Click 2 Ed-n-Kristin: November 2010

Diamond Lake and SNOW!

Well, winter has definitely started in Oregon! Our first snow came in mid-October, but was gone quickly. Since then, the snow has been off and on at least once a week BUT in the mountains, it's actually staying around! In light of this new season, Ed and Kristin decided to take Alee to play in the snow! We tried to head to Crater Lake (where's there's a full 3 feet now) but they don't allow dogs on their snow (even on their unplowed roads).

So, we headed to Diamond Lake a few miles to the north. They didn't have as much snow - but it was certainly enough to play in! We put Alee's fleece jacket on so she wouldn't freeze and off she went! She had tons of fun jumping in and out of the snow and running up to us and stopping on a dime to create a puff of snow.

It was cloudy but still so beautiful!

"This is very different from the gravel backyard..."

"It's too cold to sit properly!"

After all that exhausting playing and running, it was time for bed. I guess when you're THIS tired...comfort is really not a necessity.

Quick trip to Houston!

Being that Denver was so close to Houston, Kristin decided to hop on a plane to Houston for the weekend with the hopes of catching Christina's delivery of Baby Gosling. Unfortunately Baby Gosling was not interested in joining us (even after Kristin delivered an eviction notice), but at least she got to enjoy some great home cooking by Paul! Luckily she also got the chance to hop to the west side of town and see Christy and Eshaan and Shannon and her kids! It was so great to see everyone, but the visits were definitely too short on this trip!

Kristin and Christy at Cafe Adobe - yay for great Mexican!

Eshaan - up and walking/running everywhere!

Kristin and Jessica!

Denver and the USBR Labs!

For the first week of November, Kristin had to go to Denver for a "Value Engineering" study - a totally exhausting process where she learned a TON! The highlight of the week was the trip to the Bureau of Reclamation's hydraulics lab and concrete lab. For the fellow civil engineers - this stuff was so cool!

Here's one of the scale models - this is the description of the "problem"

The scale model - you can't see it - but there's a ton of various sized gravel in there

The end of the model, where the water is collected and pumped back to the beginning

After browsing the hydraulics lab, we headed to the concrete lab to see a large concrete break on a 5 MILLION pound press! When it broke - the whole building shook! The press actually sits on it's own separate foundation.