Oh sad little blog

This wee website has been sorely neglected as of late but things are zooming along at a dizzying pace.

Is it always like this at the end of summer?


Here is a quick recap:

In August we took our first camping trip. The day that we spent with my mom on the river was lovely. The night, tucked into our wonderful new tent, was not so great. It was colder than expected and our little bambino was not a happy camper. We bagged it and arrived home at 4 am. We are not bested, however, and will make it back into the woods...just not this summer.

Ben is galloping and garbling along at a very fast clip. Words are exploding forth and we’re doing our best to decipher them. Some are easy: nana=banana. Some a little trickier: bope=boat. But also sometimes bath. His little legs can’t keep up and he often finds himself tumbling down the stairs, a hill, or out of the swing. This little kid has resilience, I’ll give him that much. We are enjoying the new mobile, vocal adventures of our little 18-month old bambino.



Work on the house is coming along at quite a nice clip. We get the railing on the deck finished last weekend and I have a few hours of staining left before we consider this project finished. I can’t wait. I’m already planning the celebratory dinner that we’ll have once it’s finally completed. Just in time for winter, eh? :)

That’s a picture of me doing the final sanding on the railing with the belt sander. As my dad always says before lending me this particular piece of equipment: “don’t forget to tuck your shirt in before turning this sucker on” (or words to the same effect). He speaks from experience: I think it sucked his shirt up into the belt one time and did a merry sanding job on his abdomen. Good advice, Papa. Fortunately, it was an easy job: the railing is as smooth as a baby’s bottom and my abs remained un-sanded.

I came home yesterday to find that a crew had removed our oil tank. This would have been great news except that we weren’t actually done with our furnace. We’d planned to get a new one but had yet to schedule its installation. We’re going with the flow though: keep your fingers crossed that September is a nice warm month, otherwise we’ll be inviting ourselves over to your house to warm up and mooch hot coco.

The most excellent news is that the tank was in fabulous condition, with nary a hole, leak, hydrocarbon odor, or stained soil. Whoo to the hoo hoo.  This environmental scientist will be filing for a closure report stat.

My grandfather, at the ripe old age of 101, passed away peacefully in the beginning of August. I don’t think that I’ll talk much more about this, as I’m not ready to put thoughts into words. My mom rushed back to his bedside from a trip to Wyoming and he died a few hours later.  Perhaps he was waiting for her, perhaps it was an amazing coincidence, but I am so grateful that it worked out in that manner. She was a wonderful, caring daughter and I’m so thankful that she was able to say goodbye. It was a good end to a long and eventful life.

Next year we’re going to take a trip down to Donner Lake in California to spread his ashes in the mountains where he went every summer for fifty-odd years. I can’t wait to show Chris and Ben my old stomping grounds.

We kind of got out of our family weekend outings but we’ve renewed our efforts and have been rewarded with some fun little jaunts. One of our favorites was a picnic in the park, watching the kites in Magnuson Park.

Well, I think that should do it, my dears. We are looking forward to Fall (although not too much, as we still need to install our new furnace) and all the adventures that await in the coming months.

Hope you are well.

xxoo,

Sonja