How to take a family photo

First, determine who knows how to work the 10-second delay on their digital camera.  This is the hardest part.

 

Then, assemble family and let the fun begin!

 

Take a few photos of various people’s backsides because we all think we know how Aunt Lynda’s camera works, but we really don’t.  See step one. 

 

Get your own camera out of the diaper bag, brush off the cracker crumbs, and set it up.  Hooray for blonde-proof electronics!

 

Determine that this photo, while it does contain everyone actually looking at the camera and not moving, has bad lighting.  Rearrange.

 

Whoa!  Camera’s too close, people are blocked, and Jim’s head is stretched out at the edge of the photo.  Move the camera and try again.

 

Okay, but where’s Amelia?  And the back row looks like a police lineup!  Try again.

 

That’s a lot of table, but we can crop that.  Wait!  Where did John and Lynda go?  They’re hiding behind the couch!  Jack is suspicious of this activity and turned away.  Try again!

 

The baby’s getting squirmy (as you can tell from the blur that was Jack).  This will have to do.  Happy family photo!*

 

 

*I call this one “Success.”

Helooooo, Handsome!

I’ll share more about this past weekend in a bit (and we’ll have the professional photos to share in a few weeks, in which Charles is featured nearly as much as the bride and groom, I imagine), but for now, please take a look at the world’s most adorable almost-two-year-old boy:

 

 

 

 

He’s so stinkin’ cute, I can hardly stand it!

Miscellaneous Madness

Tony was in a golf tournament last week, and I guess the person who posted the photos on Facebook isn’t friends with him, because they tagged him as me instead.  Don’t I look lovely?

Except that I would never wear that shirt-shorts combo.

 

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Leland went to the fair with a friend and held a baby goat.  He told me this great story in his “adorable voice” about a little girl who had baby goats to show and she asked Leland if he wanted to hold one and she was so nice and blah, blah, sunshine, sparkles, rainbows.  And then these were the photos:

Is it just me, or does this girl look totally angry and possessive?  “Don’t touch my goat.  Get your hands off of my goat.  That’s my goat.”  But the baby goat is cute.  And Leland’s single, by the way.  Ladies?

 

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I have been doing the 30-Day-Shred and also running and visiting the gym on occasion for the past six weeks, which translates into sometimes working out twice a day, but I haven’t lost weight.  In fact, I have gained three pounds.  So, I think I am giving up.  I’m leaving on a cruise in 9 days and the butt’s just gonna be flabby.  I also tried on a cute sundress I have had for a few years and there is no way I will wear it in public at this weight, so it goes to storage as a “dream dress” now.  I have a few of those, I won’t lie.  However, for the most part, I recognize that I will forever more have “Mom Body” and most of my old clothing has gone to Goodwill.  I just keep the really cute stuff in hopes that I can fit into it again someday and reminisce. 

 

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Speaking of the cruise, what does one take on a Caribbean cruise for seven days?  Assuming I don’t want to pay the baggage fee and take everything in my carry-on.  Which, now that I think about it, doesn’t seem particularly likely.  After all, I will want to bring shampoo, etc.  And yes, I know I can buy that in Florida, but how much am I going to want to run around Miami with a suitcase (even carry-on size) looking for shampoo?  I am tending toward packing all sundresses and bikinis, but there’s a formal night as well, right?  How formal is it?  Slinky red dress formal, or lacy black dress formal?  And will I want my hiking stuff for the excursions to Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Grand Turk, etc?  Running shoes and workout clothes for the fitness center?  Jeans for the air-conditioned theatre?  Clubbin’ clothes for the dancing?  A different pair of shoes for each occasion?  If I were Tony, I would just bring a pair of shoes, plaid shorts, and a polo, I guess.

Food Fest

I am certainly at the point in my life where the Kite Festival is less about kites and more about food.  It’s the one time each year that I indulge in an elephant ear, and hey, since we were at the beach, I threw in some fries, clam chowder, loads of pizza, fried fish, ice cream (though the ice cream was more Charles than me, as you will see), cookies, and a whole lot of Not Exercising.

 

It was sure fun, though.  Tony fished the whole weekend, so I can’t speak for him and his fun level, but Charles was in rare form.  He was either intensely happy, gorging his way through pizza and pancakes, or intensely unhappy, insisting on pushing his stroller all by himself(GETYOURSTINKINGHANDSOFFOFME!), or angry at his inability to relate to me what it is he needed (this, I understand, is the crux of the “terrible twos” affliction).  We had some sleeping troubles, and a memorable incident with a marker and a wall, but overall, a great weekend.

 

When I awoke on Saturday morning, the house was deserted.  Charles had been spirited away to the magic world of the WSIKF Chairperson:

 

Turns out this particular magic world includes pancakes and golf carts.  Who knew?

 

Later that same day, he helped Grandpa (whom he affectionately calls Bampa) in the shop:

 

 

Then we had pizza at Chico’s (of course) and Tony continued a Cook tradition by letting Charles in on the little secret that you don’t need quarters to play video games.

 

And Charles stuffed himself:

The next day, he not only got an ice cream, he got to ride with John on the City Gator!

Mom’s expression is the greatest here.  It’s like she can’t believe what a mess he’s making slurping his ice cream.

 

It would appear that my world revolves around Charles.  And so it does.  So much so, that I was shocked to find out that there are only twelve days (twelve days!) to go before I leave for the Caribbean.  I totally need this trip.

Weak Sauce

I just heard some new slang from one of the guys at work: “weak sauce.”  As in, “that is totally weak sauce.”  I think it is a synonym for lame.

 

I’m never weak sauce.

 

So Tony was going to blog about his triathlon experience a couple of weeks ago, but he is being totally weak sauce, so I’ll do it.  On a not-so-sunny Friday, My friend Steph came to town and we abandoned our dogs (they lived through our absence, yay!) to the dirt-pit backyard, picked up Charles, picked up Leland and his bicycle, and headed to Freeland on Whidbey Island.  There we met Tony, our dentists, their dog, and Charlie’s parents (he’s the male half of the dental team).  Ute (the other half) and I made dinner, which, talk about awkward.  I mean, here we were, swarming into someone else’s beach home, providing dinner, taking over their house for a night, and we didn’t even know them.  And I worked my tail off to make dinner in advance and keep Charles happy so everyone could sleep.  And the dinner boiled over in the oven and got it all gross, and Charles had several messy diapers (thank God he didn’t leak on the sofa or something!), and I was stressed. 

 

You stress too much.  Look at how cute I am!  How can life be stressful with this much cuteness at hand?  Stop being weak sauce.

 

Ute swam the first leg of the triathlon, Leland biked, and Tony ran.  Ute was a fish, I am pretty sure she came in first in the team division for the swim.  Leland took a wrong turn and lost 5 minutes, but still ended up 9th out of 25 teams.  Tony ran 4 miles in under 32 minutes, but I don’t know how he placed.  They did really well, we were all very proud, and then we were happy to get home.

 

 

15 miles in an hour is not weak sauce.

 

The excessive sweating may be gross, but it is not weak sauce. {Also, please note the beefcakiness of Tony… he’s been running and moving dirt like crazy!  Not weak sauce at all.}

In other news, I grew these:

 

Hells yeah, bitches!  I grew these!  Who’s weak sauce now?

And, of course, the joy continues (despite the fact that I suspect his 2-year molars are coming in):

Waffle!  Rocker!  I love life!  Life is the opposite of weak sauce!

Not Just an Excuse to Drink.

So I went on a ladies’ hike last weekend… and when I got back and showed the photos to my employees, they were amazed that we actually hiked and didn’t just say we were going to and then drink and gab the whole weekend. 

 

No, we actually hiked, 12 miles in fact, and it was not the easiest of hikes.  Not the toughest, either, as there was very little elevation gain.  Of course, we did drink as well, and had gourmet meals around the campfire.  But no showers, so we were sort of roughing it.

 

 

The hike was a Rotary auction item, led by a gentleman in my Rotary Club.  He and his wife worked at an archeological dig in Ozette, Washington in 1979 and 1980, where they uncovered longhouses (destroyed by mudslides) built by the Macah indians 10,000+ years ago. 

 

We hiked from our campsite through three miles of forest to the beach.

Then, another three miles on the beach, including the dig site (on which there is a reconstructed longhouse and a monument) and some really neat caves and rocks.  We crossed 5 headlands in our trip north on the beach.

 

On the way back, the headlands were impassable due to the tide.  So we climbed over them, of course.

It was a ton of fun.  Washington has to be the most beautiful state in the Union, don’t you think?