Close Encounters

Andrew had gone on a business trip to Vancouver and was returning a car he had rented to Weyerhauser. At around 11 PM, he was walking from the rental car lot to the lot where he had parked our 4Runner when he heard rustling in the bushes. It was pitch black and immediately thoughts of large, aggressive animals with sharp teeth or deranged, psychotic humans with weapons, ran through his head. At this point he started to panic and ran. He had been running for a minute when he felt claws dig into the top of his head. This came without any forewarning...no whooshing of wings, no scream of attack... he kept waiting for his attacker to grab his neck or do something...anything else. It turned out to be an owl attacking him. He, of course, started to scream and ran even faster, waving his arms furiously. The bird circled and was about to dive for another attack when Andrew finally came to an area that was lit. The owl flew off, but left him with some nasty, bleeding marks in his skull. Needless to say, this was all really very very funny (at least to me :))

Our Money Pit

So we finally committed to finishing our yard and as Andrew predicted we did indeed have scope creep (more than we would like to admit to). So now I am obsessed with keeping our money alive (that's how I view all these plants...now...our retirement). Oh well, maybe now our yard looks good enough to sell...hahaha.

Olympic Dreams

Much to our chagrin, the boys started BMX racing. James and Joshua are doing fairly well. Joshua just moved up to the intermediate division and James is not far behind. As for Jory, well, we are just happy he doesn't fall. After the kids have their first race, the track gives them special "first race" trophies that just happen to be their old tournament trophies. They are absolutely (to use a favorite term of James') ginormous. When Jory was awarded his, he was so happy he wanted to sleep with it. Needless to say he has been a bit disappointed that his subsequent racing efforts have not been so generously rewarded. The kids are having fun and getting some great exercise and now since it is an Olympic sport, Andrew is a bit happier about the whole thing.