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After Torsten expressed his desire for a bow and arrow from Santa (see last blog entry), he came home and Carrie clued him in on the “Santa keeps track of good/bad” thing. Torsten considered briefly, and then decided that, well, coal would be ok, because he would like to add some coal to his rock collection.
Little kids rock!
Here are two photos showing Torsten’s enjoyment of the Christmas tree we have up at home..
Torsten is ready to talk with Santa–I notice that he is quite prominently crossing his fingers. I wonder if Torsten just finished telling Santa what a good boy he is and how he always goes to bed very easily for his mom and dad. (I’m “guarding” his bedroom door now while I blog.. Maybe he’ll go to sleep sometime soon.)
We give thanks for all the great friends and family we have! We wish we could have all of you here at once. Since we can’t the annual potluck tradition continues. The most recognizable tradition (the weigh-in/weigh-out) was a tie this year: Brian and Terry* both had a net gain of 8 lbs. Congrats!
Some pre-dinner Blokus warm up (yes, Chip was in heaven):
The kids table was a success! (Food eaten–and despite the kids request, it was more than just bread and potato) (The camera wasn’t quite able to keep up with the kids–sorry!)
And a few shots around the adults’ table:
After dinner, we celebrated with the birthday boy:
the kids watched movies, the adults played Blokus and visited, there were cute Willa moments, and “the band got back together”:
And of course, if you need more, there is the whole gallery.
We had a great week in Portland.
Matt had two conferences (Sun-Tues Nat’l Science Foundation Regional Workshop and Fri-Sat Northwest Glaciology–but the nice Wed/Thur gap!) and Carrie and Torsten went along for fun. Grams met us there on Tuesday night and Gramps came in Thursday night. So we had a great catchup and visit with them!
We also got to catch up with two Juneau families who escaped the rain. Mira and the Kron family took us to the zoo (for the elephant pumpkin smash!!)
And Aubrey brought his mom Di to meet us at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (a huge hit!). (Mike Hekkers was also at Northwest Glaciology, so he and Matt got to catch up, but no photos..)
Everyone was so busy exploring the Polar exhibit, the water exhibit, and the Antarctica IMAX that we didn’t get a picture of everyone! Here are two more of our favorite photos from the trip:
Check out the whole gallery.
The happy pirate family had a great Halloween. Torsten really got into it, first lots of anticipation, costume selection, and pumpkin carving
with Halloween at preschool,
then over to the University for lots of costume fun.
Here’s a few of our favorite pictures, and the gallery shows more of us and our friends in costumes. Cody got some great photos at well–thanks.
Torsten’s Auke Bay Coop pre-school went on a tour of a tug boat a few weeks back. They sure enjoyed it–here is a picture of Adelie, Ava and Torsten having fun on the tug boat. We are also prepping for Halloween fun as a family of pirates.. Argghh!
We are having a busy fall, but trying to catch up from the summer as well. It was great to have Peter visit for the whole summer–what a treat for him and Torsten to have such great time together. Torsten “helped” Peter work on installing a new ceiling in the new house (nice pine tongue and groove on the white ceiling in the living room).
Carrie and Torsten enjoyed playing trains under the new roof (although they didn’t feel like cooperating with the photographer!)
We always enjoy going up for the Klondike Road Relay. It is a ten person running relay from Skagway to Whitehorse. This year, we considered changing the UAS team name from the Road Scholars to either “Talus and Heavner and a few others” or “Can’t see the Trees for the Forests” (we had Carrie, Matt, Torsten, Uncle Peter, and Nana all along–Carrie, Peter, and Matt ran; and we had two Forests on the team). It was a blast as always. Matt started it off by running leg 1, then Carrie got leg 3–she had a blast as the first time she ran with music, and Peter brought the team home by finishing up leg 10 in Whitehorse. Torsten and Nana provided moral support–and we spent about 5 hours total on Saturday at the Whitehorse Aquatic Center!
Here’s Matt starting, Matt handing off to Forest, and Peter finishing off (the problem with running through the night is that it is hard to get good pictures–so none of Carrie…)
Many friends were along for runs on the UAS team, other teams, and support–the Ferry ride up to Skagway and then back home is always fun. Eran ran for the “Afro-disiacs” team…
We had an awesome cheering crew of Stella and Torsten (with hot chocolates on the cold Whitehorse finish day):
(Almost) the whole team photo shows all the fun–except Mike Ciri snuck out of the photo!!!!
Finally, here’s a photo of Carrie, Torsten, Peter and Nana (just after Matt started out on leg 1) in front of the traditional mural:
Adelie came to visit our new place–she brought Missy, Chip, Blokus, and some great clothes. She and Torsten had a blast playing while we all enjoyed Blokus. Bob is nice and safe with the reflective vest!
Yep, we’re catching up on a little blogging, we hope!
Torsten went to his first day of preschool at the Auke Bay Co-op. Since it was his first day, mom and dad were there and mom stayed the whole time. He was with a bunch of kids who were there for their second year, and knew the routine, so he had some catching up to do. He definitely enjoyed the shaving cream art projects!
He’s learning group dynamics and enjoyed hanging out with all the kids, we think.
Of course, we’ve got the preschool first day gallery.
