Palouse Falls

Usually on the Friday after Thanksgiving, we go to the Cathedral Domain and spend the night. Since that's about 2300 miles away, we decided not to go this year. We'd thought about seeing Mt. Rainier, but that's a three hour drive and it gets dark early here (about 4:30 right now).

So we decided to go look at some geology. The landscape of eastern Washington is heavily influenced by the ice ages and ice dams breaking and reforming, flooding and so on. Of course, volcanic activity played a huge role too.

The little Palouse Falls (rapids!)Game BoyPalouse River and a View of the Canyon.

A walk along the path

The Palouse Falls (you can hear them from pretty much everywhere)

I'll be the first to admit that these aren't the best pictures, but it was a grey, grey day. We'll try and go in the summer when it doesn't rain. We are in the desert, after all.

Quiet Thanksgiving

It was just the four of us, but sometimes a quiet holiday is what we need.We used the china, the crystal, and the Turkish table cloth.

Here is our feast:
We mixed it up this year. Game Boy requested cornish hens for dinner instead of turkey. The Collar smoked them. It was really good. We had the ubiquitious peas with pearl onions, roasted vegetables, and cranberry sauce, too.
The Wiz decided to "murder" his hen.
Later on, we had pie. There were three kinds, one of which was homemade, g/f apple pie. The crust was good, the apples were good, but it was kind of soupy. Here I am thankful for:

• settling in well in our new home.
  
• Game Boy is doing extremely well in school.
• The Wiz is improving at school.
• we are doing okay financially, even though we "own" two houses.
• that The Collar and I are a good team.
  

I am sure there are more--but those are the most important.

I Make Stuff

and finish things too.

Yesterday, I made another mini sweater. This one is a bit different, because I wanted to make it like a sports jersey. (Remember those baseball t-shirts?) I adapted the pattern so that the sleeves would entirely be one color. Then I clumsily embroidered '08 for this year. The boys think that I need to make one with an R for our last name, and several '08 ones for our tree. The ones that I made with each of our initials on them apparently aren't enough. (Count for mini-sweaters is now 14! See them hanging all in a row?)I've also finally finished the Spey Valley socks. Here is a closeup of the cuff:and here is a picture of the finished pair. They are certainly bright and cheerful. I've never knit a pair of socks on size 0 needles before. I'm not certain if I'll do it again, because it really hurt my hands. (I've been diagnosed with osteoarthritis in my hands. Another left over from gymnastics.) The yarn was yarn my mom gave me. Someone gave it to her, but she doesn't knit socks.
Finally, this last picture is of the boys' project this morning. Extreme Brio trains--Game boy and Wiz style. It kept them busy for a few hours this morning. It was nice.

Pants

I found something that Game Boy will wear. (Besides his knucks, and his hat, and well, okay, he wears lots of things that I make him.)

Pajama pants! Somewhere along the way, he has outgrown/lost all but one pair. I had left over flannel from a previous project, so I made him pants out of what was left. There was plenty. It's his favorite color. They are flannel. What's not to love?

Between cutting out the pieces and the sewing, it took maybe 4 hours. Now that I know how easy they are, I can make him some for spring/summer. I can find him pajamas for summer. I only seem to be able to find him pajamas at Christmas time. The second picture shows him wearing his hat. He obviously never wears it. :)

BMB Day 2008

It's kind of strange that I feel it necessary to write the year on these posts now. We've had 5 of them now, and I've been blogging for 3 years now, so it's not a big surprise.

We had to be at the hospital at 8:00 to have his IV placed. Once that was placed, they were able to draw his labs. It's quite nice to have the IV--it's much easier to draw the blood. I made a deal with him--if he did everything without fighting, he would get a bigger Ugly Doll. He did, so here he his with his ugly doll.
We met the new GI. He's pretty fast at his appointments. We only need to see him every 6 to 8 months. Wow! We aren't used to that.

The Wiz's bone marrow biopsy went well. He entertained everyone before he went out. He always does! I went and found us food and when I got back, he was in recovery. He had his bagel with strawberry cream cheese. Then the pain hit. Usually, he is fine after his biopsies, but this time he had pain. He couldn't sit up, or stand, or lay down. He tried to tell stories to the nurse and the hem, but he'd stop and cry. If you know the Wiz, nothing stops him from talking, so this was bad. He was given half an oxycodone (he's still pretty small) and he felt better so we were released to go home (and I was given the other half in case he needed it).

On the way out, he decided I should take a picture of the scultpture.And then with the pig bench.On the way home, he started feeling ill. I was able to pull over at the view point to let him rest a bit. I took a picture of the Stuart mountains. It's about 3:00 in this picture, which is apparently is late afternoon now.After that, we went on, and he put the yak in Yakima. :( He had some more problems, but we did make it home. He's feeling fine now, but he was pretty miserable all night. This morning he had one more bout, but now he's fine.

Tomorrow, he's going to school.

Views

Mt. Rainier from Yakima

The views of Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier are from the rest area just west of Yakima. We stop at it every time (okay, only twice so far) and this time we didn't meet up with a prison bus.
Our room has some nice views. We can see Mt. Rainier and the Space Needle. The Wiz wants to go to the Space Needle some time. The sky was really pretty tonight. Last time we were here it was cloudy the whole time.

Time to give The Wiz his meds. I'm letting him stay up tonight, so I can sleep until 6:30.

Seattle, again

The Wiz and I are leaving for Seattle in the morning. We're seeing his hematologist and his GI and he'll be having his annual bone marrow biopsy.

We're leaving earlier, because I refuse to need to be driving on the highway at rush hour again. Can you say gridlock?

I'll probably write from Seattle or maybe I'll wait until we get back home. It all depends on how we're doing.

No, I'm not driving my car. I'm driving The Collar's as it's probably safer (snow has been seen in the passes!) so we should be good to go.

Fall at Mill Creek

It was sunny today! The four of us and the two dogs went to the dogs' favorite spot. The dogs like it because they can go off leash. We like it because it's nice to go for a walk in a place where we aren't fighting the leashes as much.There are also lots of interesting things to see.
It was a nice afternoon. It was good to walk and be outside in the sunshine. Hopefully we'll be able to do it again soon.

Obsessed

Describes me right now. I'm obsessed with knitting teeny tiny sweaters from left over sock yarn.



I started making these on Sunday. It's Wednesday, and I'm knitting my sixth one. I can even tell you whose socks the leftovers are from. I'm thinking I should knit some with a cable or something now.

These are too much fun.

Odds and Ends

Right now, I'm in Spokane for a retreat/strategic session for our diocese's camp. I'm all alone. No kids! No dogs! No Collar :( . The drive to Spokane is better than the drive to Seattle because:

• it's only 3 hours rather than 5.5 to 6.5
• rush hour is so much calmer
• I don't have to be on the interstate to get here
• I saw a ring-neck pheasant on the drive up.

Enough of that.

Since I last wrote, we found out that Game Boy did break his finger. It's taped, and he'll be fine.
The Wiz has autoimmune antibodies, so now we'll definitely need to get him in to see an immunologist. His next appointments in Seattle are on the 18th of November, so he and I will be driving to Seattle on the 17th. He'll see the hem again, the GI, and have his annual bone marrow biopsy. I might drive The Collar's car, because his is bigger and has 4 wheel drive. (Mine would be easier to deal with in Seattle, though, so I'm not completely sold on the idea yet.)

Because we have begun to settle in for the long winter (it was completely dark by 4:30 this afternoon), here's some roses to show that the sun still shines. The roses were cut on Sunday.

Election 2008

Yesterday, our country made history.

Yesterday, Game Boy stayed up with me to watch the returns and see the acceptance speech by President Elect Barack Obama. (It was only 9:00 here.)

Yesterday, my son told me that now our country needs to elect a woman next. He thinks all people should have a chance to be president.

Yesterday, I realized that my little boy isn't so little any more.

Dia De Los Muertos

Calavera meatloaf, a goofier version than last year. We decided to wait for the actual Day of the Dead this year.