my (un)glamorous life

Someday I will figure out a coherent to tell all my people about what I do for work, in a way that doesn't make everyone's eyes glaze over.

For now, a photo essay.

Me, in front of the Montana State Capitol in Helena. I was there last week working with the Montana State Department of Public Health and Human Services....

...with Kirsten. We are working on a project to help update the state's Immunization Registry System. Kirsten is my good friend from graduate school who I am lucky to work with now at Public Knowledge.

We visited immunization clinics in Helena, Great Falls and Bozeman. We used a lot of purell. There were 2 feet of snow in Kirsten's front yard in Bozeman. I flew there and back in a tiny prop plane. The day I left was lovely - clear and bright. The pilot said we had a view for 300 miles. We flew over the Bridger Mountains toward Seattle.

Next stop, Salem, Oregon!

growing boys

I took the boys to see Dr. Marks for their well-child checks last week. I'm not sure it was the smartest move to take two healthy children to a pediatrician's office during swine flu season. But I think Liam has already had it, and we're all feeling pretty healthy. (So far, no symptoms...)

Anyway, they're growing boys! Milo weighs 99 pounds and stands 4 feet 7 inches - to Liam's 76 pounds and 4 feet 5.5 inches. Liam doesn't seem to mind that his little brother is bigger - his response is, yeah, well, I'm smarter. (Hmmm...) Dr. Marks gave Liam a hard time for his picky eating habits, but pronounced both boys healthy, smart and well-adjusted.

We didn't get a flu shot or the H1N1 vaccine. Stay tuned for more on this topic in a later post.

Afterwards we went to Michael Jackson's This Is It movie. The boys were riveted, and I was nostalgic.

family dinner

When I was at U of O I lived in a giant old house with three other girls. We spent a lot of weekends cooking huge messy meals and feeding an assortment of boyfriends (including Joel) and other hangers-on. I lived with (the other) Melissa, who was the mastermind behind these dinners. When she comes to town now, we re-live the old days drinking copious amounts of wine while putting together a late-night meal.

Last night we made green chili corn chowder. (OK, I'll honest, my major contribution to the meal was in the area of wine drinking.) It was a much needed comfort meal for all of us: I was gearing up for a long business trip to MT this week, Rohanna was exhausted from a long weekend getting our littlest sister off to Australia, Jess starts chemo this morning, and Melis is heading north to deal with some family drama. The soup, and everything that went into making it together, was therapeutic for us all.
The little girls (Lucy and Lulu) helped by being extremely cute.

st. paul

This was not how Lucy traveled. This sweet moment constituted a total of 30 minutes of our 3.5 hour flight from Seattle to St. Paul last week.

This was actually how Lucy traveled: constant motion.

But the flight was worth it, because we had a wonderful time visiting family in St. Paul. I go to St. Paul every November for Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation board meetings. This year Joel decided to take off work and accompany me. I didn't want to leave Lucy for three days, and he wanted to see everyone.

We stayed with our "cousins" Trey and Megan. Trey and Joel grew up going to family reunions together, and now their kids will do the same. Teddy is 4 and Taylor is only three months older than the goose.

I say "cousins" because this family is so large now that beyond first cousins, no one really knows how they're actually related anymore. We're all cousins of some kind. We think Lucy and Taylor might be something like seventh cousins four times removed.

Trey and Megan are fabulous hosts and we had a wonderful time. Except for the flight home.

halloween

I did a great job this year NOT making halloween costumes. I feel mama-guilt every time this happens, but let's be honest, I needed to sleep this month and that would have been the sacrifice. Liam put together his own costume, a zombie clown, with Nathan's help on the scary clown face (later we borrowed a rainbow wig but never got a picture). Milo picked out an obscure outfit from the costume store. It was called "slayer," but I swear it didn't even come with any weapons. Later I googled it, and to my horror discovered that the costume was some character from the incredibly violent video game World of Warcraft! I may be the worst mother of all time. But he loved it.

Lucy Lu was a cowgirl fairy. Rohanna had made her this dress-up skirt and tiny wings for her birthday last summer. We threw on some pink cowgirl boots and voila! Cowgirl fairy.
We trick or treated in the rain, during the UO v. USC game, so porch lights were scarce this year. Afterward a crowd of boys sorted candy and watched a movie downstairs, while a good many of our friends ate chili and drank wine in our livingroom.

On Sunday the boys woke up with sugar hangovers and decided to trade in their massive candy collection for a couple of games for the Wii. We've done the "switch witch" thing before (this witch takes candy and leaves gifts in it's place), but the kids are getting a little too savvy for such subterfuge. So we decided to be above board this year and lay it all out on the table. Joel said: We don't really think it's a healthy choice for you guys to eat all of this candy. What's it worth to you? Apparently it's worth a couple of games and the time on a Sunday afternoon to play them. Done, and done.