Short Time, Long Line of Events

A lot has happened since I wrote last.


Christmas. Christmas Eve-day we went over the river(s) and through the woods in our 190 horse open sleigh to Grandma and Grandpas' house. Actually it might as well have been an open sleigh because about 15 minutes into the trip, our Astro Van lost heat and defrost. So we traveled over the the snow-covered coast range wiping the fog off of the windshield every two minutes.


We enjoyed Christmas Eve with my wife's family. We opened a present and my niece started a brand new Christmas Eve tradition: wrapping paper-ball fight!


After a nice evening of food, presents, laughs, and fun, we slid through the several inches of ice and snow to spend Christmas day with my father (a few miles away). That yielded more fun watching the kids get excited about the presents when they woke up in the morning--then making them suffer through breakfast before we opened them.


The wintry weather in our neck of the state mellowed a little bit the following week.


We enjoyed time together as a family on New Year's Eve. Our tradition is to have a bunch of finger foods for dinner and watch movies 'till the New Year. We watched Horton Hears A Who, a few episodes of Teen Titans and a few episodes of Hannah Montana until we turned on the computer for the countdown to 2009. The boys actually stayed up this year without falling asleep before midnight...but it wasn't hard to get them to sleep after that.


The day after New Year's day the family and I took a business drive to Gresham, OR. Once again we hopped in our cold, defrost-less Astro Van and slipped down the road -- literally. After a rainy New Year's Day, the wet roads froze overnight resulting in a miles of prime skating ground. Even in our all-wheel-drive van the trip over the coast range took two hours instead of two. We fish-tailed a few times and stopped to help a couple that slid off the road and landed upside down in a 20 foot ditch. Fortunately, as we stopped, they were crawling up the embankment unharmed--although they were freezing from the freezing cold water at the bottom of the ditch. Fortunately the rest of the trip was uneventful.


This past week the weather continued its attack. However, instead of snow and ice, it delivered several days of warm wind and non-stop heavy rain. The combination of sudden snow melt, constant rain and high tide caused massive flooding throughout Western Washington and Oregon. Fortunately, my neighborhood was fairly safe from major river flooding. Moss Lake was extra large this year and Moss Bog in the backyard came back extra strong. Washington State got the brunt of the flood storms this year.


Friday, a friend of mine was involved in a pretty major accident. In a 45mph section of town, another car crossed the yellow line and smashed into the right front corner of his little pick-up causing the truck to roll. He ended up upside down. After I found out the accident involved him, I walked the short distance from my office to see if he was still there. He was already at the hospital but I saw the truck. The wheel was ripped off, the air bags deployed, the front corner was smashed almost inside out. Looking at the wreck, you would never guess he was released from the hospital after two-hours with nothing other than a pulled shoulder muscle. The Lord was watching out for him and his family.


So far this week looks like it will be less eventfully...at least I'm praying for it to be so.

Ready for Christmas

One of the things I'm thankful for around Thanksgiving is Christmas time. Although I've been enjoying the Christmas Season since September with some of my favorite music of all time (or if you count the Christmas lights in our living room that we haven't taken down for two years we've been enjoying it year-round,) Thanksgiving kicks off the Christmas Season. What better way to kick-off the Christmas Season than to remember all the things for which you are thankful.

Each year, my dad puts up his Christmas village and train. We had a tradition growing up where each year we would each paint a house. Mine, of course, always looked the best (regardless of what my brother and sisters might say.) Since we've all grown-up somewhat, Dad supplemented his village with more professionally-done village homes....although they still don't look as good as the one's I did, I'm sure.

I love the mirror ice ponds. I've learned that Christmas decorations and lights look much better when taken without a flash. Generally, for that matter, point and shoot flashes really ruin a picture unless there is enough light from other directions to reduce the visually abrasive light the aggressive head-on light produces. I also really enjoy taking pictures from a 'being in there' point of view of tinier scaled environments. I think it adds depth and perspective to photographically 'imagine' what it would be like if that was your world.

Out of a half dozen attempts to get ornaments in focus (with no flash) this one is about the only one that turned out. I love how the clear glass is in focus and you can see all the surrounding lights reflecting in the glass. I love the classy Christmas colors in this picture.

Again, several attempts yielded this truly focused picture of a Christmas light. I love how the light filters through the texture of the plastic cover. Then add the actual glass light with its unique textures. I like how the light seems to concentrate on the tips of the flower. Then add the fir tree background with its needles adding a nice subtle texture.