Busy Tuesday and Van Dyke Rant

Tuesday progressed uneventfully throughout most of the day. Then, on my commute home, I encountered a Houston gully washer. It only rained 1.5 inches, but did so in a short 20 minutes or so. An area around our house of about 4 square miles suddenly flooded. I tried several routes to get home, only to be blocked by obviously flooded streets and stalled and stopped cars. I decided to head back to I-610, and on a completely deserted on-ramp, encountered my own personal puddle. Seeing no stalled or stopped cars I assumed it was clear. As I headed down the ramp it started to look bad. Knowing the worst thing you can do is stop I started looking for a place to turn around. Then, I hit a dip and water came over the hood. I jerked the wheel to the left to get on a median and only made it half way up before the engine died.

I called Barb and started the 2 mile walk home. I got out of the car into water up to my mid-thigh. Water was already in the car on the passenger side. Every time an SUV or pickup passed the wake would pick up the passenger side of the car. Apparently a wake also killed my Blackberry. I made it 1/3 of the way home before neighbor Todd showed up in his Chevy Suburban to rescue me. We went back to try and push my car up onto the median with the help of an onlooker. His comment? "A flooded Infiniti - that's a damn shame!"

Todd took me home and then brought his family over for an already scheduled dinner. Before dinner I got down on one knee and asked the Johnson's to be Sean's Godparents. They said yes! We had of long list of contenders, however our church's requirement that Godparents both be practicing Catholics helped us focus on Todd and Tiffany. Then, they delighted us by asking us to be Morgan's Godparents! We are very excited!

Back to the car story: After dinner Todd and I went to check on the Infiniti. It, and the 40+ other flooded cars in the area, were gone. Towed by the city of Houston. I eventually tracked the car down to a yard in SW Houston. Ask me for stories on this place! The car would not start and the electrical system would not even start-up. Totally dead. I am waiting for USAA to inspect it and decide on the next step.

Luckily the Johnsons have a spare car at the moment, so I have something to drive to work in.

OK. Enough. I will rant on Van Dykes later....

Lots 'O Pictures Blog

OK, so we haven't posted new pictures since getting back from Scandinavia. Well, here they are.

Sean in his beach hut last weekend - a good place for a chew.

Daddy and Sean play in the water - it took me several tries to figure out I liked it.

I don't need a walker - I can crawl!

Elissa and Sean play with Dave

Elissa hugs Sean - he looks doubtful

My crumb crunching competitors

I show off my standing skills - Stage I

Stage II

Stage III

Stage IV - Yeah, that was me. No stunt babies needed!

Norway Updates

Click HERE for a few more photo updates.


Photos from Elissa's recent trip to Seaworld San Antonio unveiled the existence of Project Puffin. While this blog supports puffin proliferation, it only does so for culinary reasons. The Project Puffin website, however, is part of the vast left wing puffin conspiracy - IT MAKES NO MENTION OF PUFFINS AS A FOOD SOURCE! How can this be? Oh, give me succulent puffin any day of the week.

Scary Dean and Frightening Sean

Your author apologizes for the dearth in updating the vacation blogs with photos. Between a somewhat bad Scandinavian virus and preparations for Hurricane Dean at the plant I have not had a lot of awake time at the home computer. Thankfully, for us, it appears Dean will be heading into northern Mexico and not Houston.

Yesterday was mostly spent recovering from a late night at the plant Friday and tracking the storm during the night. Last night Grandma and Dziadziu came over to babysit Sean while we went out to celebrate Aunt Heather's 35th birthday at Cafe Adobe and Jillian's (soon to become a Dave and Busters.)

Today we went to the beach. Sean was scared of the waves the first two times we went down to the water. After a nap he sat in the surf and really enjoyed himself. After hanging out at the beach we went to Murdoch's bathhouse, apparently a new tradition, for ice cream and beer on the breezeway.

Murdoch's depicted on a 1938 postcard. The original Murdoch's was destroyed in a hurricane in 1909 and then rebuilt.

Frightening Sean?!? After the beach we went to Grandma and Dziadziu's house for dinner. During dinner Sean was crawling on the floor. He crawled to Dziadziu's chair and then, slowly, pulled himself up to a stretched out standing position and then walked his feet forward until he was completely upright. He then proceeded to do it all over the house, 7 or 8 times, just like when he learned how to roll over. Welcome to the next stage of child proofing!

Oslo revisited

Click HERE for an update

Back in Houston!

We arrived back in Houston at about 1pm this afternoon. It appears the return to Central Time is not going smoothly, likely due to our short night last night. It is now 7:45pm and I am up after a 1.5 hour nap - Barb and Sean not so much awake. Thanks to our support crew for taking care of the house and Barley! Keri Carter and Dan, Marge and Joanne (Dziadziu, Grandma and Aunt Joanne.)

After all the rain in June and July it did not rain the whole time we were gone. All the vegetation is wilted and dry, despite a watering by Dziadziu on Wednesday. The sprinkler had been on since 2pm and will keep going until I fall asleep.

The plan for pictures? I plan to post incrementally by updating the posts made during our wonderful vacation. The first picture post is here: 1211a-and-we-are-on-plane

Thoughts on vacation Part-I:

• It is amazing how much spoken English we encountered in all of Scandinavia. Every individual we had occasion to speak to had better English than the employees we encountered at Cafe Adobe on the way back from the Airport in Houston.
• The babies had freedom to breast feed everywhere and in every situation without stigma. This included crowded trains, cafes, restaurants, social occasions, etc.
• It was freakin' expensive! Between it being normally costly Scandinavia and the weak dollar I am afraid to look at my bank and credit card records online! Maybe tomorrow night after being fortified by a few shots of Brennivin! (Also known as Black Death - Finally! An alcoholic beverage encountered abroad that cannot be purchased at Spec's at all, let alone cheaper than in it's own country. We did not get a chance to sample in Iceland, but I did score a bottle at the Duty Free on the way home. Just tried it, not that bad but burns all the way down for several minutes.)
  
• It was surprisingly hard (even after being there in 2002) to use credit cards in Norway - typically because my card does not have my photo on it. Iceland was a different story - we could have spent our entire stay there without ever using cash!
• Special thanks to Eric's family: Jack, Karin, Sara, Michael, Jacob and Leo for hosting us in Norway and Sweden and allowing us to share part of their family time with the USA Wheatley's. Their generosity cannot be appreciated enough!
• I am sorry to report that I did not get to try puffin. A restaurant that served puffin was just 5 doors down from our apartment in Reykjavik but could not seat us on late notice.
  

Back in the USA

Howdy!  Just landed in Minneapolis.  We will stay the night here before going on to Houston.  It is nice to be home!

Leaving Iceland

Friday night we went out for a late dinner.  On the way back we encountered the start of "runtar" - the Friday and Saturday drinking festivities.  On Saturday morning we explored the downtown area, and took in most of the Lonely Planet guide architecture walking tour.

Now we are on-board Icelandair bound for Minnesota.  See y'all back in the states!

Icelandic Friday

We drove along crushed lava roads in isolated SW Iceland, between the sea and the mountains - very cool.  In the afternoon we went to the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa.  Everyone had a good time, including the babies.  It was Sean's first time to go swimming!

Real Sean update:  he is now a sitting champ! When placed in a sitting position he can maintain it well and reach and stretch for toys and objects.  Sometimes when he half tumbles over he can push himself back up to sitting position again.  His crawling skills are also much improved.  He will actually get up on his knees and hands and crawl - no longer using his head for help.  He and Rachel continue to have fun together, they like having someone their own size to play with.  This morning he stood on his own for 10 seconds.

Iceland

We finished up Stockholm on Wednesday by taking a 3 hour boat tour of the archapeligo (sp?).  We rounded out the day by spending more time in the old town and in the shopping district.

Early Thursday we left for Iceland.  We landed and rented sibling Toyota Yaris cars - consensus opinion, they suck!

We checked into our apartment and headed out to see the sights.  In a word - awesome!  The geysir area, including Geysir, the one all others are named after, was great.  The Gullfloss falls were spectacular.  Driving around the volcanic landscape was very cool.

We made it back late, got some great take-away pizza and drank wine.

Ignore decoy post about first steps

Lack of sleep, bottle of wine, let's torture aunt Joanne!

Sean's first steps...

The best beer in Scandanavia?

Nils Oscar India Ale is excellent!  It is similar to an American pale ale, and not limited to 3.7% alcohol.  Look for it at The Bishop's Arms on St. Eriksgatan.

Stockholm

Monday morning we arrived in Stockholm about 1:30pm by train.  It is a beautiful city, full of colorful old buildings crowding the waterfront where ever possible.  We checked into our hotel and then walked to the old city center.  The walk included a mile worth of the main shopping street.  Gamla Stan, the old town, is now art galleries and shops housed in 400+ year old buildings.

Tuesday we visited the Vasa, a Swedish war ship launched in 1628 that sank the same day and sat on the bottom of the harbor for several hundred years.  It is now housed in its own climate controlled building and museum.

Then we visited Skansa, the world's oldest outdoor museum.  It is mainly a collection of historic buildings relocated there from around Sweden, along with a small zoo and other attractions.  We then took along walk along the harbor to Sodermalm, the main hipster district.

The kids are doing well, considering how much we are hauling them around.  Yesterday we stopped for a feeding break (and beer) and Sean and Rachel played very well together - very cute!

Relaxing at the Sea House in Sweden

We spent the last several days relaxing at the Wheatley family sea house at Sandvik (sandy beach) Stromstad. Both of Daniel's grandparents were there along with aunt Sara and uncle Michael and their kids Jacob and Leo. It was very mellow. The house is just south of the Norway /Sweden border on a little inlet from the Atlantic. To get there requires driving 1 km down a dirt road and then hiking the last 0.5 km down a steep, rocky, hill.

We got there late afternoon Thursday. Friday was spent lounging around on the patio and the beach. About 6pm Grandpa Jack makes gin and tonics and dinner is shortly afterwards. Saturday we took our turn to make Pasta spaghetti. The biggest slowdown at the supermarket was finding sour cream - we gave up and used cream cheese. Dinner and company were great. on Saturday we took a walk to the top of a nearby ridge and looked down on the beach where the house sits.

Click here to see pictures from our trip to the cabin.

Done with the wet Western Fjords

On arrival in Trondheim it was not raining - which turned out to be an evil ploy. After the late flight and the time it took to get to town from the airport it was already after 6pm. Thanks to the very late sunset we were able to "skim" the sights of the city. By the time we went to Peppe's Pizza, for the 2nd night in a row, it was chilly and 10:30p. Summary - a beautiful small town with a very cool cathederal.

Tuesday morning we slept in to catch up a little and took a Pastalaniec death march to the Hurtigruten ship. It started to rain. The ship was a smaller version of the one I was on 5 yrs ago - the cabin was a bit cozy but comfortable.

However the rain and cold kept us inside for much of the trip. We made short visits to Kristiansund and Molde during stops - getting a taste a the beautiful scenery on the west coast.

Sean playing in the state room.

Barbara and Sean try to check out the fjords but are blown back.

This morning was spent waiting for arrival in Bergen. We got in a 2:30pm but did not clear thr terminal until nearly 3pm. By the time we made it to the bus station to stash our luggage it was almost 4pm, leaving us little time to explore rainy Bergen. Between a feeding session and a late lunch we only made it to the old warehouse district and the fish market.

Now we are back in Oslo. It is 2am and we are going to sleep before making our way to Sweden (hopefully in the late morning.)