Dunbarshall Party All The Time

OK folks, I'm still alive.

It feels like I've got about 10 years worth of material to post.  Stupid blogging is hard, you guys.  I put it off because I don't really have time, and then by the time a month has gone by, I'm like, there's too much, I need to really just dedicate a couple hours to it... and then I never do.  And then suddenly it's TODAY, and looking back I realize all the things I failed to post that I meant to... whew.  
 I'm a pressure activator, guys (when I want to tell people at work that I'm a procrastinator but don't want them to think poorly of me, those are the words that I use).  Somebody put some freakin' deadlines on me over here!

Anyway.  Never mind.  I start every post with some random rant about how late this blog is.  You guys are used to it by now, right?  Also, the title of this post has nothing to do with what is actually in this blog.  It just sounds fun, so that's what I wrote.  Yup, you're welcome.

So, to kick things off this time, let me tell you a hilarious story about Evelyn.  We were getting prepared for my trip to Kenya, and I had to get a bunch of crazy shots, so we pop onto the bus to go get them.  While on the bus, we're sitting right at the front in seats that face sideways.  Not too far away from us, in seats that face forward, sits an older gentleman.  He isn't paying us any attention, but is occasionally opening his mouth as he's chewing gum or something, so you can see he's missing four or so of his front teeth.  Evelyn can't look away.  As I'm trying to distract her so that she doesn't do something embarrassing, she turns to him, grins wide at him (more like growling, really) and says, "I have all my teeth."  And says it like 4 times.  Dear lord.  He pretended he didn't hear her, and I tried really hard not to laugh hysterically. 

Then, like, 3 minutes later, randomly, to a woman across the aisle, she says, "I ate all my broccoli.  I ate ALL my broccoli.  I yike broccoli."  (She'd eaten broccoli like 2 days before.)  And 5 minutes down the line, when a woman gets on with a leftovers container, she asks her very loudly and directly, "What's that?  What's in there?"

Eating an apple on the bus on the way home, she turns to a lady sitting next to her and says, "It's really crunchy!"  Only, because her mouth is full of apple, the lady can't understand her, so she turns quizzically to me, which means I repeat, "It's really crunchy" over and over as Evelyn says it like a hundred times.  And finally, about 5 stops away from home, she busts out and sings 'Santa Claus is Coming To Town'.

I think children are a social experiment.  I just haven't figured out yet exactly the finer points of what the experiment is supposed to be measuring.   I, of course, fluctuate between trying not to show Evelyn that I think what she's doing is the funniest thing ever (because that would only encourage her to do it more, because she looks like me but acts like Jason Marshall), and being completely frustrated, which is basically mom-ing in a nutshell.

So anyway, that's a story to start us out, just so you can have a bit of a mental picture about the kind of child Evelyn is as I tell the rest of the stories.  She's a freaking trip, every single day.

CUPCAKES!  During her friend Eloise's birthday party at the climbing gym.  Which, incidentally, is where she now thinks ALL birthday parties are held.

Riding bikes!

Who'd have guessed? Climbing trees.

So. Lots of things have happened since I last put anything on here!  The big things: we took an international family trip, one of my uncles passed away and the other was diagnosed with brain cancer and had brain surgery, we bought a second (very used) car, I got pregnant again!, had the busiest summer at work ever, and got and started a new job.

Whew.

More than that actually happened, but that's the rough overview if you already feel like you've read enough blog for a while.  Now you can just skim through and look at all the pictures!

Seriously though, it's been quite a year.  I'm now 23 weeks pregnant, which is CRAZY!  I can't decide if it's a good idea or if I'm actually just not that smart, since now we know what we're getting ourselves into and we're just doing it all over again.  Although, to be fair, we don't really know what we're getting ourselves into, because this time it's a BOY!  What do I even do with a BOY???

ZOMBIE BABY!!

 Anyway.  Yup.  How about some more pictures?

A lady at a cafe on the road to San Jose CA gave this adorable umbrella to Evelyn...

She lets Grandma do her hair!

Hiking with Dad while I was in Kenya.

Larry Marshall came to visit!

It feels like ages ago (let's be real, it probably was...) but we took a trip to the beach with Shane, Julia, Adam and Maia!  This is the reality of the west coast friends... the beach is like a visit to the Arctic.  There is no such thing as sunbathing on the Oregon coast.  I remember visiting a beach on the East Coast for the first time and being completely amazed... beaches like that aren't just in the movies!

Not so great at the selfies here.

Yup.  I cut those bangs.  Bet you couldn't even tell.

I just love these guys.

Somebody loves Eliza.

It was pretty cold, but Evelyn really wanted to play in the water anyway.

Evelyn starts pre-school this week!  It's crazy to think how fast these last few years have flown by.  She's starting at a school that's right down the street from us, which is awesome, both because the school is really great (with an amazing outdoor space, and they do a gardening class with the kids), but also because now I don't have to commute anymore to take her anywhere!  Driving her around to a babysitters is the WORST.  Traffic is terrible, and parking downtown near my work is the worst...  Yuck.  So clearly we've gotten her into a school for HER best interests, and not mine.  :)

Evelyn and her 'hangaburger' at Burgerville.

 Mmmkay, so another story about Evelyn that references the picture below.  We were hanging out at my dad's house, and my dad wants to make brownies with Evelyn.  Sure, no problem, grandparents can get away with all kinds of stuff, right?  My dad is helping Evelyn to measure and pour the ingredients while I'm piddling around the kitchen.  He's got the sugar and the cocoa measured out and poured into the bowl, and then moves away for just a second to grab more ingredients.  Evelyn is dutifully stirring things around in the bowl.  While my dad is grabbing things from the cupboard, I look away for probably all of 20 seconds to put something else away.  By the time I look back at Evelyn, she is scooping entire spoons of this cocoa/sugar mixture directly into her mouth.  Of course I'm surprised (I mean, really, should I have been surprised?  No.  No I should not have.), and when she catches my eye, she just says, "Mmm!  It's really good."

A pink-clad sugar stealer.

 The brownies turned out okay.  So far, so has Evelyn.  :)  Of course I'm going to withhold judgement until she gets way older, and then when she does something stupid, I'm going to totally blame it on this moment in time.  "It's because when you were young, Grandpa used to let you eat entire spoonfuls of pure sugar..."

Inspecting the back of Grandpa's truck.

Carousel at the zoo with Grandpa!

She got a big girl bed!  It's actually the bed that I used to sleep in as a child at my grandmother's house, which is pretty cool.  And she's totally in love with it.  The only challenge is that now, she can both get out of bed on her own AND open her own door.  Which means I've had some creepy moments lately when she wakes up at 3am and decides she's done sleeping, so she quietly walks into our bedroom and stands right next to me and tugs on my fingers or clothing (whatever she can reach) STARING at me in the PITCH BLACK just making these little "mmm" 'notice me' type noises.  SO CREEPY.  I vow to never watch another scary movie (not that I needed convincing), especially not one that involves small children.  How can they be so cute and so TERRIFYING at the same time?

Look how innocent I look in my new bed!

Totally not planning creepy 'how to freak mom out' things in this brand new big girl bed...

 More in the creepy vein-- several months ago we drove down to the Bay Area to go to a friend's wedding (you already knew we weren't very smart, right?  Well, just to solidify your belief in that, we drove down there and back - 13 hours each way - in 3 days.  So STUPID.).  As we were on our hellish, I'm sorry, totally placid and enjoyable drive home, Evelyn had a few moments of freak out.  (She slept for a combined total of 2 hours out of 13.  It was fantastic.  Take a road trip, they said.  It'll be fun!, they said.  Of course you should bring your kid along, they said.)  During one of those freak outs, she just starts screaming, "NO! Don't!"  And when I tried to ask her what was going on, she said, "Don't Mommy!  I'll take it away from you!"  And when I asked her what she would take away from me, she said, very calmly, "Daddy."

GAH.

Or, the time we were driving up to visit my older brother.  She was talking about how she couldn't take her head off of her body because it was attached!  Miracles of miracles.  She was really hoping to walk around headless, I guess.  Then, as we were explaining why that is probably a bad idea, she exclaims to Jason, "I could get a knife and cut YOUR head off."

Yup.  That's the stage we're in right now.  Have you seen this post?  Read it, but if you have kids and then you have nightmares afterwards, it's totally not my fault.

Showing off her guns.  We haven't named them yet, though.

Mmmhmm.  That's my kid right there.

Yeah, so what else?  It feels like this has been a completely insane year - they just keep going faster and faster.  Managing family stuff after my uncle's illness has been a bit crazy, and I'm just helping in a small way, my sister is doing a large chunk of it.  He's living with my dad now, which is nice because he's close and has easy access to the healthcare he needs.  So far his cancer is holding stable, which is relatively good news, considering that his diagnosis is the most aggressive brain cancer, stage IV.  So we're hoping for continued progress, as he goes through chemo monthly.  He's in good spirits, which is good, considering all the changes he's been through in the last six months.

My new job is going well, I've been in it now for about 3 1/2 weeks.  It's only a temporary position (through my maternity leave), so I'm hoping to turn it into something else at some point, but we'll see.  I'm working at the same company, but in a different department.  I'm helping with systems and efficiency for the department that provides help and expertise directly to our field teams working on the ground in the various countries where we work, whenever they request it.  It's pretty cool because I'm getting some exposure to some really amazing and smart people, and doing work that I haven't done in ages.  And spending lots of time in spreadsheets, but hey.  It is full time though, so that's been a bit of a transition, both for me and for Evelyn.

The summer has been gorgeous!  Pretty dang hot, which apparently is the trend for us (yay climate change) so there have been lots of opportunities for outside stuff, though it's raining right now and feels like fall has arrived again in force. 

Hiking with Adam and Maia.

Portland sucks.  This weather is so lame.

Dunbar face.

So far my pregnancy is going well, although in the last few weeks getting onto and off of the floor has started to get harder... whew.  Big bellies.  Everything is going along swimmingly, and this poor child is due on December 25th!  So we'll always have a jam packed fall - Thanksgiving, Evelyn's birthday, then Christmas and this dude's birthday, whenever he decides to arrive!  Hopefully before Christmas?  Also, I have to admit, part of me knows that we really aren't very smart.  Something happens biologically to be able to convince yourself that it's a good idea to go through the whole pregnancy/childbirth/newborn no sleeping craziness.  Evelyn is REALLY excited about a little brother (she keeps referring to the baby as 'MY baby'), though she really has no idea what she's in store for.  :)

And yes, we're staying in our apartment.  For the time being, anyway.  We can squish two kids and two parents into 850sq ft, right?  It's going to be fine.  Until it isn't, but hey, at least I'm not moving while pregnant.  :)  And plus, maybe it's the perfect fodder for a blog that will get tons of people to follow it, just waiting for my next crazy update about how we are managing... oh wait, people do this all the time.  Nevermind.  :)

Cooking with Aunt Nicky.

Someone loves Nicky's dog Trapper.

Did I mention we went to see a live male strip show?  Um, it was AWESOME.  And completely RIDICULOUS.

Frozen yogurt pop.

I've still got a TON of stuff to post, but we've made some progress!  The next one will be all about our trip in May to Italy and Greece (we took Evelyn along, which made it a totally different kind of vacation!).  So yeah!  Thanks for putting up with me during a huge hiatus again... I'd like to say it won't happen anymore, but we all know how that goes.  :)

Before I sign off, I have to tell you the most amazing Portland story I've heard in ages.  I was hanging out with my sister last night, and we got to talking - her oldest chicken recently died, on one of our 100+ degree days.  This was the first chicken my sister ever got, and her boyfriend Brad named her Krissy, because obviously.  So for ages whenever anyone said Krissy we'd have to ask which one they were talking about until Krissy Chicken became the nomenclature.  Anyway, this chicken was the ruler of the roost, clearly (obviously gets it from me), and Nicky was really sad when she died.  She came home to Krissy Chicken breathing her last breaths, and then just couldn't manage to deal with the chicken body, as I'm sure you can appreciate.  So, as we're chatting last night, she asks me, "Do you want to know what we did with the body?"

Clearly the answer is yes, just as clearly her question indicates she didn't do something I would expect.  So I ask her, "WHERE did you bury it?"

And her response is something like, "You're going to judge me."

Nope, I'm not, and now I REALLY want to know what you did with that chicken.  Where did you put her?!?

Turns out that my sister, in the most Portland move ever, put her beloved chicken's body in the city compost.

You guys.  This is SO FANTASTIC.  Nicky's description?  "It's the best burial ever.  You put the chicken in there, cover it with wood chips, and then someone carts it away to make compost out of it, and my chicken is helping yards grow all over Portland."

YES.

"Do you want to know something else?" She asks me.  "Do you want to know how many chickens I've put in the compost?"

At this point in the evening, ladies and gentlemen, I'm completely lost.  This is so freaking hilarious and Portlandia to me that I'm practically in tears at the table, and cannot wait for the answer to this question.

You know how many it was?  Like 5.

My sister is the BEST HUMAN EVER.

So with that closing thought, here's a summary photo, and talk to you guys again soon!!!

Finally mastering the oh-so-important thumbs up!

AFRICA! Overdue.

You guys.  I am terrible at this blogging thing.  I just realized that in 2015 I posted 5 times.  GAH.  I mean, there's a crapload of cute pictures in each post, but STILL.

So anyway.  I'm probably just going to keep on keeping on.  Regardless of how often I feel like I SHOULD post.  Because let's be real, who has time for blogging?

Sooooo... It's April.  And the last time I posted (with actual words in it) I was talking about Halloween.  I realize this may seem like a crazy-ass jump in time, but you know what?  Welcome to my world.  How in the CRAP is it April already?   Anyway.  I'll spare you my rant about how time is trying to screw me up by having all of its units get shorter and shorter every day on the sly.  Suffice to say, I feel like years are flying by.  Which is something that my grandmother used to tell me when I still thought a summer lasted as long as an entire school year (didn't it feel like it?).

Clearly I am a bit sleep deprived, since this post doesn't make much sense right now.

So, like a month ago, I got back from KENYA!  Holy crap it was an amazing trip.  2 weeks for work and another week for travel.  It was a total blast and a ridiculous amount of work all at the same time.  Essentially I was helping with a training of facilitators for Mercy Corps.  We did a week of training for a group of a little over 20 people, and then the following week they then practiced their newly acquired facilitation skills in a workshop with staff from our local office in Kenya.  And then Nicky came and joined me, and we took a week to travel around and see some sights.  And it was amazing.

At the Great Rift Valley overlook outside Nairobi

It was amazing for a lot of reasons, one of which was that i was ALONE a lot, which honestly felt decadent.  If you aren't a parent, you might think I'm crazy (if you aren't a parent and you're still reading and you HAVEN'T thought I was crazy up to this point, then DANG, thanks for sticking with me). 

It was also exhausting.  The first week we were working from 7:30 in the morning until 8:30 or so at night... and then I'd be up jetlagged again at 4am the next day, so I'd work until breakfast.  But the people that I was with were some of the most amazing people I've met.  We had 15 countries represented, did international dance parties, had family style dinners, played Ultimate Frisbee in the pool, went on a boat safari (turns out safari just means journey, you guys, so it was a boat ride)... we played cards and darts and I laughed more than I have in a long time.  It was phenomenal.  If you're reading this and you're one of the cohort members-- thanks for making my trip utterly unforgettable.

Getting ready for a boat safari!  Which was actually just a ride where we saw animals.

That's a HIPPO!

Hell's Gate National Park, inspiration for the setting of The Lion King.

Jump photo!  I'm terrible at vertical.

In case you couldn't tell, I made some really fantastic new friends, and I hope we are friends FOREVER because they are all so cool.  True facts.

It really reignited for me a lot of stuff that too easily gets swamped by the daily duties of working and being a mom and living life-- like the desire for MORE TRAVELS!!!  Turns out, Jason got pretty jealous too (though he probably wouldn't call it that) so he just bought us tickets to Italy in May.  YESSSSSSSS.

I think it was pretty great work-wise as well-- I made some really amazing contacts within the organization and got to build on and explore a skill set that I don't use that regularly... so here's to hoping that I will in the future!

We stayed for the first week at a place called Sawela Lodge, outside of Nairobi on the shores of Lake Naivasha.  It was a gorgeous place, but since we were out of town (and since hippos are DANGEROUS) the place was walled in, and there was no where else to go.  It really prompted some great bonding between all of the participants, seeing as how we had only each other for entertainment, really (the internet was pretty unreliable).  One of the participants called it "a beautiful prison".

Planning meeting, Day 1 in the beautiful prison

The second week we headed into Nairobi (after a day trip to Hell's Gate National Park, which was excellent) and stayed at the Jacaranda Hotel right in town.  This time there were places to go off campus, so we got to go check out some local restaurants and some local night life.  The night Nicky arrived at the end of the second week, I was already out with friends, so through some ridiculous phone tag involving way too many people, some of my friends picked her up (with the instructions, 'Find the girl who looks like me and bring her with you!') and brought her out to meet us.  Nicky had no idea this was going to happen, but apparently she must know me or something, because she wasn't even phased when some random people approached her with the whole, 'we know your sister' routine.  We proceeded to dance (even though Nicky hadn't really slept in her 20 hours on the plane) until about 2am.  Awesome.

The week of travelling with Nicky was just as amazing as the first two weeks.  I was sad to say goodbye to my new friends of course (I'm STILL sad and it's weeks later!), but we headed off to go on safari in Amboseli National Park.

Getting there was a bit of an adventure in which I thought I might die a time a or two.  We hired a driver from the bed and breakfast where we were staying.  He had real issues with traffic (which is terrible in Nairobi).  Essentially we spent the entire time speeding around cars, forcing oncoming traffic to let us through (or else we would crash), or driving on what would be the sidewalk in the States, except there was no sidewalk.  One plus was that I did see a person moving an entire full-sized dresser strapped to the back of their tiny motorcycle on the drive.  So that was fun.

Once we arrived, though, it was amazing.  I felt like I was in a National Geographic documentary.  We stayed at a place called Kili Springs-- if you ever go to this part of the world, you should totally stay there.  We were the only three tourists there, and they treated us like family.  It was tranquil and gorgeous and amazing.

We did a couple games drives and saw a ton of animals.  Here are some cheesy photos:

That's a giraffe back there, I swear.

Elephants!

Elephant selfie.  So many elephies.

AHHHHH!

Yup.  Handstand/sunrise/landrover/acacia tree.

Dunbars and Kilimanjaro sunrise.  Which explains the sleepy faces.  Also, inside my cup is Nescafe, which also explains the sleepy faces.

Safari 'tent'.

Tea under the trees.

Bush baby!  A tiny nocturnal monkey that we pestered until it woke up.

Masaai village welcome.

SO MANY PICTURES OF ELEPHANTS

Lunch in the bush!

I think I took roughly 400 pictures of elephants.  This post makes my photo taking look positively RESTRAINED.  I feel like I just needed to clarify that with you all.  I could have made this ENTIRE post pictures of elephants.  And baby elephants.  Holy smokes, the elephants.

We didn't get to see any predators on our trip, which was the only sad part.  And really it wasn't even sad to me until we were out there and we saw everything else, and then I was like, 'C'mon cats, what is the deal?'  Did I mention we did get to see elephants, though?

It was a bit of a thing getting back to Nairobi (like a 5 hour drive), but eventually we made it via public transportation (super duper sweaty, but we made it).  And then we headed off to the coast.

We had debated back and forth about whether to do more safari-ing and game drives, or if we wanted to go to the coast.  I'm so glad we did-- it was phenomenal.  Probably the hottest and most humid place I've ever visited (definitely the farthest south and the farthest east, so that was neat).  As soon as we stepped off the plane, I realized I had completely overdressed (and definitely wasn't prepared for the next few days).

We didn't exactly get a lot accomplished, but we had a total blast.  Laura got sick the 2nd morning we arrived, which really sucked, since we were staying in a backpacker place with no air conditioning and only saltwater showers (rather a crappy setup for puking your guts out in 95 degree humid weather).  Nicky and I basically just hung out at either the beach or the bar the entire time, and it was completely worth it.

A glorious Nicky beach selfie.

The water was a fantastic green, and probably like 80 degrees itself, and super salty.

I'm sweaty and lookin' at you, kid.

Zach!  Our one friend we made at the backpacker place.

Sea urchin!

Dunbars in a tuktuk!

Fresh coconuts.

We did get a couple offers of marriage on the beach, which I wasn't expecting.  On guy just wanted cappuccino babies.  Another offered to buy me from my sister.  I was also told by that guy that I look like a fresh piece of spaghetti, which really warmed my heart.  Even if I'm really not sure if that meant a cooked piece, so like, ready to eat?  Or an uncooked piece?  So like, very tall and thin?  Neither of which really make any sense, but you know.  Maybe I'm missing something in the translation.

And then, sadly, back to Nairobi for my final day of touring and then my flight home.  We hung out with our favorite driver Peter from Holly Cab (I'm sure he was tired of us by the time we were done). Shopping, giraffes, baby elephants, more shopping, airports... it was a hectic last day.  But I did get to kiss a giraffe, which might seriously have been the highlight of the entire trip. 

Baby elephant orphanage in Nairobi.

And then home.  

The night before I got back, Evelyn got pretty sick.  It was a rough first week back-- she was sick enough, with a pretty high fever, that she wasn't really sleeping.  She was up and down every 2 hours or so, sleeping in our bed or on the couch, and she was pretty miserable.  I didn't have time for jetlag, which was the only positive side effect.  At one point about three days after I got home, during one of her wake ups in the middle of the night, she looked over at me and said, "Mommy, are you back?"  And I said, yes, I'm back.  Her response was: "You're not in the computer?"

Skype must be really confusing for tiny children.  Nope, I'm not in the computer.

So yeah.  Back to normal work, trying to assimilate all the happenings.

Easter happened-- check out these cute child photos:

My grandma also came down to visit, as she is thinking of relocating to the Portland area to hang out with us.  Our good buddies Rachel and Eddie were in town for a day from Kentucky, and it was FANTASTIC to see them.  Also, I got to check out Labyrinth here in Portland with some old friends of Jason's-- I thought it would be stupid, you guys.  I thought I would hate it.  Turns out, it was SO FUN!  One of the fastest hours of my life.  You should totally go do something like this.  It was a blast.

And, to conclude, a couple hilarious Evelyn videos.

Whew.  What a blog.