5.1

so as soon as i post my friday five i'm thinking of everyone that defines number five--and right now i'm especially thankful for my own mom, nana, because she's the reason i get this indulgent morning in a cafe to write (ummm blogging counts) and drink machiatos and otherwise find some zen equilibrium. plus this picture is too fabulous not to share. now to revise file vw_draft_2_9.

fabulous friday five

needless to say the last couple of weeks have been manic--as the ticker counts down days and hours until we go norway! we've been doing all those things you do before leaving home for 7 weeks which includes extended visits to the post office and readjusting the sprinkler system. personally i'm trying to finish my dissertation chapter i began working on in our last trip to norway and hand it off to my chair. i'm at the coffee depot now typing up what i hope to at least to be the penultimate draft. so i thought rather than rant about the frustrations of the week (which have been many and varied--including farcical conversations about our damaged luggage and diaper bags that never shipped) i'd start my writing day with five fabulous things that have kept me going--those things that if i hadn't been so manic i would have blogged about weeks ago. so here they are:

5. our three-year old wearing his birthday pants dancing in the street at cal adventure before the pixar play parade

4. beautiful baby stella

3. the upcoming birth of owen's baby cousin--and having a healthy, beautiful sister in law as the mother-to-be

2. having a brother--because who else would take owen to chuck e cheese? (that's chocolate cake all over owen's nose, btw)

1. having a fidfam--which is family in the most beautiful, largest sense of the word.

perks and Happy Ascension Day!

Here's a shot from within the SAS lounge in the South terminal in Seattle. SAS upgraded me to gold recently, which is kinda nice, wish they would upgrade me to business class instead... maybe after a few more trips. Less than two weeks until the whole Fidfam comes over! The sun is up at 5am now and is setting about 10.30pm.

on the eve of three

tomorrow owen will be turning three, and it already seems like i need the slideshow retrospective, a looking back to when my little boy was a little baby boy. but really he's been "bigger already" for quite some time and has of late started categorizing activities in which he's "not big enough yet" (like wearing bandaids) and those which he's "bigger" for (riding his trike). here's one of my favorite "big boy" shots from last week--when he decided it was definitely cool to wear shades.

and then last week he was both my baby and my big boy (which really isn't that what he'll be to me always always?) when he put on his nemo swim diaper, his purple crocs, and his blue and red crab bucket hat and watered i. & k.'s garden.

but lately i've felt plagued with that journaling flu of sorts--the one that keeps you from writing because it seems you can't possibly catch all those moments or give meaning to the ones that are most important. i've been reading joan didion's slouching towards bethlehem and found an essay that i'd photocopied back when i taught english 1a to college freshman and reread it in the larger context of writing and not writing. the collection as a whole is amazing--but i love that she discounts wholly what she calls "diarying" because of course we run into that anxiety of "catching up" and missing events. she talks about how writing, and now it seems all so relevant to blogging, is really personal--her notebook is filled with random lists and snippets from overheard conversations that are meant as personal reminders, not of the events themselves--but on who she was at that point in time. i guess i disocvered somewhere around owen's third week that i wasn't the kind of mother that kept a baby book but have been intensely interested in owen's life as part of a notebook--one that is inextricable from my own (owen would say, of course "my oWen") and of course one that is far more interesting than any kind of diary that i would ever keep. mostly i can't believe how incredibly beautiful this notebook is--and colorful, and hilarious. if i were taking videos today, of course, i would have recorded owen's spontanteous dance medley (inspired both from a previous episode of c&l when lola is trying to find a dance style she can do and our attempt at a.m. yoga this morning mixed with his own creative spin) in which he did a very rigorous "exercise dance" and then a "ladybug dance" and then took requests from me & m. for everything from snake dancing to train dancing. . .

on a more banal diary note, tonight i made the spinach with ricotta and penne
from martha's everyday food with tj's wholewheat w/ flax penne and in a fix tossed in their nut medley (pepitas, slivered almonds, pine nuts). it was quite tasty and utilized my favorite one-pot technique by tossing in greens to the boiling water just before draining. the key is toasting the nuts, but it was a satsifying, simple meal. although owen is quite the gormund he's not quite into the leafy greens (yet) so i steamed some frozen broccoli quickly and then did my neighbor's kiddy mac & cheese trick--melted one lite laughing cow triangle, cooled with milk and then poured. all the boys were satisfied. mmm.

also in the diary: been packing for norway; trying to finish my diss. chapter before takeoff; addicted to starbucks new pike's place blend and tj's chocolate ice cream bonbons.

fyi: the countdown off to the right is for our departure from SEA to CPH--we'll actually leave the OC the saturday previous and road trip it up to p-town (with dog and tot) then spend a few days in copenhagen before settling into our norwegian home in aalesund.

but mostly, good night sweet two year old. looking forward to what three will bring . . .

best(er) friends

so while we're all cooing over the new baby the boys just kept right on being beautiful boys. here's one of my favorite moments from last week when o. & w. just sat down and decided they'd color cars pictures together and they were such an enthusiastic team cheering on each other with their choice of color and scribble shouting look! owen is coloring mcqueen purple! and wow! west colored tow mater's tow red! and then just cracking up. nope, no baby is slowing these guys down ;)

a star is born

"There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. Such fools we are, she though, crossing Victoria Street. For heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh; but the veriset frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall) do the same; can't be dealt with, she felt positive by Acts of Parliament for that very same reason: they love life. In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the trumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved: life; London; this moment of June."

-Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Stella Dalloway Mulholland
April 6, 2008

7 lbs 4 ounces - 20 inches

look at that beautiful family! i love the "what's up?" face with big brother, and come on, could she look more peaceful in my arms?

and now for the pics...

hello fidfam adventurers! apologies for the lax posting-- it's been a frantic but productive last few weeks as we try and wrap up projects here at home before joining michael in norway for the rest of spring.

and our super sidekicks b&w (or perhaps we are their sidekicks--i think it depends on the day of the week) had a new arrival: *stella dalloway* and she couldn't be more gorgeous or perfect--we steal over to see her every chance we get!

today the snyders came out and joined us for some respite from this ridiculous heat and we had one of those aha! moments down at the montage beach and just gorged on the absolute beauty of the sand, the sea and the sun. i had to share these pics: owen posing by the beach access sign before he ran all the way down the purple bloomed path shouting "this way! this way matty! to the beach!"; sakura discovers blackberries; owen glistens in the sun by the tidepools--he was searching for sand crabs with no luck (we did see some gorgeous purple urchings and one orange seastar!); tomoko, matty & sakura--who loves the seaside berries but not the cold cold sea!

tonight we changed gears and owen tried out the raingear i'd ordered for our norway trip-- a new rain coat and some puddle stompers:





it'll be hard to leave behind the sunshine but we can't wait to share our adventures together! as soon as owen put his boots on he was ready to stomp all the way to the airport. . .

owen on the ipod

3 down.. 1 to go

I visited my 3rd scandinavian country over the weekend -- flying into Copenhagen on my way to Alesund, Norway (only Finland left). An airport is no way to judge a country, but when Cara and Owen come over in May we will spend about 3 full days in Copenhagen, so we will see more of the city later. I've grabbed some photos using google images (so they are not mine), but give you a good idea of what the airport looks like.
I was on the inagural flight between Copenhagen (CPH) and Alesund (AES) using a Bombardier CRJ. Typical first flight stuff happened -- delayed for 3 hours, needed to get the right maps (a bit scary), trouble with the cabin lights -- had to switch planes because of this one... But at least they had champagne and cake for the passengers. I skipped on the freebies and headed off to the Starbucks found in Terminal 2.

too much candy. . .

we had a beautiful sunny easter and i've got lots of pretty pics and funny videos--but i thought i'd post this post-easter respite first. after everyone left after brunch and we were left with half opened eggs and fluffy chicks owen grabbed a blanket and pillow off hte couch and said, "i need to rest." enjoy his big-boy dialogue:



i really need to figure out how to do open captions on the video-- but owen's end goes something like this:
you're on the couch. i'm on the floor.
(mom: why?)
cuz i need to.
i had too much candy.
(do you love easter?)
yes!
(what did you do?)
i find eggs and i open them.
(how many eggs?)
42 eggs!

click! click!

we finally broke down and bought a new camera (there is no recovering from a swim under the san clemente pier)--and we love it! we went back and forth about replacing the leica and found this lumix (made in the same factory as the leica, with the same lens, but packaged in a panasonic box for half the price--so far it has surpassed our expectations: awesome interior lowlight shots, bright, crisp outdoor pics, great video, and it fits in my denim jacket pocket!) and owen may be the new photographer in the family. "click! mommy i take your picture! sierra, sit, and click!" the camera is either his two fingers angled just so, half an easter egg, an empty paper tower roll, or the ubiquitious stick. here are a few of our favorite "test" shots from the week:

this was taken at laguna beach last week with bright noontime sun. i love the bright colors of his cool new rash guard and board shorts and the contrast of his fair skin and that auburn hair. sigh, he's no longer a toddler eating sand, but a big boy using his dumptruck to build beach roads:

and here's the coolest new feature--under the "scene mode" you can choose "food"! my foodies out there will appreciate these random shots from our kitchen and fridge:

here is a series of screen captures from a video of owen doing the "thomas roll call" with his take along trains. this is another cool feature that we'll be playing with--the ability to see right on the camera screen-by-screen images of videos. again, the "intelligent auto" feature makes use of a backlight to give better indoor flash pictures.

and you can bet that i'm excited that we'll be able to flash tomorrow when the easter bunny comes!

this week: surprised by pirates and singing about integers

tom sawyer's island is now officially "pirate's lair"which means that there's a smarmy johnny depp look alike swaggering around the old fort and the frontiersman that once took you over on the raft to twain 's boyhood isle are now wearing eye patches and saying "how about some gold me pretty?". but it is a stroke of disney genius, because suddenly that dusty dated excursion has come alive with hollering boys playing hide and seek in the caves under the old fort--i mean abandoned pirate ship. the creaking bridge is still a favorite--owen, of course says to me halfway through: "mommy, they need to fix this bridge. it's not very straight. AND it's very bumpy" indeed! (owen, of course, also didn't think much of the old yellow submarine whether or not it had nemo. )oh, and did you know that there is a sheep named george and several goats at disneyland? i guess in all my wanderings i had never stopped at frontier ranch--the cleanest petting zoo you'll ever visit. well, except that george did nearly poop all over nana's white tennies.

you can get double dr. seuss dvds at costco-- we LOVE the green eggs & ham, although it is a bit like the people who did the score for fiddler on the roof approached mr. geisel and said hey--your book would make a great little musical. the cat in the hat, however, kinda creepy.

on the topic of musical dvds we bought from costco-- how fabulous is Mary Poppins! owen and i had the best friday night movie date giggling at dancing penguins and singing chimchimcherroo (and really i can't get enough of sister suffragette).

and, of course, if you haven't already checked it out--they might be giants do numbers. it's not such a stretch for the guys who did "Ana Ng" and "Birdhouse in your soul". it IS catchy (the four song is the sweetest and i know S & J and Uncle R are still singing High Five!). and hey, owen can count to a hundred, add 8+8, knows that tuesday follows monday, and tell you that girls don't like french fries. This podcast does look like fun.

but of course it all appeals to me, after all i'm part of the child raising generation that thanks god we missed barney and remembers singing "don't drown your food!" after school before memorizing ickle me pickle me tickle me too. . .

more

by demand.. here's some more pics...
A view of the parking lot at work (no Rolls Royces to be found):


Another view of our work "container"... The bridge in the background connects the islands of Haramsøy (where the ferry docks) and Longva (where I work):


A shot of the island of Longva from the back of the boat.. the Rolls Royce site is somewhere in the middle of the island:


A nice church (probably Lutheran, 90% of Norwegians are) on the island of Haramsøy:

Longva

This will be sort of a long post with plenty of pictures. I have finally tooks some snaps of the site where I am working because a) the weather was finally nice and b) there was enough daylight on the commute home... so here we go:

We'll start with the site itself... here's a view from the entrance:


Towards the back of the site, they installed a "container" (over christmas) to house our group.. the newer building on the right:


We're backed up right to the water and here's two pics of the view... those red houses are boat storage:



Here's some houses across the street.. typical Norwegian community:


Next, the commute home... Getting off the bus.. it's a 15 minute ride from the site to the ferry dock:

Here comes my ferry:

Boarding the ferry:

Shot leaving the dock, with a car ferry (headed to Brattvåg) in the background:

the friday five

this week's friday five is tough, because owen has become master of why and connecting cause and effect. he asks disarmingly perceptive questions and is able to make connections in ways that constantly catch me off guard. here are five of the top moments--which also includes a michael moment.

1. i spent most of saturday lying about on the couch due to a neck spasm-- so on wednesday when i had a dr. appt he said rather astutely: "oh, you're going to see the doctor because your neck still hurts?".

2. "mommy needs to go to school to pick up some papers." pause. "oh? you dropped them?"

3.after apparently browsing the "hits of the 80s and 90s" on wikki for the pub quiz nite m. says to me: "i now know the exact year i stopped listening to music. it was 1993." i'll let him say more on that if he wants to--but i thought it was so wonderfully quotable.

4. "mommy, i love you." pause. "because. because. ummm. because you're my guy!"

5. if you've seen the video clip below you can see that o's signing skills has increased exponentially. he doesn't stop signing and pauses mid-sentence to work out how that might be done with sign language. last night after a long day on campus and playing with papa he was ready to go home (because sierradog needs him) and he said, "mommy, lets G-O home." only he very carefully signed G with his left hand and O with his right and held it up for me to read. (that's right up there with the "mommy, look! that spells DOG" reading great grandma's throw that said "God Bless")

owen signs his abcs!

those pesky letters K and P!

no love for the yellow hotel

it was suggested that it was my wording that skewed the poll results overwhelmingly to the room with a view and a tub. but i think that it was actually on par--the cozy hotel was just that: with a questionable buffet and access to the laundry in the basement but it was an apartment-sized room with a friendly staff (and somewhere we called 'new home' for the equivalent of a semester); the apartment is equally attractive and unappealing because it doesn't have a breakfast buffet and it's teeny with a bed up by the ceiling; and the business hotel is the cleanest, swankiest but you're having breakfast with a bunch of dudes who travel all the time--who apparently like to take american-style baths ;) apparently it's all about breakfast. anyhow, we're booked at the latter which is also five minutes from the ferry dock and did i mention the bath tub?

oh, and yes, the poll on the right is really pure fiction--but please do play anyhow. it is clearly not taking into consideration traveling with a three year old which pretty much nulls all those options. look for that poll next week.

some days we go to disneyland

and some days owen just poops in the tub.

. . .

the fid boys

yipppeee! i'm click clacking on my new red dell and it's so gorgeous and shiny and best of all my wireless works and the hard drive no longer needs a ruler, duct tape and an industrial clamp to boot up. sooo, enjoy these fun pics at california adventure with uncle ryan. and yes, it is that sunny in february ;)