Some cute girl we know

We're having a hard time letting go of Hawaii.

Sometimes a rainy Oregon/sunny Hawaii outfit produces eclectic results!

 Piano lessons and keeping grandpa entertained.

A cooped up child finally set free

Six hours on a plane with a baby who desperately wants to be mobile.

We've had better flights.

But she found new meaning in life the next day when we set up Tabor's old exercise thingymabob.

September, October, November, December...

Wow. We're way behind. Sorry you've been stuck rereading all our old material.
There isn't really any one theme to this post. Just a little wander through the past couple months. Please try not to get lost.

Mom and dad came to visit.

The other mom and dad came a few weeks later but I guess all of those pictures are on grandma's camera. Sorry about that.

Some of the last days of farming

Planting winter grain.

 Fly by wire(s).

 If you can't tell what Jose is congratulating me for, this next picture might help clear things up.

 Watch out for that last corner. It's a doozey- doosy- doosey- dewsey... Anyone know how to spell that? The trailer lost a set of wheels. Across the ditch and off into the desert. Fortunately there were 10 others.

Dead. Again. Sayonara.

Emma, Oregon and beyond.

 September

 At the hospital with C-dif.

October

 Does this Johny-Jump-Up make my butt look big?

 Oregon bound!

Bath in Nanna's sink.

Maui bound!

 "Who is this guy and why did you invite him?" Or maybe that look is saying, "Would you bug off- I'm warming the pool."

 Not sure what their private little joke is.

 Tabor and Emma's head.

I think she got the hang of hangin' out.

 Why do we always find ourselves in vehicles that are bulging at the seams?

 Our minivan in the sky.

 The volcano at night.

 Trekking across an old caldera in the rain.

Packing for home.

We're at Corey and Danica's now. Off to G&G Ramey's tomorrow. Gotta see how much havoc Scout has caused. I'm sure Bella will be glad to have us take our nut-head child back!

Firsts

Our little tank. Four months old on Tuesday!

Had her first taste of rice cereal today.

 Playing tug-of-war with mom. Not fond of that spoon leaving her mouth! It's amazing to watch them figure out what those flailing appendages are for.

Giving it all she's got. She seems a bit disgruntled that her best just isn't quite enough yet. She did roll from her stomach to her back for the first time but, of course, the camera wasn't rolling.

We're not in Portland anymore

A piece of Portland (or LA or Seattle or any such large confluence of people) plopped itself onto our freeway. Yep, a good old traffic jam. A full-on dead stop, 85 to 0 in a hurry, out of nowhere style jam. There are quite a few obstacles that we know how to confront: 30' wide implements, herds of sheep or cattle. But this here mass of cars was a new one to many.
Well, unlike Portland, none of us knew what to do at first. Do we go through the median to the other side? Do we cut through the ditch to the frontage road (which I very well may have done had there not been a pesky fence in the way), do we park and just walk the rest of the way? Should we call the Sheriff? Should we go get the horses? Cars were swerving in and out of lanes, trucks were switching lanes trying not to hit cars. Bumping a bumbling bunch of bumpkins out of our comfort zone can be dangerous!
So, getting us all stopped was interesting, but what followed would blow an urbanite's mind. I had to pinch myself myself. See, the reason we were all screeching to a halt was an upcoming construction zone where the left lane was closed. We were still a good 1/2 mile from the lane closure and things continued to back up behind us so that there was a SINGLE line of cars about a mile long in the right lane leading up to the lane closure. There were many a "No, please," and "After you," and "I insist," going on as people scrambled to get to the right lane as quickly as possible. We all oozed single file into the construction zone and crept along for miles. That's when I, and many others I'm sure, started looking for a good exit through the sagebrush.
Now, I ain't sayin' it's right or wrong. Just curious. Very curious.

Jam!

Let's get the obligatory shot of Emma out of the way.

On her way to the land of Nod. That's what made the rest of this post possible.

 We plundered the neighbor's apricot tree the other night. The thing was plum loaded with them. The small dent we made in the tree turned into 24 8 oz jars and two quarts of jam and a cobbler. Coming to your local stocking in a few months...

Trade you a clean stove for a jar of jam.

And an obligatory picture of the other child. There's not a crumb or drip or drop to be seen on that floor. Seriously Scout. You already got them all.

On a side note: plums in our tree! It didn't produce last year so we weren't sure what variety of leafy foliage we were babysitting. Now that we know it will actually produce fruit we really ought to do a better job of babysitting!