I'll show you my greenhouse if you show me yours...

Taylor designed and built (with a little help from our friend Sam) a really big and really awesome greenhouse for his parents. It was completed in time for today's Mother's Day brunch and we all spent a lot of quality time sitting around, staring at it and saying things like, 'I'm so impressed!' and 'It's like a for reals greenhouse!' which quickly embarrassed Taylor and delighted the rest of us.
And now to show it off!
Arrrgghhhh, I be proud of me husband.
Happy Mother's Day to my one mom, three grandmas, six aunts, and one mother-in-law!

Pirates and Sharks!

Last weekend I drove to Portland to see my lovely friend Marie and her new fiancee, Matt. We all stayed with Maire's cousin and good friend of ours, Daniel, and had a swell old time- especially because Daniel's daughter Joanna is just about the best 3-year-old that has ever lived.
We were playing around with pirate and shark poncho towels, and Joanna's roar was the same for both; I guess to a little kid all animals, monsters and outlaws say ROAAAARRRR!
Marie and Matt also got into the nautical spirit:
And Daniel showed us how if he lost his arms in a fiery crash he could still function by doing everything with his toes, like lighting this match:

All in all it was a tee-rific weekend, and one I wouldn't mind doing again soon.

BOOM BAM SPRING

Every Spring, every single Spring, I get depressed because Winter is ending. It always takes me a long while to accept that my favorite season is now a whole year away again... and I feel like Spring is such a sneaky season. Here we are, la di da, enjoying the Winter, when BOOM BAM- Spring punches us in the face with it's greenness and baby pinkness and all the instant happiness. Boofers.
But this year I finally saw that all my crankiness won't make Winter last any longer, so I have stoically resolved to enjoy the Changing of the Seasons. And I now see that Spring can be (sortof) fun.
For instance, it means really fun Spring skiing with good friends in the sunny sun sun:
For Taylor Spring means a shorter haircut, a warm weather shave-off. It also means a temporary (but so very awesome) mustache created out of said shaved-off hair:
Spring means creating bike gangs and riding to trashy bars that for some reason have four different candy vending machines in one medium sized room. And out of all the different candy options, our friend Kelly chose trail mix! Trail mix?! Stale trail mix from a dirty old vending machine!? But at least Kelly thought it was a fine decision:
It means junk shopping, because when Spring starts, and it rains and everything smells clean and wet, all I want is to go thrift store shopping and smell some good old tired air for a while. A mix-em-up for the old snozzer.
That was all to say I found U.S. Mint-approved coin wrappers at a thrift store today, and I promptly came home and wrapped up all my Winter change. The Wrapping of the Change is now a Spring tradition to me:
So-
BOOM BAM SPRING!

Carbon Monoxide VS. The Volcano!

Mt. Redoubt is erupting again. But let me start at the beginning. The lodge we were caretaking this winter (where Taylor got sick) is 9 miles north of Redoubt, and one of the closest inhabited cabins to the mountain. A month or more ago we got a frantic call from our former boss saying that a 7.8 earthquake had hit under Redoubt, shattering the thick lake ice and causing all communications to be lost with the new caretakers of the lodge (he was calling because with the lake ice shattered there was no way into the lodge to evacuate the employees other than this great Alaskan who flies a Super Cub and can land on rough snow, and we had his phone number). That is the last we heard about it until this morning, where I read that Redoubt erupted four times last night, with all the ash blowing north.
I'm sure the lodge is fine, and the caretakers alive and well, but they have already been evacuated, or they are about to be, for most likely the remainder of the winter.
Which brings me to my point- Taylor getting poisoned was half a blessing. We were able to come back to Bend and get jobs, rather then being evacuated in the middle of winter with no prospect of a place to stay or solid income. And although it would've been so cool to hear the lake's ice crack (think of a million gunshots at once), it would've been pretty awful to have died out there.
After we evacuated from the lodge, we were sure our winter was going to be another failure, but in retrospect it has been really terrific. We've gotten to ski a lot, we rented the coolest house ever and got to finally unpack our wedding gifts (whoot!), and we've spent lots of time with our friends, something we've been really missing in our nomadic lifestyle.
So the next time you get carbon monoxide poisoning, just think, "Hey, this might be saving me from a volcanic eruption!"

Jaunty Jaunt.

Taylor's parents celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary with a dinner at the best Thai restaurant in town. A delicious dinner was had by all, with much spying on our raucous dining neighbors. Taylor thought that this amount of leftover rice merited it's own box:
Later, when we got home, Taylor and I realized that the full moon was upon us, and not only that, but the brightest full moon of the year (source cited: NPR). We got our cross country skis and drove up into the mountains for a late night jaunt. It was much brighter out than these flashless pictures shows:

We went to a lesser known ski area, and it was deserted, but after we were done we drove across the highway to check out a popular, groomed cross country site- and there were at least 200 people there! Skiing! At 10 at night! It was silly how everyone thought they had this great original idea, but we were just one big like-minded herd.

On Days Of Weather.

The weather lately has been really nutters. I've had some unexpected days off with the mountain closing down almost every day because of 90 MPH wind gusts that have been snapping trees in half and pushing old ladies over.
So one day, with nothing else to do, I counted all my moolah. No matter that it's all in one dollar bills; I'm totally loaded:
Then we took Moma on a scrufflebout out to Tumalo Falls. We love watching the other cross country skiiers, because without fail they (or should I say we) are all nerds. Lots of spandex and wrap around shades. I like to sport jazzy gators, and Taylor prefers sporty fleece soccer pants. Moma dons her ridiculously long tail hair and crazy eyes:

The Mighty Bonnacon Attacks!

For Christmas, Taylor got me a really great, old, school-district-reject piano. It's beautiful and out of tune, and we love it. Porcelin Elephant loves it too, but Porcelin Pig thinks it's way too loud:
I'm reading a really great book called the 'Book of Beasts,' an English translation of a Latin bestiary from the 12th century. It's an encyclopedia of all the animals they knew about (and some they made up), and the physical and moral qualities of each one. Women, whores especially, seemed to occupy a lot of the author's thoughts- "Wolves are known for their rapacity, and for this reason we call prostitutes wolves, because they devastate the possessions of their lovers."
This is one of my favorite creatures, the Bonnacon. When it's being chased by hunters, it emits a fart three acres wide that sets trees afire and makes every living creature collapse:

Sharpen Your Saws

When going into the woods to cut a Christmas tree, you have to be ready to do some real heavy duty lifting, and if you are at all out of shape or not ready for the action, those trees will dominate you. They don't care. They'll do it with no remorse at all. I've seen it happen. Taylor and I knew what we were up against, so we boldly strode into the Dark Forest with our guns a-blazin' and we showed those dagnabbiter trees just who was boss:

November Summary.

It has been exactly One Month since the last post, a month in which Taylor's health has almost healed, we drove Alaska to Oregon, rented a home in Bend for the winter, and celebrated aforementioned new-home-acquirement with a Thanksgiving bashola.

The drive home included 2,000 miles of packed snow and ice with pretty blizzards along the way. We also saw five snowy owls one day, and a wolf chasing an injured deer along the highway the next. We saw another bloodied up car fresh from a bad wreck, and thought about how many dead people truckers must see. But the best part, by far, was the night we spent in the exclusive (to crazies) Shannon Motel, deep in northern British Columbia, where our neighbor-for-the-night stood outside in the courtyard screaming like a dying gorilla that he loved his girlfriend and couldn't understand why she didn't love him (I thought I knew why...). Two hours later, his mom came and picked him up. The walls at the Shannon Motel were very thin.
Taylor has been proving that he can bring home the bacon, or in this case, chuckers. He and our Old Friend Sam went on a grand chucker huntaroo, and we feasted on their little breasts and legs the next night.
Taylor has also been getting back into shape by doing push-ups with Moma. They should make a workout tape called "Using Your Puppy as a Home Gym."