duckies.

j has been having lots of fun with our new camcorder. here's another piece of his work that greeted me at the end of my teaching day. i'm a little embarrassed by the first part, but he's so proud of his work, i had to let it stay. :)

piano demolition

on sunday, the big project was destroying our white piano, that was left in the house when we purchased it. it was broken beyond repair (i got two piano technicians' opinions), and the basement appeared to have been built around it, so our only option was to destroy it. it's part of a bigger project of moving "stuff" around (or just getting rid of it) to make room for the baby. j & his friends did the dirty work, while i cooked food. when i got finished teaching tonight, j had just finished editing this little video. he's just getting to know our new software for imovie, and was having fun. cheers to twisted sister for the tunes!

birthday party

m was actually co-hosting the party with another friend of his whose birthday is close to his. here she is in this video, eating fire!

birthday party

the first picture is in honor of canada paul. m gave out dollar gifts to everyone who made hats, and this was a finger puppet that went with aladdin. it's slightly disturbing. anyway, in the second picture is a cake that our friends brought for m. even the french fries are made of cake!

birthday party

m's parties always have a hat making station. i was too tired to make one, but c & a made some. well, at first a actually just made glasses...
(the gta is for grand theft auto.)

birthday party

on saturday night, j made me drive him & his friend a out to m's birthday/housewarming party. this is a picture of both of them in m's bedroom. a is really tall, and he never could really stand up fully straight upstairs. i, on the other hand, had no problem.

babies everywhere!

my friend, the one with whom i had lunch last friday, whose due date was last friday, had her baby yesterday! i went to see her in the hospital today, and saw her new baby girl. i don't know that i've ever seen a baby less than 24 hours old... she was 8 lbs, 8 oz. very healthy looking little girl. mommy is doing well, but has some recuperating to do. she isn't named yet... mother & father waited to be surprised by the sex at the birth, so they have some deciding to do!

this morning we saw another met at the movies broadcast. the opera today was donizetti's la fille du regiment. it was funny, and the lead singers were phenomenal. it would've been wonderful had there not been three of the most annoying people sitting behind us. they felt the need to comment on everything, and the woman snorted repeatedly whenever she laughed. it was disgusting. and i don't understand people clapping in movie theaters. it's not as if the performers can hear the people, which is the reason i clap at live performances...

bc skiing

this is a bit of one of j's runs...

bc skiing

this was a bit of m's run...

more bc skiing

today, j got up early & went back country skiing with his friends a & m. he had spent his token day with me, so he got to go out and play with his friends today. i spent most of the morning hanging out with another couple who are expecting their first on may 8. when i got home, i went running for the very first time in 3 months. it was pretty painful, but it felt good to finally get in a good workout. j had lots of fun... here are some pics... the first one is of a. unfortunately, his bindings broke, so he had to quit the back country stuff & just ski the slopes at skibowl. he thought the snow was better yesterday (yep - this was his 2nd day this weekend), as today it was all chunky & broken up. the second picture is of m.

chores.

saturday we spent cleaning out closets, unsuccessfully looking at furniture, and taking things to goodwill. we have a bit of a storage problem in our bedroom. the room is pretty small, & our king size bed takes up most of the room, so there isn't a lot of room for huge dressers. we have one closet which we have to split between ourselves, and it wasn't quite organized as best as it could have been, so j rearranged the shelves & added another pole for hanging clothes. i thinned out my dresser (which was packed to the gills), and found room for most everything. we had been using the closet in the office, but that will be the baby room, so we moved most things down to the basement. i just need to remember where everything is. one of the nice things about working at home is that i don't need a huge wardrobe. either i'm in teaching clothes, or i'm in comfy pajamas/work out clothes. my teaching clothes repertoire is pretty small - no fancy designer clothes anymore. no fun bright orange jeans or shiny gold satin pants. :( i'll miss those clothes. but they belonged to a different era of my life. this is a new one, a non-consuming era. i think it's healthier this way.
we went to mcmenamins for dinner, because i had been craving chicken tenders. unfortunately, they have a dumbo new menu, which doesn't include chicken tenders. the saving grace was that it was happy hour, so j & i split a cheeseburger & a hummus plate. he got beer, and i got a milkshake. i couldn't help it - the baby was asking for it! i need calcium... it's my new excuse.
after doing more chores, we watched "lord of war," a movie about arms dealers with nicholas cage & ethan hawke, among others. violent movie, but when all was said and done, a good one. parts of the story are true - that's the scariest part!

new toy.

after dinner on friday evening, we went to best buy & purchased a canon vixia hf10. it's a camcorder with a flash memory card. we purchased it mainly so that my students can bring in their own flash memory card & have a movie of their lessons, & then take it home to watch on the computer. it'll be handy for recording recitals & other things, too. so j spent most of the evening learning how it works. evidently it can take photographs while recording, and this is an example. not the most stellar pic of me, but it's just an example! i spent the evening reading baby books (and then couldn't sleep at night - i'm now not allowed to read/research baby things in the evening!).

camping gear

j went & picked up this air mattress, which had arrived at r.e.i., while i taught. he purchased it so that i could sleep a little more comfortably when we go camping, when i start to get bigger. it's huge & very squeaky & a little stinky. we need to get an electric air pump that can plug into the car, because it took forever for him to pump it full with his leg. i have no idea how it's going to fit into our tent! j claims we have a bigger one we can use...

walk.

on friday, i had lunch with my friend c, who's on maternity leave from the symphony. she hasn't had her baby yet (to my knowledge), but her due date was on friday. first time babies almost never show up when they're supposed to! anyway, she looked really good for being about to pop any minute, and it was nice to talk "baby" & get caught up.
after i finished teaching, j & i went for a walk around commonwealth lake. he just happened to bring the camera with him, and there just happened to be several interesting things to photograph. we saw some big geese that looked like turkeys due to the thing on their necks (perhaps those were the males?), saw a blue heron, and saw a poor female duck get practically gang-banged by 4-5 other ducks. the last one was pretty disturbing. at first we thought they were fighting over a fish, but then we saw a duck's neck under the water. the poor thing finally made it to shore, but they kept biting its neck, trying to beat it into submission. i'm so glad i'm not a duck!

prego.

the nausea came back last night. i hope it's just because i was tired, and it was my long day of teaching. but then i had insomnia last night... my body just doesn't make any sense. things haven't tasted so good today - i hope i get back to normal. at least the weather is kind of crappy. last weekend when it was gorgeous out, i was craving chehalem's ian chardonnay like no tomorrow. this whole no-drinking thing is really difficult! :( summer is going to last forever. sigh.

ikea & other bits...

on saturday this past weekend, on our way home from the hike in the gorge, j & i stopped at ikea. i had never been to an ikea before in my life - this was my first trip.

and most likely my last.

it was AWFUL!!! they route you through a path with constant turns & twists that don't make any sense. you have no idea where inside the building you are, and leaving is complicated. i pretty much had a mini panic attack, feeling claustrophobic. i'll never go back. j had been before. he purchased furniture there for college, and then sold the furniture before moving out here. according to him, the furniture didn't hold up too well. he didn't need to go to ikea again, but he went, with me. and he predicted that my reaction would be just as it was.
never again. in fact, it put me in a sour mood for the rest of the day.

birthday party

k picked a box that said she had to dance with someone, so she picked j. you can see the pile of jenga boxes, and k's 1 year old p.

birthday party

here's some crazy pantomiming, and you can see the twister mat on the floor.

birthday party

the main game of the night was jenga - we each had to take turns pulling out a box without disrupting the rest of the pile. on each box was written a truth or a dare, and we had to do whatever was on it, and then place the box on the top of the pile without knocking it all over. whomever knocked the pile over had to "shotgun" a beer. if i had been the one, j would've had to do the honors for me. anyway, here's a pic of r reading his box, discovering that he had to add accessories, and then another pic of him all fancied up.

birthday party

here's k with her famous jello shots, color coordinated to go with the twister that was to be played later in the evening. alas, we had to bow out before that began because i was too tired from the long day.