Which witch is which?

Martha tries out her mother's Halloween costume. 

Trick or Treat!

Haunted Hike

Leah, Nathan, and I went to Mercer Slough tonight for a guided tour of the wetlands and forest near Lake Washington. We joined a small group of other 5- to 8-year olds for a hike in the dark. They made us turn off our flashlights, though once our eyes adjusted we could see pretty well. The guides were a fun bunch, who dressed up in various costumes to explain about night-time creatures like bats, coyotes, moths, and spiders. My favorite: owl droppings. Did you know that after an owl swallows a mouse he later spits up the fur? It falls to the ground in a tiny ball that you can find on the forest floor if you look.

We also saw a tadpole man, and we asked him about the fate of our own tadpole at home. We bought two of them earlier this year, one of which dutifully turned into a frog a month or so later. But the other one is still a tadpole ten months later! What gives? The expert naturalists at the center say they’ve never heard of such a thing and can only speculate that our so-called tadpole isn’t.

Campfires

Nathan enjoyed roasting marshmallows bythe campfire. 

Rustic cabins

Nathan slept in the top bunk. Daddy slept in the bottom bunk.

The cabins were spacious, but primitive. There was electricity, but no doorway. You could hear, see, (and feel!) the rain outside.

We shared the cabin with six other fathers and sons. 

Camping Trip

Nathan and his father spent the weekend at Camp Orkila, along with 315 other Mercer Island fathers and sons.

The weather was great, so we were able to do everything you do at a camp: beach combing, hiking, row boating (like this photo), cookouts by the fire.

The highlight for Nathan? The crafts projects: he made a bow and arrow from a stick, and some pottery. Click here for a short video. 

Leah is taking Japanese again this year, with several of her friends. She's one of the "advanced" students because she knows how to say basic phrases like "Arigatou Gozaimasu". I'm not super-happy with the curriculum, which his so basic and slow-going that it's hard to imagine the kids really learning much. Her teacher (Ito-Sensei, in the background) exposes them to more than they'd get at home, I suppose, but I wish she would push harder, especially with serious homework.

Nathan rides the bus to school by himself on Friday. Leah had her Japanese class early, so she didn't go with him. They often take the bus home together, though.

Father and Son Coffee

Nathan and Daddy got up early this morning to visit Espresso Vivace together, and look what we discovered:


Nathan has the Lithuanian finger!

Nathan and Martha play near the fishery in Issaquah during href="http://www.SalmonDays.org">Salmon Days

Richard put out a gasoline fire with a fire extinguisher in a test run sponsored by the Mercer Island Fire Department.

Martha needs a nap every afternoon, whether she admits it or not. Today she fell asleep right on her chair while playing computer games with Nathan.

Back to school

Leah sets up her desk just-so before her third grade class starts in the morning. That's her teacher, Mrs. Vandegrift, in the background. Meanwhile, Nathan is proud of his status as one of the only boys in his kindergarten class who has not yet had a time-out. We hope someday his hair will be as well-behaved as he is.

Martha follows her mommy to school.

Look at these clowns!

Richard's back, so we all went to the Circus on Sunday afternoon.

I visited the Romanian Parliament, the second-largest building in the world (after the Pentagon). The guy on my left is an outspoken member of Parliament, who met with us and showed us around.

Cars share the road with horses, which are clearly still used by many farmers. We also saw cows, chickens, goats and sheep grazing at the side of the road.

This is the Sinaia Monastery, which is still in use by monks from the Romanian Orthodox Church. It was a short walk from our first night's hotel. Romanian is a romance language, descended from Latin, so most of the words are familiar if you know Spanish or French. Hello is "Salud". They also say "Merci" and "Da" (yes) "Nu" (no).

There's my boss, Fil Alleva, standing in front of the Peles Castle. It's an amazing 19th Century palace built for the first King of Romania, who was actually a German appointed to the position when the Romanians decided it would be a nice way to make peace with Bizmark.

My first night in Romania was spent in the resort town of Sinaia. Several people from our local Microsoft subsidiary brought us there to see the Romanian countryside. It's quite pleasant, but reminds me of the rural poverty in other East European countries I've visited like Hungary or Lithuania.

Richard at Dracula's Castle

Here I am, not far from Transylvania, about two hours' drive north of Bucharest at the castle of Vlad Dracul, the original Count Dracula. The site is now part of the Romanian National Museum Complex in Targoviste.

(I'm here on a business trip. If you'd like to see more photos and information, check out family web site, or see my work blog. )

 

 

Bike riding Richard is on a business trip to Portugal (9/5-9/10), Romania (9/11-9/13), and Dublin (9/14-9/16), so the family went on a long ride together

This is a satellite image of the shopping center a few blocks south of Gary's house. Google Maps claims this photo was taken between Aug 31 and Sep 2. The red dot is a grocery store across from the drive-through Starbucks we visited frequently when I was there at Christmas.

Gary's house in New Orleans

Richard's brother, Gary and his family live in Kenner, Louisiana but were fortunate to evacuate last weekend before Hurricane Katrina.
They are safe in Houston, but we don't yet know the status of their house. You can see a satellite image of their house before the disaster, but of course we really want to know how the house looks right now. Over the past few days, NASA and others have been releasing updated images so we hope to have an update soon.

Meanwhile you can see the latest news about the disaster on Richard's public blog.

The road to our house is under construction for the next few days, which is a pain because we have to park our cars up the street and walk.

Martha flies a kite See Mommy, I can do it too!

Kite Flying The beach gets pretty windy, so it's perfect for kites.

Playing in the ocean. Not too windy, neither too cold nor hot, so the kids spent the day --- the entire day -- on the beach.

Vacation at the beach We're here in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Such a nice place! The tide pools are just amazing, so the kids are having a ball.

Crime and punishment. When Leah and Nathan disobeyed mommy's instructions to never play with water in the bedroom, the resulting spill soiled the carpet and demanded a punishment. We made them write a book about the episode so that other children will not make the same mistake.

Praying Mantis Eats Hummingbird (Bird Watcher's Digest)

Oh boy, Nathan will be interested in these photos of a Praying Mantis eating a hummingbird /a>

Vacationing at Mt. Rainier

Mt. Rainier is an impressive mountain visible on clear days from Seattle, so we took the grandparents there last week for several days of hiking and exploring. It's the tallest (14,000 feet) volcanic mountain in the U.S. but except for some shaking in the 1960s hasn't had any serious action for hundreds of years. The real volcano around here, of course, is Mount St. Helens, which is not too much further so we spent an afternoon there as well.

Rather than fill your inbox with more of the pictures we took, you can see more of our trip by clicking on our family web site.

By the way, if you're tired of these "HeyStowe" emails in your inbox, you can unsubscribe at any time.

Our always photogenic Leah pauses to smile beside a rapids on a creek near the Ohanapecosh River.

Nathan views Spirit Lake, from the Windy Ridge vantage point near Mount St. Helens

Richard and his dad at the foot of Mt. Rainier.

The kids pose on a rock at Snoqualmie Falls.

Martha enjoys building in the sand at Discovery Beach (Seattle).

Blue Angels, little angels

The Blue Angels are performing this weekend:

Martha plugs her ears as the noisy jets fly over Mercer Island.

Playing for tickets

Leah celebrates her 8th birthday on August 2, with Nathan, Leah, and 12 girlfriends at the noisy arcade/pizza party at Chuck E Cheese

What kind of turtle is this?

This is Nathan's week to care for his school's pet turtle, Ernie. Unfortunately Ernie comes only with the word-of-mouth care instructions received from the previous host family, which by this time I'm afraid has been hopelessly twisted from months of playing a long game of telephone. So I brought the kids to PetCo, where we immediately identified him as a red eared slider, a popular acquatic turtle that spends about half its life swimming. Ernie came with a small water dish, good for drinking but certainly not swimming - a situation the PetCo staff person describes as "borderline animal cruelty."

But the school kept him this way for at least the past year, and if he likes water so much how come he doesn't like it when we make him sit in his waster dish? Anybody know what kind of turtle he really is?