 Album | Slideshow Charlotte Turns Three |  Album | Slideshow Thanksgiving at Tricia and Frank's |  Album | Slideshow November/December Photos |
Not chronologically first in this series of photos, but most important in terms of milestones: Charlotte turned 3 on November 27th. That happened to be Thanksgiving. We had a small celebration in the morning with cupcakes and presents before driving to Tricia and Frank's house for Thanksgiving dinner. The thing Charlotte wanted most of all (she told us several times a day for a month) was a baby doll with eyes that opened and closed and a crib and a high chair for it. Oh, and a Belle dress (Belle is the "princess" in the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast). She got both and was very pleased. Until February 2nd we have a 3-year-old and a 4-year-old.
Charlotte is gaining a lot of motor and verbal skills lately. She expresses more and more complex thoughts all the time. And she mimics her big sister in terms of climbing, although Audrey has always been at the far end of the fearlessness scale. Charlotte has a more normal respect for potential consequences of gravity.
My parents spent Thanksgiving at their winter home in California this year, but us three kids gathered at Tricia and Frank's house in Puyallup for the traditional feast. Tricia always prepares a wonderful meal. Frank followed a recent family tradition and baked oysters with the "holy trinity": butter, garlic and parsley. Frank and Carol enjoy them the most but I usually eat a few. After dinner we celebrated Charlotte's birthday a little more with special mini-pumpkin pies just for the girls.
A different weekend made another trip to the Museum of Flight. It is a fantastic place to visit on a wet or cold day because it has lots of room to run around inside and plenty to see and explore. The girls love the kids area. They also enjoy going on the real airplanes, now reached via a new bridge. They have a Concorde and the old 707 version of Air Force One that you can tour. Very cool.
Britt and Ken joined us for a weekend walk down to Alki Beach. It was a chilly day, but we had a pleasant walk and even played on the beach for little while. Then we all went to have hot chocolate and treats at the Alki Bakery. The hike back up the hill to our house was leisurely and Audrey and Ian had a great time together. It was a very enjoyable morning.
Lately when I get the camera out Audrey has been asking to take some pictures. She does a very good job of holding onto the camera carefully and she even frames the photos pretty well. We might get them a kids digital camera for Christmas. I'm sure they'd have a blast with it.
This morning we awoke to a couple of inches of snow on the ground. It was apparently close to freezing when it fell, because the roads and sidewalks are covered with ice. Fortunately it has warmed just enough to loosen the ice so I was able to chip and shovel it off of our walks, but we aren't attempting to drive anywhere today. Nor is anyone else, the normally moderately busy street in front of our house is very quiet. The girls have been out to play a couple of times but they get cold quickly. It's not warming up enough to completely thaw the roads, so we'll see how it works out getting to work tomorrow. I definitely won't be riding my bike.
Merck has a use-it-or-lose it vacation policy; there is no carryover from one year to the next. That means the place gets pretty deserted in the second half of December. In my case, I have enough vacation left that my last day of work will be this Tuesday the 17th. 19 days off will be very nice.
The break from work will be especially nice since I also have a break from school. I took two courses Fall semester (Machine Learning/Data Mining; and Biomedical Databases). Fortunately the database course covered a lot of material I already knew, making the homework easier than usual. I have three courses left to complete my Masters degree. I'll take two courses Spring semester and the final course in Summer semester. I should complete my degree in August. That will have been a little more than two years altogether. I'm looking forward to being done and having my time back for all the projects on my list.
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