Meet Tia

Today we went to Petsmart to pick up some catfood for our cats. As we walked in we saw the usual table holding the cages of cats up for adoption. They were cute but kittens always are. Then next to the table was dog. For some reason she caught my eye. It was a small boxer mix - about one year old. She was so calm and relaxed but curious of everything happening around her. We stayed and played with the dog for a while then we left. Jeanette had to be at a birthday party for a niece's one year old and I went home to make dinner. When the party was over, Jeanette gave me a call to see if I needed anything from the store. I said no. Then she asked me if I had thought anymore about the dog. I said yes.


Meet Tia 


Not just another pretty face 


She's tired 


Jeanette showing Tia her new digs 

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Hope you all have a wonderful 2006!

To get the new year off to a good start, I had Mike help prune (which means he did all the work and I cleaned up) the apricot tree in our backyard. Mike said that he pruned it like he pruned the kiwi plants when he was in New Zealand. Does that mean we are going to get kiwis instead of appricots? I think there must be something to genetics - he pruned the tree as much as I remember my dad pruning our peach tree. Take a look for yourselves -


Before... 


...and after 

Is it Christmas yet?

Winter has come to Boise - even though technically it is still Fall. And it's been cold. I think we'd had a couple of weeks where the temperature was mostly in the teens. To that Jeanette says, "Brrrrrr." On one of those cold days I finally got the Christmas decorations up on our house. Nothing too gaudy - I prefer to think of it as simple yet elegant.


The Christmas decorations are up. 

And if you go around to the back yard, you will find that the pond is frozen over. The pump is still running, but it wasn't last weekend. The impeller in the pump broke. Argh! was my first thought. And the pond was completely frozen. In the middle of the night I woke up with an idea of how I could fix the blasted thing. Next morning, sure enough, my idea worked and the pump started doing what it was designed for. My dad would be proud of me. But when the water started flowing down the waterfall, the water went on top of the ice. Remember, the pond is completely frozen. Now I couldn't break the ice without doing irrepairable damage to the fish, so I poured boiling water on the ice and melted a hole. It looked like someone opened the drain as the water flowed back into the pond. Then I melted another hole at the base of the waterfall and everything is back to normal.


The pond is frozen - hopefully the fish aren't. 

Another happy birthday for Jeanette! 

A Quick Trip to Seattle

Ever since Mike got a job with Boeing in Everett Washington, we tried to plan a trip to visit them in their new apartment. After a few false starts, we finally picked this weekend. Unfortunately, it started snowing Thursday - the day we took off. It really only had one stretch that was a raining and snowing, but the rest was clear sailing - if you didn't mind some snow on the road. We spent the night in Yakima and took off early the next morning. I would have been about a 3 hour drive, but just as we got to Snoqualmie Pass, they decided they needed to do some avalanche prevention, so they shut down I90 for about an hour.


The I90 parking lot. 

After the brief stop on I90, we made it to Everett and Mike and Meghan's apartment. After the tour of their place, we headed over to Boeing and got a tour of the world's largest building - where they build the 747, 767, 777 and soon the 787. It was very interesting and indeed the building is huge! Mike is working on designing and testing the landing gear for the 787. Then Saturday we headed to Seattle and a visit to Pike Place Market.


Where crabs live. 


The tour group. 

Pike Place Market is a very colorful place - both visually and people-wise.


We floundered around for a while looking at all the fish. 


Colorful fresh fruits and vegetables. 


What are fat crabs? Are they good or bad? 

After our visit to the market, we headed back to Everett to prepare a crab feast. We even invited Candi Coe up to help us eat. Boy was it goooood!


Four huge crabs for five people. Yum! 

A Quick Trip to Fresno

We hadn't seen Erin and Lance and the kids since the weddings this summer - and they had a list of projects for me - so we took a four-day weekend and flew to Fresno. It was fun playing with the kids. Boy are they growing up quickly!





G&G and the kids 


A great day at the playground 


Allison (and Jeanette) in a slide tube 


Jake climbing the wall 


Grandpa helping Jake build his shelves 


Erin and the kids 

The pond in September

The pond is doing very well. We now have about eleven fish and two frogs. They all seem to like their home and get along pretty well. The pond hasn't been raided by any racoons or herons - yet. (I hope I didn't jinx it!)


See both the frogs? 


A few of our fish. 

We have frogs!