Tonight’s dinner conversation got so silly that Anya couldn’t stop laughing. Three separate times she was caught off guard by a silly comment, and she ended up spraying chocolate milk each time. Yet another successful family dinner.
We all go to Anya and Liya’s school in the evening for the annual Country Dance. Jan has fun doing a little square dance with Bree, whose favorite part is one where everyone is suppose to put their hands in the air and shout “Yes!”
Pictured: Liya, Danica, Jane, Anya
Liya and Anya are very happy to have acquired new stuffies: squishy, spherical polar bears.
After some consideration, Liya and Jan conclude that the world isn’t ready for her “headpack” invention.
Anya received a little solar powered grasshopper kit. Thankfully, we’re having a fairly sunny autumn. The little grasshopper skitters around outside on the sidewalk.
Jan and Chris take their mom Lyn on a trip for her birthday. Jan and Lyn start by flying down and meeting Chris in San Francisco. They stop by the cool office space in the SOMA district for Chris’ company, humangear.
Jan, Chris, and Lyn stay at the Carneros Inn on the road between Napa and Sonoma. The place turns out to be a village-like collection of cute little cottages.
We take a walk through Napa’s Bale Grist State Park. The high point is the huge, working (reproduction) water wheel attached to a working grist mill. We arrive just in time to catch a park ranger/miller demonstrating how they mill flour.
We learn the origin of the phrase “keep one’s nose to the grindstone”, which turns out not to mean putting your nose on a grindstone, but rather keeping it near the grindstone to check for a burning smell that would indicate the millstones are so close together that the flour is starting to burn.
Wine tasting at Round Pond Winery in Napa. None of the three of us know much about wine, but it’s fun to sit outside on a warm patio, looking over the vineyards, and taste some wine and food.
Angela passes her oral examination on the floor of the Seattle Presbytery! Angela answers questions from the floor for a while, and then is excused while the attending pastors discuss her. She passes with flying colors.
This test was the last hurdle between her and her new call as an part-time associate pastor at Mount Baker Park Presbyterian Church. (She’s pictured here with the church’s head pastor, Leland Seese.) Her ordination ceremony is set for December 17th, and she’s scheduled to begin work right after the new year begins.
Milestone: Bree no longer wants to be dropped off at the health club’s daycare because, “the other kids are too little”.
All three girls went through the same phases of feelings about the daycare: a time when they were apprehensive being dropped off; a time where they were so excited to play with the fun staff and toys there that they asked to go; and finally a time where they realized they’d grown out of it.
Anya’s 4th grade class participates in the school’s annual Engineering Event. This year’s theme deals with classical ocean liners, and entails building various parts of a shipyard or ship. The most intricate piece Anya constructs is a gantry with a pneumatic crane that can raise and lower a small piece of cargo from the deck of a ship.
The engineering work on display is neat, although with five grades packed into the gym, the event itself is almost total chaos.
Jan’s sister Skye and her husband drive up from Salem, OR, to stay with us for Thanksgiving. They’ve lived in the midwest and on the East Coast for so long that they’re truly thankful they can finally drive to Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving. We have Skye and Jared with us, as well as Jan’s mother, Lyn, and his brother, Chris (up from S.F.). We’re joined by Jan’s friend from Cozi, Aarati, her husband, Parag, and Lyn’s friend, Simon. That makes it 12 people in all, the largest group we’ve ever hosted. Angela orchestrates a great meal, and we enjoy a warm gathering that lasts from early afternoon until late in the evening.
Skye and Jared join Jan, Liya, and Sabriya for a walk along the ridge of Seward Park, then back along the lakeside.
Another day, another nice walk in a Seattle area park. This time we go for a walk in Bellevue’s Mercer Slough Park. Anya and Liya play a game where they pretend to shoot each other, then Skye teaches everyone how to play a Tag variant called “Duck Butt”. It’s, um, just like Tag, but when you tag someone, you have to say… wait for it… “Duck Butt”. Bree thinks this is just about the funniest thing she’s heard.