turkey lurkey doo and turkey lurkey dap...

In addition to a statue of its late town dog, La Conner also has its own flock of turkeys. I'm pretty sure they own the place. Some days I see them in front of our house. Sometimes they're strutting in a neighbor's front yard. The first week we were here I saw them at the baseball field. And then behind the grocery store. And then at the post office.

And then one day I saw them, shockingly, take flight! Having grown up solely appreciating the turkey as the iconic American Thanksgiving bird, I wasn't aware they could rise beyond the top of a dinner table, much less reach such a height without spending 4-5 hours roasting in an oven. I was therefore quite shocked when I suddenly found myself watching a live one rumble off for a nearby pine branch with all the stealth of a coal train. Having seen them fly I'm still not sure I believe it actually happened or could ever happen again. They're just not aerodynamic beings.

Anyway, our local birds have no regard for traffic, property lines or tourists. Today they were in front of our office, apparently doing some shopping on their lunch hour and displaying their distaste for parking regulations.

Off to more shopping. Notice the additional fowl finishing their leisurely stroll across the street.

I've always wanted to come back to earth as a dog, but maybe I've been wrong...these guys seem to have life dialed.

ahem...

There are 11 days left in the poll and we seem to have magically acquired 5 more Moms! Clearly some of you didn't notice the disclaimer on the "have a baby already" option. Or maybe our grandchild hungry Moms are trying to swing the vote. Or maybe they're recruiting people. "Hey, my daughter has this poll on her blog...I've got twenty dollars if you've got a computer with internet access..."

I wouldn't put it past them.

small town magic

From 1972 to 1982 a mutt named "Dirty Biter" freely roamed the streets of La Conner. He wasn't aggressive to humans, apparently his name came from his poor canine hygiene and the fact that he boasted a severe under bite. The people here loved him so much that they immortalized him in statue form and named a little park for him after he died. Here's his story as told in plain terms on the plaque next to his statue. I want to find the person who wrote this and give them a hug.


So, someone in town- no one is sure who- made their "hero" a righteous doggy sweater a few weeks ago. It just appeared on him one day. Sky blue and a perfect fit, the sweater was actually knitted directly on to his little bronze body and was newsworthy enough to take the main headline in the La Conner weekly newspaper. Yeah, its a pretty sleepy town. I'll tell you about the Police Blotters in the newspaper some other time, they're very amusing.

Anyway, after a couple weeks Dirty Biter's new sweater disappeared, leaving him alone against the elements. But the magic sweater knitter wasn't deterred, and a replacement sweater recently showed up, this one complete with some extra flair and a tag that says: "Do not remove, I'm cold". But we still don't know who knitted it.

So, here he is, Dirty Biter. With Maya, of course.

DB's sweater from the back. Notice tag and flair.

I love this town.

Valentine's day is awesome!

I might be the first guy to write that. Ever. I like it because we use this holiday as an excuse to ski together...as if we need one.

We've been pretty bad about updating the blog lately, but that's going to change right now. The only newsworthy item from the past week is that I am now gainfully employed...well, employed anyway. While continuing my search for a "real" job, I'll be slinging baked goods and making cappuccinos at the local bakery. Nikki is psyched about discounts on fresh baked bread.

In order to balance the increased starch consumption we need to ski. A lot. So that's what we did for V-day this weekend. We headed up to Mt. Baker on Saturday, skied, slept in the car and then skied again today. Being married to a girl who could give a crap about Valentine's day is awesome!!

Hiking up on Saturday morning.

Sean and Maya scoping lines.

Nikki with Maya urging her on. To all our skiing friends, this is President's Day weekend, days since the last storm and a 10 min hike from the resort. Come visit soon!

This is Nikki's attempt at a timed photo of our romantic sleeping arrangements. She didn't make it back in time. If you look closely, you can see my eyes are open. Why I'm lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, I don't know. Maybe I'm contemplating what my first coffee order will be on Monday. I look dead.

Maya doesn't seem to mind sleeping in the car. It was 17 degrees, hence the blanket.

DAY 2: Sunshine!

Nikki and Maya and Mt. Baker in the background. Nikki heard Baker is as "big" as Mt. Fuji. Can anyone verify? (MissyBigWheel we're talking to you)

Baker is not as big as my head. This was supposed to be a photo of me and Nikki and Mt Baker, but my melon blocked ALL of Mt Baker.


Thanks to my wife for a great weekend. And thanks to all of you who voted on the Dog Poll so far. Apparently we have more than two Moms out there rooting for babies over dogs.

Exciting New Poll!!

Now, we need to run this by our landlord- who could very well and understandably put the kabash on the whole idea- and it takes awhile for these puppy things to happen anyway, but in the meantime we thought we'd ask you all your sage advice so that we can promptly disregard it and do what we want.

Just kidding, really, we'll pay attention to the results. Promise. So vote!

Anyway, 4 days have passed since I've even thought about climbing into a car.

Sean is still house-husbanding it up.

I just found out I'm in a three-way tie for first place in my good friend's "Guess What Foods I'm Allergic To" contest.

I'm not sure why I share these facts, but I do.

We're going to Mt. Baker tomorrow for some fresh snow and the legendary Mt. Baker Banked Slalom snowboard competition, often considered the soul of snowboarding. This just means we'll ski/ride a lot, watch people who are younger and better than us, and have an above average excuse to drink some beer. And some good pictures to share afterward.

roxette had it right

So, you know how sometimes you get a gut feeling about something but then you let your brain override it? I wish I could knock it off. Gut says "clearly you should not do X, clearly you should really do Y," but Brain kicks in with its sales pitch: "...but I think X will be fine, just do X, if you do X I'll throw in free service and carwashes for life!". You listen to Brain even though something is warning you off, even though you know Y is better, and Gut just shakes its head in disbelief. It's like there's a huge WRONG WAY sign in front of you but you ignore it and just keep plugging along.
At some point you realize that you should have just listened to your gut in the first place! Man! Why do we do that? What is so compelling about Brain-speak? I have no idea, but thus was the story of our weekend. The full story isn't blog worthy- it really isn't that dramatic- but let's just say Sean and I both remembered how much smoother life runs when we give more credence to gut feelings, intuition, whatever you want to call it.

So anyway, after getting a kick in the head from our respective and collective Guts, we ended up at Steven's Pass and got our first taste of the awesome Cascades.

Maya skiing with her Dog Dad
Cool mountains
Psyched to explore more...

Next weekend we'll do what feels right from the start and have more to share. Hopefully. Darn Brain.