tiny new human!

Just call us Aunt Amy and Uncle Pete!!!!! Pete's sister Kristen just had a baby girl!! Her name is Georgia Sequoia and from what we hear, she is a beautiful perfect baby! Hooray!!! I am so excited I can barely stand it!! eeee! She's 6 lbs and some change and 20 long! Pete and I are pretty excited about this little one. You Weinmeisters in the Oregon area are pretty close to the tot! She's probably on the road back to Montana as we speak with her proud new parents.

So exciting! Pictures to follow.

We have had some good weather and from Bainbridge Island were finally able to see the Olympic Range. (attached photo) It was totally obscured the entire week we were on the Penninsula last spring. Pike Market in Seattle is all that the hype says and maybe more. We got all of our last minute shopping for the holiday meal covered from the numerous venders and also found some great crab, and not to be overlooked was some award winning clam chowder for the freezer. The Space Needle is now all lit up for the holidays as is the Nordstroms Flagship store and REI is ready to get everyone ready for their next expedition. We doubt the snow (that is right , it started to snow this afternoon) will interrupt our visit to the Boeing Museum of Flight tomorrow, but if it does we will find something exciting to do before heading back south to Oregon on Tuesday and some more time in Portland and the surrounding area.

This is our christmas tree!!! Pre-decorated and still attatched to the roots of course. I made quick work of the trunk with a saw and it now sits in our living room fully decorated with lights and all.

Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I hope you are all enjoying the day -- wherever you are celebrating. If you're seeing this post, drop a quick line and share a bit. I'm remembering that this time last year I was pulling of a successful Thanksgiving coup (thanks to the help of Marc), arriving at Dick and Jean's to surprise my parents for dinner. That was fun.

This year, things are a bit more mellow, but equally pleasant. I have a nearly unprecedented four days off from work or call (wohoo!), and have driven with the dogs up to Seattle to meet up with Mom and Dad and 'THE VECTRA". Mom's got quite the feast going in that little kitchen. The magical easy-bake oven has been put to the ultimate test. Dad is getting his Thanksgiving football fill (for those of you eagerly waiting the results of the OSU vs Uof O "Civil War", the Beavers won, which for me means that moods will be happy in the office next week.) I escaped football madness earlier today to spend a bit of time exploring downtown Seattle -- I love wandering through cities on holidays, when everything is closed and the pace slows down to about quarter speed.

Anyway, I hope everyone is enjoying the day wherever you are -- Vermont, OKC, on the Slopes of Taos, and anywhere else we may have infiltrated. Happy Thanksgiving!

Blue Sky in Oregon ?!?!

Sometimes I think of Mount Hood as sort of the Snuffleuphagus (sp?) of Oregon. Those connoisseurs of 70's-80's vintage Sesame Street among us will remember the era when Big Bird was the only one who ever saw the big fluffy elephant, causing everyone in the neighborhood to think Snuffy was just an imaginary friend, and resulting in everyone patronizing Big Bird in a slightly insulting way: "Of course you have an orange dump-truck sized hairy elephant for a best friend that no-one else has ever happened to see." [I've been told that now everyone in the 'hood sees Snuffy -- another innocence of my childhood gone forever *sigh*] Anyway, Mt Hood is the most impressive peak in the Portland Metro area and the Willamette Valley: the quintessential vista, the city landmark, and the subject of many a postcard. The irony, however, is that you can so rarely see Mt Hood through all the rain and fog in the winter (November to June). I feel like Big Bird must have felt whenever I try to point the peak out to someone: "And that's Mt Hood over there. . . Really, there's a giant glaciated mountain just to the east there . . . Yes, of course you can see it from town, it's really big . . . Just keep staring -- eventually the clouds will break a bit." So here's a picture of summertime Mt Hood -- Just to prove to you all that it really exists, and to remind me (as winter approaches and it gets soggier and soggier here) that Oregon is pretty impressive in the summertime.

a little herding

My life as a stand-in-indicator-of-scale. hahahaa It's glamorous, people.

If any other individuals of the Weinmeister persuasion ask you guys for help joining the blog, will you kindly oblige? I'm sorry it's a little complicated to join, and that the one email that makes it easy gets deleted by everyone's spam filter. *sigh* Anyway everyone's been invited at least twice now, so hopefully little by little we can buld our Weinmeister blog empire! Mua ha ha haaaaa

I finally made it! Though now that I'm here there's not much to say. Mom and Dad are here (in Oregon) now. You all may or may not have experienced this before, but Carl and Lisa go to bed early (or at least earlier than I do). Once dad decides it's bedtime, there's no stopping him. Since they are currently (like at this very moment) sleeping in my office/guestroom, I am writing this tidbit to the sleepytime chorus of Carl, Lisa, and Hoover. Dad's snoring is impressive as always. Mom adds kind of a quiet feminine little "snerf" noise to it. Hoover is of course harmonizing from his Hoo-house with little doggy snoring and humming. Weinmeisters sleep loudly.

Where is baby catchin' Weinmeister?

Are ya lurkin out there? Are ya comin' into the firelight so as we can see ya and hear ya? Have J&C even gotten the bait? I got lotsa questions for youse guys.

Lisa & Carl's beautiful surroundings reminded me of this picture I took at Smuggler's Notch (right up the road from my gallery) earlier this Fall. The leaves between the stones reminded me of those gold flakes you use for embossing.

neat.

Just wanted you to know we really are getting out and seeing things. We managed to get to Crater Lake on a clear day, just about the last we have seen. Christine suggests we are the ones who brought the wet and wind to Oregon.

OHMMMMMMMMM..arf!

Where would the Roving W's be without dogs? Answer: less fuzzy. If you look closely here, you can see two Ws grooving in the doghuman continuum. Just thought you would like to see that...

Thank you Toni, I thought I was some out of touch old person. The Google account didn't get me in, and the new profile was a wast of time and on and on and on. So it is good to know we are now all in this together.
On the bright side it will be so nice to touch bases with you all in on place, as we are having so much fun it is hard to write to everyone regularly as we should. So Amy gets special points for setting it all up, and now she is forgiven for getting us all in a stew, which was probably good in the long run.
So, from very wet Oregon, this week, Carl, Hoover and Lisa are with you

Hey folks I hear through the grapevine you're having some trouble joining! I agree that it's kinda complicated. I sent all of you an email after the first one I sent out that gives you a link to joining blogger. I'm sorry it's not more clear-cut, but I think the second email should make it easier. Lemme know if you didn't get it.

This is me on a rescue mission up in the green mountains. You may remember these characters from the wedding. We were on a 3 week excursion on the Long Trail when we were attacked by moutain lions. We were running down from the mountains in escape and lost all of our food and supplies. During our flight from peril, a huge earthquake tossed a boulder onto Nick. Trevor and I managed to lift it off of him and save him from certain death... until the bear got him on his way to the grocery store a week later. weird.

isn't conversation the point?

my fellow weinmeister/rahns, isn't it about time we started an ongoing dialogue based on all of our wild travels, exploits, and incarnations?

i think so.

post your thoughts, your pictures, your links, your questions and hey at least you'll have an audience!

an audience of weinmeister/rahns! and what could be better?