tancriibe christmas adventure part 2

after 5 days with my family, we flew to seattle to spend some time with Lindsey's family. we went to Laura and Joe's to have a slumber party with all the Riibe siblings. those kids stayed up until 4am. i wonder what they were doing?





the next day we had christmas eve eve eve dinner at Laura and Joe's along with the DVD gift exchange.



christmas eve at Joan's was a real christmas story. we went to Tai Ho for dinner and even had a christmas duck. no head chopping or christmas carols, sadly.




we also ate lots of good food, drank lots of good coffee, watched a little arrested development, and took lots of pictures.






for even more pictures from Laura and Joe's, click here
for even more pictures from Joan's, click here

tancriibe christmas adventure part 1

we started our christmas adventure with a trip to santa rosa to visit my family. we visited the steinhart aquarium in san francisco with Rob and the kids, where we saw lots of pretty tropical fish, some gigantic and kinda ugly fish from deep cold waters and some cute african penguins.


Mom took us up into the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas to visit grandma and grandpa Lemieux.

we shredded until our fingers bled (well...maybe just until our hands cramped) on guitar hero 2. i am so getting it for my birthday.

we also ate lots of good food, played some games, crafted some felt animals, watched Planet Earth on my dad's new HD plasma tv, and laughed a lot.



more pictures

once in a lifetime

fed no more

on November 19 of this year i officially ceased to be a park ranger (or forest ranger, as so many people mistakenly called me). in reality, i had ceased to be a park ranger many years before when i left Mineral, CA, to live in the relative metropolis of Flagstaff, AZ. it is a bitter-sweet parting for me. much of my identity has been wrapped up with the National Park Service for many years. what am i to become if i am not a park ranger? good question. some ideas for what i might wanna be when i grow up:

• librarian
• native bee taxonomist
• court reporter
• professional dog walker
• information technology professional
• union researcher
• web developer
  
• computer support geek

i still haven't quite figured it out, but in the meantime I have a few projects to keep me busy. i am working on a National Park Service project as a contract programmer developing a computer application designed to be a decision support tool for park managers. Leslie (one of Lindsey's sisters) and I are collaborating on a project to completely overhaul the website of lesbian artist Loraine Inzalaco; Leslie is handling the site design and i am working on the nuts and bolts programming. i also have a small group of clients in Tucson for whom i provide computer and website support. I am considering expanding this into a real business. Check out my fledgling website, if you like: Sparky's Computer Support. The website is more of a place holder than anything and I am still looking for a better name, but you get the gist of it.

psycho kitten

a feisty kitten joined our household in October. lindsey swore that she just wanted to foster a kitten. this changed when she first met the kitten, who left her alley behind Santa Theresa Tile Works to come live with us. sooner than the time it took for Magritte to find a safe hiding spot under the couch, we had adopted her. she has since come out from under the couch and enjoys attacking anything that moves, biting toes, snacking and napping.

update

we did make it back to Tucson, even though it seemed from my blog as though we vanished into the Badlands on our way back from Vermont. the end of the summer and the fall was a bit of a rough section and this blog needed some quiet time.

quiet time is over, now, and i am ready to update the world (or at least the 3 people who read my blog).

some sad news to start off with, unfortunately. Lindsey's dad passed on in Ocotober after a long fight with cancer. it has been, and still is, a sad time for Lindsey and her family. my condolences go out to his family and friends. Rest in peace, Larry.