We are going on sabbatical

In a few days, we will leave the country for a year.  We will be in Europe (based in Madrid) from August through December, then in South America (based in Buenos Aires) from January through July.

Mike is on sabbatical (he gets a year off every 7 years without losing his job).  He will work at IMDEA Software in Madrid, then at the University of Buenos Aires.  Cat will quit her current job, though Literacy Source hopes she will re-join them when she returns to Seattle.  While in Madrid, she may also do some work at IMDEA, and she is confident about finding work in Buenos Aires.

Maeve and Silas are registered in the Fernández Moratín public school in Madrid.  The school instruction is in Spanish, which is what we wanted since our whole family speaks Spanish.  We are looking for an apartment that is near the school and has enough space for visitors to stay with us.

We haven't yet figured out our school and housing situation in Buenos Aires.

We have rented out our house for the year.  It has been a good opportunity to get rid of a lot of things we don't really need, and we will be packing quite lightly for our year abroad (one checked bag for the family).

It will be quite an adventure — and this blog may become more exciting as a result.

MacGyvering open a locked bathroom door

On Friday night, my son locked the upstairs bathroom door with the whole family (including him) on the wrong side of it.

No problem, I thought:  this happens sometimes with the ground floor bathroom, and I just poke a screwdriver or Allen wrench into the small hole on the faceplate to release the lock.  But, there was a problem:  when I did so with the upstairs bathroom, the Allen wrench met no resistance, just empty air.

I disassembled the main-floor bathroom lock and determined that there are two ways to reassemble the two halves of the lock.  The intended orientation permits the door to be unlocked from the outside, because the hole in the outside faceplate aligns with the lock release mechanism.  If you rotate the outside half of the lock upside-down before screwing the two halves together, then there are baffles that prevent access to the lock mechanism.  I took off the outside knob and faceplate of the upstairs lock, and I could see the ends of the screws:  the lock had been assembled with the screw heads on the inside, so I couldn't disassemble the lock.

The door opens in, so I couldn't just remove the hinges.

A molding and a firm door fit prevented using a credit card, or even a more flexible card, to card open the door.

I could not pick the lock, because there is no keyhole.

Eventually, I did what MacGyver would have done: I opened the door with a piece of paper, dental floss, and an extension cord.  I tied the floss to the paper, slipped the paper over the top of the door, and lowered it to the bottom of the door where a half-inch gap let me retrieve the paper.  Now, the floss was running from the top of the door to the bottom, on the inside, while I controlled the ends from the outside.  I untied the floss from the paper and tied it to the middle of the extension cord.  I fed the extension cord under the door, making a loop on the inside of the bathroom (with the floss tied to the middle of that loop).  Then I yanked up on the floss, which looped the extension cord over the handle.  By pulling on the cord, I could turn the handle, which unlocked the door.

As soon as the door was open, I disassembled and reassembled the lock so that next time I can easily unlock it from the outside with a screwdriver or Allen wrench.

(A tip of the hat to hakzorz at Instructables for the idea.)

Spring hiking

One weekend in April, the kids and I took advantage of good weather and went hiking both days.

On Saturday we climbed Mt. Si -- an impressive feat for a 4-year-old at 8 miles long and 3150 feet of elevation gain.  At the top, clouds rolled across the ridgeline, but we got a peek through them:

On Sunday we climbed Rattlesnake ledge, an easy and rewarding hike (4 miles, 1150 feet of gain) that we do one or two times a season.  Here are the kids still full of energy at the top:

Silas's 5th birthday party in Meridian Park

Silas's 5th Birthday party in Meridian Park

6/15/2014

Mike and Granddad Paul enjoyed the swings.

Silas had a dinosaur cake.  A T-Rex was chasing a stegosaurus that was calmly eating a fern and there were lots of fern around and water underneath.

Silas an Will, his best friend from pre-school.

José Alvarez Serna in Seattle

José Alvarez Serna is a teacher from Columbia who spent a year as an intern at Maeve's school, McDonald International School.  Both the students and the teachers loved him, because it's great to have another teacher in the room to help managing 25 squirming, excited pupils.

We were even luckier.  José shared our home for three months, from December to March.  We had a wonderful time sharing our lives with him.  Here are a few of our memories.

José experienced snow for the first time, and we built a series of snowmen in our back yard, front yard, and in the park.   They started out small, but some of the later ones were taller than we are!

José celebrated Christmas with us.  There were always extra little hands to help him unwrap -- whether he needed the help or not.

José cooked traditional Columbian cuisine for us.  He even made it vegetarian.

José joined us for eagle-watching on the Skagit river.  We had the good luck to see 5, including 2 on the wing.


José returns to Columbia next month.  We will miss you!

Double rainbow

This was the view from our house on Thursday evening.

Spain: It's a whole other country out there

I was recently in Madrid for a workshop.  Here are some impressions from my trip.  The photos are of the royal palace, which I could see by crossing the street from my hotel.  Walking along its facade was all the tourism I indulged in.

There was very little grass to be found.  Even in public parks, open spaces were often level, bare dirt or sand.  In other cases they were concrete, or sometimes end-on cinderblocks (occasionally with bits of grass growing through the holes).  Wild spaces had scrubby growth in a desert-like ambiance.  Even where there were trees, there wasn't necessarily green grass.

As expected in Europe, especially in a city, I didn't see obese people as I do in the United States.

The colors of clothing were very muted:  dark colors and largely shades of black and brown.  There were no light, bright, or bold colors, though my green Gore-Tex jacket and red sweater were a notable exceptions.  On my way home, I could already see a significant difference in the Paris airport.

The people were friendly and game to talk with me.  Although my complexion didn't fool anyone into thinking I was a native, I felt it was successful -- one day I had about 4 hours of Spanish conversation, which eliminated my feelings of inadequacy about my Spanish.  (I continue to use my Kindle with a foreign-language dictionary.)  Most of my professional interactions were in English.

One night I was eating alone at Yerbabuena restaurant (which I recommend) and an Australian helicopter pilot, hungry for English conversation, started talking with me and moved to my table.  Another night, when I was eating with other American researchers, there were no English menus available and I was able to help with translations.  My first night in Madrid, I was tired and hungry, so I went out to eat at 9pm.  The first thing the waiter said to me was, "Why do you want to eat dinner so early?"

I was very pleased to see that there wasn't much smoking.  This impression changed one night when I was walking back from a restaurant at 12:30am -- an hour at which the restaurant itself was still completely full.  Then I saw quite a few people smoking on the street outside clubs.  I found the streets were empty around 8pm-9:30pm or so, and then filled back up when it became time to go out to eat at 10pm or so.

Another night, I happened across a gang of 40 or so men holding up a huge, misshapen blob of an object, singing and swaying in unison.  They were practicing for the upcoming Easter (?) procession, and their float was covered in plastic to protect it.  There were a couple of police watching the whole thing.  I found that there seemed to be an unusual number of police visible everywhere I want, but maybe it wasn't excessive given the high density of housing and shops.  The city felt safe, though not pristine -- it's a city where people live.

Stairway to heaven

Maeve and Silas want a treehouse.  "It doesn't have to have beds," they say, "it just has to be big enough to play in."  We told them they may have one when they can design and build it.  In the meanwhile, I nailed 2x4s to the trunk of our walnut tree, making it easier for the kids to reach the branches.  That's where I found Maeve yesterday afternoon, reading a book.

Umtanum Creek October 11, 2013

Untanum Creek Canyon
between Ellensburg and Yakima
October 11, 2013

We took a Friday off to go desert hiking.  This is a lovely creek that feeds into the Yakima River.  They say you can see lots of wildlife here, but we only saw a snake, a few birds, and the bushy tail of something darting into the bushes.  We also saw a very cool beaver dam as well as remains of several others.

Mother's Day 2013

May 12, 2013
Mother's Day
Westburg Trail

For Mother's Day, we took a hike on the dry side of the Cascades, in the desert out from Ellensburg.  In a wildlife preserve, it's a four-mile out and back trail up a canyon to the ridge line. It's 1800 feet gain, and there was a fair amount of complaining in the first mile, but then the kids settled down.  It was pretty much up the whole way, with a couple pretty steep stretches.  Silas is just awesome  - not even 4 years old and made it the whole way.


  It was supposed to rain in Seattle, but hasn't, but we did get rain for about 30 miles around the pass. No rain where we were hiking, but pleasently overcast so we're less sunburned and it wasn't too hot.  Just a perfect day for hiking.


The wildflowers were amazing.  The first photo is from near a cairn at the top the ridge.  There were tons of wildflowers.

The second is walking on the ridge, with great views of the Yakima Valley.


The third photo is of a caterpillar nest.  We saw quite a few of the these caterpillars attacking the poor blooming shrubs.  Not sure what they are, but they sure were cool to look at.


 I need to learn the names of the desert wildflowers.  There were flowers of every color, and from the ridge you could see some sides of the canyon that looked like they were snowed on because of the complete coverage of the white flowers.  At one point, we could see white, 2 shades of yellow, orange, red, pink and purple flowers.

Winter Break 2012 X Country Skiing in the Methow

 Skiing in the Methow
Christmas 2012

With my family, my sister's family and my Mom.  Thanks to Mom, Noell, Gary, Elliott, Winnie, and Hugh for making this such a great trip.


The first photo is one afternoon Noell, Mike and I went skiing, and the sun briefly came out!  The conditions and weather were wonderful all week.


Silas and his cousin Hugh had lots of fun in the snow.
































My mom enjoyed snow shoeing.  We broke trail (with Mike) one afternoon around the lake outside our cabin.  Really beautiful.










We also did some sledding and general goofing off.

Turkey Trot 2012

 Seattle Turkey Trot 2012
This is our third Thanksgiving participating in this 5 K race to benefit the Ballard Food Bank.  The first year we volunteered, and got to give the folks registering hand stamps in the snow.  Last year we ran.  Maeve ran/walked. Silas was in the stroller a bit but mostly carried by Mike.  We finished 2011 in about an hour.

This year Maeve and I ran/walked it in 49 minutes.  I expect she ran or skipped all but about 3/4 of a mile. Silas and Mike were the sweep - Silas was the very last participant to cross the finish line at about 1:32.  Mike carried him less than 1/2 mile, so he walked most of it.  Pretty good for a 3 year old!


Photo 1 is before the race.  Silas wanted to run as a lion- his Halloween costume from last year.

Photo 2 is from when Maeve and I walked back to finish the in-park part of the race with Silas.  We're approaching the finish line, so Mike had a great view of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains, which were actually visable.

It's a great course for kids - all downhill and ends at Golden Gardens Park.

Photo 3 is us drinking up the after-race refreshments, mango flavored coconut water, on our way to the cool playground at Golden Gardens.

Silas on the Tagalong

October 12, 2012

Silas is now big enough to ride on the Tagalong.  He's been practicing riding around the block and Wallingford for the past week.  He has to stretch a wee bit on the downstroke and I was a bit nervous about him riding on the big roads to school, but he did it yesterday the first time and he's fine.  Mike is avoiding the big downhill on 45th down to the freeway in front of Dick's Drivein for the moment.  Silas is so happy to be on the Taglong just like a big boy.

He's also now a maniac on his balance bike and we've taken off the training wheels on his regular bike, but he's not able to 2-wheel independently yet.