Remember when . . .

. . . I actually posted on here every once in a while? I 'm working on resurrecting that idea. Um, for anyone who didn't know, we were going to be headed to Virginia for a few months but scheduling changes at the shipyard there changed everything around so it looks like we'll be sticking around home. Which is probably a good thing given the predicted rainfall for the winter--the thought of potentially coming home to a flooded house wasn't exactly exciting. Beyond that I don't think we've got any big news items, so instead I'll just share a sampling of the very few pictures we've taken over the last few months.

First off we have our new wood insert! Now we can have a fire without filling our entire house with smoke, yay! Plus it keeps the house warm enough that I can now get by with just a long sleeve shirt instead of having to stay bundled up in a blanket which is WONDERFUL. It even looks reasonably nice. Unfortunately, we failed to realize that it would not cover over the unpainted sections of the brick which will be a bit harder to fix with the insert in place. Still, it's awfully nice to have it in so all in all I think we're okay with it for the moment.

And here we have a pic from our trip to Crater Lake. Despite living fairly close, I somehow managed to miss actually going to Crater Lake. I did once see it while hiking--does that count? Yeah, I didn't think so. :P Anyhow, now I can say I've actually been to the lake. Seth was having fun with the camera and took all the pics so I don't have a good picture of him to post here so you're stuck with one of me.
I do how ever have some fun picture of him down here. :D This one's from his epic adventures with cinnamon roles. Realizing halfway through a recipe that it makes 4-6x more than what you were expecting can result in unexpected difficulties. In this case, we simply ran out of things to do with the dough. I think we wound up with three pans of cinnimon roles, two loaves of bread, and there was still dough left over in the bowl but we were out of pans and it wound up in the trash which was sad. It did make for a good lesson in reading through recipes before starting them though. :)

Oh, and this one was from the gift shop at Crater Lake. You can't see it too well but he's got a bear hat on--think mickey mouse hat complete with ears but with a bear face instead and that's essentially it--that was just a few sizes too small for him. Cute, huh?

We also spent a little time over in Newport with Mary and Darrel hanging out at the coast which was unsurprisingly windy but was awesome 'cause I got to see Mary again. :D
Also got a nice picture while we were there of Pirate Seth.
Jumping back to what's going on currently . . . well, our dog has a growth on her face. It's pretty hard to miss. According to the vet it's probably a benign growth that should clear up sometime in the next three months or so. In the meantime, it's kind of odd and disturbing to look at. Happily, she doesn't seem too bothered by it although I occasionally catch her licking her lips with a puzzled expression.

And then there's Zuko. Once upon a time he was a happy betta. Now . . . we have no idea what is going on with this fish. He's been slowly swelling up like a balloon over the last few months and just keeps getting bigger and bigger. At this point he looks like he's about to explode which is just a tad disturbing to think about. I'm reasonably certain that fish aren't meant to expand this much. Today, I realized that you can now look THROUGH his expanded stomach and make out shapes/colors on the other side of him. Again, disturbing to think about. I don't know if it's air or water or what but despite his ridiculously swollen shape, Zuko doesn't seem realize anything's wrong. He still thinks he's king of the tank and chases the shark around a couple times a day. Go figure.