thanks for sitting by the river with us

I'm sitting here on the couch in the basement with a much too strong rum and diet coke and 2009 playlist trying to find the last album for the best of post. I have it narrowed down to three records but more plays are necessary. Beautiful's family has all left and made it home by now and it was a really great Christmas having them here. Our housemates were so amazing with all our family in town. Joining in where they could, helping with hospitality and giving space from time to time. We invaded their holiday but they made ours richer and with the year nearing a close I am thankful for their presence in our lives. We extended our lease for another 6 months and when that time comes to an end we will have lived in community for 2 years now. It has been great, and at times hard and stretching. It looks like Beautiful will have a full time job starting in late January and we might just make it though this 6 month period of un-employment/under-employment and a big part of making it, along with our parents, has been our house mates. So as the year comes to a close I think I am most thankful for them this year. Jesse and Carly you have made our lives richer and helped us grow as a family. For our dinner time conversations, fireside chats, fights over who's turn it is to buy milk, Dance show watching, and morning coffee pot meetings I am thankful. Thank you for letting us live life with you.

back to life, back to reality

It's getting late and the boys and I are heading home tomorrow with Grandma and Papa. It has been a great visit with Mark and Kendra and their baby is beautiful. Getting and opportunity to get to see the community that has fought for them and cried with them and now is celebrating with them has been a real treat. They in amongst great people and the boys and I have been lucky to get to spend some time with them. Finn has had the most fun I think. He has gotten to play with so many kids at so many different house and with so many different toys. Just tonight he was playing with Haley and they were running around eating up imaginary things. He was really great to see that huge social development of imaginative play with another kid. He was gotten a lot of that here and I think he is going to miss that when we go back home. It really underscores the need to get him into a community with more kids around his age. I'm pretty excited to get home and get started with that and now that our roommates both have 9 to 5s it will be one more little man in the group. I will be responsible for Ian as well as Finn and Henry. Luckily we have experience with 3 kids thanks to our wonderful time with Beefy. That was primarily Beautiful's responsibility so this my chance to step like she did. With no more trips on the horizon I am looking forward to getting some sense of normalcy back for the boys. Find our rhythm back in Portland before the rain comes back. Still no full time job for us but we are making it. We are hopeful and having fun and super thankful for our friends and families. You have shown us love and your prayers have helped sustain us. Thank you.

Arizona

It is Friday already and because of our vacation in Arizona this has been a short week for me. After the whirl-wind weekend that just past that is a good thing, as is the slow weekend we have planned. We got the chance to visit family and friends in Arizona and Finn got to ride on an airplane with Papa. That might just be the greatest thing that has happened in his young life. When we hit turbulence or had a rough landing Finn clapped and said " One more time?" Neither Finn nor Henry were any trouble at all on the ride out or the ride back and whether you have good kids or not that is amazing.

We flew in early Thursday and went right to lunch with Mark and Kendra. We hadn't lubed Finn up with sunscreen yet and his sensitive skin was turning pinker and pinker by the minute. It was a nice change from the 40 degree rainy days we have been having here in Oregon. We then headed to my brothers house to watch Finn and Tyson run around while we basked in the warmth and napped. For me going to Arizona is like going back to your old neighborhood. Almost all of my friends moved to Arizona so it is a one stop shopping opportunity to catch up. We are all a little thicker now and have much more responsibilities but we still make fun of each other in ways no one else can and know the back ground stories that make current events so poignant.

Friday night we went to a John Mark McMillian concert and got to have some time with my sister Zonda and her husband James. They are doing great and it was so much fun to have that one on one time with just them. We told stories and laughed over Ice Cream and Cheese Cake while Grandma and Papa took care of the 5 kids. Their kids are better behaved then your kids will ever be. I am not sure what they do but it's working, those kids are wonderful.

Saturday we played some golf in the desert heat and I got to ride around and talk to Kyle a bunch. Then Mark and Bing challenged us on the back 9 to a best ball two-some battle which was comparable to the Atlanta-Boston series with Kyle and Playing Atlanta. We held our own out there and only lost on the last hole. James gave away the Laker's score on the way home so I passed on the game and opted to get some much needed rest instead. It is a tough pace those AZ folks maintain and for the last year or so we have been moving at a much slower stride.

Sunday we went to church then off to the Farm for some lunch. Finn played with whoever came around him and Henry was content to be held by all but mostly Lyric. Lyric is his cousin, James and Zonda's daughter, and she held Henry when ever she could. She was great with him and it was great to see our kids together. We went down to Scottsdale for stay at resort and sat around the patio playing cards and eating snacks while the sun went down. That night Grandma and Papa had the kids while Kate and I got to go out with Mark and Kendra and Melissa and Kyle. We went to this bar that had a crazy old coot tending bar. He looked like a dead-head and had us laughing hysterically by the end of the night. While telling us about the Lavosh pizza I asked if they invented it and he said "Well not the cracker, that been around hundreds of year, but we made up the pizza." Yeah, thanks for clearing that up. Kate got his special Mai Tai that he apparently flashes and we all told honeymoon stories and basked in a night free of kids.

Monday was a nice lazy morning around the pool and some naps to recharge. We toured the model homes in Verrado and played basketball with the boys. I thought I was going to die after about 2 points but made a point to run up and down the court on every change of possession. We watched the Lakers finish off Denver and had some great Cilantro Lime chicken with mango salsa.

long winter alone. It is nice to be back home though, the pace of life for those folks is fast and atIt was a great weekend and the sun and people brightened our times ran us over. maybe it's the desert air that gives them all that energy. They helped re-charge us and we are thankful for that.

5 days till joy

The playoffs started this weekend and I celebrated by watching the Lakers dunk their way to victory over Denver by myself. Henry sat with me for a while and Finn came for the end but mostly it was just me saying inappropriate things to the TV and frustratingly getting Mark and Kyle's voice mail. They're both rich and can afford to watch the game when ever the damn well please so they weren't answering my call fearing I would give away something. They've been rich for a while though so I know the situation. I was laughing at the choice to guard Kobe with K-Mart and Eduardo and wanted to talk to someone about it. Kate says that basketball is the one area in my life where I am a complete extrovert. I need others to watch and talk with and I think that's true. I miss those guys the most when the Lakers are on TV. This weekend we are going to AZ to see family and friends and there will be two games on TV. I think I am more excited to watch those games with Mark and Kyle then I am about really seeing them. I mean I am excited to see them but it peaks with the opportunity to sit and yell at the TV together. To be total homers and complain about calls and non calls, make jokes about when exactly when George Karl starts drinking during the game, silly stuff that Kate rolls her eyes at when I watch a game with her. So I am counting the days until we leave, 3, but more importantly I am also counting the days until we watch some ball together 5!

Thank God for Skype

When your feeling disconnected from family and friends spread out across the country it is nice to know that relief is a high speed internet connection away. We have been talking with most of Kate's family including Heather in Korea via web cam enabled Skype. We can have dinner with Granma and Ta Ta in Indiana, or play video games with uncle Mark. I guess I see the connections through Finn's vocab since he is the one that initiates most of the chats. He knows that he can show his new truck to granma through the computer. He climbs up to the laptop and asks "Talk granma on dis" while pointing forcefully at the screen until we try the connection. He knows the little Skype tune that plays when your trying to connect and grabs his trucks like Pavlov's dog. We have chatted with Scott, Mandy, and Baby Jake in Hawaii; Meg and Mike in Minnesota; Mark and Kendra in Arizona; Tom and Kris in Indiana; and last night with our Pleasant Street friends in Indiana over cocktails. We used to get together every so often to sit around and talk over effeminate drinks, and it is one of the things I miss most about being in Portland. Last night through the magic of the internets we got the chance to renew our fruity bull sessions. We chatted for 2 hours with none of the "on the spot" awkwardness that comes from being on camera. It was really great, really really great.

Curves ahead

You think you know how your life is going to change, you feel like you have a good idea what is coming up but the truth is you have no idea. That is where I am at lately with a new baby coming any day now. I wrestle around on the floor with Finn and wonder if he has any idea what is coming. He kisses Kate’s belly when we ask where the baby is and he has even learned the baby’s name, but does he know that soon that baby will be born and come live with us? Does he know that he will no longer be the sun to mine and Kate’s universe? I don’t think I even know what that is going to mean. My Friend Liz said that when she was pregnant with her second she thought she couldn’t possible love him as much as she did her first. When he was born that changed for her. I am excited for our new baby to join us but part of me is sad to have my affection split. My friend Matt told me that when his girls were first born he didn’t really like them. He loved them but they were newborns and he didn’t know them yet. He felt guilty for it and both loves and really likes his kids now but I worry that I might feel like that with the new guy. Finn is so freaking cute right now with his growing vocabulary and his tiny voice. When he hears me come through the door he yells out “Oh no!” and runs squealing into Kate’s arms to hide from me. One thing that Matt told me too was to not worry about it too much, guilt is silly. I know that’s the truth. It is an exciting time and the more I try to imagine how it’s going to feel and what’s going to happen the more I know I have no idea.

Meeting the Neighbors

When we left the house today to run some errands we passed these two looking get connected back with two of their friends that had already crossed the road. We didn't see too many deer in FSQ. Today we looked at a couple of rental houses in the South East Neighborhood of Hawthorne and the North East Neighborhood of Mississippi with Jesse and Carly. It was great to see what was out there and what things cost it was hard not being able to snatch up any of those places. There needs to be a job before we can get an idea of what we can pay for rent so today was more research then anything else. No word on any jobs today other then some one calling me to tell me I not qualified for a job they were going to submit me for. Thanks for that.

Wapping it

I am getting to know some of the finer Wireless access points in the greater Clatskanie area. A town that boasts a population of 1850 has a good number of open networks to attach to. Today I am in Flotano's Pizza parlor checking email and sending out resumes en mass. Thank you Tonya and Carly for the encouragement today and great notes, I really appreciate your words and value them a lot because of who you both are. I thought I would put up a travel photo from the epic drive. Enjoy

The media loves the Campos Clan

My friends Kyle and Aaron Campos moved to Arizona shortly before I moved to Indiana. They were moving to start a business, to buy a home, and to join friends. They were moved because doing all that in Santa Barbara was beyond tough. Anyway since they have been out there they have been media darlings. Today they were featured in the LA Times, last week it was Street.com, before that it was here, and a story int he Wall Street Journal which is no longer online and then this one here as well. For whatever reason their story resonates with the people and keeps getting told in one way or another over and over again. I don't get it, I mean Melissa and Estrella are awesome and their kids are probably my favorite kids just slightly behind Finn, but Kyle and Aaron? Those two are trouble and if WSJ and LA Times are affraid to say it then I will. Those two are dangerous individuals that are not to be trusted. I heard Kyle didn't even go to college and I have it on good authority (his daughter CC) that Aaron can't even put together a bunk bead.

Allergies, Sunshine, and snow

In the Midwest the weather is a big deal. Much bigger then it was when we were in Santa Barbara. Apart from the June Gloom there wasn't any real mystery with SoCal weather. It's gonna be nice, real nice! Here in the Cross Roads of America is a different story though and nothing shows the difference like the last two weeks. Two Sundays ago we had Sunday dinner at our house and ate in the back yard under a warm setting sun. It was a wonderful spring evening with great friends and even a traveling musician playing some Southern Blues and Gospel tunes with the kids helping on the chorus. The warm weather continued for another week and then it went from 75 degrees in the afternoon to snow flurries the next morning. There was a 50 degree drop in temp in less then 24 hours! In between the Sun and snow was a Thunder storm, or more aptly a lightning storm since the Thunder doesn't really bother me as much as the thought of getting hit with one of those bolts, that turned the sky green and dropped copious amounts of rain and hail. We had Tornado warnings, Thunder Storm Warnings, and Flash flood warnings for a triple crown of Midwest danger. During all this craziness my allergies have been flaring up like mad. It is really bizarre to have itchy, watery eyes when it freezing outside. I have been in a medicated haze that is particularly unique to allergy medicine.