A Lesson From Katie…

Anna forwarded this yesterday.  Katie recently had an unfortunate incident that happened at school. 

Here is some text from Anna’s email:

“So, I think I told you guys the story where Katie bit through her lip at school in the lunchroom? Attached is the special Christmas card she made for our custodian, Rony, who had to clean up the "puddles of blood" from the lunchroom to the office.
Isn't it precious?”

 

So please let Katie’s gracious message remind all of us, in this season of giving, to enthusiastically thank all those who help and support us every day.  Especially those who are left to mop up after us when we exsanguinate ourselves in a public setting.

Some Blogging Tips

It appears that spring might have actually arrived to Seattle. Our mischievous friend La Nina has restricted our temperatures to about 50 degrees every day this year so far.(OK, there were two days of warmth before now) But yesterday it hit the 70s finally and today will probably be in the 80s. Its a shame it took till the ides of May to produce some blue sky this season.

I hadn't mowed the lawn in 3 weeks and the grass was about a foot high. Bella had been giving me concerned glances when she was attempting to perform her duties in the sea of verdant blades. So yesterday evening was consumed by a lot of mowing and re-mowing since it was the first time in a while the grass was moderately dry.

Onto today's business... I wanted to put some information about how you all can participate in this blog.

Comments - At the bottom of each post, there is the word "comment." If you click on that, it brings you to another page that allows you to write a short message about something in the post. And you can read other people's comments.

Subscription - At the bottom of the entire blog is the link that asks if you want to subscribe. If you click on that, you will get an email to tell you every time a new post is added.

Posting - If you want to add a post, look to the very top of the blog page. Up towards the left side is a link that says "new post." Click on that and it will bring yo to a new page. From then on its much like writing an e-mail.

If you want to add pictures, click on the little picture icon at the top. You then have two options. You can upload pictures off your hard drive. This will take a few minutes. You can also link to pictures that are already on the Internet. This is faster if you have an appropriate picture. Please confer with your lawyer about copyright issues (I think our litigation risk with this site it pretty low). To add a picture off the net, click on it with your right mouse button and select "properties" on the menu that pops up. Then copy the web address that is shown for the picture. Then past it into the URL box back on the "add picture" page.

Videos are added in a pretty similar fashion. It takes a couple minutes for a short video to load but you can work on other parts of the post while it uploads. Its really easy to post off of youtube. The video of Mike's sailboat was done that way. the following link explains more about video posting:

The interface for arranging the pictures and videos can be a bit clunky. But you essentially click and drag the box that the media is in to the place where you want it.

Post Length - Don't worry about adding every detail of the event a putting up a bunch of pictures. Just try to write a paragraph or two and add just a couple pictures. If you put up too much stuff it can make the page take a long time to load. And its better to post more small stuff than to feel like you need to spend a lot of time making a super thorough post. If people want to find out the specifics, they can ask you in the comments. Or you can break up something into multiple posts and spread it out.

For example, my first post about our trip last September was probably too long and had too many pictures for one post. It would have been better to break it up into parts.

That being said, any post is a good post. I just don't want people to feel intimidated and think they have to write something worthy of Great Book status to publish on the blog.

Labels - If you do post, please take a moment to add labels. Right above the "publish" button, there is a little script box that says "label this post." Please add key words from your post to this box. Try to include the names of the people the post involves and any big picture topics, such as camping, birthday, boat, etc. That way it will be much easier for people to find and sort old posts if we end up using the site in the long run.

Let me know if you have any questions. I hope you all have a good weekend!
-Paul

Happy Mothers' Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in the family. Jim, Sandy, Mike, Patti, Carri and Paul all got together to celebrate Patti and Sandy today. The parental units hopped a ferry over to Seattle and Carri and I picked them up on this side. We went to the Seattle Art Museum

SAM was having a special exhibit of ancient Roman art on loan from the Louvre's collection. There were a lot of marble statues. There were also mosaics, jewelry, bronze inscriptions and sculptures, and a lead sarcophagus to boot. It was a great stuff. It was also unfortunately the last weekend of the exhibit, so it gallery was packed and pretty hard to get around in. Next year I guess we should just do Mother's Day in Rome...


Afterwards we had lunch in the museum's restuarant. Highlights included establishing that our server was from Germany. Mike had vegan soup (I think he is considering switching to vegan.) Then we walked to our favortite gellato place at the Pike Place Market.

Just because we just hadn't gotten enough sugar, we stoppped at a really nice candy store at the Pike as well. Sandy was searching for a special kind of candy that Grandma Isobel had been reminscing about. We were unable to find it, so Grandma got a chocolate covered Twinkie instead as it was the closest approximation we could find to the creme filled chocolate she had described. But the rest of use got in on the action and tried some "Seafoam." It was an airy wafer Crispy wafer something or an other covered in dark chocolate. Patti used to get them with her mother when she was a girl.

We then walked along the water front so the Kitsap contingent could retunr home on the ferry. It rained a tiny bit, so we rolled the seismic dice and perambulated under the Alaska Way Viaduct.

Hopefully Patti and Sandy had a fun time on their day. Happy Mother's Day to Shannon, Katie, and Anna too!

Kazi Magazine Test Sails the Minto

Tadami, Yoichi and Yuriko came Sunday afternoon to take pictures of the Rich Passage Minto for Kazi Magazine, and to take a test sail. Here is a short clip of the Minto Sailing. - Mike

The First Post....

Hey there. This is pretty much a test post. The goal of this blog is to have a site to share some pictures, videos, and stories of what is going on in the lives of our family members. We'll see how it goes.

I'll try to post some pictures now.

Last September Carri and I went on a vacation with the Ellis Family to the east coast. We started off in Charleston Josh's 30th birthday. It was a very interesting city to visit. Lots of history. We wandered around the historic district that had many well preserved houses from the pre-Civil War era.

These are some photos from a centuries old cemetery tucked between some old buildings.

From there we all went up to Maine to Bar Harbor where we rented a house for the week. Bar Harbor is right next to Acadia National Park. We went on a very misty hike to one of the peaks called Mt. Pemetic with our friends Jay and Suzzane.

Josh and I went on a hike to Bar Island. It is a small island with a fairly high peak on it opposite the town. It is connected to the town by a bar (hence the name) that appears at low tide.

There are really nice views from the top. As you can see the weather was nice.

But if you go there you should be very careful to monitor the tide.....

I realized the bar was disappearing soon after that picture was taken. We immediately began running like crazy people being chased by bears once we realized out path back to civilization was soon to vanish. We did pause to tell two women were climbing the hill of the situation. they seemed to believe they had plenty of time. It turned out we made it just in the nick of time. We only had to wade across a quarter mile section of the half mile bar. You could watch the water line rise across the remaining bar. Soon the bar was under many feet of water. It would take about 6 hours until the water returned to a walkable level. Hopefully those ladies packed a lunch.

Micah, Beth, Carri, and I also went on a really interesting hike up Precipice Peak in Acadia. It is a hike that was definitely made in a pre-litigious day of yore. The hike wound its way up a granite cliff on catwalk paths and with ladders of iron rungs that had been set into the stone when a path wouldn't suffice.

It was a beautiful day with a great view at the top.

There was lots more that happened on the trip that was a blast. I learned how to eat lobster. We went sailing. We made pizza in a relative's backyard pizza oven. And we got a lot of time to hang out with out niece and nephew Emily and Blake, which something we don't get enough time to do with them living on an opposite coast. It was a great time.

Well, that's it for my first post. The hope is that anyone who wants to can be a contributor and add a quick story or picture to the blog whenever they can. I'll try to figure out how to allow access to other contributors. In the meantime feel free to add comments. -Paul