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.

it's a mcgrail family christmas

We have had Beautiful's family in for Christmas and it has been a full, warm, and fun house. Here we are fresh from opening the mountain of presents with only baby Milo missing. We have people sleeping in just about every inch of the house and the recycling box looks like we had a frat party. The boys are loving having Grammie and Tom Tom to jump in bed with each morning and Aunt Heather has been encouraging the delinquency of a minor with Henry by teaching him to throw his food at a restaurant. Even Ian is getting some extra attention with all the aunt, uncles, and grand parents he can handle. We have been having a good time and so far the full house has seen little to no conflict. That is a Christmas miracle as anyone knows with a large family.

let there be light

Our house has Christmas lights for the first time in my adult life. We have always had a tree and lights in the house but this was my first time putting lights on the outside of the house. I crawled out the upstairs window and on to the roof. There are three different roof lines on our house and we have lights on the top one and the roof above the porch. Beautiful and I had two different ideas of how the lights should go up, no surprise there. She always has a better way to do things and will always share it. I know Kris will relate to that, she is her father's girl. After talking it through we agreed on a layout and I clipped the lights on the top easily enough. The porch roofline was a bit tougher. I ended up belly down on a slanted roof clipping lights over the edge. I was super stable but still felt like I was falling at any second. No falls though and we tested the lights and they work great. After it gets dark we will take the boys outside and do a countdown to unveil the lights for them like we saw at Pioneer Square on Friday night. My first outside lights are a success so far.

christmas time in the city

Today we went to get a Christmas tree. We had successfully held Beautiful off until after Thanksgiving before she set to decorating for Christmas. We were going to go cut down a tree at any of the million or so U-Cut places but we decided to instead go down the street to the tree stand at the bottom of the hill. So all of us in the house headed over to the train and went one stop to the tree stand. We picked out a Noble Fir and got back onto the train to bring it home. We got some funny looks with a Christmas tree on the train but the people around us were thrilled. This older guy in Purple Pants kept saying "It's beautiful, merry Christmas, merry Christmas!" We walked it the block and half back to our house and got started decorating with some holiday tunes and a roaring fire. It was picturesque and you should be jealous.

meet the housemates

Have you met our housemates? I am not sure if I have put a picture of them up yet and I am too lazy to look. Plus this is a great picture of them. Meet Jesse, Ian, and Carly. They are awesome to live with and even more awesome to know. I was filling out the census paper work and then talking to a census worker and I was able to answer almost every question they asked about them. You have to list all the people that live in the house and answer some random questions about them. One was "Does Jesse have problems with dressing or hygene?" I had some things to say about his choice of clothes but he's very clean. It has been really great sharing life with their family and I hope we are able to continue for some time.

I'm 35 and I'm a Mac

Well happy birthday me! I turned 35 this past Monday and it was a great weekend and a great birthday. Mark and Kendra were here from AZ and my parents stayed with us at Casa De Ritroh for the weekend. We had a birthday party on Sunday that had apple streamers, big green apples in bowls and on ledges. Apples and caramel for snacks with Apple Martinis and Cider for beverages. I sensed a theme but had no idea why. Was the 35th year the year of apples? It wasn't until the cake came with the logo for Mac that I knew what was up. I have wanted a mac for some time and this Christmas we got a good portion of the way there with a thank you gift from Scott and Mandy. There was still a ways to go though and through the extreme generosity of my friends and family we got there. On Monday morning we all got on the train and went to the downtown mac store and waited for it to open. I picked out my new MacBook and nearly started to cry. Kate was teasing me that I wasn't as outwardly excited as she knew I was internally. I told her that I thought I might cry if I emoted at all and I didn't want anyone to know that something as silly as a computer would cause me to cry. It wasn't the computer but the wanting and waiting for 3 years for something. So thank you Mandy and Scott for starting the ball rolling. Thank you AZ folks and Mark and Kendra, thank you Tom and Kris for your continued generosity, thank you Jesse and Carly for helping make a great party, Thank you Mom and Bing for your extreme blessing this weekend and thank you Beautiful. Thank you for pulling string, facilitating, and knowing that something so silly and unjustified would mean so much. I love you beautiful.

the house is half empty not half full

Our house mates have been gone for nearly two weeks now and we are starting to really miss them. It's not just because we are responsible for all the meals with them gone either. The house seems really big quiet and the benefits of naked walk back from the shower don't out weigh silence. There are no creaking floor boards or terrible new music and a little less vibrancy. Our boys are doing their best to fill the space and Henry can now climb and most importantly descend stairs so he has been hanging out at the top of the stairs waiting for them to come home. Finn asks if Santa Barbara has what ever it is that we are talking about to make sure J and C are not missing out.

Does Santa Barbara have trains to ride?
Does Santa Barbara have McDonalds?
Will they see a PT Cruiser in Santa Barbara?

We have a couple of days left and we will enjoy the bits that are to be enjoyed but mostly we will count down the days until they are back and our house is full again.

We are getting better all of us

We have a household of sickness her at casa de ritroh. All three kids have had to go to the Dr. to get on antiboitics for various infections in ears, eyes and throats. I have been sick for what feels like 3 weeks straight with the latest iteration being an incredibly sore throat and cough. I felt terrible in traing today at work and I am affraid that my suffering came off as aloofness again. Finn has had the eye infection and we have had to put some medicine right into his eye which is quite a champ about. Henry takes his milky medicine with a dinner through a big dropper. Ian is off the sauce for his throat and is a very happy little guy again. Kate has so far managed to stay out of the sickness cloud but it seems when it does hit her it might be hard.

A more Super Sunday

On super bowl Sunday we had some folks over for the game. We had some great snacks, a decent chili and a chaotic house of kids and football to liven up the joint. but long before the game started there was an even more important contest to be won. A local artist was making space in her studio by giving away some paintings from her blog. She put the word out and it trickled to me through this blog. There was some great stuff on there and I wanted in on the action. I debated which painting I wanted, thought of where they would go and why, and what story they would tell about us and our space. Everyone in the house was in on the plan and with the comments opening up at noon that Sunday I picked my peace and got the computer ready. At 11:45 Jesse yelled down from upstairs my 15 minute warning. I went to the computer and brought up the page. Kate told me to type out my response and and copy it so I could paste in as soon as the comments opened and not waste time writing out the particulars. Good Idea! I got my comment ready and refreshed like a madman until the comments opened up. It was exhilarating, my heart was pumping as I scrolled down to what would soon be my piece and clicked on the link. I pasted my comments and saved and that 2 seconds it took to pull the page back up was an eternity. I had done it, mine was the first comment. I got high fives and pat on the butt from Jesse like I had "scored a homer at the super cup" as Esse would say. There was genuine excitement and the game wasn't for another couple hours. There was a comment after mine that was a lovely story about a lady and her son picking out the one they wanted and I hoped the artist wasn't swayed by cute stories. I mean I could say that this was a piece that we wanted for our boys room but it wasn't who had the best story, it was who was first. A couple days later I got an email letting me know when and where to pick up the painting. The artist was great and seems to have had a good experience with the whole process. you can read other accounts here. The painting is not hung in it's new home yet but it is in the third place already. We aren't sure if she will live above the boys train table or above Henry's bed. Maybe in the downstairs family room or maybe in a place as yet unknown. Where ever it will live it will be with us and we are all still pretty excited about that.

Moving day has passed

Yesterday was moving day and it was probably the single hardest day of work in my life. I have worked long hours off shore, worked in the heat at summer camps, did some time as a roofer, and even worked a day in the heat at a station set up to get rid of household hazardous waste in 100* weather and even that was easier then yesterday. The day started at 6:30 AM, before the sun came up but long after the rain had started. We finished up after 7 PM with the rain still going strong and the sun long since down. There were washing machines to come out of basements and headboards made of lead to come down stairs and go back up at the new house. It was exhausting and wet and hard but it is over. We have boxes piled in room but they no longer have to come out of trucks through the rain. After lowering the last Dryer down the basement stairs of the new house I went into my new room and felt defeated. I thought I would take a hot shower and then grab a blanket and just sleep on the mattress. I could make the bed tomorrow before Kate got home. I went in and had a bath in the great claw foot tub and when I came back out My friend Carly had made my bed up. I'll be honest with you I cried a little when I saw that. I was so tired and sore and that beautiful gesture was more then I could hold in. Right now we are on the same page with this house and we are really preferring each other and I hope that it will last a long time. There are going to be tough times that come up and communication will break down but I hope we can continually come back to times like this.

Don't Worry Jesse!

When we head back to Portland and move in with Jesse and Carly we are going to be splitting up the cooking duties, with each person getting a night and each couple getting a night and then one leftover/take-out night. This ad comes to mind when I think of Jesse cooking!

North East Goodness

Here is the house that we will be living in starting in January. Casa de RitRoh will be lively and spacious with room for visitors to sleep in real beds. No more Blow up mattresses for Mark and Kendra, congratulations kids you get a real room. Please get your reservations in early as we are already starting to get requests for prime spring and summer time spots and we want to make sure that you get the dates your looking for. Can you tell I'm a little excited about the new place, just a little.