Nov 22-28 (Happy Thanksgiving)

Happy Thanksgiving!  We started out Thanksgiving week with the arrival of Gimpa Luoma.  We were all happy to see him.  Cadel and Senja wasted no time putting Gimpa right to work (or, maybe it was Stacey that put him right to work!). 

Senja's first snow on Monday, November 22.

Cadel by the Willamette River, showing Gimpa the sights of downtown Portland. 

Senja oversees the Wednesday night making of the stuffing.  (Turns out, we made plenty!)

Family photo on Thanksgiving.  Our plans to head up to Aunt Carol and Uncle Nelk's for Thanksgiving were foiled by a snow/ice storm (so much for the rainy Pacific NW!).  We made the most of our change of plans.  Stacey and Justin started off the day running in the local Turkey Trot while Gimpa, Senja, and Cadel cheered us on.  The finish line was in the Zoo, so we spent a few hours visiting the animals.  Cadel was in gales of laughter watching the Saki monkeys jump from branch to branch and the Gibbons monkeys swing from the branches.  We were also impressed with the baby elephant playing ice hockey with a chunk of ice on a frozen patch of water in his area.  We returned home and had a full Thanksgiving dinner.

 Lighting of the Tree in downtown Portland on Friday night.

Nov 15-21 (Senja 3 mo)

Senja celebrated her 3 month birthday on November 15th with lots of smiles.

 And on the 16th she rested.

 Cadel learned how to make bread this week (thanks to Auntie Sarah for the recipe -- Cadel and Andreas are going to have to have a baking contest at Christmas time).  Senja looks on suspiciously.

 Cadel lines up against Portland's finest youngsters in his first cyclocross race.  He got the full experience complete with mud, rainy weather, and chest-high barriers.

 

 Well, we seem not to be any better at this parenting thing the second time around.  Justin keeps Senja at a distance carrying her upstairs for a much needed diaper change.

Nov 7-13 (Senja 12 wks)

Senja celebrated her 12 week birthday with her first view of the ocean and then later in the week she got to meet her Auntie Kerry!

We took our first family trip since her birth to the Oregon coast.  We "enjoyed" a hike in the rain on Saturday and then a beautiful walk on Cannon Beach on Sunday.  Senja was fine, our biggest challenge of the trip was our 2 year old monkey who figured out how to climb out of the pack-and-play making bedtime in a hotel room rather difficult!

 

We had a fantastic visit from Auntie Kerry.  Quite a change of roles, to have Stacey with kids and Kerry being the full-time Aunt without her own kids!

Cadel shows Auntie Kerry the sights of downtown Portland, complete with a good Pacific NW drizzly day.

 

Ryan and Alishia visited for a west coast reunion of Topper cousins.

Oct 31-Nov 6 (Senja 11 wks)

Senja spent the week working on sitting.  She's getting close, but not quite there yet...

In other news, negotiations didn't go the way we wanted on the house, so we are not home owners yet.  Disappointing, but there are lots of houses our there, so we'll keep looking.