Baby Stacey At One Year (or thereabouts)

I'm starting to wonder where that girl's hair is.... Well, I guess it's the same place mine is headed (get it? headed?), so I suppose I shan't complain. Here are a few pics of her from early July. She's a cutie. More pics are here, here, and here.

Groenquist.com was down for a while

Today was our registration expiration date, and GoDaddy decided to "park" our domain rather than remind me that the expiration was coming. I renewed, and the site is up and working for me. You might have a small delay while the rest of the world is catching up.

I will add some links to the blog page so you can get to them more readily.

Dillon's Trip to Omaha Video

Ok, not technically related to the Groener's in the NW per se, but Dillon and family are back from the 2008 Junior Olympics in Omaha, Nebraska. He finished 13th in the event, not bad considering that makes him one of the top 20 pole vaulters in his age in the entire country.

Video Link (Warning: 11MB - hosted on elvis.groenquist.com)

Wines of the Northwest We've Enjoyed

We've been having a pretty good time with some more recent wine experiences, and I thought I would catalogue them a little better so that we kep track of the best (and worst). To the right are three wines we shared with Noelle and Steve and family when they travelled to our fair state this past week. The leftmost, "Brandborg 2004 Pinot Noir", was my favorite so far. I believe I liked the "Ayoub 2006 Pinot Noir" next, followed by the "Secret House 1999 Pinot Noir" (quite a range of vintage there). Alas, as we imbibed the grapy goodness, details began to get a little fuzzy, and since all three were Pinot's, it's now difficult to grasp the fine differences between the three. I am certain I will try all three again, but next we will be trying some Pinot Gris' we picked up.

WaCo County Fair - Monster Truck Madness

Keeping a tradition alive is something we try and take seriously in our family. There are so many "new" distractions in our lives, that we often don't take time to remind ourselves of things that are "sacred", or at least predictable, comforting, to be looked forward to. In that vein, we shamelessly plunked down our 1s and 0s to enjoy some carny carnality at the Washington County Fair.



Growing up in SoCal, we spent many a summer day at the "World's Largest County Fair". And, being from a rather agrarian locale, it was not uncommon or "zoolike" to see barn after barn of domestic livestock, crafts, and "country living" minutia. The Washington County Fair is a stipped down cross between a country fair and an organized shakedown, in that everything on display is fair-like, and priced like a movie theater soda. Ride tickets are 50 cents each, which harkens back to "the good ol' days", until one steps up to the first ride and is rudely reminded it's a down economy in Aught-8.

Di cleverly decided that, in this year's rendition of the fair visit, we would be better prepared for the financial assault, but add a new twist to the mix: get tickets for the Monster Truck show. I'm already a little embarrassed to say that going to the Fair is akin to purposely subjecting oneself to a baser class of local compatriots (red necks, white trash, insert-your-favorite-stereotype), embarrassed because I look down upon my fellow fair-attending minions while still thoroughly enjoying a Polish dog (while costing more than my last car payment, was heavenly), monster trucks, and, well, going to the fair. I'm an agrarian red neck at heart, I suppose, though I don't often remind myself of my roots.

The boys thoroughly enjoyed the rides, simple and expensive though the parents knew them to be. We arrived well after lunch time, and saved dinner costs by packing in sandwiches, Doritos, and juice boxes. Instead, we shovelled our money into the show tickets, blew out our eardrums on decibel levels that would make an airport runway sound like the library in a monestary with a vow of silence, and marvelled in another year's duty to tradition squared away.

Bike Rodeo With the Boys

Well, I figured it was just karma that the boys would take to bikes so avidly as long as Daddy wasn't involved. As it was, I did make it to the tail end of the rodeo, but to be sure that I have been an overbearing twit, I made sure not to be there at the beginning. From the looks on their faces, they had a great time. Ethan even designed himself a little impromptu course out of chalk lines in the street at our house and "raced" his friend Matthew. All in all, it was a good day for the bike nut in me.

Backyard Project Continues Apace

In case you were wondering, the backyard project is still a going concern. We have been working out the details for almost a year now, and to be really picky, we've been toying with this since we moved back in '06. Now, we see some of the fruits of our labor (and hard earned cinquecentos) springing to life. See many more pics here, here, and here.



So far, we've saved a pun-tacular truck-load of those little coin thingys by taking shameless advantage of Katie and Andy's vehicular hospitality. We'd have spent several hundreds on truck rentals alone at this point, so we are molto grato to the new Hillsboro threesome (sorry, Nerv, forgot you).

We've moved about 15 tons of rock, gravel, and sand, and we're barely getting started so far. That's besides the 18 full truck loads of sod, fill dirt, and yard debris that we have hauled away.

The early year's extra rain delayed our start on this project; I started stripping sod in February by hand only to have the 20x10-foot patch practically regrow itself before we could strip any sod again in June. July hit us like a brick oven, and we're now working under wilting heat (for us poor "forgotten-our-heat-derived-SoCal-roots" who enjoy the cooler temps of the NW now).

We're nearly done with the raised patio with the pergola, and then work will begin excavating for the pond and waterfall area. I expect that to be another 20-40 truck beds worth of dirt. No shortage of exercise this year...

Lincoln Penny Portrait Project

I've been working on a portrait with the boys for some time now, and although it started out fairly well, things have slowed a bit as we shifted focus to the backyard project.

Here we see nice pretty rows of 51 pennies across going in. As successive rows went in, some pennies, with microscopic differences in diameter adding up, the rows have progressively gotten out of true. It's a fine adjustment to correct the problem, so this has slowed my progess quite a bit.

Oh, and the fact that I have exhausted my supply of older pennies for the dark patina needed for the facial features.