Christmas 2009

So glad we could spend the holidays together. And thanks for indulging my busy camera shutter.

love,

Dad

http://picasaweb.google.com/kshuff2/Xmas09Show?authkey=Gv1sRgCMTll4yZrJSM7AE&feat=directlink

videos

This starts with some new videos since we got home. I have some Christmas/petting zoo videos, too, but they're all pretty odd. I'll put up a few of them, though...Sorry nothing's edited down, that's just not on my to-do list for this year! :-)

Here's Evangeline helping us shovel snow the day after Christmas; the focus isn't great as I think the snow was confusing it:



This next one is Evangeline eating "grown-up" yogurt because it was just about the only thing we had in the house:


Christmas videos:

Molly running around saying Whoa. A classic!


Molly with her duplos:


Evangeline very slowly opening a gift:


Ian with Evangeline and Molly:


Walking around the petting zoo:



Petting zoo goats:

New pics and a video

New pics from around home and visiting Grandpa and Grandma Wood over Thanksgiving. Evangeline loves furniture!

early winter 2009

The video is Evangeline doing some car work (including lifting the car, who knows why) and practicing her marching skills.

Put our pics on Picassa last night. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.huff/Halloween#

Fall pictures

Here's a few fall pictures of Evangeline enjoying leaves. Usually she spends all her time outside ripping up leaves, so these pics are unique!

Road Canyon in Cedar Mesa UT

http://picasaweb.google.com/kshuff2/BlogAlbum?authkey=Gv1sRgCLSa9_re_ty6UA

William Shakespeare on wilderness:

Are not these woods

more free from peril than the envious court?

Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,

the season's difference; and the icy fang

and churlish chiding of the winter's wind,

which, when it bites and blows upon my body,

even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say

"This is no flattery, these are counsellors

that feelingly persuade me what I am."

Sweet are the uses of adversity

which like the toad, ugly and venomous,

wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

and this our life exempt from public haunt,

finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks,

sermons in stones, and good in everything.

Dad

Evangeline's new dance move

This is Evangeline's new (only) dance move, which we optimistically call the shimmy but which really looks like she's trying to shrug out of her skin. We put on the Flight of the Conchords DVD, and she was dancing to the loading screen... BTW, we highly recommend Flight of the Conchords for those in the family who might be interested in guitar playing/indie music (hint, hint). Very fun!

Wicked sweet clothes!

Got a chance to get out and see Wicked at the Paramount with Liz the other night. It was a good show (songs were ok, sets were fantastic) but it was mainly just really nice to get out for a night on the town with friends. Aside from that we've been pretty busy car shopping. Man that is such a stressful project, I hate the whole "try to guess the real price of the car" thing. Luckily our indecision makes us good buyers since we've avoided a few bad fits so far. Seems like we are feeling pretty settled on a high-milage Subaru wagon or Honda CR-V. Those are both pretty popular though, so we might have to wait for the right fit to come along.


In other news Liz made some really fun little onsies and burp clothes for a four person baby shower that she just went to (lots of babies at Mars Hill)

And in other news, it's finally cold enough for cute clothes from Great-Grandma!

Some videos and wedding pics

Hey all. Currently out sick on the couch so I figured that I would throw up (heh) some new pics and videos. Lots of the pics were from Lindsay's wedding. With so many friends with nice camera we got some really fun pics.

Rolling in the kitchen

Kinda long video that shows one of Molly's favorite hobbies right now. She wants to do this for literally hours on end.

Start of Fall

corrected China link

http://picasaweb.google.com/kshuff2/ChinaSep09Jpegs#

China September 2009

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_CjLcd2bXhzg/Srq9kuKvZCE/AAAAAAAAAYA/jBLS0Q820nM/s144-

Evangeline's first birthday

http://picasaweb.google.com/kshuff2/FirstBirthdayJpegs

Late summer fun

Late summer pictures: gardening fun, dressed up for a rooftop wedding, a trip to the zoo, and a trip to the farm. August's got it all!

end of summer 2009

new videos

I have some cute photos of Evangeline, but I don't have time to put them up for another week or two. Here's a few videos to tide you over...

Here's Evangeline clearly showing she is a muggle, although she tries very hard. In fact, she tries so hard she needs a nap. Sorry it's a little long, but I thought the end was cute.




Here's Evangeline eating grilled cheese sandwich and practicing her new favorite facial expression, which I call "Little Miss Snooty Face."

Triplets

One of mom's pics from Colorado reminded me of a recent pic of myself. So I looked around a little for a similar one of Molly to see if I could get all of the blond Huffs looking kinda similar. I'm thinking that we're going to have a pretty good idea of how Molly is going to look when she gets older.

~E

Summer vacation at home

http://picasaweb.google.com/kshuff2/CommerceJul09Blogpix?feat=directlink

Hairdos and Softball

Hey all. Just a few pictures of summer fun here. Molly is really enjoying her new easel from Ikea ($15), getting fun hairdos and putting on other people's clothes. We also had some fun with the Jr. Softball World Series being hosted at the little park right behind our condo. Was fun seeing teams from the US, Europe, Latin America and Asia compete. So we dropped by with Molly to watch the finals.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.huff/SoftballAndMore

Here is Molly clapping and dancing (her only move is the bump the fists up and down move) at the world series

Colorado pix (lots of 'em)

http://picasaweb.google.com/kshuff2/ColoradoAug09Blogpix?feat=directlink

Evangeline at GenCon

A few pics from GenCon, where Evangeline got to meet all the crazies! :-)

Evangeline at GenCon

Whazzat???

At first we thought it was a hummingbird at our butterfly bush because it hovered like a hummingbird, but upon closer inspection (with the zoom lens) it looked more like a bug than a bird. Anyone know what this is?

dinner recipe, videos, pics, oh my!

Here was our dinner last night, it was yummy:

Guava-Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Cilantro-Jalapeno Salsa

pork:
1 T veg oil
1 or 2 T minced onion
1 garlic clove, minced
7 ounces guava paste, chopped (comes in rectangular packets in the Mexican aisle, could probably also sub apricot jam, etc.)
1/2 cup water
1 T soy sauce
1 T ketchup
1 t cayenne
2 3/4-pound pork tenderloins

salsa:
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
a bit of vegetable oil (to get everything wet; they called for 1/3 cup but I used a lot less)
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup minced onion
2 T chopped chives (we used because we had in the garden, but these aren't necessary at all. I mean, chives don't actually have any flavor...)
2 jalapenos, minced (all depends on hotness; I used one seeded and minced, and 1 unseeded and minced)
1 garlic clove, minced

to make pork:
Heat oil in small saucepan. Add onion and garlic and cook until soft, a few minutes. Add guava paste and water and cook, stirring, until paste has dissolved, about 5 minutes. Stir in soy sauce, ketchup, and cayenne.
Brush pork tenderloins with glaze, broil or grill until done, applying glaze as necessary. Top with remaining glaze.

to make salsa:
In a bowl, mix the cilantro, oil, vinegar, onion, chives, jalapenos, and garlic.

Slice pork. Serve with salsa. We ate with baby carrots from the garden and broccoli rabe.

A few cute videos:

This is Evangeline standing on her own. She thinks it's fun:





This is an old video (from June 2nd) but Jon and I find it really hilarious...




Lastly, Evangeline knows something good is in that Dr. Pepper can, but she doesn't really have the concept down yet...




Lastly, here are some pics, a few from July on our camera, the rest from around here...

summertime II

how about this link?

http://picasaweb.google.com/kshuff2/EastWithEvaJul09?feat=directlink

East with Eva

I used to post a link so you could go to the web album, but I don't know how to find the URL in the latest Picasa 3 I just downloaded to our home computer. So . . . here's what I know: in kshuff2's Picasa Web Albums there should be one album, and it's called East with Eva Jul 09. Sign-in is required to view it (because I told it so). If anyone knows how to link with a URL, please let me know. A few of the photos are repetitive because I am using the blog and web album to get the photos to Laura and Jon so they can choose the ones they like.

- Dad

Hot hot hot hot

Hey...no posts for a full month...that's no fun!

In case you hadn't heard we happened to set a little record here today.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/51988007.html

103 degrees in Seattle, the hottest day in this city ever recorded for any date. Also set a record for the first day to never drop below 70 degrees at any point overnight. Right now Liz and I are doing pretty much all we can just to stay alive. Lots of trips to the water, to friends with pools and to malls or other places with AC as our condo is well into the high 80s much of the day.

For pictures, I present to you our trip to Discovery Park (basically the furthest west point in Seattle proper) and our weekend trip to visit some friends in Portland. Portland was kinda fun as the day we went down they were having an historic wood boat show and water ski expo. There were lots of nice looking Cris-crafts (spelling?) so I snapped a few pics for Dad.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.huff/MoreSummer#

~E

dinner after gardening...

After a long weekend of work, we had a nice dinner that just started to incorporate some of our harvest. The fingerling potatoes (and the sweet corn, just charring a little more on the grill) were from the farmer's market. We didn't grow the burgers, or the tomatoes, grilled vidalias, or pepperoncini on top, but they were yummy! We did top them with some of our baby salad greens, and then we made tempura of the tiny new zucchini we were harvesting in order to get the plants to produce more and the zucchini blossoms. Very yummy! We've also been nibbling snap peas and we'll eat our first green beans tonight.
Very excited for tomatoes...the plants are really starting to fill up with tiny green tomatoes!

Fixed...

Just a little edit needed...

~Ian

two new albums- baby pics and garden pics

http://picasaweb.google.com/aloradanen/SummerBabyPics?feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/aloradanen/JuneGarden?feat=directlink

Just noticing how much bigger the garden is already, since these were taken a few weeks ago. Must try to get new pics before we come home... Evangeline, still about the same size!

HDR Photography

Was just talking with Dad on the phone about this. Here's the link to some info on HDR photography.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging

Duels of the Planeswalkers

Of mild interest to the board / card game geeks in the family, Wizards of the Coast just released a pretty nice looking computer version of Magic the Gathering on Xbox live.

From what I read it's not trying to be a fully featured version of Magic (I think they have a PC version for this?) as you work with just 8 premade decks which you can customize with a series of unlockable cards. But the gameplay was straight up Magic and I was actually pretty impressed with the production values when I tried the demo out. Kinda neat that they didn't just support 1:1 but also added in a co-op campaign and 4 player free-for-all play versions. Might actually pick it up myself as it's only $10.

More Molly + Baby 2

Hey all, just throwing up some new pics and videos. Although you're going to be seeing her in person soon enough. Since you'll be seeing her so soon I figured that I'd throw in a quick Molly => English translation guide.

"All Done" => Sadly this doesn't actually mean that she is done with her food. If she says this she should be asked if she is actually "all done" or if she want "mo" (more). If she says "all done" a second time then meal time is over

"mo" => More

"jus" (juice) => All different fluids. E.g. "mo jus" => More milk needed "ches" (cheese) => All different edible solids

"Bye bye" => Important to know that this not only means "bye bye, have fun" but it also means "you go bye bye and leave me alone so that I can crawl into the fireplace"

"Na na nah naaaahhh" => Means "no way jose" pretty much. For example if you are letting her push the stroller at the mall for fun, and you try to touch to stroller to keep her from steering it into a wall you might get a very offended "na na nah naaaahh" until you take your hand off and let her drive

"da" => Means "yes." Also means that my daughter is an cold war era Bond villian apparently.

"e ah e ah e ah" => "E I E I O" from Old McDonald had a farm. The only song lyrics that she knows now, although I am working on the fast bits from "It's the end of the world as we know it"

"Ahhh oohhhh" => Used for both accidental (falling down while trying to run to fast) and intentional (dumping out a box of goldfish on the floor) incidents

"puf" (ruff) => The noise a doggie makes (used to apply to all four legged creatures, but is now getting more specific

"dank" => Our other animal noise. It's a combo of "quack" and "duck" and is used for most birds

Summer Time

Beatles: Rock Band intro

So I've been geeking out on E3 the last week (Uncharted 2 whoo!!!). But the neatest thing I saw that the non-gamer could appreciate would be the intro video for The Beatles: Rock Band. Gotta figure out who did the animation for this guy, very nifty looking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xaUIYs8e0k

Evangeline goes outside...

Pictures of Evangeline in our yard, doing various baby type things like splashing in pools and, oh yeah, helping tear down trees!

trees and magic and pools, oh my....

more garden pics, a funny vid

Here's some more pics of the garden. The veggies are all planted, the side bed is mostly coming up roses, as it were (which is not literally), and we're finally done with the north side bed (see all the landscape timbers we put in!). We just need to finish mulching.
The only tree we don't have a photo of yet is the magnolia in the front.
And, a few 8-month photos of Evangeline.

http://picasaweb.google.com/aloradanen/MoreGardensNotAsManyBabies#

Here's a funny video, where Evangeline shows what she really thinks of all our friends. Oh yeah, and gets laughed at.

Hiking season is here

Hey all. Nice weather is finally arriving here in Seattle so when we are not throwing up (Liz) or working weekend hours (Ian) we're doing our best to get out and enjoy it. Note that the few nicer pics were taken with Tim's fancy pants new camera. 's lots of fun with the nice weather here but we're really looking forward to being home in about a month.

MothersDay

babies and gardens

Here's some photos and a few videos from the last monthish.

gardens, babies in gardens

Going in Reverse


The Crazy Packers Dance


Scary Giggles


Cow PJs

David's full-court press on Goliath

I've like reading Malcolm Gladwell even when he's not writing about sports, so it's a godsend when he does (same thing with Chuck Klosterman). Here's a really good article that I just read about underdogs breaking out of convention to beat more talented opponents...'s a really good read even for the non-sports fan.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

We're Back!

Hey all! Haven't been updating much as the last month has been pretty crazy for Liz and I. We had Mom visit and paint cabinets, we threw a big Easter party for my co-workers, we had an old college friend visit (Mary Ann), we got another round of sickness and we just got back from a two day visit to see Lindsay in Boise. Luckily Molly was a real sport for the 8 hour drive (one way) but we're still pretty tired. On the plus side with the long car rides I finally got to catch up on some reading (read A City of Thieves, A Mote in God's Eye and I'm almost finished with Ha'penny). Here is a dump of most of our photos from this last month.

Boise++

old videos (with sound this time) and new

Here's a few videos, some you've seen but now new-and-improved, with sound!

da da...



baby crab cakes...



catch, or, what's on your head?

7-month photos

Here are some 7-month photos of our little sitter! I'm trying to figure out how to edit videos and not lose the audio - I hadn't realized they came through with no sound! I will be repost the videos if I can get something figured out...

Spring!

Vogue!

Baby turned model...with some exercise and a quick, healthy snack of mum-mums on the way (a model's gotta look good!)

Vogue

Cattails

further evidence that I wake up far too early

Moliere

I recommend this movie. We didn't know anything about Moliere, and just rented the movie to see what 17th century France looked like, but we saw much more than that. The Moliere buff(s) among you (only you know who you are) already know that Moliere wrote comic plays that reveal our nature (but I repeat myself), and apparently this movie about his life was made in the style of his plays. Fun and profound, the movie makes me want to read one of his plays, in English translation, of course. Added bonus -- the actors' faces are so expressive that you could probably catch the movie's gist even without the English subtitles.

While the cat's away . . .

. . . the mouse built this herb bench to keep herbs out of rabbit's reach. Can rabbits jump two feet high? The bench is made of white oak which is supposed to resist rotting. It will be painted for extra protection as soon as the cat (in the hat?) gets back.

p.s. the SpongeBob SquarePants motif was entirely subliminal.

New Calvinism

Mars Hill got mentioned in Time magazine under the heading of "New Calvinism" in an article on 10 Ideas That Are Changing the World Right Now. Kinda neat to see, although for me even though I see that most of our leadership are big Calvinists it isn't really a focal point like the article would seem to see. Plenty of Armenians go to Mars Hill and feel right at home.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1884779_1884782_1884760,00.html

A quick note on the article from our pastor.

http://theresurgence.com/new_calvinism

Molly meets a goat (and other stories from the zoo)

http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.huff/ZooPics#

Here are some new pics from the zoo!

Evangeline learns about good food...

and the perils of nutritionalism!

trying to repost

We'll see if the pictures work this time. I didn't notice anything was wrong b/c blogger and picasa were still working fine on my computer. But Ian was right about the weird html tags. Try this link...

Time-telling fish

According to Dr. Suess's time-telling fish, it's quarter-to-five, but according to Laura & Jon's time-telling baby, it's about 3:20.