Chapter 270

I totally missed my nod to Veteran's Day in last week's blog. Some times procrastinating is a good thing. In this case I could snatch Chris' Army photo from 14 years ago from his Dad's Facebook posting. 

An to keep things even, I think this is a picture of Chris in his Air Force uniform standing on one of those big airplanes he works on...or it's a submarine. From this angle, they both look similar.

Although I appreciate Chris' service, this is the hardest job he'll have and my favorite one as well.

Besides being grateful for Chris' service, I want to thank all the others that serve(d) in our defense. (Look at those cute little doggy toes.)

Veteran's Day evening we were happily watching an evening TV show when *poof* 

the lights went out...in Auburn, Kent, Covington, Pacific, Algona, and parts of Renton.  I figured the power would be on the next morning and used the darkness as an excuse for an early bedtime. Bathroom trip #1: Dark. Bathroom trip #2: Still dark. Starting to doubt if we will have power by morning, I hatch a "Plan B" for preparing for work in the dark. As it turned out, the school district implemented "Plan C" and cancelled school, thus allowing me to spend a little extra time cocooned in my warm covers listening to my audio book.  Later, while I was cleaning the stove while wearing my flannel-lined jeans, two sweatshirts, wooley hat and mittens under my rubber gloves, the rest of the world was under siege. This picture was taken in Enumclaw. (Courtesy of PSE.)

Puget Sound Energy had called in trucks from Idaho, Oregon, and Canadia to help with the massive power outage left in the wake of the wind storm.

 Some serious head-scratching is going on here.

Fortunately, Darla called to rescue me from all this wonderfulness and we headed to Starbuck's for her trenta iced tea then off to Costco. Since Auburn was closed, we headed for Covington. Lights out there too so we hopped back onto Highway 18 and headed for points north. We found power (and iced tea) in Maple Valley then adventured on to Issaquah where we headed for Costco. Just as we are ready to turn into Costco, I jokingly asked Darla if what she needed was frozen foods since we had no power to our freezers at home. "Crap!" and we turned back to the highway and headed home. 

Nitro has the right idea where to spend the day in an unheated house on a stormy day. 

The weather was deceptive. If you weren't out in the wind, it was a beautiful day.

A what a beautiful evening to watch clouds from the Fred Meyer gas station while pumping gas into my old car. 

This is "No Shave November" an event that is meant to create awareness about men's health issues, but has just become a fun thing men and boys do every November. All the guys at Bob's company are participating so Bob did as well. Here's his progress after 16 days. This is an entertaining event at school where 14-18 year old boys are trying to grow beards and mustaches. Some with (much) more success than others.

The "kids" came over Saturday because Chris had a day of drill and the caught an airplane to Salt Lake City for some work training.  Although this picture is fuzzy, this is a rare picture of Bear being snuggly so I had to include it.

Reagan is making "real" language sounds along with her gurgles and chortles. She's definatly following in her Aunt Kyanne's footsteps in the language department.

Can I have a cookie, Grama? Please, Oh Please? 

 Sunday morning I took Bear for a walk down to the little park in our neighborhood. He loves to go there because I use his giant "extend-o leash" so he can run ahead, criss-cross the trail in front of me, and stop to sniff stuff while I continue to walk along at a steady pace. My picture moments cut into his walk time and he is not very happy about wasting even a moment to while I take his picture.

"I had my picture taken on this rock in the spring. Do I really have to sit here again while you take the same picture???" 

More talking.

Reagan is getting really close to crawling. She has everything working, she just has to get everything working together. 

Reagan really wants to crawl over and give Bear a nice hug. 

Bear was cooperative enough to move within Reagan's reach and she finally got a good handful of Bear fur with her clammy little hands.  

And she is rewarded by getting those sticky little hands cleaned with dog spit.

Happy baby. 

 She's getting really good at sitting up.