Destination: Astoria

On May 30th, we took RJ and Mia to Astoria to begin their cross country bike trip.

Here is Mia, in the middle of the chaos, packing and getting ready to pull an all nighter the night before:




And the utter chaos of our living room Departure Day minus 1:





our very full trunk ready for departure:



After pulling an all-nighter, the ladies sleep all the way:



At least they didn't snore...



The ghost bikes on the way to Astoria:

A visit with Ashlynn (oh yeah also with Wendy & Shua)

Why Jim is great with babies:





(umm...I thought that I had this rotated right side up...)
Other pictures, hopefully right side up, to follow!

Crib production, the glue-up begins

The hand-mortised crib rails await the slats.




The slats are all hand-planed and trimmed.



The pieces of the first end-panel are ready to be put together like a jigsaw puzzle:





The first glued-up end panel:




The end panel awaits the caps:

More crib production!

Jim continues to produce more fine craftsmanship on the cribs for Emmy, Ashlynne Rose, and a yet to be determined occupant...


Every piece is cut to size, and then hand planed.




After planing with the "coarse" setting, you plane it again with the fine setting. Then there is little sanding needed. Here you can see the different sizes of shavings.






Which results in a pile of shavings by the end of the afternoon:




And here is the result of a day's work:

Shawdows of the bikes

A recent 5 mile hill ride.

Scenic Loop Pas Deux

Last Saturday Leslie, Tom Baffney and I decided to go up the gravel (steeper) side of Scenic Loop, so that we could hook up with the Tour of Walla Walla Time Trial and cheer racers as they crested "our" hill.



As you can see, the going was pretty steep. Leslie noticed that my jacket was hanging from my rack into my spokes, so I had to stop. To get started again, I had to turn around and go back to a flatter spot.




Here's the view from most of the way up:













Finally, I crested the "summit" with a grin.








I had jokingly suggested that Tom bring the beer (to slow him down on the climb). Imagine my surprise when we got to the top of Five Mile Hill and he whipped out a can of beer for the three of us to split!

Introducing Emmeline to the world!

My law partner's wife, Sue, had their firstborn on Saturday morning. Here is a picture of the proud daddy holding Emmy:




Not that he's proud or anything!