How many kids have a cat that will sit and look at baby pictures with them?

Maybe I just have a cheesy sense of humor, but I thought this was the funniest thing...very sweet.

And the ones that can know you so well are the ones that can swallow you whole

So I went off searching for an ocean song to complement this post, and found the lyrics to Dar Williams The Ocean. I've always loved that song, and really anything Dar Williams, but really, I want MUSIC, not lyrics, because I'm persnickety like that, so off to YouTube I went. I found John Butler's the ocean, and love it.

That man can really play the guitar! You've really gotta watch it all the way through to fully appreciate his intensity. Can you imagine coming across him playing that on a street corner about 2 minutes into the song? WOW. Those fingernails really freak me out though, even if they are a guitar thing. Not having been able to stop there, of course, I found the song below, and am really diggin it too at the moment.

Now I've gotta go hunt down a CD, damn it!

Anyway, the ocean, um, yeah...

We headed south on Friday, leaving town HOURS late thanks to a little snafoo with the car rental place who forgot to pick B up. (How do you really spell snafoo anyway? Snafoo? Snafu? Ah choo? Oh wait, I know! e-n-t-e-r-p-r-i-s-e!) Traffic was bad, and the rain was coming down incredibly hard, even by northwest standards, so it was a looooooong trip to Eugene and a just slightly scary trip too. We all made it in one piece and dropped the girls off at Dan's mom's house. Thankfully our lack of planning (thanks to my funk last week) worked out ok, and Dan's uncle offered up keys to the family beach house while we were there. Wandering a coast town on a friday night (in the middle of the night, really) looking for a vacancy would have been a serious pain. As much as I really do prefer to just roll with the punches and let the pieces fall where they may, I really do need to plan better next time.

We finally made it to Newport at around 11pm, and once we found the place in the dark and decided we were pretty sure we were at the right house we were good. There were a few unnerving moments when I wasn't entirely sure I was sticking my borrowed key in the right house's lock, but it all worked out. We stayed up late talking and giggling and just generally having fun. We went wandering up and down the beach in the morning, and then shopping at the outlet Mall in Lincoln City, where I bought some kitchen gadgets and 6 (SIX!) pretty new tanktops. In the middle of November. At the coooooold Oregon coast. Whatever. :)

You know that commercial where the guy is standing on a jettee playing his guitar and rocking out and then a big wave hits the jettee and washes over him and everyone laughs? No? No one else knows what I'm talking about either, and I can't find it anywhere, but I know I've seen it. Anyway, that kind of happened to me on Friday night. Sort of. I haven't laughed that hard in a really long time, and certainly not while spitting out mouthfuls of saltwater. On our way back from Lincoln City to Newport on Saturday night, we stopped at this little row of giftshops along side 101. The shops are on one side of the street, and there is a single row of parking spaces on the other, directly along side the ocean. There was a narrow sidewalk between the front of the parking spaces, and a knee high rock wall hopefully keeping folks from falling over a 100 or so foot drop down to big rocks and bigger waves. B. was sitting in the car watching these huge waves roll in, and I got out to look over the edge with a group of people that had gathered to stare in awe. I'm not sure I've ever seen waves that big before, even having grown up by the water and having spent a lot of time at the ocean. I guess in hindsight I should have felt some alarm when a wave about twice as big as the others I was watching rolled towards the rocks, but it was just so cool to see that I really didn't think about it. It hit the rocks, and then the wall, and then sprayed so high in the air that it spread clear across the street. Needless to say it got me on it's way.


The car! The rental company may have been slow, but I'm thinking it was worth the wait...


The bridge in Newport

The house

saturday morning blogging?

Oh wait, it's not morning anymore. That's just the kind of morning I've had. 3 posts yesterday - what was I thinking? My brain is a little blank today, but it's day 4 of NaBloPoMo! Must post, must post, must post...

And so I give you....

The view out my front door,


and my pretty fall wreath.


Yes, I do know this is a pathetic post. Yes, I do apologize. Not sitting in front of a computer all day is doing horrible things to my brain, and I just don't know what to say. Maybe if I post silly boring things I won't feel the pressure to post and I'll think up something worthwhile? :)

um, self portrait friday?

or self portrait midnight, or I-can't-sleep-because-my-brain-is-tossing-my-whole-life-around-and-
I'm-doing-silly-things-to- pass-the-time-like-taking-goofy-pictures friday. or something. Whatever. The side of my head. Me in a bathrobe. Glamourous.

I'm tiiiiiiiiiired

I so should have planned this month out, or at least come up with a list of writing ideas. I am exhausted tonight, and I've got nothing. Dan manages a small construction company, and they're coming up short on a deadline this week to finish the building for a new paint store, so I've been there painting this week. Talk about pressure, painting the paint store! I feel like everything's gotta be perfect or else, and I'm not used to being on my feet all day, so it's killing me. I feel so pathetic being sore and tired after doing something as mellow as painting all day!

It was pouring all day today, and the rain is still coming down tonight, but here's a pretty picture taken yesterday morning on the way to take the girls to school while the sun was still half way kind of shining... I'll try to come up with something decent to post about tomorrow. Nothing like putting a little pressure on myself :)

Hee Hee

So today is day 1. Nice! I was in a minor panic last night when I realized that I'm planning to be gone hiking for 5 or 6 days this month, which certainly interferes with my plan to post every day. Ingenuity won out though, and I figured out how I can post from my cell phone, so assuming that I can find a signal I can still post while I'm gone. If that doesn't work out for some reason, I guess I'll have to write posts and post them when I come back. Dang it!!


Heh, on to the important part of this post...The girls had tons of fun last night and ended up with loads of candy even though freezing cold weather cut the night short. We have a long standing tradition now of spending halloween with my friend B. and her boys. We go to her house for chili and cornbread and go off into the cold trick or treating. Unfortunately she's moving to Texas next month, so this may be our last year unless we get on a plane next year and go visit for Halloween. :(


The Devil in disguise and my little clown


Mooooommmmmmy, is it time to gooo yet???


just devilish


goofy Mr. Incredible


The whole gang (and no, my little devil isn't crying here - she's just trying to look most devilish :) )

Mud, mold, and pumpkins! OH MY!

So we made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch today. It was a lot of fun. I love this time of year!!!


There was a lot of mud, as always...


And the canopy over the covered wagon that takes you out to the patch at the far end of the farm has seen better days (EEEWWW!!)


It seems like every year we get there just as the sun starts to go down, but the light at that time of day does make for some cool pictures...




The girls brought a friend along, and yes, she is wearing sandals to the pumpkin patch. In October. I wanted to take a picture of her dirty muddy feet, but she wouldn't let me. :)




The girls had a blast in the hay maze...








We went home with 156 POUNDS of pumpkin. WOW. They're so pretty though. :)

WARNING: Picture Overkill. Sorry!

One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to sit in my grandpa's big leather recliner and page through his many photo albums. I borrowed them 4 or 5 years ago, and scanned a bunch of pictures. They sat on a couple cds and I never did anything more with them. I found those cds today!! Lot's of fun stuff...

When I was 8 years old, my Dad, Grandpa and I drove to Mexico. My Dad and grandpa are not typical tourists, and wanted to see the REAL Mexico. It was amazing, even to an 8 year old. I would love to go back, but really can't imagine taking my own 8 year old to those places today. Times have changed in Mexico (and everywhere else too!), and I am incredibly protective of my babies. :)



man fishing

sad



These guys were ever present and really gross. My favorite song was "La Cucharacha" for at least a month after this trip.

one of many beautiful views

laundry

Me styling by the pool at a resort somewhere - Yes, I do look like an odd child here. What can I say? It was 1987, I was 8 years old, and I had been riding in the backseat of a car for a week. :)




The festival of guadalupe hidalgo took place while we were there. This boy still sticks in my memory. His grandmother was crawling on her hands and knees through town. The boy was in his socks, as she held his shoes. She had 2 cloths, and as she made it on to one the boys mother would pick up the one behind her and move it in front of her so that she could continue forward. She was crying.



a small town in the mountains - As a kid I always thought this last picture - of the girl - belonged in a National Geographic Magazine. I still kind of do. My grandpa is an awesome photographer, if I do say so myself.

My grandpa picking bananas

This guy was sunbathing in the middle of a jungle road.



A church in Durango

This pool was on top of a hotel in puerto vallarta. That's me swimming, and my dad lounging.


My dad was so embarrasing sometimes, but now this is a treasured memory. We were driving down this gravel road in a rural area, and saw this guy with a cart pulled by donkeys. My dad thought it would be an excellent idea to stop and talk to him and take pictures of me riding the donkeys. We sent copies to the man later. He was very excited.




There is a bank entrance just to the left of where this man was standing. There were guards with machine guns at all the banks we saw. There were also roadblocks in rural areas with many men with machine guns searching cars. I'm sure they were guerillas. I'm not sure of why I wasn't terrified, or why once wasn't enough for my Dad to turn the car around and go home, but I'm glad he didn't.


I learned at an early age what a cruel and disgusting "sport" bullfighting is...