Four days of celebration for the forty-four trips I’ve taken around the sun. I’m grateful to have spent the time enjoying activities I love with people who love me all year long.
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My 44th Birthday Weekend
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Rosie Remembered
Our second gerbil passed away Thursday morning at the vet. She crossed over the rainbow bridge to join her sister Pearl.
We knew that their lifespans were short, but it still didn’t diminish the hole they’d leave in our hearts and home after their passing. We loved them dearly and grateful for the time they shared with us.
One of our traditions around the holidays are to watch the Garfield and Charlie Brown holiday cartoons. All of the Garfields have fun stories and songs and the Charlie Browns are, well, good grief.
But at least the Peanuts gang inspired me to illustrate my family in Charles Schulz’s style for our Christmas card. For a simple and iconic style, finding the features that distinguishes each of us was a fun challenge.
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Happy 11th Birthday Bruce!
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Thanksgiving Fog
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Leavenworth in November
My parents arranged for us to join them this fall in Leavenworth since we missed their first visit there. However, we visited Leavenworth in July for Jenni’s birthday, so it became our second voyage to the Bavarian town in Washington.
Unfortunately, a weather storm came through and shortened our trip. The rain prevented us from admiring the scenery we enjoyed on our drive there, and it made for wet walks into town. Then the temperature dropped and we almost got snowed in.
We only stayed one night but we managed to visit the reindeer farm. Jenni thought it would be an unique experience and it definitely was something my parents wouldn’t normally do. The reindeers happily ate snacks from our hands but we had to be wary of their grown antlers.
Before we drove home, we stopped by their Christmas shop and it was four floors stocked with all manners of ornaments, decorations, and gifts.
Despite a trip that was disappointingly short, we were thankful to revisit the town of Leavenworth, share memories with my parents, and got a glimpse of what Christmas would be like there.
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Autumn Leave Portraits
This fall has been unusually warm, so the leaves at Costco didn’t change as early as we’re used to. Then the wildfire smoke smothered the day we would’ve tried and the leaves were cleaned up the next day.
So we moved our tradition to the leaves in front of Beaver Acres Elementary. There’s an extended sidewalk along the main street that provided us the colorful leaves for our tradition.
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Marvel at OMSI
As big fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I grew up reading Spider-Man comics, we took our first opportunity to see OMSI’s latest featured exhibit. It covered a lot of the history of Marvel as a comic book company before becoming the movie and television juggernaut that it is now.
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Beat Saber Mixed Reality Test
After we got the Quest 2 VR headset and started playing Beat Saber, I found YouTube videos of gamers who not only played it like a dance, but inserted themselves into the virtual reality game. What amazed me more was the software required to do so was available for free.
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Yaji at Lan Su Garden
My dad has volunteered at the Lan Su Chinese Garden for many years during his retirement. He loves sharing Chinese art with visitors in the form of calligraphy, painting, and music.