Sebastian’s Quiver

Just a quick update while Sebastian is sitting and flailing about on the floor.  We have made it to page 50 of War and Peace and we are on Chapter 6.  Not bad!  Only 1400+ pages to go.  I’m looking at finishing it up sometime when Sebastian is in junior high school.

I apologize for the lack of updates for the past week or so.  I was out in San Francisco at Apple’s WWDC on business (I’ve been working on an iPhone application, so it actually was quite relevant).  So I’m now catching up on some photos that should have been posted this past weekend.  Some are of Sebastian, and some are of flora in our backyard.  Sorry, no wild trips deep in the back country this week, unless you count wading through masses of unhygenic, unkempt nerds with little self-respect a wild trip.

So, without further ado, here are the latest photos taken of Sebastian (all of which, I might add, were taken by Juliann except for the bath shot). As usual, check out the photoblog to see all the photos of Sebastian and the nature photos.

As you can see, Sebastian enjoys reading his book while sitting on the couch.

He also likes to take baths.  See how clean we keep him!

Watch Misha try and hog the spotlight (and the focus).

Flowers in our backyard.  Notice the primary colors of the flowers.

More flowers.  This time, secondary colors.

A double rainbow (look closely) seen from our back porch.  You might have to click on the photo to get the full size version to see the second rainbow.

I haven’t given any reading updates lately, plus it’s been about a week since I posted photos of the Great Outdoors, so I figured that I would do both.

Sebastian and I have been reading the classic Goodnight Moon most nights at bedtime.  He loves looking at the drawings and the more read it, the more he pays attention to it.  We’ve also been reading Lord Byron’s The Prisoner of Chillon, which we just finished this evening.  It’s quite good; I recommend it to everyone.  Several weeks ago we also started reading War and Peace.  Yes, that War and Peace.  We got through Chapter 1, but we haven’t yet started Chapter 2.

Juliann, Sebastian and I loaded the car up on Sunday and headed out to the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden.  This week’s trip was quite a bit closer than the previous few - it was a 15 minute drive to the park in Southeast Portland (we live in Northeast).  I expected it to be nice, but it was even nicer than I had expected.  It was different levels (all stroller/wheelchair accessible) with very nice bridges and waterfalls and great landscaping.  I heartily recommend it to anyone willing to pay $3 to spend an hour or so walking around some really beautiful rhododendrons and azaleas and other nice flowers and trees.  Sebastian stayed awake for the entire excursion and he enjoyed the brightly colored flowers and the wildlife and the ponds and waterfalls.

This past Thursday, one of my oldest and dearest friends just happened to be in Portland on business so we got together and hung out a bit.  I’m glad he got a chance to meet Sebastian (and vice versa).  We got a chance to eat some Thai food, drink some fancy beers (some too wheaty, some too stout) and talk about fatherhood and recommendation engines and Shanie and her sheets.  A grand time was had by all.

So here are some photos of various things.  As usual, please visit the photoblog to catch up on all the photos, the below which are just a sampling.