Happy Valentine's Day from Texas

We hiked up Enchanted Rock this Saturday, and Eleanor spotted this Valentine-photo-op.  It was a crisp, sunny day... a great day for a hike straight up a rock!  And the BBQ stop we made at Cooper's Pit in Llano topped the whole day off heartily.  You should be here.  Wherever you are, you should be here.

Enchanted Rock - a huge, pink granite exfoliation dome, that rises 425 feet above ground, 1825 feet above sea level, and covers 640 acres. It is one of the largest batholiths (underground rock formations uncovered by erosion) in the United States.  Smack in the middle of Texas hill country.

Our digs in Austin

Our apartment is about a block off "Town Lake" on Lamar Blvd.  It borders Zilker Park, and the Barton Springs pool/playground/kiddie train is within walking distance. (Well, walking distance by the standards of a Portlander.  A Texan might think it a long haul?)  Here we are, for the next few (sunny) months:

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A Perfect Birthday

We had an apartment full of family here on Saturday (John and Kristanne flew down from Dallas, Amy drove up from Houston, and Dad + Anna Lou hauled all the way from Beaumont) and an apartment full of old friends here on Sunday (AJ, Karia + Dan, Alison + Joshie) to celebrate our birthdays.  For me it was a perfect birthday!

First Day of School, Texas Edition

Well, Eleanor started school this morning at her new, Texas school.  She was nervous and excited both, and the reception from the kids was kind of incredible.

First thing, the principal saw us in the office and exclaimed, “Is this our new first grader?!”  Reportedly, only a few minutes earlier a first grade kid had asked him when “the new kid” was going to arrive.  He showed us into the cafeteria, where the kids collect in class groups in the morning.  The kids in her new classroom were super friendly, introducing themselves and trying to tell her how things work and asking her questions.  At one point there was a very brief lull in the chatter and I heard one little girl say, “well, she’s kind of cute.”  Then another one agreed and another one agreed and it was a crack up.  One of the girls asked, “are you friendly?”  Eleanor was silent, as she was through most of this.  Mostly, the kids and I talked about Eleanor while she just sat there smiling a little nervous smile.  I established that she was indeed friendly, but that sometimes she is shy and it takes a while for her to talk.  A girl proposed friendship, an offer which Eleanor immediately accepted (one of the only things she said so far) and then the girl exclaimed, “Well, you are friendly.” 

I’m going back for lunch today, but I think she’ll have a positive (if overwhelming) day. 

I am optimistic about the whole experience.  The school looks and feels a lot like our school back home = older, kind of beat up, yet well loved.  There are a few significant differences, not the least of which being the class size.  We’ve moved from a 27 student classroom in Oregon, to a 17 student classroom in Texas.  That’s a difference!   It is confusing to me, in fact, the differences I’m seeing.  They have smaller class sizes with a similar overall student body population AND a smaller building (this has required the addition of mobile buildings to keep the class sizes small, so, they're going out of there way to keep class sizes small).  They have more of everything.  They have science experiments, great social studies discussions (it is black history month, and you can tell that here), music, PE, real art, library, computer lab, and Spanish ... all at least once a week (more than once a week for some of them).  Wha?!?!  Fingers crossed that all will continue so positively. 

What would Kit do?

We think, given an apartment full of empty moving boxes and a strong desire for a tree house, the depression era character Kit Kittredge would do just what we did today.

Stay tuned for the paint job...

Holiday Letter 2011

We hope this letter finds you doing well!  We are, and life is chugging along up in these parts.  This appears to have been a good year for us to travel, and I have to say that six-year-olds make comparatively fantastic travel companions.  Somehow we managed: Disneyland (because Wisconsin was playing in the Rose Bowl), Sun River (with friends and snow), Maui (we saw humpbacks breach, dolphins spin, and snorkeled with sea turtles), Wyoming and Utah (we hunted fossils older than dinosaurs!), Texas (we hung out with family and watched the last Shuttle launch from NASA), Wisconsin (cousins! cousins! cousins!), camping (beach + biking + staying up late + rarely showering = six-year-old paradise), and a small trek north to Seattle and Vancouver British Columbia (two fantastic aquariums and our first chance to christen Eleanor’s passport).

As summer came to a close, Eleanor lost four teeth in as many weeks and so started the school year looking very much the part of a First Grader.  At six and three-quarters, Eleanor has a strong sense of justice and is very loyal to rules.  Yet, she is enough of a critical thinker to question the rules.  This requires patience.  But as 1) she often makes a good point and 2) the trait reminds me of a number of her kin, it makes me proud and hopeful for her future.  Eleanor learned to ride a bike this year (just in time for summer), she loves school, and she is sticking by the violin (we’re at Etude now).  We like doing math problems and art projects together.  She likes playing with Daddy (always the master of funny voices and creative characters).  Eleanor is a thoughtful and faithful friend.

Mike’s work has really kept him busy this year, with several trips and many weeks of 18+ hour shifts six days a week.  His work may be presenting us with a new adventure…but more on this at the end.  I’ve spent most of the year just trying to cover the bases, with many of my own projects left sitting on back burners.  Here’s to 2012 bringing either more productivity, or more peace with the lack-thereof!  I will point out that 2011 may very well mark the end of “studio construction.”  And when that decade-long chapter finally closes it will be none too soon.  The tear down happened in mid-August; the rebuild has been a chore (hiring a contractor does not = a quick finish); you can see photos online; the new building will be dreamy; and that’s about all I have to say about that.  Ever again.  We hope to have tales from within the studio by next year’s letter.

Now, for the new adventure that isn’t quite print-ready yet but oh well.  We may be temporarily relocating (with Intel) to Austin, Texas, from January to June.  But, we won’t know until pretty much the last minute.  A daunting task for sure, but an adventure none-the-less.  Those of you who love Texas will understand why I’m pretty darned excited about our chance to live abroad for a season (Texas really is a whole other country).  And those of you who love Oregon will understand why we’ll do our darndest to be home in time for berry season.

We wish everyone a year of good health and great peace!

Love, Stephanie + Mike + Eleanor

Holiday Letter 2010

As I’ve tooled about town thinking on this letter, I’ve wondered if it’s even possible for a family with active Facebook, Picasa, and Vimeo accounts to write an original Holiday missive anymore.  With the tid-bits of our lives published in other more pithy and colorful media, does this embarrassingly tenuous tradition (note our two-year lapse in production) stand a chance? 

For those of you that don’t keep up with our online proxies (see appendix B) here’s a little something: 

Eleanor is almost 6 years old, she’s lost her two bottom-front teeth, she’s reading (a little, and it seems to wear her out), and her sense of humor is blossoming.  She’s got a solid grasp on genuine jokes (see appendix A) and those moments when she deviates from standard form are truly delighting.  But still, in her own words, “funny adults are confusing.”  I get that.  Fifteen months ago Eleanor started Suzuki method violin and she’s proud enough of her hard work to love performing for visitors.  (For those of you that know Suzuki code, she is at “Go Tell Aunt Rhody”.)  I think it’s worth noting for posterity that at the age of almost 6, Eleanor can stand up for herself and, conversely, be flexible -- both are issues I’ve worried about in turn.  I’d also like to note she is a kind friend to her fellow kindergartners.

Mike still loves his job. This year he spent two weeks at an Intel site in Israel, a week at one in Austin, and a couple of weeks at sites in California… which really isn’t much traveling relative to someone who travels, but still, we miss him terribly when he is gone because we all do better together.  Sometime since we last chatted, he was given the title of Principal Engineer at Intel, an honor second only to his recent promotion to Accompanist to Eleanor.  It’s a treat to see them perform together (and you can, because there is a Vimeo video for this). 

I continue to divide my time between Eleanor, Arm Bibs and volunteer community organizing.  Since our last letter, I’ve had the rare experience of seeing one of my volunteer projects really take off -- greeted with great enthusiasm, in its first few months Solarize Portland more than tripled the number of residential solar-PV installations in Portland.  It has since spread around the state, and the City of Portland is now licensing the name from me and doing the heavy lifting.   Help me remember this success as I bang my head against a wall for the next decade or so on other projects.

 Now for the rest of our update which, for many of you, holds the only “news” to be had in this letter.  There are two small moments from our year I’d like to tuck safely in these lines for a future unearthing.  Their print worthiness is debatable, but still…

• The rain’s edge. One fairly ordinary day we found ourselves sitting, quite extraordinarily, at the rain’s edge.  After marveling at an unusually hard rain coming down over our back yard, Eleanor and I wandered by the windows in the front of the house only to find Mike casually moving the trash cans as if nothing was pelting him in the head.  And nothing was!  With a visit to the driveway we found our house sitting at the very place where the rain stops.  Or starts, I guess.  Clearly this is happening all over the world, all of the time, but it was the first time any of us had seen such a border up close and so precise.  It was something. 

• Caterpillars poop.  Worried about a lack-luster crop yield from the Red Currant bush the previous Spring, Eleanor and I set out to inspect the thing early this Spring and we found it covered in iridescent green caterpillars.  Covered.  Alarmingly so.  The ensuing investigation as to the intentions of these little guys involved some *careful* caterpillar observation, during which we noticed a growing number of teeny-tiny, royal-blue beads collecting around them.  Speculation varied, but the origin of these beads was settled when we witnessed one actually emerging from the back end of a caterpillar… ploop!  Tiny, royal-blue, caterpillar poop, right in our own hands.  Ok, so having put that down on the page it seems a little lame, and quite possibly inappropriate for a holiday letter.  But really.  At the time it seemed like great luck to witness such a small and fleeting moment.

There you have it, one moment as big as the whole sky and one moment as small as a bead, heretofore un-posted in any media at all.  We wish everyone a year of good health and great peace. 

Love, Stephanie + Mike + Eleanor