OK, the last video showed Tribble fighting and playing.  Now, I’ve discovered that she’ll just bat and drink water from a tap.  It’s pretty cute.  Especially when she accidentally turns off the faucet and wonders where the water went.

Let me know when everyone’s exhausted by kitten videos.  I need something to fill the youtube account I created for this stuff though.

Watching Tribble make as much war as possible on the other cats really never gets old.  Plus, who would have thought that a box for pop cans would make such a great kitten fort?

Lori made a truly cute and neat cake for my birthday this year.  It’s really amazing how crafty she is.  I probably should have more clever things to say but I don’t.

One of our annual Christmas traditions (or at least as annually as we can) is to travel to Sunnyside, Washington for the annual lighted farm implement parade.  It’s a great exercise in sheer, over the top Christmas light awesomeness. 

This is my first shot uploading to youtube.  I hope it works.

These are the lights on our house this year

Lori was very crafty for Halloween this year.  She made Max’s costume.  We got a good deal on glow sticks on the internet and we made a Lite Brite costume.

And Max and friend getting ready to go Trick or Treating on our block.

She also made some nice cupcakes for me to take into the office.  They demand treats there and get irate if we don’t keep everyone fed.  These cupcakes are the three-eyed aliens from the Toy Story movies.  The claw!

And since black cats are very traditional for Halloween, I leave you with the kitten trying her best to intimidate a cat who 1) doesn’t like her very much and 2) isn’t intimidated by other cats.

We have a new kitten in our household now.  She’s about 6 weeks old and we’re calling her tribble because she makes the same sounds a tribble makes and is a long haired ball of fur just like a tribble.

She’s not super playful yet.  She’s still getting used to the house and us.  Mostly she just wants to be on our laps.  I think as she gets more secure she’ll be more playful.  Right now she pretty much just chases lasers and matchbox cars.

Both Jula and Bart seem to absolutely hate her.  Well, Jula’s afraid of her, but then Jula’s afraid of everything including wrinkles in sheets.

We went to an airshow in Mountain Home Idaho at the air force base on the weekend of the 17th.  One of my life long dreams has been to attend an airshow at a military base.  I always figured they’d have better military oriented acts.  On this, I was wrong, there were no flyovers from the B-1, B-2 or B-52 which is what I really wanted to see.  Still, we did get to see a C-5 and a V-22, neither of which I had ever seen before.  The C-5 really is just huge.

It doesn’t seem that big until you’re right up in it though.  It just gets bigger and bigger, and then you walk through the plane and look up at the tail and realize it’s 100 feet above your head. (edit, OK I looked it up and it’s really only 65 feet above your head.)

The V-22 takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane.  Never seen one close up before.

Max got a serious kick climbing all over the armored vehicles around.

I really like this picture of an F-15 taxiing in front of the Thunderbirds.  Just a great airshow.  Really loud.  We all wore earplugs but nothing can prepare an 8 year old for just how loud an F-15 flying overhead at 600 miles an hour on full afterburner really is.

We also visited Bruneau Dunes and Bruneau Canyon.  Be forewarned if you ever want to see Bruneau Canyon, it’s down a good 12 miles of gravel road and there is no one around.  It’s really isolated.  Totally worth the drive though.  If I had done more research before we went, I might have tried to find the decommissioned nuclear missile silos that are apparently not too far away.

A friend once categorized our annual summer vacation as an epic road trip and I think she was right.  This year we did 1,211 miles all entirely within Oregon.  We spent five nights on the coast where we got to experience all types of Oregon weather, from fog, to mist, to drizzle to just socked in with clouds.  Really ran the gamut there.

Max is unclear on the concept of rowing.

Cape Perpetua

Getting on the sand rail

Shore Acres State Park

We also went to Detroit Lake State Park where we got to experience both heat AND humidity.  I highly recommend it.

I don't know what's going on here

Overall a fun trip.  Lots of neat stuff to see and do. 

I haven’t updated this thing since Halloween.  Basically I got really bored with it at the same time I started using Facebook more to post random things.  However, I did have to post this check I got in the mail today.

Yes it’s a check from the State of Oregon for 20 cents.  It’s a mileage reimbursement for my jury duty in May.  I guess driving six blocks earned me a cool $0.20!  Add to that the $0.34 in postage it cost to get this check to me and we’re talking some real money.

Maggie wanted to wish everyone a happy Halloween!