Happy Six-and-a-halfth Wedding Anniversary!

Since today is exactly six and one half years since we were married, I feel entitled to celebrate by posting some wedding pictures. I just retrieved them from storage in Utah along with many other pictures from our lives over the past six years. I'll be putting them on this blog over the next few weeks (months?) to preserve our history.

Labor and Delivery Rocks!

Yes, another picture I took at work requiring an explanation. On the very snowy night spoken of in the previous post, an enterprising nurse from the Mother Baby Unit upstairs took it upon herself to inscribe "MBU ROCKS" along with some snow angels on the roof of a parking garage for all to see. Not to be outdone, our charge nurse ran out real quick (leaving somebody else in charge, of course) and added her two cents of "L&D ROX MORE!" You know you have a good charge nurse when she braves the elements to boost morale! I helped deliver two babies that night. One was by emergency cesarean. That baby might not have survived if we had not been there to intervene. As it was, everything turned out just fine. I love being able to help like that.

It be snowing in Portland!

When I got back from Utah, a vastly different sight greeted me. Winter had come. And then it kept coming. And coming some more. And more again. In fact, it's still coming.

These are the conditions in which I had to commute to work
the night of December 20th.


This is what I experienced on my way home
the morning of December 21st.



Well prepared people got to enjoy the snow thoroughly, like these lucky cross country skiers that I walked by in downtown portland while on my way home. Portland itself is not prepared for snow like this because it happens so rarely. It does not make economic sense here to stock up on enough snow plows to clear the streets like they do in cities where it snows often, so instead, we enjoy walking down the middle of the street when it snows. On a normal winter day, this street is full of cars and wet with rain.

I heard on the news later that this storm was the worst storm Portland had seen since 1980. Jacob remembers that storm. He had just turned 5 years old and he remembers how tall the snow was.

Visiting Dad and Elaine in Utah

Last week I took advantage of six days off from work and no other scheduled obligations to visit my dad and my lovely stepmom. They've been married over a year and a half now and they're so much fun to be around. The visit with family cheered me up a lot. I hadn't even realized I was homesick until I went to see them.




It was fun to see all of Elaine's decorations. She always puts a manger out in front of the Christmas tree and then on Christmas morning, everyone wakes up to find Baby Jesus lying there.





When I left for Utah, it had not snowed yet in Portland. I enjoyed a beautiful winter wonderland at their house. They live in a beautiful community with gorgeous views of the mountains.

The Wasach Mountains as seen from the driveway.

There is a really nice racquetball court, jungle gym, and slide in their backyard. Notice all the deer tracks in the snow. Being nocturnal, I woke up at one o'clock in the morning and saw several deer strolling and lounging all over the lawn in the moonlight the night before I took this picture.

Deer tracks in the driveway

My dad is really good at playing the piano. He is the one who inspired me to learn how to play. He and his brother both play very well and they used to play in shows together when they were young. My mom used to say, "When those brothers came to Redmond High School my senior year they knocked our socks off! We had never seen anything like them." It has been a dream of my dad's for many years to get a grand piano. But not just any grand piano, a Chickering grand piano. Well, he was looking online a while back and saw that the Chicago Philharmonic was selling one of their old pianos and he bought it. With a piano like that in your house, you can't help but want to play it all the time. It's beautiful. This video of him playing for his grandchildren brings back fond memories of singing around the piano as a kid.

Batayaki

While I was in Utah, Dad and Elaine hosted a birthday party for one of my step sisters and her husband. I had never experienced a batayaki party before and I didn't know what I was missing. This is what I love about learning different traditions. You find wonderful things to add to your life that enrich it so much. For those of you who are like I was two weeks ago - ignorant about batayaki - here's what you do: Everyone who comes brings different items of bite sized meat or vegetables. These are then cooked in butter on electric griddles right on the table. Everyone cooks their own choice of food to perfection and eats it hot and sizzling straight from the griddle with rice and a sauce made from soy sauce, rice vinegar, and horseradish. Yummy! I shot a video from my place at the table so you could see what I mean.


Also at the batayaki birthday party, this darling little girl tried out a bouncing baby thingy for the first time ever. There were lots of cousins at the party having fun together. Kids are so much fun! We hope we adopt soon because if we do, our child(ren) will have six cousins all the same age. By next April, there will be two cousins from Laura's side of the family and four cousins from Jacob's side of the family all born within 16 months of each other. Even more amazing is they're all girls.

The Emmy

When I was in junior high school, my mom said to me one day, "Oh, did I tell you? You dad won an emmy award." I was quite surprised and said, "Really?" She said, "He won it a while ago, but they haven't given him the statue yet." After more questions, I found out that he had been part of the broadcast team that had covered a particularly bad Malibu fire that won a Los Angeles Area Emmy Award. Well, I had almost forgotten about it until a few weeks ago when someone called up my dad and said, "We have your emmy down here collecting dust. You want it?" He said, "Sure!" and it was delivered the next day. So it was true! We do have an emmy award winner in the family. Not just an emmy award nominee... a winner! What a nice tribute to my dad after so many years of good work in television. My dad was very well liked at the TV station where he worked. They even did a spot on him on the 10 o'clock news when he retired. We're all very proud of him.

Flying through Clouds

On the flight home from SLC to PDX I was treated to some breathtaking clouds. Here are my favorite photos and video from that flight. These were taken somewhere over Idaho or eastern Oregon:

Silly Nurses

This picture of me and some of my coworkers deserves an explanation. We nurses are usually very busy and involved in our patient's care. However, on a labor and delivery unit, the nurse:patient ratio can change on a dime. Occasionally, (very occasionally) our patients deliver their babies at the same time and we take them upstairs to the post partum unit and there we are in the wee hours of the morning with hardly any patients and a bunch of nurses. Some nurses go home, but a core group must remain at work in case there is a flood of new admissions. Silliness usually erupts at times like these. Somebody brings out the stick-on tattoos and the knitting needles, and we pose for silly pictures. I assure you, these are all very professional, competent women. :)

Laura's First Attempt at Making Sushi

Well, folks, here it is. The long awaited, long anticipated,
drum roll..... sushi plate! Made by yours truly. I have been a fan of sushi ever since I was introduced to it during my senior practicum in nursing school, back in 2005. I don't eat it as much as I would like because it is so expensive. Well, I have now discovered from experience that one of the reasons it is so expensive is because you pay for the labor. The ingredients themselves are pretty reasonable. Yay!

I have to admit, this wasn't the most tasty sushi I've ever had, but I plan to experiment and have fun. Bring on the wasabi!

A Fun December Day

<----This way to fun day!----->

I work night shift and therefore refer to myself as nocturnal. Portland is known for its cloudy, rainy days. It's been a mild winter so far, but I still see the sun far less than I would like. Jacob woke me up the other afternoon and said, "I know sleeping is good, but it is such a gorgeous day outside, you really should come with me." We proceeded to have a fantastic afternoon, enjoying some of the sights around Portland. Having just discovered the delights of blogging two weeks ago, I brought the camera along so we could record and share the joy:

Just look at that clear blue sky!

At the Rose Garden. The sun was so bright that the sky looks white in the photograph even though it was a beautiful blue.

We were really bummed that we couldn't climb on the decorative, artsy cow :(

It was possibly even more of a bummer that we couldn't climb on the train carrying a load of humongous logs.

BUT THAT DID NOT STOP US FROM HAVING FUN!
Hee hee hee!

Evil giggle

"I'm not sure these logs are entirely stable"

My hero!

Now for something really funny: Laura's attempt at being feminine in the Shakespeare Garden

The magic of HP Photosmart. This is actually two different pictures and two completely different rocks! We each took a picture of the other and I spliced them on the computer. Isn't technology cool? And don't we look sneaky and conniving?

This picture, however is completely untouched and legit. Jacob really is just too tall and too fat to fit through that door.

Of all the rose bushes, this one's name was our favorite.

When we started getting chilly we went down into the Robertson Tunnel to watch some real trains go by. This is the MAX blue line heading to Hillsboro.

On the way home I snapped pictures of the sunset from inside the moving car. Here are my favorite shots, pre and post tinkering on Photosmart. I love playing with colors!

On the Road to Lolifa

On our way back from a visit to the village of Lolifa, east of Mbandaka, our companions decided to stop at "la source" to fill up the water containers. There is so much surface water, and yet so little is being done to improve convenience of access and water purity. You always have to walk a ways to get to "les sources" and then you have to carry a heavy, sloshy water container back with you. In this video, you'll see our most common mode of transportation - sitting around the bed of a white pickup truck. The men in the video all worked with Jacob. That hat Jacob is wearing is not a fashion statement - it is to prevent the severe sunburn that comes all to easily under the equatorial sun. This video shows a pretty typical scene, and I must say, Jacob is also behaving typically. Too bad I stopped the video so soon, or you would have seen me swat him. It's pretty funny if you play the last second of this video on a repeat cycle, or, for even more enjoyment, play it backwards.

The Pangolin

Who is this cute little guy?

That's what we asked ourselves when a man offered to sell us this animal to eat. It was expensive and we were told that the flavor is amazing and that it is a delicacy usually reserved for village chiefs. Women are not supposed to eat it. Women are not supposed to eat crocodile, either, but I did anyway. We couldn't bring ourselves to eat this little guy, and he was too expensive anyway, so we sent the pangolin merchant off on his bicycle with his little pangolin in tow. We found out later that a pangolin is a type of scaly anteater. Check it out by clicking here.

Here is a video of the event. Of interest: The short man standing on the right side of the man holding the pangolin is a Pygmy. There were pygmies living several kilometers from Lolifa. I visited Lolifa occasionally, but there were no roads to take one to the pygmies. They stayed to themselves and I don't blame them. They seem to be looked down upon as inferior by many of the residents of Mbandaka of "normal" height and they are not always treated well. However, even a pygmy man would probably be treated better than a woman of any stature. But I'll touch that subject in other posts. For now, enjoy the cute little guy.

"Likolo Kitoko" means "Beautiful Sky"

While on the equator in Bodjia, the sun set at exactly the same time every evening. I have never seen a sky of such colors and splendor. The beautiful skies above Bodjia are probably its best quality. The string of photos above were taken over a span of about half an hour one evening. Since pictures never really capture the true beauty or depth of color of a scene, you can imagine how breathtaking this sunset was. Please enjoy some of my favorite sky scenes that I snapped during our month-long stay:

The sun shining on the supply depot


A strong storm builds in the east


The view from the latrine

The view from our unfinished bathroom window

The fiery west

Yes, it really was that color - only more so.

Walking along the road to the guesthouse

Wedding Reflections

Saturday, June 22, 2002
Portland, Oregon


The happy couple.














Still happy!

Laura's latest achievement

I have loved Asian cuisine my whole life. In fact, I would be eating it all the time except that one has to go out to eat Asian food and that gets expensive. "But wait!" said my brain the other day: "Just because your mother never made thai food and sushi doesn't mean that YOU can't!" What a life changing and encouraging thought! I said to myself, "YOU, TOO, can make pad thai!" So... I went to the closest public library and found a thai food cook book. Tommy Tang's Modern Thai Cuisine to be precise. Thank you Tommy Tang! Thanks to Tommy and a fabulous asian food market a few blocks away, I am in business. Don't you just want to sink your teeth into this dish I put together (enlarged to show texture)? I mean, who knew that leeks curled up like ribbons when they are shredded! So, I've made pad thai every night for the last three nights at significantly less cost than buying it at the nearby thai restaurant. I feel like running down the street shouting "Eureka!" but apparently that can sometimes get you thrown in jail so I will restrain myself.



Next up: Sushi! Stay tuned for more adventures as Laura liberates herself from self doubt and dapples in international cooking!

More Lightning

Here are some more lightning strikes that I caught on videotape from my front porch during a huge storm that came up suddenly one day. The day had been staggeringly hot and humid. The strikes will tickle your scientific funny bone and give you chills if you watch them frame by frame. (At least that's what it did to me!) Especially interesting in the following one, you can see a lightning finger coming up from the ground on my side of the bushes. There is a similar finger coming up from the ground in the first lightning strike I posted which can be found in the frame immediately before the strike.

"Likolo Mabe" means "Bad Sky"

Perhaps one of the most remarkable things about this photo is that it was taken during the dark of night. Because of the thick storm clouds, there was not even any moonlight or starlight. Even the lightning bugs were taking cover. All illumination in this picture is from the lightning bolt itself. This village has no electricity to see by - only lamps and firelight. Every time I see this picture I feel loved. I'll tell you why. It is a frame of a video I shot on the night that Jacob and I moved into our little house in Bodjia. We were eating a delicious dinner by lamplight of fish freshly caught that day out of the Congo River (a short walk away) when a large thunderstorm arose. This was common and happened frequently in the evening when the sun went down. Well, as I was eating, the thought popped into my head that I might be able to record some of the flashes from the clouds and some thunder if I stepped outside onto the porch with my camera. Thirty seven seconds after starting the video, "bam!" The village was illuminated as if it were noonday followed by a huge thunder crash. Timing like that can not be a coincidence.





Here's the video showing just the lightning and thunder. I don't want to bore you by playing the whole video. Okay, okay. So the real reason why I don't want to play the whole video is because I sound like a total idiot on it. As soon as the thunder is over, I start shouting, "I caught that on video! Woo hoo!" I always chuckle a bit on those reality shows where people talk about how amazing the thing was that they just videotaped - like we all don't realize it was amazing. They invariably sound a little silly. But then I found myself doing the exact same thing! You just can't help sounding like an excited kid when something incredible like this happens to you.

Okay, fine. Now that you're curious about how idiotic I sounded, I'll swallow my pride and let you hear all of it. Actually, it's kind of fun to hear all the sounds of the village in the background. In the beginning you can hear Jacob and Bruno speaking french, still sitting around the dinner table inside.








It was actually fairly common for us to see trees destroyed in this fashion following severe storms. This tree was just a bit further down the red dirt road seen in the first lightning shot. It was a different bolt that destroyed this tree, however. We felt safe from the lightning - maybe more safe than we actually were - because there were so many tall trees around and we always took cover in short buildings away from the tall trees. If anything were to be struck by lightning, we figured it would be a tree such as this one.

Dancing the "Linda"

This was a gathering of children in an unfinished house just a couple houses down from where Jacob and I stayed in Masina, near the airport. It was a theatre group that got together to sing and dance. When we heard them and showed up with a camera, the crowds began to gather. There are another hundred or so children crowding behind Jacob (who did this shot) that you can't see in this video. You'll hear them shout linda (pronounced leenda) repeatedly. I don't know if I'm spelling it correctly. I don't even know what it means, but I do know that when you chant it you're supposed to lean down and shake your rear end. Well, you can see for yourself! When Jacob danced the linda the kids cheered so loudly it was deafening.

Welcome!

Karibu! That means "welcome" in Swahili. Swahili is what we were learning when this picture was taken back in 2003 in Western Kenya. In case you're wondering what that animal is, it's a sheep. The Omolo family kept a few of them tethered about the grounds, keeping the grass clipped to a perfect length. They did give you a bit of a surprise if you accidentally bumped into one at night while on your way to the latrine. This picture was taken by our host, Nelson Omolo whose family's hospitality is never to be forgotten. We slept in that hut called a "simba" and we fondly call it our honeymoon cottage. Its walls were made of sticks, mud, and cow dung, and the roof was thatched. Actually, it was the best place we had lived in since our marriage a year prior. It was cool during the day, warm at night and kept the rain off beautifully. I can remember lying on the bed inside at night listening to the amazing musical and rhythmic sounds of the nocturnal birds, bats and insects. Before this, we had been living in Laura's parents' garage and before that the tent in the backyard. My, we were all about saving money in those days!