Kickball in the Rain

In Ken's quest to play/watch/think/dream every sport imaginable, he decided to take up kickball. Their season is ending this weekend with a day-long tournament. I'm going to watch. The only down part is it's supposed to rain this weekend. I'm bringing a pop-up shelter, my chair and a big thing of hot coffee. I will make a fort. Kinley is also going with me. I will have to pack treats for bribery purposes.

Other than that, our weekend looks pretty open. We're taking it easy tomorrow for halloween. Kickball on Saturday. Kickball end-of-season party is later that night. Sunday is open, which usually means watching football and cooking. If I have time, I'd like to clean up a garden a bit. I always wait until it's freezing cold and raining -- when I can barely move my fingers. So if I see a sunny patch sometime this weekend, I'm hoping to get outside are rip out the tomato plants and turn the compost before I hibernate for the winter.

I'm also using this opportunity to post Ken's "favorite pumpkin that (he's) ever carved". Happy halloween.

Happy 35th Ken!

Today is Ken's 35th birthday.

We are going to Marne's tonight for our dodgeball team's pumpkin carving night. It will be nice and relaxing -- perfect after a busy weekend. We threw him a surprise party on Saturday night. It took a month of planning and he had no idea. There were 40-50 people that gathered while Ken was watching a sports event downtown. When we got the call he was on his way home, everyone piled into the garage and yelled surprise when he opened the door to put his bike away.

He said he didn't have a clue. After the cheering, we turned on all the outside lighting. We had a blast. Everyone played a different role in the surprise -- some distracted him, others brought pumpkin pies, others helped set up and prep food. We had a keg, food and lots of games. One of our friends even made a spiced rum-filled pumpkin with a spigot (similar to this). She even put viking horns on it and gave it X's as eyes. It was awesome.

I prepared a sKENvenger hunt where 4 teams were randomly assigned and had to compete against each other to finish 10 sheets ranging from Ken trivia to collecting photos and videos. Photos are coming soon, but some of my favorites were:

• A video of a teammate “giving birth” and dedicating their performance to Natascha. (she gave birth to her first child earlier that day. We now have 4 videos of creative births - complete with "water breaking"... they are hilarious).
• A video of a teammate singing karaoke

☐ +30 points if it’s a solo
☐ +30 points if the teammate dedicates the song to “my lover, Ken”
☐ +30 points if the dedication is said by a man or lesbian teammate

(there is a karaoke bar around the corner from our house -- there are some very hilarious dedications and performances. Surprisingly, all 4 teams sang to Ken!)

• Of a “look how many people we can fit in here!” picture (imagine a whole team in our shower or in Ken's crotch)
  

In all, it was a great time. I still can't believe he had no idea. I'm so relieved it's over. Keeping secrets is hard! Which is why I didn't tell anyone over email (including Ken's parents) and tried to tell as few people as possible even when I saw them in person (Caroline and Rob, I was dying to tell you when you were in town).

Speaking of, happy birthday to Caroline as well! She and Ken share the same birthday today.

Dream realized, almost

One of my dreams in moving to Portland was the idea that I would be able to make beer out of the hops I grew myself. It takes hops 3 years to produce cones. I planted four varieties and 2 of the plants produced cones this year - Willamette and Cascade. I made my first beer from them last weekend -- a hoppy amber, if I got it right. Brian, I was channeling your lessons and guidance. So a dream of mine is coming true. The almost part comes in because it's only in its first stage right now. Moving it to the secondary fermenter tomorrow. But the yeast were going like mad and are still going steadily. Fingers crossed for no contamination and a tasty beer.

In Service

I moved from research to science education and have loved the change. This past summer, I had to create a lesson on Data Collection and Sampling for the middle school teachers. It was fun and went over well with the teachers. About a month ago, I learned that one of the teachers liked it enough to do it with her kids this year! I was very honored. 150 students all did my very first lesson.

And apparently, it went over so well with her kids -- even her special ed kids and ones that can be a little harder to reach -- that she proposed it as a session for Portland Public Schools (PPS) Inservice Day -- a professional development day where teachers learn new tools, lessons, etc. to take back to their classrooms. Well, PPS said yes and the inservice day featuring my lesson is this friday morning! From what I've heard, any middle school science teacher in PPS can attend. I don't think the showing will be very big, but I am very excited and honored. I've been working on crisping up the lesson, honing the objectives and making the product as polished as I can get it. (hence being off the blog for a while).

Keep your fingers crossed for me on Friday morning. And in case you're curious, the lesson is all about how many samples are needed to feel confident in saying there is a difference (or not) between two groups. Students are each given a bag containing pieces of paper from either the left or right side (these are "blood tests" -- green is good, red is bad). They have to pull samples with their partner until they're sure their bags are the same or different. How many licks would it take you?

New York Visitors

We had an awesome time with Rob and Caroline, who visited us two weeks ago. Ken knows Rob from school in New York and they spent a long weekend with us. We got to hang out, tour around Portland, go wine tasting and head out to the coast for some R&R.

Kinley waiting to see who may be coming to visit. This is a very typical picture. Dave and Kristen's wedding RSVP is in the mail slot.


On Friday, Ken took them on the tram. Here's the view from the top of the tram.


Rob inside the tram.



We ate sushi on Friday night. On Saturday, we drove 30 minutes to Oregon wine country. It was a beautiful day. All of the grapes are just about to be harvested.


Kinley waited for us to finish wine tasting in the car. His head was out the whole time... even though there was a giant, delicious sandwich right next to his head. He never touched it. I was impressed.


Ken and I outside one of the wineries. Caroline called Ken an "urban sherpa".


Rob and Caroline outside one of the wineries


We arrived at the coast just as the sun was setting. Caroline had never seen the Pacific before.


Rob looking out.


Me eating wild blackberries that I picked while watching the sun set.


Fog rolling in.



The next morning, Caroline and I decided to go clamming. Here is Caroline putting on her rubber thigh high boots.


Here we are just about to go out. Caroline and I went out in the rain while the boys (Kinley included) lounged around.


Me clamming in the mud.



We caught 8 clams and called it quits. We went to eat cheese and ice cream at the Tillamoook factory instead. Then we came back to Portland for their red eye flight back to NY. In all, we had a great time and it was so fun seeing them!