Memorial Day Weekend

May 29, 2018 by Adam in Family

It was a good weekend.

Friday night Joanna and I went out to eat at a new restaraunt, taking a quick trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond for some new drinking glasses.  The kids thought it was funny that we had our date there.

Saturday morning Sam drove me over to get Emma.  The day was relatively uneventful - she and Sam made brownies together.  Pizza and Mythbusters was watched.  Benny went over to their friend Brittney's house where they went kayaking and almost slept in a tree house until it got too cold.

Sunday was Emma's birthday and D&D day.  Emma and I descended into the basement with Marty, Cory, Shannon, BJ, and Jason to battle assorted foes and wrap up our adventure.  They're a funny group and we laughed our way to retrieve the fabled Goblet of Fireflies.  Joanna dyed her hair as well as Duncan's friend's hair, not to mention keeping the house relatively intact.

We picked up Tasty Thai for Emma, opened presents, and played Jackbox games where she was the answer to every question.  It was a good birthday.

Monday had Sam and Emma going off to Jamie's for birthday events.  Joanna and I gardened for a long while, mowing, preparing garden beds, and planting seeds.  My baby tomatoes and peppers are all grown up now.  Sam and I played Enter the Gungeon, which is a fun couch coop game.  We hadn't done that for a long while, so it was a fun treat.

Fifteen Years Old

May 28, 2018 by Adam in Emma

Emma turned fifteen today.  She had takeout from Tasty Thai, cheesecake from Metropol, followed by presents and playing Jackbox games where all our answers were related to Emma.  This is after a day playing Dungeons and Dragons, making it a birthday to remember.

Sleepy Mocha Friday

May 25, 2018 by Adam in Family

My lack of sleep caught up with me and I took a couple naps yesterday.  Today I feel a little off, but hopefully the mocha sitting beside me will help reset my internal clocks.

We had another bat incident yesterday, this time one was found inside the bathroom window.  We're not sure how it got in there - maybe the lure of the fruit flies filling our kitchen.  In any case we left the other window open in hopes it would leave in the middle of the night, but no luck yet.

There's the usual mix of issues and concerns going on.  We're worrying about Bob.  Sam and Emma are house sitting at Jamie's while she's away on a long road trip.  I'm hearing of issues at the house where Destin is staying from the next door neighbor - not quite sure how to sort those out.  Joanna is off on a several day trip in a couple weeks.  School is almost over.  Emma turns 15 this weekend.

For now I'm going to enjoy my mocha and start in on work.

Home Soon

May 23, 2018 by Adam in Family

I'm still in Salt Lake City, wrapping up the day and heading to the airport soon.  My flight is at 10 p.m. and I land a couple hours later, so I'll be pretty worn out when I crawl into bed.

It's been a good trip, with lots of visiting with old friends and coworkers.  The first day went well, other than waking up at 4:15 a.m.  The plane was fine and I managed to use Uber all by myself.  Then it was security meetings and a presentation on security, followed by team meetings and dinner with my new team.  Tuesday was meetings, dinner, and drinks.  It was cool to run into the Bellingham ex-PeaceHealth crew and Kate Weaver who I knew when I was a kid.  Somehow I managed to run both yesterday and today after rolling out of bed.  I still notice the high altitude but have mostly been headache free.

It'll be nice to be home tonight.  I miss all my people.

Accidental Festival Going

May 20, 2018 by Adam in Family

We just got back from Mount Pisgah where we didn't realize the annual wildflower festival was happening.  We parked in a weird spot, took an old school bus to the main entrance, and snuck around the food booths and music to go on a hike.  It turned out pretty good.  Though most of the kids were hesitant to leave their computers behind, the weather was good and everyone's spirits rose as we found hidden secret places far from the populated areas.  It was neat hearing the kids chat with each other about strange things on the Internet.  Emma picked up a slug.  Sam found some forgotten sunglasses.  Spit bugs were everywhere.

Yesterday we mostly stayed at home, working on the garden.  We weeded and put wayward strawberries back into pots.  New flowers were planted and things were spruced up.  Sam arrived from his camping trip, earlier than expected.  He was nibbled on by ants, which probably made him miss the comforts of home and modern medicine.

I'm hopping on a plane in the morning, getting up at 4 a.m.  After my flight I have to take an Uber on my own, sit through a security meeting, and then give a presentation about security.  Hopefully I don't collapse along the way.

Mocha Friday

May 18, 2018 by Adam in Family

Sam headed out last night to California, though he wasn't entirely recovered.  I dropped him off on campus with a full backpack and a request to let me know if he was heading further south to visit friends afterwards.  Hopefully all goes well on his adventure.

Emma stayed home from school with stomach issues.  Poor kid.

Benny played a new VR game last night called Rescuties that involved kissing babies.  It was free and apparently is awesome, though I haven't tried it.  Joanna played a bunch of Beat Saber and is going to try Rescuties next after Benny's high praise.

Joanna is taking care of all the little things, lining up plumbers and electricians, doing assorted home repair, and making sure mom's house is intact when she returns.

I'm working on bugs at work, heading out to Salt Lake City on Monday for a few days.  Hopefully we can sneak in some game playing and maybe a clothes shopping trip for Emma over the weekend.

Cloudy Wednesday

May 16, 2018 by Adam in Family

I'm reveling in my ability to work from home today.  The door of my little garden shed is open and the sounds of spring are in the air.  I got a ton of work done today, cleaning up every little mess I could find, and rewarded myself by mowing the lawn.  Now I'm back, getting my little web server back and functional after a Windows update left it less than functional.

Sam is still under the weather, as am I.  He's still hoping to get to his California adventure, though it's probably going to be delayed a day or two.  I'm mostly better, back to a fairly normal workout routine.  Joanna finally got into VR and has been playing a fair amount of Beat Saber.  Duncan, Benny, and Emma all seem to be doing fairly well.  Joanna and I are going out to dinner tonight on our weekly date.

I keep holding my breath about Bob.  I've been chatting with mom regularly, who I think appreciates everyone at the hospital but is starting to get a little impatient.

Happy Mother's Day!

May 13, 2018 by Adam in Family

I've been rushing about this weekend, trying to fulfill all my mother's day obligations to my bio mom and two step mothers, as well as helping kids get things for Joanna and Jamie.  Emma and I dropped off a card and gift certificate for Yayoe yesterday as it was her birthday as well.  I'm trying to give mom a call, though she's pretty busy at the moment.  Emma wrapped the framed photo of her and Sam, and headed off with Jamie for the day.  Poor Sam is sick in bed, hopefully recovering enough to go on a camping trip tomorrow.  Joanna has opened her presents and had her usual Sunday breakfast made for her.  After lunch the plan is to go hiking on this incredibly beautiful day.

I'm sore from playing Beat Saber, which lives up to it's block-chopping-with-music hype.  Joanna went out to volunteer Duncan's activity night, leaving Sam, Benny, and I to trade off playing.  It's a surprisingly good workout, and crazy fun.

Saturday Sam and I drove over to get Emma, with Sam going up on the freeway for the first time.  When asked how it was, he replied "fast."  The rest of the day was pretty low-key, with Sam and Emma hanging out and chatting, Duncan having friends over, and the usual pizza and Mythbusters wrapping up the day.  Sam and I did manage to dig up our little free library and put it more securely in the ground with new concrete.  Hopefully it doesn't tip over like the old one.

Holding Our Breath

May 11, 2018 by Adam in Family

Bob started surgery 45 minutes ago, with the expected surgery length at 7 hours long.  Sadie is hanging out with mom - I'm glad someone is keeping her company.  We're all a little nervous, but hoping for the best.

We had a "Benny had their name changed" party last night, singing a slightly modified happy birthday song.  Then we all played One Night Ultimate Werewolf, trying to deceive each other and figure out who the werewolf is.  It was all a good time.

We've got a fair bit of running around this weekend.  Joanna is volunteering at Duncan's Activity Night tonight.  I have some mother's day organization to sort out.  I'm sure there are other odds and ends I need to take care of.  Maybe Sam and I can go for another drive, though his weekends tend to be busy.

Changes

May 10, 2018 by Adam in Yvonne

Joanna took Benny down to the court house yesterday to officially change their name to Ben Yvonne Gustina Bartlett.  The only gotcha was the gender change to "non-binary".  The judge felt the law wasn't clear, though some people in Portland had changed to non-binary - Joanna's working with an advocacy group to help sort things out.  Apparently the DMV will make the gender change and Joanna drove up to Junction City yesterday to made it happen.  There's a whole list of name changes that need to happen, and gender changes where it can happen.

I need to track down everywhere it says "Berry" on this website and make the change.  I think there's one or two left to go.

All-in-all, things have generally been moving along nicely.  Benny's classmates have been supportive of the gender change, giving the gym teacher a hard time when they divide the class up into boys and girls.  I think we'll be celebrating with a cake tonight after dinner.

Growing Up

May 10, 2018 by Adam in Sam

Sam's in that phase of life where he's trying to figure out what he wants to do and who he wants to be.  Every few months there's a new change - I'm learning to let go of expectations and be generally supportive however I can.

It looks like his plan is to move out with some friends over the summer.  The mix of people seems to keep changing and there isn't something lined up quite yet.  The younger kids feel a little funny about it, as do I.  I'm glad he's moving on and being more independant, though I admittedly will miss him being around.

Sam's also not planning on taking classes next year, and instead just wants to work.  Thankfully mom has been throwing meaningful work his way, hopefully enough to pay for rent and food and such.  I just want him to be happy and eventually figure out how to support himself.

We've been practicing driving quite a bit.  My hope is that we can get his license by summer.  After that it'll be trying to figure out how to drive mom's manual transmission car around.  We've done it a little, though it's like playing a video game in hard mode.

Thunderstorms

May 08, 2018 by Adam in Family

Saturday night brought thunderstorms, waking most of us up - I thought a big truck was driving by.  The weekend was relatively uneventful.  Sam was gone most of the time taking a first aid class.  Benny went swimming with Britney.  Duncan hung out with friends and went for a hike with Joanna and I.  Emma visited her mom's to plant peas.

Otherwise the weekend was pretty quiet, pizza and Adam Ruins Everything, playing VR, and going for walks.

Long Weekend

May 05, 2018 by Adam in Family

A lot has happened in this last week.  Annoyingly, the site has been down due to lots of Internet outages and router reboots.  I've fallen behind on taking care of this little web site - I should fix that someday soon.

The week has been somewhat uneventful.  None of the kids had school on Friday.  Sam, Emma, and I went to help dad move.  We earned our keep with sweat and tired muscles, but returned with some ancient treasures.  Emma picked up an old radio from the 50's with vacuum tubes, along with a film camera.  Sam has an old toolbox full of odd tools.  I returned with a couple scifi books I remember from my childhood.

My mom got off safe and sound.  One of her tenants losing her key and Sam remembered the spare attached to the pink detergent bottle.

Benny was sick one day and made a cool picture frame for Joanna out of plastic beads melted together with an iron.  Duncan has become increasingly obsessed with Overwatch.  Sam and I continued to practice our driving.  He's off to a first aid class all weekend.  The rest of us are going to see the new Avengers movie.  Otherwise it should be pretty quiet.