Golgotha

Mom asked me if I remembered this. I used to do this with palm-sunday palms all the time, but it turns out Mom kept this one and framed it fairly beautifully.  My religious views have probably changed since then, but it's still an honour.

The Deeds

Aunt Gina showed us some land that our family owns.  Well, owned.  We think the county might have taken it back, since we haven't payed taxes on it in 125 years or so.  We think probably one of us is pointing at it.

Headed to Knoxville for Mom's Masters Graduation, which somehow took three ceremonies.  Two aunts, two (other) brothers, and a Dad came too, and we had, of all things, high quality family time. Terrifying.

Happy Christmas

I was too slow to get Ziv's reaction, but I don't think hers was the one I needed.

Oh! And I finally got one of Simon's prints! AS A TAPESTRY!

And too much other sweet stuff to mention. Magic!

The new normal

This is pretty much how it goes at Christmas with an adorable 10-month old - a room full of people watching the baby intently.

Air and Space

"The" Smithsonian is actually more than a dozen museums. Dad's pointing to the one we're in here:

We chose Air and Space, for obvious reasons. That is: you get to TOUCH THE FUCKING MOON LIKE YOU WERE A FUCKING GOD:

Plus you can see a bunch of firsts up close, and stare into the cockpit of a couple of Apollo Command Modules:

And they keep a couple of ICBMs there, in the lobby:

And if you happen to get there on space day, you get to watch a bunch of schoolchildren call the International Space Station:

Sightseeing

Why take photos of things that everybody's seen zillions of pictures of anyway? How do you make yourself care? The easy way is to stick your face in them.The slightly less easy way is to wait for them to be so ugly that no-one's taking pictures of them:
The best way is to forget about them and take pictures of other things. Like the shoe trend I hope will be sweeping the nation OR MY CLOSET:
TEDDY BEAR SHOES. CAPITAL LETTERS OF AMAZEMENT. Also: Muckrakers for evil:
And parents! And the meeting of parents. And the parents' meeting of parents. Eek.

the sights

I headed in to downtown Portland twice today, once to visit Powell's City of Wonder (pdf):

Then we went home so Cousin Claire could tell me how badly I needed to watch Black Swan, and dad could show his sister his new presents:

Then it was back to East Portland with Andrew to try to find PDX's live music scene at the Doug Fir:

The headliners, Guantanamo Baywatch, played a single, shockingly unpolished set of a kind of crazed surf music so fun that I danced the whole time I was in line for drinks.

Winning at Christmas

Christmas may be about family, but Christmas day is about presents. That box has a hand-made robo-patterned snuggie in it, and hell yes.

It's also possible to win at Christmas. For instance, Joanna won at Christmas by making me the perfect snuggie. Baby Interrobang won by getting this home-made quilt from Lisa:

Auntie D won 'most clever' for her gift of a subtle hint for Dad:

Matthew and his family won for coming from the future:

Dad won by asking for memories for Christmas, we all won for giving them, and Toshia won for putting them together for us.

And we all won for food.

Christmas feels like a whirlwind this year. We didn't even get the tree trimmed until Christmas Eve.

Team Mommy

Portland is also home to some once-removed and second cousins, which means Christmas parties with people I haven't seen since they were 6, but who will still hug you when you see them. Which is, frankly, outstanding.

Here's Mom, showing her cousin-in-law (or, cousin-out-law?) how we had lots of hair or no hair or something as babies, and Dad grinning with his sister, putting the lie to the whole sibling rivalry we hear so much about. Below, my second cousin and her Dad listen to Joanna explain something about babies. It's a baby-themed holiday, which is also outstanding.

... because we're getting a new one. Here's Toshia helping Interrobang model her first ever Christmas gift, a "team mommy" onesie.

Fine traditions

Obviously we went back to the beach for Christmas, to see the wildlife.
Then we came home for Claymation Christmas, 
And Toshia's bubbling-hot Blackberry Cobbler.

Life in Brentwood

Mom knocked down a palm tree at work today.  She takes care of plants for restaurants, malls, fabulously wealthy people, etc.
  While we were driving a former presidential candidate came on the radio to advertise mortgages.  Mom insists that this is a regular occurence.

btw, this barley wine is un-drinkably terrible

Mom's visit wasn't all spent looking at things, though.  We managed to squeeze in some Dilts family staples, namely, recycling and fancy beer. 

Momscapades

Mom came to visit Edmonton, hooray!  It turns out we spend a lot of time looking at plants, which makes sense in this mini-conservatory: 




... but is a little more unusual at the West Edmonton Mall:... and at the waterpark at West Edmonton Mall:We didn't just look at plants, though.  We also looked at fake plants:Oh, and roller coasters:Yodas:Tropical Fishes:And submarines: