a deep-fried Snickers Bar. It was also only OK.

Before we left we went through to see the competition pieces. Dana and Ivan loved looking at the photos and finding familiar locations (both local and abroad) among the winners. I liked seeing all the entries and thinking of all those creative people that live close by. It made me want to be more crafty and attentive to detail in my work.

Thanks for the fun trip to the fair, Ivan and Terry!

God of Thunder Meets Place of Fire

2011-08-21T15:42:00.001-07:00

We went to Mt. St. Helens with Elina last week. This time we went up to Johnston Ridge. It was a very nice day and we had a lot of fun.

In the visitor center there, they have a seismograph that can read you walking or jumping on it. We tried it with Magnus, but he only made very tiny blips on the graph.

Because Spring was long and Summer is having a slow start, there was still a fair amount of snow on the mountain for August. Also, that was the most flowers I have seen there. It was very beautiful.

Here is the four of us in a group shot (I seem to be the only one looking at the camera):

Pretty flowers:

Magnus poses nicely for his solo shot (it was hard to only pick one):

We made a stop at Coldwater Lake on the way back. The water is very clear and we saw lots of fish. And Elina spotted a newt.

Another view of the mountain

There are still cold things in the world

2011-08-21T13:50:00.001-07:00

Here is a post to cool you down. Though we did this a few weeks ago, we wanted to share some of the other pictures we took. We needed somewhere to cool down now that summer has finally arrived in the Northwest. Elina has an underwater camera that she let us use to get some of these cool shots. Magnus enjoyed the day by sleeping through most of the excursion. We think the rush of the water has a soothing effect on him.

Can you spot the differences?

2011-08-15T23:09:00.001-07:00

Magnus is a pretty good sleeper. He usually makes it several hours before waking up to eat. He has even made it to 7 hours on a few occasions. I took these pictures of him on two consecutive nights. Though it is hard to tell the difference. He must have found a sweet spot.

Family Fun in the Sun

2011-07-27T12:02:00.001-07:00

Here in the Northwest, we don’t get that much sunshine. So we have to live it up when it comes. Luckily, our sunshine coincided with an awesome family-party weekend!

On Saturday there was a birthday party for Anna. She doesn’t turn 3 until August, but since we were all together, we decided it would be a good idea. It was mermaid themed, complete with sea creatures, buried treasure, and WATER! Emily went above and beyond to make it a really great party. I think I should have her plan my parties…

The party was complete when Dana showed up and made Magnus his own custom crown.

Grant consented to let me hold him for a little while.

Dana showed off Magnus’s kung fu skills. Matthew bore the brunt of the attack.

We all took advantage of the Guptill’s hospitality. Thank you, Guptills!

Magnus and Grant making big plans for being friends… best friends!

Back at the Jensen abode, Whitney met with a local resident. Go here for the fuller story. Also, congratulations are in order for the Keelers-proper, who are expecting a little boy in December! Whitney will be sure to show him the ropes.

On Sunday, we all went to church in Gladstone for Grant’s baby blessing. Afterwards we returned to the Guptills to hang out. Some attire was more formal than others…

Will, Courtney, and Whitney had to go home eventually. Before they went, we got this picture. Thanks for coming, guys!

This one of the options for the Magnus/Grant album cover. It drops this December. Watch for it

The Guptills made a quick stop in Vancouver to visit friends and came to see us before going back home.

Thanks for coming to visit, you guys! We love to get together with you all!

“Getting to know you!” : Magnus and the Coast (again)

2011-07-27T11:13:00.001-07:00

This last week we had the fun-tastic opportunity to go to Tillamook again, so we could eat cheese and ice cream again. And also because Emily and Scott were in town and wanted to visit the coast. This was the first time we got to meet each other’s newest additions to each family: Magnus and Grant.

After ice cream we went to Oceanside. The weather that day was beautiful. It was actually a good day to swim, though we did not. This beach also had a tunnel that leads to another beach.

Here is the whole troop minus me.

This is Magnus’s new cousin Grant.

A beautiful beach

And some of the off shore rocks:

Though we didn’t swim, some of us had fun playing in the water:

Here we are going back through the tunnel.

We let Magnus feel the sand in his toes. I don’t know if it was his baby reflexes, but he always curled them up. If you look closely, you can see his feet inside of my footprints.

Here is Magnus’s impression of a salty old sea captain.

Here are Magnus and Grant hanging out after our walk.

We decided we needed some Burgerville afterwards (the Guptill GPS pronounced this with a soft “g”, making it sound French). Everyone enjoyed the yummy food and good company.

Baby swap! Baaaaaaby swap!

All in all it was a great day at the coast.

Roll over, Thor!

2011-07-18T22:47:00.001-07:00

Magnus Rolls Over

Magnus Thor is just starting to roll over. Tonight was the first time we saw him really do it. And he did it several times. This is his best attempt (taken July 18, he was born May 3, 2011).

Magnus meets the Ocean

2011-07-15T23:55:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday, July 6th, we took a little trip to the beach. This was Magnus’s first trip to see the ocean. Usually when we go to the coast, we like to visit several spots, but with a baby in tow we thought we would take it slow and just visit one beach. We decided on a favorite of ours called Short Beach. This is just south of Cape Meares and north of Oceanside. It is not a very well known beach, so there are hardly ever any other people there. The hardest part it the long stair climb from the road.

A fun side note about our trip is that we came here for part of our Honeymoon five years ago. We have come other times in between, but now with an addition to our family it adds something more.

It started as a very nice sunny day. We set up our chairs and had our supplies ready:

Magnus fell asleep by the time we were on the beach. I wanted to get a picture of him and the ocean, so here it is:

The tide was way out when we got there, so we had fun walking out to the rocks and seeing the fun animals.

After a short time of being on the beach the clouds started to roll in:

A cool tide pool:

And in the cool tide pool I found this sea slug. It was almost an inch long when moving. Those orange things on its back would wave around like anemone arms. It was very pretty. I also found some hermit crabs and fan worms.

Here is Magnus enjoying the sea air:

When we finally left the blue skies were gone:

We made a stop at the Cape Meares Lighthouse (it is the shortest lighthouse in Oregon). On a sunny day you can the ocean from here . At some places along the cliffs the clouds were thin enough to see the waves below. While we were looking we saw a sea lion swimming along. He looked like he was in a hurry.

Five years ago we had our picture taken in front of the Octopus Tree, now it was Magnus’s turn.

He seemed to have a good time on the Cape.

On the the way back to Tillamook, we stopped to watch some bald eagles hunting over the bay. One even tried to snag a small sea bird on the water. After a short struggle on the water, the eagle lifted off with the bird in tow. But the bird was able to break free and fell back into the bay. It was intense to watch.

We finished our trip with the obligatory (and delicious) stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We sampled their cheese and got some ice cream. Yum! Other visitors thought it was quite adorable to see Magnus playing the part of the Tillamook farmer. Last time, it was Dave that got that privilege.

After the Tillamook Cheese Factory, we went to the Blue Heron Cheese shops. That is where we got to see the emu.

So, it was another good day on the Oregon Coast.

Our 4th of July

2011-07-15T23:40:00.001-07:00

We know it’s a bit after the fact but we thought we would tell tales of our fun fourth.

Every year our neighbors have a Fourth of July BBQ. Last year the chicken they made was amazing, so we were looking forward to it this year. They did not disappoint. Though, Magnus is not sure how he feels about the sun yet.

After eating, we walked the two blocks to the Fort Vancouver 4th of July Celebration. They had events all day long, but we wanted to see the Abraham Lincoln press conference. It was part of the commemoration of 150 years since the Civil War began, since the army barracks here were in operation during that time.

It was fun to listen to him talk as if it was 1865 and the war was just ending. We even got to meet him after the press conference.

We then walked back home to wait until it got dark to come back and see the fireworks. By the time we came back the place was really filling up. Luckily, Anton had a friend who came and saved a great spot at about 6 AM (Thank you, Crystal).

Here we are waiting for the show:

My dad was nice enough to brave the lines and get some delicious elephant ear for us.

Fireworks!

After the show, we got home quick enough to see our neighbors doing their own firework display.

So, we ate some great food, celebrated our history and saw lots of fireworks…it was a good 4th of July.

Happy 4th of July!

2011-07-04T19:42:00.001-07:00

We have already had some fun and we are looking forward to the fireworks. We hope you all have a fun and safe holiday.

We even got to see Abraham Lincoln, he was down at the Fort festivities. He liked Magnus.

Happy 4th of July!

Magnus’s Baby Blessing

2011-06-26T14:17:00.001-07:00

We had Dana bless Magnus in church a few weeks ago. Will and Courtney and Whitney were able to come out as were Dana’s parents and his brother Anton. Magnus made sure to soil his first outfit so that we had to improvise a new one moments before we left the house. But we weren’t late to church which was good. Thank you to everyone who came to show their love and support! Now the good part: pictures.

Cousin photo op.

This is one of my new favorite pictures.

Here we are with Dana’s Mom, Dad, and Step-mom

While he managed to get his first outfit (a green polo shirt and khaki pants) dirty before we left, the blanket my mom knitted him was clean. Thanks, Mom!

Here is what he ended up wearing. Apparently he liked this one better.

Thanks, everybody!

Birthday Adventure in the Beautiful Forests of Washington

2011-06-22T14:19:00.001-07:00

June 17 is my birthday. This year I wanted to head to the great outdoors. So, I decided to go north and see some waterfalls that I hadn’t seen for a long time. The last time I saw was up there was with my brother Steen before I got married.

Magnus decided he would dress quite snazzy for the occasion:

We made a brief stop at Eagle Cliff and I caught some nice bugs, including a toad bug. Then we went to Lower Lewis River Falls (43 ft. tall). It was very full with water at this time of year. And the color of the water was amazing. It is also a loud waterfall and Magnus didn’t seem to appreciate that much.

This is the view looking at the downstream at the top of the falls and a close-up of one part of the top (that is a lot of power).

I saw this little guy hanging out on a tree and thought it was a neat silhouette:

Next was Big Creek Falls (125 ft. tall). It is a hard one to see, because of the angle, but it is also a short walk. The lighting and spray did make a nice rainbow at the base of the falls.

Here I am with Magnus. He wanted to be carried for a little while so he could look around better.

The third waterfall was Curly Creek Falls (75 ft. tall). This one is a bit unique in that it has a natural arch over it (actually, I found out latter that there are two arches, the second is being covered by the high amount of water follow). This is a pretty cool waterfall.

Here is a close-up of the main arch:

To get up to here, we drove through Woodland, but to get home we continued around and drove home through Carson and the Gorge. On that route you come to this wonderful view point of Mt. St. Helens.

One of the things I like about the mountains up here is that doting them are very prominent peaks. Unlike mountains in places like Utah, the tallest peaks are much taller than the surrounding peaks. This gives the Cascade Range a different feel than the Rockies. And it makes the big mountains stick out better:

Going home through Stevenson, WA, I wanted to see this strange rock that I saw on a site that I like. The site called it the Skamania Petroglyph, but no other info was given. It sits outside the Skamania County Courthouse and has no identifiers or info there either. I hadn’t told Ruth what I was looking for, but she saw it first and said, “There’s a weird rock with doodles all over it.”

And this picture is for Rosanne who enjoyed seeing horsetails while she stayed with us, waiting for Magnus.

That night my family came over for Birthday celebrations (more here). It was a good birthday.

Happy Father’s Day!

2011-06-19T17:28:00.001-07:00

Now it is Father’s Day and we want to tell our fathers to have a Happy Father’s Day!

This is also Dana’s first Father’s Day, so that is new and different.

So, to all the father’s out there:

Ivan and Lynn,

Steen,

Scott,

Will,

and Dana

Happy Father’s Day!

New Cousins Meet, Water Falls Off Cliffs, and Fish

2011-06-19T16:35:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we had some visitors. Will and Courtney came down from Cheney to meet Magnus and say hello to us. We had a lot of fun while they were here. But it was probably most fun to see Whitney try to interact with Magnus.

She really seemed to like him. She would point at him a lot and say “bbe.”

At one point Will and I had a baby battle. I came out the loser when Magnus spit up.

On Saturday, we all went to the Gorge. We did some of the main stops along the Historic Highway. First, we stopped at Crown Point to see the view. It was a very nice day and the point wasn’t even windy. Because of the nice weather here were a lot of motorbikes and bicyclists in the Gorge.

This picture is from the top of the Vista House.

We then did the short walk to Latourell Falls (one of my favorites).

Multnomah Falls was next. We all walked up to the bridge and got some nice pictures. I then ran back to the bottom to get a shot with everyone else still on the bridge. Magnus was a big hit with many of the other visitors to the falls. And from what we could tell he was pretty much the youngest person there.

We got lunch at a nice little burger and ice cream place in Cascade Locks with the intention to eat in a nearby park. By this point in the day the wind had caught up to us and lunch ended up being very blustery. But I did get this picture of Ruth and Magnus in front of the Bridge of the Gods (it seemed fitting).

After crossing to Washington, we went to see the baby salmon in the fish ladders at Bonneville Dam. Here is Will and Whitney enjoying the fish:

That evening everybody, but Ruth (who appreciated the rest) went to a park near our apartment to play on the playground. Though Magnus can’t move around yet, he enjoyed it when I drove the stroller across the bumpy grass.

Sunday, we had Magnus’s baby blessing. And that will be another post…

Magnus: Installment I

2011-06-05T19:41:00.001-07:00

Last Friday, Magnus turned One Month Old! Here is a short video compilation of some of the best photos from the 1st month:

A Journey through Magnus’s 1st month.

Good Friends and Good Times

2011-06-05T13:02:00.001-07:00

A group of my high school friends got together last weekend to party with a friend of mine visiting from Texas, Jessica. She was the instigator of all of us getting together when she lived here, so we are glad she came to visit and gave us an excuse to get together again.

We had delicious burgers and dogs complete with chips and potato salad. Thanks to Danielle and Andy for being our gracious hosts! And it was great to see everybody!

These are all the children we have collected over the years. Pretty cute.

Lookalikes?

2011-05-30T23:05:00.001-07:00

So, we found a picture of me just a few weeks old (right) and compared it to a picture of Magnus a few weeks old (left). Maybe we look a little alike.

Magnus’s Birth Story

2011-05-24T11:05:00.001-07:00

Today is Magnus’s 3-week birthday. To celebrate, I thought I’d take a nap. Magnus has other plans, however. So instead I’ll post his birth story. Feel free to read it or not.

Monday, May 2^nd I had mild contractions all day. They came on and off all day, nothing serious or continuous. We went to Else’s that night to do laundry. By the end of the evening there, I had started having contractions 5 minutes apart, but they still weren’t strong. But the midwife had told me to call when they were five minutes apart. So when we got home (11:22 pm) I tried to give her a call. The phone number I had for her turned out to be no good. I decided that since the contractions weren’t all that strong, I’d try to sleep for a few hours and see what happened. This was around 12:30.

As soon as I tried to go to sleep the contractions got stronger and more unpleasant. I woke Dana and my mom up around 1:30 and told them I wanted to go to the hospital. We got to the hospital at 2:03. Mom dropped Dana and I off at the emergency room and we went up to Labor & Delivery to sign in. They got me into a room right away and checked me out – I was already 4 cm dilated. Good enough to let me stay. It turned out my midwife was on call that morning at the hospital so not being able to get a hold of her was OK. The labor nurse they assigned to me was great.

Early labor was pretty OK . I got to use their fancy hot tub with hot hot water and nice jets. I stayed in there for an hour or so until I started getting cold and wanted to be dry again. By 6 ‘o’clock I had progressed to a 6 or 7 and they started setting things up for having the baby. That was encouraging. By that point none of the contractions had been terrible.

I had heard that transitional labor was so bad that the feeling to start pushing and the actual pushing was a huge relief. And the transitional labor was very awful. At point it was so bad that I considered telling the nurse to just cut me open and take the baby out. I wasn’t all that coherent, however, and all I could say was, “no, no, no, no!” I stopped after than particular contraction ended, but I think if they had given me the option from that point on to have a C-section, I would have taken it. (I’m glad I didn’t). They finally gave me the OK to start pushing. It was not the relief it had been played up as. It was still quite painful and required intense concentration. Also, it turned out my cervix was stuck on the baby’s head which required some tossing and turning on my part until eventually the nurse and the midwife had to peel it from around his head (gross, right?) so that I could push uninhibited.

I pushed for 20 minutes. At one point I think I blacked out a little bit; I felt removed from what was going on. Dana was great and held my hand whenever I needed it. Mom was great too, rubbing my legs or back when I needed it and helping with anything. I couldn’t ask for better supporters.

Magnus was born at 10:22 AM (I think). He weighed 10 lbs, 14 oz. and measured 23 and 1/4 inches. The whole experience is definitely on the list of hardest things I have ever done. But now that a little time has gone by, I’m glad I did it and I realize how lucky I was to have a pretty uncomplicated labor.

Happy Mother’s Day!

2011-05-08T15:49:00.001-07:00

We wanted to tell all the Mothers in our life that we appreciate all of you and hope you are all doing well on this special day.

We have had fun having Rosanne stay with us and help us so much with our new baby. And though I have already posted this photo, it does have the three grandmothers. Thank you Else, Rosanne, and Terry. Magnus is lucky to have all of you.

And to Courtney,

Emily,

and Katie

we love you all and we know your children do as well.

And my special “Happy Mother’s Day!” to Ruth. Magnus has a wonderful person to be his mommy and we (Dana and Magnus) hope you have a great day, we love you.

Introducing Magnus Thor

2011-05-04T12:17:00.001-07:00

First off we want to say that mother and baby are doing well. Here are a few pictures of Magnus so you can meet him:

Mom meets son for the first time:

The three grandmas:

Here he is 24 hours old:

Hadababyitsaboy

2011-05-03T13:34:00.000-07:00

We finally had our baby. Magnus Thor Jensen was born at 10:07 am on May 3rd, 2011. He weighed 10 lbs 14 oz and was 23 1/4 in. long. Pictures will come.

A Very Keeler Visit

2011-05-01T17:06:00.001-07:00

In anticipation of the arrival of our little Viking, my mom, and my brother and his family came for a visit this weekend.

We took them to the Vancouver Farmer’s Market where Captain Vancouver was very welcoming and where Whitney had to point out all the doggies. There were a lot of doggies, so she was pretty busy.

Uncle Dana brought out his cool remote control fighting Lego robots. They were a big hit with Whitney. Courtney made sure Whitney did no irreparable damage.

We had good times even though our baby hasn’t yet arrived. Thanks for coming to visit, you guys! We are glad to have you come .

An Excursion to Moulton Falls

2011-04-27T15:57:00.001-07:00

On Monday, I came home with one of those sudden needs to be outside. Since there is no baby yet, we decided to take a small trip. We headed north, past Battle Ground, to a place I went often while I was in high school to swim and cliff jump. It is a park at the place where Big Tree Creek meets the North Fork of the Lewis River. I like it because there are some nice little water falls and the river and forest is beautiful.

Since it is still early spring, the water level is quite high. This is a picture of what is actually a waterfall that is about 10 ft. tall in the summer. There is so much water right now that it is currently a raging rapid.

We then walked over to see the nice bridge that crosses the river. This is the area I used to swim and jump at. I even had friends that liked to jump off the bridge.

Here is the larger of the waterfalls in the park. My friends and I also swam a lot here. We liked to climb the falls and jump off the top. This time there was a big tree lodged in the falls.

I liked the look of the water:

Here is me climbing on the other side of the falls:

Ruth’s mom really enjoyed the fun things we found along the trails. Here are some photos of Ruth and Rosanne examining some moss and lichens.

We also found mushrooms, moss, and lots of early spring flowers like Avalanche lilies and Skunk Weed (amongst others):

We had a very nice time and it only hailed for a minute or two. Most of the time it was dry and the sun even poked its head out. We enjoyed walking through the pleasant atmosphere that the forest provides.

Happy Easter from the Jensens

2011-04-24T16:02:00.001-07:00

We just wanted to say “Happy Easter” to everyone. Easter is a great time of year to celebrate new life and, more importantly, the one who made it all possible. We are happy for all of you who read this blog and hope you are all doing well.

The most Easter thing we have done this year is visit the tulip farm in Woodland with Ruth’s mom. It was very nice and we had a good time. The flowers were very beautiful.

Rosanne is enjoying the colors:

I like the bands of color:

Also, we are still waiting on the third member of our family to show up and will continue to keep you informed.

A “week” to go

2011-04-17T16:05:00.001-07:00

My due date is this coming Friday, and I am getting quite large. Dana thinks it is a good idea to document my belly before the baby comes and I get to looking more “normal.” So here are a few pictures of the course of my pregnancy.

July:

September:

October:

November:

December:

February:

March:

April 15th:

If you didn’t know better, you might think my belly is the result of not exercising and eating bonbons. But I really do have a baby in me.

We thought we’d include some of our favorite suggestions we’ve received for names: From Dana’s nephew, Daniel: Dinosaur Lego-Man. From my nephew, Matthew: Susan. From Dana’s sister, Elina: The Professor.From Dana's niece Megan: Kyle or Eric.

We’ll let you know if our little Viking is punctual or not.

George-Michael the Fantabulous!

2011-04-17T15:41:00.001-07:00

George-Michael has some amazing skills. We took a few pictures so that you would believe us.

This is George-Michael’s beauty shot.

George-Michael has also taken up rock climbing. Here he is reaching the summit.

After his strenuous rock climbing, he decided to do some impersonations. This is his impression of the Millennium Falcon. (Imagine some space ship noises provided by Dana).

A Wonderful Day & Wonderful Food

2011-04-01T18:23:00.001-07:00

With how things have been going we have not had the opportunity to really do any day trips anywhere. So here is a little about a day we just had last Saturday. It was a busy day, and it was a lot of fun.

We started our day by going down to the Farmer’s Market in Vancouver. We like to go and look at the fresh food, flowers, plants, produce, and art that people sell. The market has just started a new season, so we have not been in a while.

One of our favorite places is a food stand that is run by a family from Kazakhstan. They sell several Russian foods and some Kazakhstani food. It is very delicious. Our favorite is the Pelmeni (a dumpling-like food). I would have taken a picture of it, but we ate it too quick. This is a satisfied Ruth after eating them:

And here is Ruth with the “Meat Pockets” that we also got:

On the way home is when we saw the Viking Ship.

We also stopped by the soon-to-be-finished Vancouver Public Library, which was also be across the street from the old Academy and some pretty trees.

That afternoon, we went to another baptism for some children in our primary class. This time there were two boys. It was very nice to be able to go and see them.

When we got home we watched as several hailstorms rolled through. We enjoy listening to the rain and there has been a lot of it this month. But hail is uncommon. I liked the look of it on the moss:

Then we finished this wonderful day with a delicious dinner. We took the rest of the meat from this guy (sautéed in butter and garlic):

and put it on this, along with sauce, cheese, and lemon zest:

The result was one of the better pizzas that Ruth has made. It was great.

It was a good day.

С восьмым марта!

2011-03-08T16:00:00.001-08:00

That means Happy Women’s Day in Russian (though it literally says “with the 8th of March!”).

This was a holiday that Ukraine celebrated instead of Mother’s Day. It is a day to remember the women in our lives and say “Thank you.” It is a holiday that was very important in Ukraine and I like to celebrate it.

So…Happy Women’s Day!

Especially to Ruth from Dana.

Out of the Sun and into the Punch Bowl

2011-02-28T17:56:00.001-08:00

Day two at the beach condo started with a little rain. We expected that. But the rain didn’t seem serious about anything, until we were about to head out the door for a short walk… when it started to hail. Sadness.

Just north of Devil’s Punch Bowl is a “marine garden.” It is a nice collection of tide pools and pretty marine plants. If it weren’t so cold it would have been fun to wade through. As it was, I kept my shoes on and Dana did a little exploring in the water.

From the marine garden you can get into Devil’s Punch Bowl. This is a panoramic picture Dana took of the inside of the bowl. It has lots of pretty colors (and three entrances) and is only accessible at low tide.

This is what the path to the entrance looks like.

The cliffs are all very neat and have little features and small caves.

Dana tried to find a sea urchin, but we couldn’t find any. . Eventually we found a few starfishes. This one was a go-getter.

And even though this looks like it was taken the day before, the sun did come out for a few minutes as we finished our exploration.

As we drove out of town we stopped at Seal Rocks. Dana climbed up them with ease and down them with difficulty, but he made it in one piece, for which I am grateful.

Thanks, Dad and Terry for inviting us and giving us yummy food at the beach!

The Ocean, some Punch, and Shells in Stone

2011-02-28T17:21:00.001-08:00

On President’s Day, we were invited by Ivan and Terry to spend the night at a timeshare condo in Depoe Bay, OR. We had a great time there. We left early Monday morning, and came home Tuesday afternoon.

We met up with my dad in Lincoln City. While waiting I took the opportunity to look at the the “world’s shortest river.” This is the D River. Depending who you talk to, this river is about 400 ft. long, or 120 ft. at high tide. However you measure it, the picture below is taken from the middle and you can see both ends (the tide was low).

This is the mouth of the D River:

After meeting up, we headed south to Otter Rock and Devil’s Punch Bowl view point. This is a place I really like and remember coming here several times when I was kid. The Punch Bowl is a large hole in the cliffs carved by the elements and erosion. I like it because there are some sea arches where the waves crash through.

The weather lately had been wintery, but this day on the beach was very nice. There was beautiful sun and only one phantom rain cloud (well, something rained on us for several minutes). It was also a wonderful temperature: mid-40’s. The sun made the water all kinds of colors.

We then went to the beach just south of Devil’s Punch Bowl, called Beverly Beach. We like this beach because it is usually empty of people and fossils are easily found there.

Ruth is enjoyed the warm February day and the cliffs by the beach.

Here are some close-ups of the fossils. Recent storms had taken off many layers of earth and lots of fossils were visible (all the white dots). The fossils here mostly consist of clams and mussels, with other shells mixed in. There were even impressions of much larger shells that had crumbled away, like the one in the bottom right.

Here are the four of us on the beach. This picture attempt went better than the one where the wave snuck up on us.

Dinner was a delicious stop at Mo’s:

Ruth and I then took a nice stroll in Depoe Bay and got some taffy. The city sits on some nice cliffs and rocks and has the world’s smallest harbor.

This was the view behind the place we stayed. Though it was cold, it was fun to watch the waves on the rocks.

And this was only the first day…

Riding on Skis

2011-02-16T15:01:00.001-08:00

Last Wednesday, I went skiing with my dad and Terry. This was my Christmas gift from them, and it was wonderful. The weather and conditions were beautiful and made for possibly one of my best days of skiing ever.

This picture was taken as we were getting ready to leave the car, before we were tired. We went to Mt. Hood Meadows ski resort.

To give you an idea how it was, here is a comparison from summer to winter. On the right is Mt. Hood in August of 2009, and on the left is the day we went.

This was Terry’s second time skiing, so she decided to take a lesson (she did not the first time). They have this fun little tunnel thing with a moving walkway in it that takes you to the top of a very gentle slope to help beginners, so we gave it a go. I felt like we were in a carwash.

Part of the reason it was such a good day was the breathtaking views we had of the mountain. Here are just a few shots from various spots. Remember it is about 27 degrees out.

Here is Dad on the slopes:

The snow looks so soft:

Look at Dad go. Thank you for the wonderful trip.

Recent Craftiness

2011-02-13T17:07:00.001-08:00

Just a few pictures of projects I’ve been working on recently.

Baby booties. If these booties look familiar to you it may be because I sent you a pair. I am a dog of few tricks where knitting is concerned. These two ended up two slightly different sizes, but overall I was pretty pleased.

Measuring out fabric for a baby sling. I decided I wanted to make a baby sling and made a half-size one a few weeks ago. I made all the mistakes on that one so I wouldn’t have to make any on this one. I am moderately pleased with the result: Yes, I am modeling my sling with a stuffed elephant in it. The baby (at least in the beginning) will be smaller, and so I’m hoping will fit better. The sling feels a bit long and so I may end up shortening it (but that’s WAY easier than trying to make it longer). And it also feels a bit flopsy, like I need to have ties to keep the sling in a shut-ish position… I’ll have to try it with a real infant before I make any real changes, though.

Sunshine, a Fort, and a Volcano

2011-02-07T18:05:00.001-08:00

Hello from Vancouver,

Last Wednesday we were out grocery shopping and saw that the sky was quite clear and that Mt. Hood was very nice looking. But since a parking lot usually is not a good viewing of a mountain, I decided to take a stroll around Fort Vancouver. These are some of the shots I got, all of them have Mt. Hood in the distance. The sun was setting ever lower and I was finishing up just as the light went.

This is a place I like to go, since this our local historic area.

These are trellises in the Fort’s garden:

I like to think of this as a view as something that could have been observed 180 years ago:

The Fort’s Bastion and apple orchard:

Mt. Hood is a very nice looking mountain.

Hope everyone is doing well and making life an adventure…

Felting Good!

2011-01-13T20:48:00.001-08:00

I had a new knitting experience. Mom got me some yarn, needles, and a pattern (Thanks, Mom!) and I knitted a purse. Due to some counting problems (I can count. I promise.) the increases did not match up to where the straps ended up. So when I finished knitting this is what I ended up with…

The first picture has the bag aligned to the increases (where the bottom of the bag says is front). The second picture lines up the straps and tells the increases to lay off!

Because we don’t have a washing machine, I decided to try felting “by hand.” It took 40 minutes of using the potato masher in hothot water (and the purse smelled like a wet dog) but it turned out very nicely. Once the yarn tightens up, you can push it around and make it do what you want, so the discrepancies that existed in the pre-felted project were not a problem any more.

I’m now in the market for a pretty button or pin to decorate the flap. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

We Are Happy in New Year Part II

2011-01-06T14:21:00.001-08:00

On my parents last full day in Washington we made them go to the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge. We hope they’re not sorry.

Before going into the Refuge, we stopped at this very large tree to ogle at it (which is in someone’s front yard in Ridgefield). We think it is a cedar.

In the refuge there were many muskrats, more than we had ever seen on previous trips. By the end of the drive we’d say , “there is another muskrat…” They are pretty cute, though.

This blue heron had no qualms about letting us drive right up next to him and take his picture.

In the winter, trumpeter swans will migrate through the refuge. Here they are standing on part of the frozen wetlands. They had pretty black feet and would bob their heads up and down.

On the path to the duck blind where we learned where the swans were. And Rosanne had fun examining the lichens and mosses.

Dad wanted to know if we’d see any animals on this animal tour.

And here we are back in Vancouver at the riverfront park with the I-5 bridge behind us. Mom and Dad left early the next morning. Thanks for staying with us and helping us have fun times! We love you, family!

We Are Happy in New Year Part I

2011-01-06T14:08:00.001-08:00

We started off this year with good-byes. This was kind of sad, but we consoled ourselves knowing that it is just for a while and that we can keep in touch with those we love.

Here we are saying good-bye to Will, Courtney, and Whitney. We were happy to have you stay with us and had good times!

The next morning we said good-bye to Dave and Elina as they left to return to Rexburg for the next semester. We hope your semester is a good one, you guys. Learn a lot!

Later that day we went to Seattle and ate delicious salmon and had fun perusing the waterfront and Pike’s Place Market.

We went backwards down the Hike to Pike.

This is the view from Queen Anne Hill. A clear day in Seattle in the winter is hard to come by so the hill was busy with many people with fancy cameras. The sunset (which we saw the beginning of) was beautiful.

We also took the time to stop at Larsen’s Bakery, a Danish bakery that sells delicious pastries. It was hard to pick just a few things to take with us (and promptly eat).

We also got to visit my mom’s brother, Uncle Frank, and some of his family. Top row, L-R: Brent, Jonathan, Frank, Lynn, Ruth, Dana. On the couch, L-R: Aunt Janell, Michael, Lisa, cousin Amy, Rosanne, cousin Suzanne. Thanks for the good times, Reeves and Cheliuses!

It was a good trip to Seattle; we were very tired when we got home.

Yet another blog...

2011-01-01T22:36:00.002-08:00

Dana and I have decided to start a Picture-a-day blog. You may think to yourself, "don't they already have several blogs that they don't keep up with?" Or "Are they crazy?" The answer to both of these questions is Yes.

But we started one anyway.

So we'll see how we keep up on this. We've already started it. The link is on the left. So go ahead and have fun with that.

Be Happy In New Year: 2011

2011-01-01T11:30:00.001-08:00

So, it has been a whirlwind of events for the last two weeks. We now present you with a small summary of many of the things we have been up to.

Starting with Ruth’s 25th Birthday. Happy Birthday, Ruth!

We had a nice opportunity to visit the Festival of Lights at the Grotto, where Dana’s dad had a concert. It was very nice.

On Little Christmas Eve (the 23rd), we took Elina and Else to Zoo Lights.

Christmas Eve at the Jensen’s:

Monday we celebrated Elina’s and Ivan’s Birthdays, since Ruth’s family was coming to town. Happy Birthday, Elina and Dad!

Then “A Very Keeler Christmas” (now including some Jensens and Guptills). We were very happy to see everyone who came.

We spent time at the zoo, OMSI, and Powell’s; plus a delicious dinner at Gustav’s (thanks, Lynn).

I had to add this picture of Anna…it makes me smile:

Finally, we had a New Year’s Eve Bash at Else’s house. There were many people there, but just 6 were able to stay till midnight. This picture is from 11:59 PM. We are happy that Whitney made it through her first New Year’s

So, that was a lot to cover. But, we wish everyone a Happy New Year and hope that 2011 will bring new and exciting things.

Another excuse to eat candy at Christmas

2010-12-11T15:41:00.001-08:00

I have an unhealthy love of royal icing. Most of the year, it doesn’t bother me; I can go about my business and I don’t think about it. But around Christmas time I start seeing gingerbread houses and thinking of the thick frosting and its sweet, almost metallic simple flavor. And I get the urge to build one myself, if only to have an excuse to make my own batch of frosting. The only problem is that I don’t really like gingerbread (something I never seem to remember until I eat it again).

I do, however, like graham crackers. So this year I decided our gingerbread houses would be replaced by “Christmas Graham Cracker Houses.”

Dana and I went to Winco and got some candy to decorate our structures. I decided I would make a graham cracker long house and Dana wanted to make a fortress (or at least part of a fortress).

I was done with mine in about 10 minutes and content to begin eating off the excess frosting and left over gummi bears. It looks like it was built by a 7-year-old and I’m OK with that.

Dana took the entire length of the movie “Elf” (“You sit on a throne of lies!”) to build his Christmas graham cracker house. But it looked way awesomer than mine.

His fort was complete with a cannon, cannonballs, a turret, a flagpole (with a flag), a red carpet, and gold to guard. Pretty elaborate.

I decided I’d let mine sit over night before really tearing it apart and eating it. The next morning the graham crackers had already started to get soggy. No big deal; I was not surprised. I had thought it would probably happen. I figured I could put my house in the oven at a low temperature for a few minutes to get the soggy mostly out of the crackers and then eat them.

I was wrong. I left the house in the oven at 200 degrees for 20 minutes or so. It smelled yummy, like warm graham crackers. But when I opened the oven, this is what I found: The Christmas graham cracker house of gummi bear horror. Dana especially liked how the gummi bears left little imprints of their presence in the frosting, as if to say, “We were here! Do not forget us!” And to add insult to injury, the graham crackers were still a little soggy.

Dana’s fort met a more traditional fate, but stood up surprisingly well to the onslaught. That’s quality frosting. We think whatever soggy graham crackers and melted gummi bears don’t survive today will be donated to our cockroaches as their early Christmas gift. Maybe they too will have an affinity for royal icing.

HavinababyItzaboy

2010-12-08T20:59:00.001-08:00

We forgot to announce in the last post that we found out we are expecting a boy!

We can’t wait.

Surprise Attack from Florida!

2010-12-08T13:30:00.002-08:00

This week we have had a special surprise visit from Katie and her kids, all the way from Florida (Welcome back to the Great NW). It has been great to see them, because it has been almost a year and a half since they moved to Florida. We had the chance to go and see them at the airport and then again when they came to my mom’s house on Saturday.

Here are Megan and Daniel at the Airport. They were excited to see us:

Katie Anne came to pick Katie up at the airport and Katie got to meet her niece, Rose.

Natalie is growing up fast. Also, Anton is having fun flying Megan around in the background.

The first thing I noticed was how big the kids have grown. We had a great time playing with them. One of the highlights for me was this video I got of Daniel. He likes to build things and then promptly destroy them. He had been doing this for a bit with these stacking boxes and then knocking them over with some soft swords. I wanted to take a video of this, but ended up getting something a little different: (pay special attention to Anton's expression at the end of the video)

Build and Destroy

Here are some other nice photos from Saturday:

Daniel loves Star Wars…so does Anton.

Megan attacks by the sword.

Natalie is telling us an amazing anecdote.

Natalie enjoys Anton’s girlfriend, Tessa’s, company.

Outnumbered, Ruth fights for her life.

We are glad they could come and hope we see them again before they leave.

Turkey-Lurkey Thanksgiving and ZOO LIGHTS!

2010-12-05T15:15:00.001-08:00

Yes, we do remember that we have a blog… sometimes.

We celebrated Thanksgiving, like I hope all of you did, with family and tasty food. We even got to cook some of it (I made cranberry sauce and Dana made some olives come out of a can).

We ate dinner with Dana’s Dad and his wife and her kids. It was very fun and the preparation was riddled with banter and “helpfulness.” Dana stayed out of the kitchen as much as possible, but here’s what it looked like.

It was all very delicious. And of course there was pie for dessert… that didn’t last long enough for a photo shoot. Yum.

Because Dana is a zoo employee, we got to go to the special premier of Zoo Lights for awesome people. It was pretty cool. If you’re in the Portland area, you should go see the lights; it’s worth the cold walk to see all the neat lights.

Like these…

Stay tuned for more adventures…

A Washington Excursion

2010-11-17T14:37:00.002-08:00

We want to say “Welcome Back” to Ruth’s sister, Emily, and her family! They have been in Japan for the last couple years, and now they are moving to Colorado, which is a bit closer.

Before they were off to their new home, they spent some time in Portland with Scott’s family. But that also meant we got to see them. While we were with them we took a little walk in the Ridgefield NWR after lunch at a Mexican Restaurant that we like.

Matthew and Anna liked running ahead of us:

Then Anna paused and posed for some great photos. Isn’t she cute.

There was a cold nip in the air, but we had a great time. Here the kids are having fun looking at the gravel.

We are glad we got to see them and we're happy they are back.

Thanks for coming and visiting us!

You can see their post about their visit here.

P.S. This post is our 100th post. Yay for blogs!

We like the Gorge (and salmon)

2010-11-17T14:10:00.001-08:00

Another beautiful day in the Columbia River Gorge. We started on Crown Point, and they view was very nice with all the fall colors.

It was also very blustery:

We did some of our usual stops at our favorite waterfalls.

Multnomah Falls looked very nice. It also had lots of salmon getting ready to spawn. It is always fun to see these giant fish within arms reach.

Our last stop was by Eagle Creek (where we hiked last year). Here the fish were even more numerous. And many of them were fighting for room to spawn

I watched this one chase off the same fish several times.

We ended the day by watching the sunset over the River and then some ice cream from the place we like in Cascade Locks.

10000 Days Old! Sure, You Think That's Old

2010-11-03T00:11:00.002-07:00

Today, Dana turned 10000 days old. Hurray for him. We ate cheesecake and played Goldeneye and Mariocart on the Wii.

Epic.

Happy Halloween

2010-10-31T09:25:00.000-07:00

Happy

Halloween!

Hello Everyone,

We have had a fun October and now it is Halloween. We would like to share some Halloween fun we have done:

Friday, the Zoo had it’s annual Squishing of the Squash. That is where they give the elephants a giant pumpkin to squish and then eat. It was a lot of fun to watch the elephants take on a large gourd:

Squishing of the Squash

In this video the baby (2 year old) elephant ended up with a fairly large chunk of the pumpkin. He was trying with all his might to break the chunk into smaller pieces without much avail. Here is when he was quite frustrated with it and ended up getting it all over his face.

Baby Pumpkin-Face Elephant

Ruth and I got pictures with some of the pumpkins that were not smashed.

And here is some delicious chocolates that my dad’s wife, Terry, gave us for Halloween.

Ruth is mimicking the best one, which was surprisingly filled with something similar to pop-rocks. They were all very good.

Another “Hike-and-wildlife” Post

2010-10-20T19:00:00.001-07:00

So, our update this time is another hike with some wildlife pictures… I sure hope you guys aren’t sick of these yet…Because the Washington/Oregon area has a ridiculous amount of hikes (and wildlife). So too bad for you guys ;-).

Dana and I went to see Wahclella Falls. We had tried before to go on this hike and were thwarted by the small parking lot. So we tried again.

First along the trail was this smaller falls called Munra Falls. It was kind of wispy and pretty.

The amphitheater around Wahclella is kind of giant and overwhelming. I took this picture at the bottom of the amphitheater. Can you find Dana?

Dana took this picture from his high spot. You can see a smaller rivulet coming into the stream above the falls down a rock face.

Ok, more gratuitous waterfall pictures…

On our hike back Dana found this pretty snake. She was big and she smelled pretty strongly.

Dana found this little salamander in the stream near the end of our hike.

It was a very pleasant hike with some very pretty views of the Gorge. Yay the Gorge!

Ok, for all of you who suffered through our pictures, we have some news: We are expecting a baby! I’m due at the end of April. We will find out at the beginning of December whether we’ll have a boy or a girl. Until then, we eagerly await our little Quazar.

A Note

2010-10-04T00:19:00.001-07:00

A new post on my Zoo Blog has been made…and this one has a video.

Logs in a lake, toads in our hands, and a crustacean caught red-handed.

2010-09-20T15:03:00.001-07:00

Last Monday, I had a day off work and we took the opportunity to leave town for a day. So, in our great originality, we went back up to Mt. St. Helens. This time we went to east side of the mountain to Windy Ridge. I went up there with my brother Steen just after I had come home from my mission 6 years ago, and it was a very nice time of year to come, because the weather is good and the colors are just starting to turn (and the toads are emerging).

Steen took me on a hike to Harmony Point on the shore of Spirit lake, where hundreds of trees were deposited after the lake was hit by the giant landslide in 1980 and the water rushed up the surrounding slopes, gathering the dead trees. This is a hike I have been wanting to do again and take Ruth on.

So, here is proof that we made it all the way:

I really like it down there, because it is a really nice view of the mountain, and you get to walk through a very interesting landscape.

Plus Ruth caught this really pretty beetle while we were down by the lake:

And here are the toads mentioned (look closely):

These are hundreds of baby toads who have just changed from tadpoles to adults. Around the lakes near the mountain these come out in bucket loads and they are very small. There are also still tadpoles swimming around in the water, many with various numbers of limbs.

These little toads have the potential to reach the size of this girl that we found on our hike:

While looking at toads, Ruth also spotted this guy in the water:

That was our Monday adventure. Geology and Biology on the same trip.