February 15th 2010

The last month has been pretty mellow at home.

The insane yard projects have slowed due to the seasonal rain-fest, giving us more time to spend with our kids,

Work has been ramping up though, the drum-beat quickening as we close in on the final 6 months.

This is the biggest project I've ever worked on. Our massive team of artists, engineers, designers, writers, producers, and composers are working like mad to bring this thing together.

It's a privilege and a little scary to be part of something so huge.

If you're interested, here's some more info on Halo: Reach!

And even more info from bungie.net

-Rob and Nicole

We spend a lot of time walking our trail, and have taken plenty of pictures of our kids among its twisting paths.. But I've never just gone out and tried to capture the beauty of the trees themselves -until this morning. We had to be at the chiropractor at 10 am, so I had 30 minutes...

The old trees are left to die and rot as nature intended. No clean-up crews or chain saws for the fallen. Dying shards of moldy wood are home to countless native species of plants and animals.

Nicole got this shot of Lia catching a few precious Washington sun beams in the living room window.

"I could be cuter if you want, but your eyes would probably catch fire and explode -so I'll just hold the cute-factor at 9.8..." (another pic from Nicole)

"Mom, you do realize that this is the face you'll never say 'no' to, right?"

One of the gorillas at the Woodland Park Zoo munches on lettuce.

Nicole snags a quick hug out by the Lion fields.

One of the bird-ladies handles an owl. I'm assuming those glasses are owl beak-proof.

Emus.

Never tie your shoes within 50 meters of one.

Our park is a three-mile chunk of old-growth virgin Washington rain-forest. It's got more than it's fair share of withered ancients still standing guard through centuries of rain...

When you have an abundance of water, light, nutrients and life... everything grows on everything.

Elliot braves the frigid winter lake waters, his tender pink feet protected by only a 2 millimeter thin layer of blue rubber.

Elliot and Grandpa share a few laughs out by the lake.

"Dad, you never told me there was a crap-load of worms and bugs out in the dirt. Why not, Dad?"

2-inch tempered glass: priceless.

Elliot examines that baby gorilla up in the trees. "Could we really be related?" he wonders.

Another bird-lady brandishes an owl at the children. Apparently these birds (the owls) can see a mouse from 1 mile away. I call bull-sh*t on that but I could easily be wrong.

Tapirs.

Equal parts monkey, cat, and dog.

Lia tries to crawl, but settles for a smile instead. Soon, so soon.