The names of uncles did not get sorted out over my Thanksgiving vacation with family at my sister’s house.  The consensus is that Austin is synonymous with uncle.  But we played, ate lots of good food, had adventures, ate some more, talked, and enjoyed the company.  The loosely chronological list of highlights here is long because the blessings are many:

Making chili on day one, assisted by my sister-in-law, Heather.  Three large crock-pots, three variations on a theme: hot italian sausage and steak, medium venison, and mild lean turkey.

Nephews, all week long.  Playing, fighting, laughing, crying, throwing, pushing, hugging, reading.

Playing trains and building forts with the boys.  Trains are fun, and There are these cool interlocking wooden train tracks with short 45’s long 45’s multi-level trestles, drawbridges, wyes, crossings, and all sorts of things to fill up an entire 8 x 10 rug.  I think they are based on the old-school Brio tracks, but nowadays there are faces on all the engines.  Endless fun of older minds making more involved tracks, and newer minds destroying them and rearranging the cars on the tracks that no longer go anywhere.

Rebuilding a clock on rainy days.  It rained most of the first five days in steady showers.  This was a project that started with disassembly 11 months ago, and needed finishing.  Grandpa looked on at my side most of the time as I dressed pivots, recentered and fitted bushings, and assembled the works.  When I left things unattended, his sharp eye caught small hands before they wreaked havoc.

The ferry ride to Seattle on a rainy Wednesday.  Traveling in a spot of sun and fierce wind toward a shower, a bright rainbow was visible that seemed to land inside the railing on the deck of the ferry.  In trying to shoot it, I found that a circular polarizer can make it disappear completely, and by turning it 90 degrees, can also make can make the rainbow appear more vibrant by cutting interfering light on the opposing plane.

Gumwall somewhere at Pike Place market.  The wall is really covered in chewing gum, to which visitors and passers-by may freely contribute.  I don’t know how this shot happened, all I remember is that the aperture is 1.4, and somehow the wall is exploding.  No post processing done.  Aw, man!  I got something stuck on my shoe. . .

Sunset from Pike Place Market.

Dinner at The Crab Pot, a restaurant where they tip all the seafood out onto the table and give you a mallet to open it with.  So much food!  Dungeness crab, shrimp, steamer clams, pitchers of Black Butte Porter, Widmer Hefeweizen, and something else I can’t remember.

Thanksgiving dinner!  Allison’s table was great, and she made it look easy!

Black Friday shopping.  This is out of the ordinary for me.  I have never shopped on Black Friday.  This year I am pretty much giving everyone the same thing for Christmas (man shopping), so that wasn’t the intent of my Friday.  Ever since I started bicycling, I outgrew all my old pants, and I needed new jeans badly.  I got an inside scoop from that Wal-Mart had Wrangler 5-Stars for $9.50.  Awesome!  I think I’m set for about 2 years, and I like them better than the Levi’s 501s.  On to Goodwill where I picked up LP’s for 50¢ each.  Tammy Wynette, Don Williams, Bach Magnificat on Archiv, Charlie Rich, Christopher Parkening, Buck Trent, Renaisance Christmas music on Nonesuch, this list goes on for 16 albums.  Good stuff!  I also found five swing-arm workbench lamps for an average of $2.75 each.  Now I need four more workbenches to go under them. That is the total of my Black Friday finds.

Fishing at sunrise on a 99% perfectly calm lake with Dad.  In a canoe . . an aluminum one . . . in the cold.  Catching no fish.  Seeing no fish jump.  At all.  Really, it was serene.  Anyone know what the heat transfer coefficient of your average aluminum canoe bench is?

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Motocross at Crista Ministries’ Island Lake Camp.  I have never been too swift at driving vehicles with manual transmissions, except for tractors, but I can manage when I have to.  Neither have I ever driven any sort of motorcycle, so this was quite the adventure.  After a short introduction to the controls, on to the beginner track.  This was easy.  After that we went on to the other track that had big bumps, mud bogs, and hard turns.  This was manageable as long as I did not stop.  All of my starts either stalled out, or involved a wheelie.  When we went on to the trails in the surrounding hillsides, my biggest problem was that as a bicyclist, the lever in my left hand is supposed to be the rear brake, but now it was the clutch.  This was a problem when going down a steep narrow trail with many roots and rocks.  Luckily a couple trees stopped my descent when I missed a turn.  And my brother was there to help me haul the bike back onto the path.  Seriously, this was a blast!

Clamming and Oystering.  Nearest where I grew up, clamming is done in a mud flat, so if something feels hard under your boot or scratches your rake it was probably once a clam or maybe still is.  This was different.  The beach was rocky, and most of the rocks looked like clams in the dark.  After a while, we figured out what we were doing, and between four of us, collected a 5 gallon bucket of clams.  We also collected some sea snails, dug up a geoduck, and persisted in collecting almost half our limits in oysters when at first it seemed there were none to find.

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Shucking and Cleaning Clams for two hours.

Theological conversations late at night.  I’m thankful that my family thinks this is important and talks about it.

Going to Church with family.

Heather’s Oyster Stew made fresh from our haul the previous night.  I didn’t know you could put cayenne pepper in it.  It was really good!  And wouldn’t you know, the very last oyster in the very last bowl had a pearl in it.  It measures 71 mils in diameter, barely 1/16th of an inch!  Try drilling a hole in that one!

A Race to catch the ferry on Monday, brother shotgun.  “Anemic” best describes my car’s acceleration.  Attempting to go up hills from dead stops, in the cold, overloaded with cargo, accelerator on the floor . . . we . . . barely. . . moved.  But we did get there in time to board.

Lunch at the Space Needle.  We went around almost two times.  Fish & Chips is the standard by which I often judge a restaurant, and I think this was the best I’ve ever had.  And it was here I discovered Mac & Jack.

Bowling at The Garage.  More Mac & Jack.

Going with Austin and Heather to find the light rail platform in order to get to the airport.  I don’t think any of us knew there was underground lightrail in Seattle.  When asked how to identify the correct train, the security guard was nice enough to let us know that trains run on tracks and the busses have tires.  Really, he was very nice, and assured us that another guard would be there in the morning in case of questions.

A box of Mom & Dad’s Melrose apples in the backseat.  They made the car smell good on the drive home and not all of them made it there.

There and back again on one tank of diesel, though the car was sputtering after every right turn at the end.  A refill at $3.799, the lowest price since the beginning of August.  Back home again, I’m exhausted and worn out from playing too hard, but it’s a small price for the great time spent with family.