Rainy season is upon us.
Having lived the past 30+ years with snowy winters, we certainly don't mind the rain or the 55º temperature that comes with it. It does, however, make for some pretty soggy weekend adventures. Which in turn puts a damper on our blogging activities.

Between the errands, wet dog walks, and finally understanding the benefit of fog lights, we are continuing to carve our own little nook in the Pacific Northwest - and we'll be back real soon to tell you all about it.


(Ewe. On the way to Eugene.)

Self-portrait taken in Central Park. Obviously.

We were in NYC about a week ago. While a usual day-trip for us tends to end with anywhere from 300 - 800 photos, our 5 days in the big city left us with a paltry 100 or so. I credit it to being in a place where your entire focus is trying to get where you want to go without getting trampled.

So, we are left with some nice shots of the Brooklyn Bridge at night and the one shown above - the only photo of the two of us taken on the trip. Not to be confused with the self-portrait shown below, taken early this summer on the coast. Obviously.

Meet Fin.

This little bundle of amazingness was born to our dear friends, Becky and Francisco, in late September. I was lucky enough to spend some time with the new family last week.

Babies are relatively new for us. With each new arrival I still get that, "How can we be old enough to be parents?!" feeling. Just like I have a hard time accepting that our friends can be, and are, doctors, dentists, teachers, etc. Maybe its because of the history, of knowing them when they couldn't be doctors or teachers. Or maybe it's the realization that, at 30, I do not possess the worldliness and wisdom I thought all doctors, teachers, well, adults, had.

And I have a hunch that the feeling will never really go away - just merely replaced with more milestones.

While meeting Fin proved to be another lesson in time passing, it was also quick to remind me of time present. Yes, we are 30-years-old-enough to be parents. But we are also 30-years-young-enough to break a collarbone while skateboarding on a half-pipe.

Here's to Fin, his beautiful new parents, a speedy mend (Francisco), and lessons learned while in Milwaukee, WI.

Cheers

to us... and to five happy years!

(Photo taken by Mrs. Ewald Sr. at Cannon Beach. September 2007)

Fall visits our alley.

Their plumage might not be as flashy, but we think the evergreens are pretty spectacular too.

Random Question #2: The Ascot.

They call them random questions for a reason, I suppose.

One night, while checking the spelling of a word, we started actually seeing the illustrations speckled throughout our paperback dictionary. Where before they had fallen into the visual noise, small drawings of castanets, bongos, peanut plants and the diamondback rattlesnake seemed to leap from the pages. We were happy to have stumbled on to our favorite of all the dictionary illustrations - The Ascot - for a variety of reasons.

And seeing the gleam in the ascotted man's eye made us question - How does a dictionary choose the definitions that should include illustrations? The number of instruments illustrated suggests that there's a method; though the variety throughout the book made us think it was completely random. Perhaps certain words require more than other words to give them meaning.
Could/would you illustrate a verb?

These are the questions that, in their own small way, keep us up at night.

Week One

I recently started teaching for an after-school program at a local elementary school. One of the classes I teach is "Dance Team" for 2nd & 3rd graders.

Last week was the first week of the program, and although I wasn't sure what to expect, I figured as long as I kept them moving everything would be okay. After all, I have over 15 years of dance lessons to fall back on. (It's only been, what, a mere 10 years since I last stepped foot in a dance studio... save for some line dancing at a dorm "mixer" and a well-intentioned Community Ed Tap class.)

Dance Team: Week One.

As I was changing CDs, one of my dancers stood next to me and asked, "Is the next song going to be good or bad?"

I replied, "It depends on what you like."

She paused for a minute, trying to think of a way to rephrase her question because CLEARLY I did not understand what she had asked.

She then said, "Is the next song going to be good or like the last song?"