Ma-Za-Ma

We just spent a super 3-day weekend in the Methow Valley with some of our best kid friends. The weather cooperated and we logged some awesome clicks on the ski trails. Here's a few pics from inside our cozy cabin in Mazama and hopefully I've got a few vids from the wild trails of the Mazama too.

Baby Henny (Henry). Baby Henny's not so baby anymore, coming up
on 1-year (and at 24-lbs he's gaining on the "big boys", Oliver and Kian.

Baby Lise (Elise), the youngest of the bunch at about 6-months.

Kian and Oliver.

A Couple Dude-Dads.


Aunt Mary: brave to be hanging out with the baby crew.
And sleeping on the couch. In the closet.

Multitasking.

Back out on the range...

Kian and Henry go sledding.

Oh yeah, you wanna see fast.

A Few New Flips

Whachu lookin at Willis?

What's been going on? Just the usual, I guess, although if I were pressed to define the past two weeks I'd say there has definitely been a lot less of winter going on. We took almost two-weeks off from the snow, as a fam, in large part because of the wet warm weather we've been expewiencing. Although as usual, if you're not from around here you might not understand that the weather charts aren't really all that accurate. Just cause the symbol over Seattle shows a big cloud with raindrops doesn't mean its always raining, in fact, around here 80% chance of rain really means a 20% chance that it won't be raining. We like those odds this time of year. Case in point, the past two weeks. I got back on the bike that first weekend of no-go to the snow and I hardly got wet. I've done tons of city commuting and a couple big rides and have merely been splashed, and there's been a fair bit of the sunshiny stuff too.

Me Big Boy!

Kiki playing with the fart machine: the "other" fart machine.

But this coming weekend will show a return to the white stuff as we're headed to the Chiwawa. We'll host for a day or two at the nordic center and I might even do a bit of cross-country racing in Leavenworth at the Bavarian Cup. I've already skipped a couple of ski races, and with only a handful on the Northwest calendar if I plan to race any I'd better hop to it. Here's a quick clip of me yesterday at Hyak: I dropped Kian off in Snoqualmie, a real win-win for all: Kian gets to hang with his Aunt-Uncle-Cousins, they get to play with him, and I get to ski unencumbered sans the ski trailer. And a good thing yesterday because the snow was slow and I took the 12-km climb to the nordic system via the Catherine Loop trail... up up up.

Not a great sequence but quicker to upload than these little videos:
crazy! 1+hours and counting on this other clip.

And Wait That's Not All!

A couple more Flips! No... Fips!

Here, an instant classic from New Years morning:

Kian doing his eye thing... we still haven't figured this one out.
Wondering if maybe he's been watching some Josie Wales.

A National Champ!

Here's Kian going full hyper-sonic: the US National Champion of Spaz! At my urging, of course.



While am at it posting Flip shots, here's a glimpse of our commute home from daycare yesterday.

Skiki!

Here's a 3-min composite of Kian's 1st big nordic ski day at SPNC. I should have chopped this down to under 2-mins but whats done is done and never the twain shall meet. The footage comes to you from my new Flip camera and this is the first I've actually edited any of the shots I've made. Fun but a little time consuming. I've got a few more "movie" concepts in the works that will be coming soon to a blogsite near you!

Note: the 3-min version was soooo cute but it wouldn't post on Blogger so was forced to use the "magic movie" feature which cut it down to a mere 25-seconds. Its just not the same but you'll get the idea.

Wordy Talky

They told us at daycare that Kian was really starting to talk these days. We didn't need them to tell us that. Its fun to hear him string together two and three word concepts in his quest to eventually master this language. Okay, "tame" it. His latest new favorite phrase is "no way", as if he's just not getting through to us when he simply says NO.

Holy Cow: As I write this a story on NPR comes on about "baby talk" and trying to figure out language development in kids. Here's the link to the story, read or listen here. So, the next time you see Kian, talk to him, and according to the study, talk to him like he's rich! Okay, you'll have to play pretend.

Turn Of The New Year

Tearin it up on skinny skis

More fall down!

Shleppin his own gear

And Cocoa too!

Great Classic Day: clear, crisp, extra extra blue

Frosty face: extra extra ice

The Holidays @ Home

When we entered the final week before Christmas Kian took leave of his daycare and was full time under the command of daddy-fresh… wooohoo: stayin up late, no discipline, snackin all day… no so fast, little man.  For the next two weeks its the newer, tougher, more badass daddy who’s in charge: mommy. 

But Annie was STILL busy with things even though the classes had ended and so I was trying to keep The Dude active and busy and out of trouble.  Grammy and Papa Reid were in town and we had lots of family activities planned, so there was little shortage of happenings.  When there was we hit the underground rail line into the city to check out the festivities.  One day after Christmas we hit the zoo and I’d anticipated the animals to all be hibernating but we were amazed at the level of activity.  We saw at least 6 or 7 different species of primate and Kian was really into it: monkeys are in, giraffes are out. 

With the family we had a night out in the city.  We caught the light rail downtown, rode the carousel, shopped, shopped some more, drank expensive boutique coffee-shop cocoa, and just tried to keep warm in the chilly night air: Christmas and the Holiday feel was definitely in the air.  On Christmas Eve – you’ve already seen some of the pictures—we hit a Christmas service at St Marks where Kian caused a lot of general disturbance.  Didn’t even make it midway through the service when I had to take him into the foyer and was surprised to find it full of other moms and dads with their noisy 2-year olds were major horsing around ensued.  That's a just a bit of what went down.

Cheery Mistmass

Did we ever get spoiled. The family word was that it was to be a light gift year, so we weren't to spend much. Relieved, we came into Christmas with a lighter load of gifts than usual and looked forward to carrying home less "stuff", but not only did everyone else lie and overdid the gift-giving again, they gave a proportionately high number of awesome gifts this year. Bank!

Not only that, but JBRJ hosted another amazing Christmas with a dinner spread that would have made a King blush: prime rib, 20-times baked potatoes, dinner rolls softer than Kian's thighs, etc etc. The morning opened with bloody mary's, need I say more?

The Holidays, Backwards

Okay, I've been slacking. Again.

I have a ton of pictures, so no excuses, and here it is on Christmas Eve and I'm making the first post in over 2-weeks. Lame. But this is the nature of the Holidays, this falling behind, never quite meeting expectations, being ever late, and so let this act of tardiness be the very expression which I'm attempting to express. Tomorrow we'll be late to Joanie's house for Christmas breakfast, you can bet on it. And it will be because we were late in wrapping our presents, late in baking the pie for Christmas dinner, late in putting Kian to bed, late to bed, late to the start-line two weeks ago, late for my own birth for you-know-who's sake... its a sort of cascade of lateness. But our presents look fantastic, our pie is going to be frickin amazing, Kian and we are going to sleep like babies tonight. You see, its more about the quality and so late isn't everything. And these pictures here are better late than never, eh?

Here are some pics from tonight with Papa and Grammy Reid at church and at home. There are some pics of me chasing Kian around the living room and vice versa. There are some pics of the 3 of us in Volunteer Park making pictures of ourselves over Seattle's skyline. There should be some pics of Kian eating doodah's (cookies) and us drinking hoohah's (hot toddy's).

Christmas Eve dinner, church service... happy hours!

Papa reading Kian "The Night Before Xmas".

Kian practicing "... and with a wink he took off up the chimney", or something like that.

A few from the photo shoot...

Thanksgiving For Snow

I missed all the fuss. I was down in Tucson soaking up sun when the snows hit Seattle and Kian went hog wild playing in his first snow of winter. Grandma and pa Francis were in town visiting from Flagstaff and even they got to experience their first snows of the season. I was back in time for turkey with extended family and the rest of the week we got our dose of holiday fun.

Train wreck.

Train ride.

Kian stylin in his new hoodie sweater knitted by Grandma MA.

Downtown carousel.

We fought the crowds but it was worth it to catch the Seattle tree

and star lighting event.