Tag Archives: beach

Zoe Running on the Beach

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Zoe was a little young for the beach last year, but we’ve managed to take her a few times this year, and she’s always very excited. She loves playing in the sand and even (with a bit of coaxing) splashing in the creek — though she refuses to touch the actual ocean, and when it gets too windy she wants us to hold her the whole time.

After one trip to the beach, I knew it had made a big impression when she started telling me one night about her plans: “I go to the beach! I play in the sand! I put my feet in the ocean! I splash Mama!” (this last was accompanied by uproarious laughter.)

This video is of Zoe running back to where Annie’s lying in the sand after I tried to get her to walk into the ocean. You can tell she’s having a great time because she’s so excited that every few feet, she runs back and forth and flops into the sand.

Fourth of July at the Beach

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Zoe's Fourth of July Outfit

For the fourth of July, we got Zoe dressed in her adorable little patriotic outfit and headed to the family cabin at the beach. Every year, people get their fireworks and set the off on the beach, and if you take a lawn chair down, you get a pretty good display. From the beach by our cabin, we can see the “big” fireworks display from Rockaway and have a good view quite a ways up and down the beach to dozens of other families setting off their fireworks.

Zoe Watching Fireworks with Poppa

It was Zoe’s first time watching fireworks, and because it was so late, we were a little worried that it would freak her out. A couple hours after she went to bed, I put her in the front-pack and we all walked down to the beach. She woke up as we walked, and when we got our chairs set up, I undid the pack so I could turn her around to sit in my lap and watch. I expected that she would either get scared, or she would get excited and want to get down and play in the sand. Instead, she was just interested enough to stay awake and watch, but tired enough that she never really moved, just pointed every now and then and said “pretty.”

Fireworks!

We also got to try out the fireworks setting on our new camera, which works suprisingly well considering that we were hand-holding it instead of using a tripod.

Stephanie's Visit

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well, stephanie’s gone home… we’re both pretty sad about that. i miss her more than i’d thought possible, but we’ve decided it’s a good thing it’s so hard for us to be far away from one another, because it’s a constant reminder of what a good thing we have going.

we did have a great time, though.. on wednesday, stephanie finally got the lobster dinner she won in a bet nearly 9 months ago, and while we were eating my car got broken into and my new stereo stolen.

on thursday, we went to the coast and my puppy dog pi nearly caught a bird! she was darting along the edge of the ocean, chasing a seagull that was floating in about a foot of water, as the four of us walked along. all of a sudden, she ran out into the water and pounced on the bird! much flapping of wings and splashing occurred, and the bird got away.. but i was so proud of my puppy dog :~) she’s growing up!

on friday we spent most of the day with family, although we had a surreal experience on larch mountain (which i will let stephanie talk about … )…

on saturday, stephanie got to enjoy the best meal experience ever for the very first time – dim sum! it’s chinese breakfast/lunch, mostly meat and vegetable fillings inside little pastries, but the treat is how it’s served to you. when you sit down at the table, you’re given tea and plates but nothing else. suddenly, as if by magic, food is brought to you on little carts! all of the carts are piled high with tiny serving trays of food, and you point to the items you want. so the novice ends up with about 10 items off the first cart, and misses out on all the best stuff (breaded lobster, shrimp toast, bbq pork buns, and of course, the coconut jello for dessert)..

saturday night we toured my childhood home… and sunday she left.

and then the sadness commenced.

The First Rain

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It’s raining outside. I love rain. But more importantly, I love the first rain after summer. There’s just something great about getting sick of the heat, and then opening your window and listening to the sound of the rain.

I’ve been feeling the itch lately. About once a year or so, I get an urge to redesign all my websites. If I’m really lucky, I end up getting a burst of inspiration at the same time, and I can produce some excellent new designs. At the moment, I’ve got a new idea for my homepage and portfolio, as well as some new skins for all the KillingMachines sites.

Annie’s sick right now. She came down with some sort of nasty cold, and is home sick for the second day in a row. She does sound much better today than she did yesterday, so hopefully, she’ll feel better tomorrow, when we’ve got a day trip to the beach planned with Steve and Stephanie.

Now, that’s truly a Pacific Northwest experience: It’s pouring down rain, so we’re going to go to the beach, where it’s also pouring down rain! People in Portland learn how to have fun in the rain, because if you wait for the rain to clear up, you’ll be waiting a long time.

My friend Daniel Achterman once described the difference between Oregon beaches and California beaches to me. He said that on a California beach, you put on your swim trunks, wade in the ocean, and play frisbee. On an Oregon beach, you put on a windbreaker, go for a walk, and poke things with sticks.

The Day I Took My Gang To The Beach

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Some of you know that Steve and I have plans to get a digital movie camera and start producing no-budget short films which we will release on the internet. The idea is to capitalize on our short attention span. Now for your viewing pleasure I present my latest concept.

The Day I Took My Gang To The Beach

As we were leaving the beach, we saw a group of guys walking in. Now, I don’t know that they were thugs, but they were dressed the part, and it made me laugh to picture a bunch of hard-ass gangstas relaxing at the beach. So my film will be about a gang, who head to the beach after some successful gang-related activities. They should all walk onto this nice, sunny family beach and mill around for a few minutes, making comments to each other like “This is a nice beach, yo.” Perhaps some of them will take off their shoes and roll up their baggy pants to the knees and wade into the surf, where they stand around in ankle-deep water, trying to look hard. I think it would be a little too much to have them playing frisbee, though.