May 2007 Photos
The May 2007 galleries for each of the kids are now complete. You can review the pictures at Berkeley's web site, Eliana's web site, and Olivia's web site. Or just access the galleries directly using the following links:

Berkeley's May 2007 Gallery ... (4 years, 10 months old)
Eliana's May 2007 Gallery ... (3 years, 2 months old)
Olivia's May 2007 Gallery ... (10 months old)

Movie Review: Italianetz

The movie is very fine with the exception of the sound. The young boy playing Vanya is very good; he speaks little but he displays a lot of emotion with his body and facial expressions. His acting made it easy for me to identify with his character and his situation as my son is of similar age. My sister-in-law, who served in Russia on an LDS mission, gave us some prep on the state of orphans and orphanages in Russia and the film seemed only to confirm the sad state that she described and experienced first hand.

The one problem (big problem) I had with the film was the very poor sound quality. It was impossible to identify which actor was speaking at times, and the volume of the voices was often obscured by meaningless noise from ambient noise in the scene. In the beginning of the film, I thought the low quality sound was done intentionally to lend an isolating effect to a car stuck out the middle of the Russian wilderness. But as the story progressed, I realized the sound quality was just going to be interior for the entire feature. The poor sound quality became annoying.

Summary: The story is tear-jerking and delivers at the final moment, but the subpar sound production is a distraction. Still worth a rental.

Preschool Graduation and Sprinkler Play
Eliana's final day of her home-school preschool was today. Eliana and her two cousins - Ebey and Isabella - were all given little diplomas and graduation caps (made out of construction paper). Here is Eliana in her cap holding her certificate:

The "graduation" was at our new local favorite park, Ebright Creek Park. Here are some pictures that Kristy snapped of the kids while there.

In the afternoon, Berkeley and Eliana played in the sprinklers and in the hot tub (which I have turned down to about 90 degrees). They had a grand time... look at the big happy smiles on their faces!

Memorial Day Pictures
We didn't do much of anything today. I was supposed to clean out the crawlspace (a cat was recently trapped down there for two weeks), but I didn't get around to it. We gave the kids haircuts (always an adventure) in the morning and then went to the park. I snapped a few pictures throughout the day. These first two are of the kids taking a bath to remove the "itchies" after having had their hair cut:

In the evening, we had family over for some dinner (Bertha's ribs). We built a fire after dinner on the patio and made some jiffy pop over the coals (which the kids thought was pretty cool) and then roasted marshmallows. Here is a picture of the cousins sitting outside all looking at the fire... getting ready to roast their marshmallows.

From left to right: Eliana, Isabella, Ebey, Berkeley, Nathan, Emily.

Dark Chocolate Sauce
We made this wonderfully dark chocolate sauce tonight using a recipe found in our Book of Sauces. We drizzled the sauce over some cubes of chocolate cake and scoops of vanilla ice cream. Simple... but delicious!

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
3 tbs butter
pinch of salt

Combine chocolate, milk, sugar and salt in a double boiler and cook over simmering water until smooth. Remove sauce from heat and beat in vanilla and butter.

Note: Substitute 3 tbs dark cocoa and 1 tbs oil per ounce of chocolate.

Home Renovation Project: Attic Conversion: Update on Plans
On Thursday I picked up a new set of building plans for our attic conversion from our designer. We decided to eliminate the mid-span support post of the roof ridge beam and have the beam re-engineered for the longer span (per previous discussion). We poured over the new plans yesterday with the contractor we have decided to retain (Englund Construction). We found so many problems with the revised plans (foundation footings went missing, posts don't appear in all of the floors, etc), that we just can't submit these plans in the state that they are in. I'm pretty disappointed that we won't be able to get our permitting process started before the end of May. Back in September of 2006, when we hired our designer... I didn't think that not meeting the goal would be possible. Dang.

Today I spent about 4 hours going over every minute detail of the plans and preparing a five page report of problems and faults in the current plans... compiling about 40 action items. Needless to say, I'm pretty disgusted by the shoddy work performed. When I spoke to our designer about my concerns over the phone, he seemed quite impatient and even suggested that the plans were "good enough" for the city. When I started reeling off the first five or so items (of the 40), then I think it finally dawned on him that his work wasn't up to snuff. I wish now that I hadn't cut that final check for payment on Thursday when I picked up the plans. Sigh.

It took our designer three months to plow through our last set of revisions (many of which were not implemented)... so who knows how long this latest set of revisions will take. It's anyone's guess. I can candidly state that I would not recommend the services of the designer we retained, Terry Park of Terry Designs, to anyone else. If we weren't already so close to the end of our design phase (I hope!), I'd cut my losses and find someone else. Argh.

Movie Review: Casino Royale

The pacing of the film is quite satisfactory for a film of this type. It's fast and unrelenting, starting from the very beginning... where we are treated to some fantastic stunt work based on Free Running (which was probably my favorite part of the film).

Summary: It's Bond. He's irresistible. Oh, and nice car!

The Mormon Persecution Complex
A few weeks ago PBS aired a documentary called "The Mormons" produced by Frontline and American Experience. I watched all four hours of the program... I thought it was excellent. The length of the program allowed the topics that were chosen to be treated fairly in a responsible and impartial manner. If you missed it, then you can watch the full program on-line. No worries.

Today I received my first chain-mail message calling all Mormons to boycott PBS. Of course, the content of the message was ridiculous and preposterous ("PBS is out to get us!"). But I'm sure it is getting widely broadcast among the Saints. It was inevitable really. Mormons, in general, are a wonderful people, always very helpful, and are good neighbors (if I don't say so myself); however, you'll find very few Mormons that cannot recite to you the complete details of the long history of Mormon persecution from the 1800s... the Illinois Missouri extermination order, the pioneer treks with handcarts, etc. Unfortunately, there are those among my ranks that take the slightest bit of criticism, or the public communication of a view contrary to that of the official LDS historical dogma as something akin to a modern day extermination order. I call this the modern-day Mormon Persecution Complex.

I know that many of my LDS friends expected something entirely different than what was broadcast... something that was to be light and fluffy, perhaps even a public endorsement of LDS church doctrine and LDS church history?! Of course, it was never intended to be that... it was to be a documentary history, and as such could not be carelessly one-sided without airing and examining the contrary view. There are many aspects of LDS Church History that aren't neat and tidy... but they exist, whether we like them or not. I thought the examination was framed in such a way that was very positive for the LDS Church.

Personally, I am very proud of how the LDS Church leadership responded to the PBS program in this newsroom article:

"As she has done in similar documentaries, producer Helen Whitney probes at both the center and the edges of Church history, belief, and personal experience. Members, former members, scholars and Church leaders all presented their perspectives. Those interviewed in the program - even though they hold different points of view - were articulate and measured in their comments, giving serious thought and consideration to the topic.

[...]

At a time when significant media and public attention is being turned to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and when news media is so often accused of superficiality in its coverage of religion, this serious treatment of a serious subject is a welcome change."

Bravo to our wise LDS Church Leaders for not creating a tempest in a teapot! Well done!

(Update Thu May 31 09:29:06 PDT 2007 // Illinois -> Missouri... oops!)

Concert Review: Lisa Gerrard
Kristy and I attended "The Moore" this evening to hear Lisa Gerrard perform. We arrived early and were seated about 20 minutes before the show was to begin. We spent the time looking around at The Moore's interior architecture and wondering aloud how much of the old Dead Can Dance material she would perform. We own all of the DCD albums and have two of Gerrard's solo albums. The Dead Can Dance material, with co-collaborator Brendan Perry, is much better than Gerrard's solo stuff (imho).

We ended up sitting in our seats for well over half an hour as the show started about 15 minutes late (no explanation given). The set included various pieces from her latest solo album, "The Silver Tree", as well as some of her soundtrack material, most notably selections from her award-winning Gladiator soundtrack such as "Now We Are Free". Some of her solo stuff was very enjoyable, but some pieces were almost annoying. I'll admit that at times during the concert, I was pretty bored. However, she did do some Dead Can Dance material (e.g. "Sanvean" from "Toward The Within" and "Host of Seraphim" from "The Serpent's Egg") and she performed at least one This Mortal Coil song ("Dreams Made Flesh" from "It'll End In Tears"). When the first notes of each of the these songs began to play, there was an immediate positive reaction from the audience.

The concert aptly ended with Gerrard performing the aforementioned "Now We Are Free". But she did perform two encore performances. The first encore she performed is Kristy's all-time favorite Dead Can Dance song, "The Wind That Shakes The Barley" from "Into The Labyrinth", which wonderfully showcases Lisa Gerrard's beautiful voice. That being said, Brendan Perry was missed.

Ebright Creek Park Opened Today
We noticed yesterday that the chain link fence that had been put up around a new park very close to our house was taken down. So we visited the brand new Ebright Creek Park today. Coincidentally, it was the park's Grand Opening. We took over a picnic dinner.

The park includes some unique kid's play equipment that has something for all ages (including Olivia), a sports court, a nature walk trail, and a large rectangular grassy area that will probably be a soccer field once the grass sod is more mature. The park is just less than 2 miles away from our home, right off of 212th. There are sidewalks almost all of the way to the park. But the two 300 yard sections that don't include sidewalks would be a bit tricky to walk with the kids in tow. When the kids are older, we could probably bike there.

Fun park. I'm sure it will become the kid's new favorite park.

Movie Review: King Kong

I'm not much of a fan of the trend for shorter 80 minute movies. Movie executives seem to want to turn over the audience in the (tiny) theaters as fast as possible nowadays. But here, Jackson just goes on and on and on and on and loses track of a cohesive narrative. Did we really need the first hour to set the stage for the first Kong sighting? And what of the island dwellers, a little over the top eh?

There were a few very strong parts of the film. For example, the Kong vs. multiple T-Rex fight was highly entertaining. But then there were about a dozen other action sequences after that which only served to water down the good stuff. Oh, and were the man-eating worms really necessary? I mean, I understood that the island was dangerous before that point. Bang it over my head for the umpteenth time already... sheesh.

Summary: Just ok.

New Ubuntu User
After trying in vain much of last night and tonight trying to get the FreeBSD drivers to recognize the audio and network device on my motherboard, I decided (with a heavy heart) to drop FreeBSD as my primary desktop OS. My new box is dual-booting XP... and Ubuntu v7.04 ("Feisty Fawn"). I'm now primarily a Linux user. (I haven't abandoned BSD for Linux completely. I'm still running FreeBSD on my file server and my backup server.)

I'm very impressed with the Ubuntu "live disk" install process. Everything seems to work great right out of the box: the audio device, the network card, the dual-head display, DVD playback, network printer discovery, ACPI sensor monitoring, etc. After I downloaded the Ubuntu ISO image and burned myself the install CD, I was up and running in less than an hour. Wow.

I mentioned to Stacey that I have switched from Linux to BSD and am now using Ubuntu and he said: "Get a real man's OS... like Gentoo!" lol. I've heard that the Gentoo install process is much like that of FreeBSD, e.g. lots and lots of user input in a command-line type of interface. Conversely, the Ubuntu GUI-based install experience is quite minimal. I input my name, my preferred username, and about 7 or 8 other minor tidbits, and that was it. Everything else was either pre-configured or was dynamically assigned based on my network environment. I have since tweaked a few things, but not much.

Just a bit of trivia... with Ubuntu on my desktop, my home network composition is now much more diverse: WinXP on my laptop (provided by work), Win2K on Kristy's laptop (and my second laptop), Mac OSX on the kids laptop, FreeBSD on the file server and the backup server, and Ubuntu Linux on my desktop. Quite a motley array of machines.

(Update Wed May 30 01:11:37 PDT 2007 // removed some artifacts)
(Update Wed May 30 01:11:37 PDT 2007 // added ACPI)

Kids Painting
The kids spent some time painting today... even Olivia! Kristy snapped a few pictures:

New Computer
I got all my new computer parts last week and started building my new rig yesterday. Today I finished the assembly and took some pictures.

Lots of big and bright screen real estate... w00t! I am very happy about how much new desk space I have with the big 'ol 19" CRT gone.

Kathy/Emily Birthday Party
Today we attended a birthday party over at the Thurmonds for Kathy and Emily. It was really just a party for Emily, who is turning 2 years old - the party theme Emily picked out was butterflies. All of the usual suspects were there... the Thurmonds, us, the Sorensons, and the Corays. The food was quite good and the company was excellent. The kids played themselves ragged and all but Berkeley zonked out on the drive back home.

Olivia Pics
While I was camping with Berkeley and Eliana last night and this morning, Kristy was at home with Olivia and snapped a couple of pics:

More Camping
When Berkeley and I left for our Fathers and Sons activity last weekend, Eliana was pretty disappointed that she was not allowed to go camping as well. After having heard that there was some additional service needs at Ensign Ranch, I volunteered. We (Berkeley, Eliana, and myself) camped last night, and then helped around the Ranch for a few hours this morning. We had a great time.

We stayed in the Lockamora section of Ensign Ranch. Lockamora includes quite a few shelters scattered throughout the site. We parked next to a site that had a covered eating area, an open-air A-Frame cabin, and an elevated platform up in the trees (see picture). After some exploration to find a suitable site for the tent, the kids decided the best place for the tent was up on the elevated platform. So we set up the tent up there. They were thrilled.

We made a big fire and when it died down, we cooked up some salmon in tin foil on the grate that covered the fire pit. I am amazed at how much fish those two can put down. On both their plates last night, I put on more salmon than I thought they could reasonably eat. But they both put all of it away. After dark, the kids watched a movie in the tent while I slept. They woke me up when it was over and then we all crashed. We woke up to some light misty rain and had breakfast and warmed ourselves by the fire.

While I was working, the kids kept themselves busy playing in the dirt and playing with sticks. I was working at different sites throughout the area and the kids soon tired of the walking. So I grabbed one of the handcarts, loaded them inside, and transported them via handcart for much of the morning. They thought that was pretty good fun. I also gave them our old digital camera to play with. Here are some pictures from our campout, the last one on the right is the only one that the kids took that wasn't completely blurry or obscured.

After we returned home, I worked on the yard a bit and finished planting a couple of the trees that I bought three weekend ago. While I was working up a sweat digging holes through compacted clay, Berkeley was looking on with a grimace on his face:

"Daddy... where am I going to sit?", asked Berkeley.

"Um, why don't you sit right there on the ground.", I responded.

"But Daddy, I really want a chair to sit on.", Berkeley said with a bit of a whine.

So I went and got him a little chair, "Here you go."

I went back to my digging while he sat there watching.

After about a minute of sitting there doing nothing, Berkeley sighed: "What a day."

I stopped my digging, rested the weight of my upper body against the shovel whose lower third was still down in the hole, and looked at Berkeley, sweat dripping down my face.

"What are you looking at?!", Berkeley flatly offered.

"Nothing." And I went back to digging.

Fudgesicles
I took the kids to Costco today to buy a few items. While walking through the frozen food section, we passed by a stock of novelty ice cream treats... a variety pack that included ice cream sandwiches, ice cream bars, and ice cream drumsticks. It is getting hot around these parts, so I suggested that we buy a box. I got the box out and was about the put it into the cart, but was restrained with a "No, Dad... look at those!"

So I looked in the direction of their interest to find green boxes of "Healthy Choice" fudgesicles. "You want those instead of this?!", I said with an emphasis on "this" while pointing to the ice cream novelty variety pack.

They picked the fudgesicles. Here are the pics:

Curious Questions
Berkeley today (in no particular order):

"Dad, how does food turn into poo-poo and wee-wee in your tummy?"

"Dad, how does poo-poo come out of your body?"

"Dad, how did this [pointing to his belly button] get here?"

So many questions.

Movie Review: Cinderella Man

Cinderella Man is a movie based on events that took place during the life of Jim Braddock, specifically in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Braddock was forced to quit boxing during the Depression because of injury. He subsequently worked at the docks as a longshoreman to make what little he could to support his family. Because the work is sporadic and pays poorly, Braddock eventually must accept government relief and beg for money to keep the heating bills paid.

But Braddock is given a second opportunity to box. He is offered to participate in a single fight that pays as much as Braddock could earn in several months. He accepts (of course). Braddock then proceeds to make a "cinderalla-style" comeback, largely due to the inspiration Braddock draws from his family, and his wife in particular. The movie has some very touching moments and emphasizes the powerful force of love that can be found in family. Though the boxing scenes are intense at times, the overall message of the film is very positive.

Summary: Highly recommended.

(Update Tue May 29 15:15:29 PDT 2007 // updated grammar)

Dress Up Party
Kristy and the kids attended a dress-up birthday party for Eliana's former nursery leader today (Jana-bell). Kristy snapped a couple of pictures. The one of Berkeley is ok (a bit out of focus), but the one of Eliana is absolutely stunning... check it out:

Happy Mother's Day
For Kristy's Mother's Day today, the kids and I got up early and made Kristy some cards and her favorite breakfast, Steel-Cut Oatmeal. I bought her a massage treatment at a local spa. We spent the day by ourselves. We called the grandmothers later in the evening.

Movie Review: La Doublure

Subtitled in English.

Date Night
We doubled dated with Jason and Jen tonight and had a wonderful time. First we ate dinner at the Hunt Club in the Hotel Sorrento. I ordered the Halibut, Kristy the rack of lamb. It was a fine meal; even more so because we enjoyed the company of friends.

After dinner, we drove over to the Egyptian Theatre to see the French film, La Doublure. It was a fun, light comedy.

We then returned to the Hotel Sorrento to listen to live jazz in the Fireside Room. The jazz quartet, led by Katrina Wible, was quite enjoyable. Kristy and I sunk ourselves into the deep couch as we allowed ourselves to be enveloped by the soothing music. We ordered dessert. Kristy had the chocolate molten cake which she spoke very highly of and I had a rhubarb and orange dessert that was just ok. We stayed until about 10pm and then called it a night. It was great fun.

Fathers and Sons Campout (Berkeley, Age 4)
Yesterday afternoon I piled a bunch of camping gear into the car, then Berkeley and I drove out to Ensign Ranch for the annual Fathers and Sons campout. At Fathers and Sons last year, we shared camp with Rich and his son Fox. I coordinated with Rich this year to arrive at camp at about the same time. We decided to share a tent again and set up camp together. After camp was set up, we went over to the lake and did some fishing.

For dinner, we had some salmon tinfoil dinners (like last year) and the Devines brought some dogs. We shared our food and had a nice meal. At about the time we were eating dinner, most of the other members of our group were arriving and setting up camp. Berkeley had fun playing with some of his own peers and many other boys older than him. I was impressed by how inclusive the older boys were with the youngsters.

After an evening hard at play, Berkeley retired at about 10pm. Much earlier than any of the other boys in our campsite. But he was bushed. He laid down and went right to sleep. I followed not long after at about 11:30pm. We both slept great.

He arose early and had some breakfast (prepared by the EQ presidency) and then cleaned up camp. By about 9:30am we were all packed and drove over to another part of Ensign Ranch and helped build some tent platforms for about 3 hours. Afterward we returned home. We had a great time.

Here are a few pictures:

New Computer Parts On Order
I am finally replacing my PIII-550 desktop system (which has been running FreeBSD 4.9-RELEASE for almost three years now!) with a new one and placed the final order for parts today. I'm rolling my own (of course); the total cost came to just under 2 grand. Here is a short part list:

Gigabyte GA-965P Motherboard
Intel 2.4 Ghz Dual-Core Processor
2 GB RAM
3 320GB Hard Drives
DVD-RW
MSI NX7600GS Dual Head Video Card
2 Samsung 226BW Widescreen LCD Displays

Should be a nice rig.

Olivia's Eating Habits
Olivia has never really developed good eating habits; she has really never developed the appetite for food that her two older siblings did. She is also extremely picky by comparison to her siblings. She won't eat much by way of baby food... in fact she turns her head at just about everything that we put on a spoon. She prefers instead to feed herself.

We had been pretty anxious to get Olivia weaned, and had purchased a bunch of the prepared baby food to get her off and going. But she just has not taken to the stuff like the other two kids did (I can't say I blame her, it doesn't taste all that good... I've tried several kinds). Instead she wants bread, fruit, cheese, meat, cereal, and the like. While I certainly admire her independence and determination to feed herself, she presently lacks the skills to get much of what we put in front of her into her mouth. I'd estimate that about one half to three quarters of the food we put in front of her finds its way onto the floor or into the pocket of her bib.

I feed Olivia almost every morning. Here is the Olivia-approved menu that I have developed: 1 Li'l Yami yogurt, 1 slice bacon, 1-2 small sticks of cheddar or mozzarella cheese, handful of cheerios or rice chex or similar, several quartered strawberries and/or banana slices, fruit juice. Every morning... same stuff. Any variation and I get the screeches.

Godspeed John Bull
When we moved to this area (seven years ago), our local ecclesiastical leader (our bishop) was a man by the name of John Bull. John died on April 24th (while I was in Utah), after a five year battle with cancer. At the time of his death, John was 44. He leaves behind a wife and four children (ages 17 to 9). His funeral was last Monday.

John wasn't a close friend, but certainly someone we knew and loved. He gave us a key referral when we were seeking some help with fertility problems - at the time we were not happy with our current medical care providers. John's referral (Dr. Kevin Johnson) ultimately led to our ability to have three children.

Before John's health deteriorated, he would organize monthly lunch trips for anyone at Church who wanted to meet at Matt's Gourmet Hot Dogs and share a dog and a soda. I attended a few of these. So today, I organized a lunch - at Matt's - to raise a dog and wish our friend John Bull godspeed. I plan on doing this every year on April 24th. A friend has fallen, but will not be forgotten.

Restaurant Review: Rainforest Cafe

We used the excuse of shuttling Aunt Jessica to the airport this evening to stop by the Rainforest Cafe located in Southcenter Mall. The restaurant is themed and lavishly decorated to look like you are dining in some kind of plastic and mechanical jungle... complete with fake rainstorms every 15 minutes. The kids like the place well enough... they ate well anyway. All of the food is very, very average. Strip away the decor and the Rainforest Cafe is basically an Applebee's or a TGIF's.

Summary: You pay extra for the decor which the kids seems somewhat amused by. The leftovers aren't really worth taking home.

Sister's Weekend: Day 4
We left the hotel this morning and travelled to Church and met up with Kristy, Bertha, Karen, Jessica, and Tom/Amber's family. After Church, we had the whole gang over for a late afternoon dinner. Well, the whole gang less the a couple of Kristy's sisters had already left early this morning. The cousins all had a good time playing with each other. The adults sat around and talked and played some board games. I snapped a few pictures here and there (click to enlarge):

The kids are now back in their own beds, but were pretty disappointed to not return to the hotel. They have asked a few times today if they can go back. You'd think after 4 days and 3 nights they would be excited to be back at home. Not hardly.

Oh and... Kristy and I have been married 13 years today.

Sister's Weekend: Day 3
This morning we left the Thurmonds and stopped by the homestead for some Sunday clothes. We lingered for a bit, had some lunch, and then drove over to the Hilton Garden Inn in Issaquah. The kids love staying in hotels, so this particular part of our time spent away from home was anticipated for many days.

The hotel is brand new... it has been in operation for only one month. As such, word hasn't quite spread that it is open and the hotel is practically deserted. We spent some time at the pool in the afternoon with Scott, Isabella, and Nathan - and had the pool all to ourselves. The kids had a lot of fun.

In the evening, we ate at the hotel restaurant. I was a bit apprehensive about eating there with the kids because Olivia is so gosh darn noisy at meal time. However, my concerns were soon allayed as we were the only people eating at the place (this was at about 5:30pm, so we may have just timed it right). I ordered up some halibut for myself and the salmon for Berkeley and Eliana to share. The kids loved the fish and ate it all. They weren't as big of fans of the horseradish-flavored mashed potatoes.

After dinner, the Thurmonds came down to play with us at the hotel pool. Afterward, the kids watched a movie and I did some e-mail and blogging.

Sister's Weekend: Day 2
After seeing Jenna off at the bus stop, the kids and I packed up and traveled up to a park in the Issaquah Highlands to meet Uncles Scott, Matt, and Tom and cousins Ebey, Emily, Madison, Brandon, Isabella, and Nathan. We played for awhile and then hit a local McDonalds for lunch.

In the afternoon and evening, we all congregated at the Thurmonds. While the kids played and watched movies, the four of us adults played a game each of Settlers of Zarahemla and Puerto Rico.

Sister's Weekend: Day 1
I'm taking the day off work today (and tomorrow) for the occasion of my wife's "Sister's Weekend" that is being held at our house today through Sunday (four days). Now that Kristy's last brother is married, they have a closed group of 12 women - Kristy, her five sisters, her mother, and her five sisters-in-law. With only two sisters-in-law absent, there will be 10 women at our place... this leaves no room for myself and the three kids. So out we go(!) to live on the road out of our car for the next three nights.

We drove down to Gig Harbor today and are spending the night with cousin Jenna and Uncle Spencer. The kids have fun down here... Jenna has loads of girl toys and also has a train table that Berkeley loves to play with. This evening, while the kids watched Cinderella III, Spencer and I watched the Jazz game (the Jazz tied up their series with the Rockets 3 games to 3).

Also of note, Olivia climbed up the Coray's complete flight of stairs today... without any assistance (other than my encouragement).

Specialty Soda Pop Selection
From time to time I will buy a bunch of specialty soda, both root beer and ginger ale, and send it along to some friends that live in locales where availability to these fine beverages is just not what it should be. I realize that I am very privileged to live in an area where the local grocery stores stock brands such as Boylan's, Sprecher, Americana, Bulldog, Buderim, and Sioux City side-by-side next to "more mainstream" brands like Thomas Kemper, Henry Weinhard's, and Stewart's. Here is a picture of the specialty soda pop section at a local QFC supermarket:

Note the complete Boylan's line on the top left. Immediately underneath the Boylan's line are the Sioux City, Bulldog, and Americana selections. Eliana is standing in front of the Sprecher stock. The Buderim Ginger Ale is just to her immediate left (on the bottom right side of the photo).

Probably this summer, I'll start posting more ginger ale reviews and begin posting some root beer and cola reviews. Until then (*clink*)... cheers.

Planting Trees
This evening I spent some time planting the trees I bought last Saturday (with Berkeley in a borrowed truck). I had a couple of eager helpers. See below: