Moving Week

The moving truck has rolled out of town.  Now we retrace the path traveled six years earlier minus one cat and plus two children and a dog.

Lack of Motivation

I have not been too motivated to blog lately. It seems everywhere I turn or read, blogs are full of chortle about the Dem primary and our obsession with irrelevant details or the wisdom, travels and pictures of people and their kids or dogs. I have been guilty myself for far too long. Baby Cart in Peril will forward you to yet another cyberhole of images of our family at http://gallery.mac.com/aldredj to view our spawn and I'll try to use this post for things of a bit more interest from time to time.

People I imagine would respectfully decline (on the grounds of death or unfamiliarity) if propositioned per that lame scenario game of who would you like to invite to dinner:
James Baldwin
we'd drink a great deal and play pin the tail on Norman Mailer

My grandmother
bake some bread, catch up, introduce her to my kids

Gore Vidal
he's still alive and I'm not of his social class, but it's worth the stamp

H.L. Mencken
Eastern shore crab and some pints of strong ale. We could read his old columns

Vonnegut
it'd be okay to smoke again for one night

James Joyce
I can happily leave him with my spouse and return in a weeklylifedayyearlifetimeago

The Kids Table
Sylvia Plath
We could entertain a few of her current fans (if they get their driver's license issued by dinner night) I could introduce her to some working single mothers and ask her to refrain from commenting on how dirty my oven is.

Van Morrison
Let's listen to some good music and discuss where he went wrong

Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace
have a book burning

Oprah
Someone needs to do the dishes

Mother

Fidel is a Pimp

I want to dress my kids in starter suits that say

F. CASTRO.

He gets his blood tranfused like twice a day and still represents!

Commie Pimp!

We have been busy with birthday parties and Wills sticking his tongue out at everyone. Don't forget our shutterfly page at http://www.aldredpdx.shutterfly.com/ for most new pix.

I will post I will post I will post

Girl O' Mt Hood

I've been wanting to take my girl sking for some time now. So two days shy of her third birthday we went to Skibowl on Mt Hood. Okay so I was thinking she would last a hour tops and just stick with me for the whole time. Little did I know that there lay beneath a dormant downhill monster.




Somehow she managed that turn on her own..don't ask me...

We stuck to the small hill with a rope tow instead of a chairlift. The rope ran pretty fast though. There were some memorable quotes from that day.

"Daddy, I want to go on the rope by my own"

"Daddy, do you think wolves live in the woods" to which I replied "Yes sweetie they do live there, you see those kids sitting down on the snow with their snowboards...God invented wolves to eat them because all snowboards are lazy stoners that lay around on the slopes and block the runs"

After a few hours I started asking her if she was ready to go after each run, thinking that she would implode any minute. I stopped asking after she said "I'm not going until all the snow is gone"...ahhhh nothing like fresh powder.

Vinter Vunderlund

So Christmas has come and gone. In traditional northwest-the-rain-can't-keep-us-in fashion we packed the kids out to Silver Falls. Thinking that a month of rain and the recent cold spell must come together somewhere, Alison was dead on in picking our destination.







The waterfalls were bursting over even compared to other times we visited in the rainy season.





Sophie and I went behind two waterfalls looking from Trolls but I think they must be hibernating.













We set up base camp at Lower North Falls and had some tomato soup, cheese, and crackers. Sophie's thought on the whole occasion was "Sometimes you just have to drink warm soup to keep your belly warm".

Christmas

Looks like the "santa won't come this year" threats aren't going to work for awhile. Based on Sophie's "let's put it together now Daddy" line it was about 4pm before we finished opening presents.

A memorable exchange from Christmas acutally came the day before during mass. St Ignatius was packed for the children's mass and we were stuck up in the nosebleed section. A cute kid comes up with the collection basket during the offering for chrsitmas guilt money and shortly afterwards another kid a very Dirk Calloway Wes Anderson moment. Full on blue blazer with gold buttons and tie:

Kid: "You got any money"
Us: "Someone else was just up here collecting"
Kid: "That's not what I heard?"
Us: "Yeah we did... another boy just came up here and we gave him our money"
Kid: "I'm not a boy...I'm an usher (finger points to his nametage Usher Grant"


He dejectedly walks away and we are rolling.

You Better Watch Out

Of course, all the propaganda is paying off and pre-Christmas blackmail is perfect. All sorts of threats regarding the old man and gifts make shoes get on feet faster and buttcheeks hit the toilet in no time.

Here are some more shots of the official visit with St. Nick.

Went downtown to see Santa Claus today. Wills did not puke on him so the prospects are good so far.

We made it to the lighting of the big tree this year with Aunt Shell.

And most important of all...Sophie learned that the Empire will destroy children who snoop around for presents

Pirate Fest

Took the kids to the 2nd annual Portland Pirate Festival. Saw our favorite band Captain Bogg and Salty.

Welcome Lamar!!!

WILL HAS ARRIVED!

Baby William Lamar Aldred was born September 13th at 11:14AM. 8 lbs and 11 oz, 20 inches long. Same specs as his sister except 1/10 of an ounce heavier, but he came three weeks earlier than she did. He is a sleepy head but has been waking up more and more every day.

We were fortunate to have lots of help from our friends who filled in to watch Sophie. She really seems to like her little brother but has had a few adjustment issues.

The birth was a really great experience...for me that is...just kidding. Alison was up and about the day she delivered.

He came just in time for the Tennessee-Florida game and helped me put up the colors.

We really want to thank our doula Erica, who helped us out quite a bit.

Wallowa Lake

Had a time camping. Little Pig had her own sleeping bag, caught quite a few trout, watched us burn Jiffy Pop in the fire (does that stuff ever work?) and feed a few low-survival instinct deers. Oh, and a June snowball fight on Mt. Howard was pretty cool too.

Spring and All That

Well, the SuperBowl was fantastic. Lots of friends and a victory for Peyton. Felt bad for 'daBears, but you need QB to win football games against the Colts.

Been busy with hiking and St. Pats and Easter. I think we get a break until Halloween. Fireworks and all that is somebosy else's responsibility.

Getting more and more pregnant each day. Here are some photos. Not much to say when it has been this long. Looking forward to end of residency and PapaBear having no call and no weekends. What? Can't imagine. Talk soon.

Count Down to Superbowl

Colts vs. The Bears

We are getting geared up for the SuperBowl. Hopefully lots of victory pictures to follow. Papa of course is rootin' for Peyton and Mama is goin' for Da Bears. Soph will be in her Bears Cheerleader outfit with Peyton's UT jersey pinned on the back to be fair to both.

Ballerina

Ballerina video