20 April 2026
It feels like there's been a number of things happening over the last month that I need to catch up on. However, first I'd like to wish my Lalla a happy celestial birthday. I miss her greatly. My Saturday mornings aren't the same without her reminding me how much she loves me or how amazing she thinks I am.
Jax is now 7 months old and weighing in just under 48 pounds. He's still as clueless about cat language as he was a month ago and seems to think that the cats swiping at him (in response to his pleading to play with them in doggy language) means "yes, absolutely!" He loves going to Doggy Daycare but we obviously need to look into getting him into some obedience training.
The big recent event was my BIRTHDAY!! Engineers routinely build on each other's ideas so I felt no guilt in having a MarioKart tournament in a local movie theater auditorium after a young friend did the same last October. To say that I was eagerly anticipating the event would be a gross understatement. I COULD BARELY WAIT!!! I invited a handful of friends, mostly some families we hadn't seen since they stopped coming to the Deaf Branch for various reasons. I greatly enjoyed catching up with them (and seeing how much the kids had grown!). My favorite moment, though, was when we were doing the finals of the tournament and decided it should be a Knockout Race rather than a Grand Prix. I got so locked in on my part of the screen that I was caught by surprise when all three of my human competitors failed to make the 8th place checkpoint, which meant I WON!!!! I may have started jumping up and down and cheering. Cody had been making a big deal for several weeks that I was getting an awesome present that he was gladly going to use when I wasn't around. It turned out to be the colorized version of the second season of the old 1950s Zorro series on DVD. I didn't even know they MADE that! Cody and I have been having fun watching them ever since.
Purely in the realm of "doing something different", I signed up for an "Academy" thing from CraftingTable.com. Basically, it's a six-month course in various hardware design. I'd done the 30 Days Lost in Space and some other kits from this group but decided I could go ahead and do the full thing, though on my own schedule. The first month was all about basic circuits. The Capstone project was to create something that interfaced with chatGPT to get some exposure to AI interactions. I made a game where the Arduino randomly selects a number between 1-100 and the player has to guess it. Their guess and the number are passed to chatGPT which returns something like "Try higher" or "You are very close, try lower." I admit to some feelings of pride when I got that working.
BYU qualified for the Men's NCAA March Madness tournament -- and even came to Portland! So, I took the hubby on a date to go see the First Round game. Sadly, BYU lost, but the evening was still fantastic in that we were able to meet up with a friend from college who happened to be in town. We even got to help him get his phone back when he left it in an Uber! Exciting evening to be sure!
I had the privilege of being a chaperone for two of Cody's recent field trips. He seems to think I'm a pretty cool one so he keeps asking me to go. I don't mind my teenager thinking I'm cool! For the most recent one when all the 8th graders went to OMSI, he made sure we were dressed alike so we were properly Repping the Y. Cute, yes?
When his dad went across the country to a Deaf expo to do some research for his work, Cody decided to print out a variety of keychains to be sold there. He had three designs which he printed in a multitude of colors and made $90! Fun to see him being creative with the 3D printer.
Last thing for this update I think is another AI picture. Burrow loves to be on my shoulder. Every day, usually several times a day, she climbs up and perches either on my shoulder or into my chest. We say that she missed her calling in life and was supposed to be a parrot on a pirate ship. Maybe a backwards-parrot since she's always looking backwards. I finally got a good source picture and fed it to chatGPT to see what she would look like as a Parrot-Cat. I love the peg leg.
17 March 2026
Jax is now 6 months old! He's been with us for two of those months and seems to be settling in as well as can be expected. He wants to play with the cats but hasn't quite figured out that they don't play the same as puppies do. He was irritating Potato one day recently so she went on the offensive and chased HIM into a corner! In general, though, the cats either ignore him or let him sniff them before moving on.
We feel slightly guilty having Jax in his kennel while we're at church but don't trust him alone with the cats, so we've been letting the cats have the master suite to themselves and giving Jax the rest of the house. Week 1 of that experiment worked out well, except we saw through the window that he was laying on the dining room table when we returned. Clearly this is NOT desired behavior. So, for Week 2, we put tin foil on the table, thinking that if it deterred cats, it may deter a dog too. WRONG! We set up one of our Ring cameras so we could see what he did -- and saw that he was not deterred in the slightest. Dog: 1, Humans: 0
For Week 3, the engineer in me said "well, he can't get on the table if something else is already there!" so I put the two bar stools on the table. Again, the Ring camera was set up. Logging into it from Church, we found that he was still not deterred. He did spent a lot of time rotating between the three benches but also spent time on the table. Dog: 2, Humans 0
Oh, it's on now! I realized I left too much empty space on the table, so for Week 4, both bar stools AND a chair were stacked on the table! This seems to have worked! The humans finally get a point!
Jax inherited some toys from our previous dogs, as well as getting some new ones of his own. Then a friend at Church gave us some that she no longer needs -- so Jax has a LOT of toys. He had most of them grouped around him the other day, and I couldn't resist the photo.
In non-Jax news, we greatly enjoyed the Olympics. For two weeks, the tv was almost constantly showing some event involving snow or ice and I LOVED it! While I'm sure Ilia Malinin's 8th place finish was hard for him, he's in good company. The last several American men who won gold in Singles skating did it on the second try. Hamilton. Boitano. Lysacek. Chen. Like them, I'm confident he will rebound and win the next one by a landslide, if he decides to pursue it. And he can certainly hold his head high about the long program performance he gave in the Team competition! Personally, I'm in awe that these young people can go out on the world stage and perform these amazing feats! Of course everyone wants to do their best and it sucks when a bad day happens to fall on one also spent in the spotlight, but that's life. Overcoming adversity is something we all need to learn how to do.
7 February 2026
I do not consider myself creative. At all. I feel I'm much better at doing stuff than coming up with ideas of things to do or make. I'm in no way an artist. Usually the best I can do is a stick figure. However, I have had some fun recently with having chatGPT create some art for me. What do you think?
A cartoon version of the day we got Jax!
Capturing some of the things that make me happy.
Me as a BYU Baseball bobblehead! I find this one funny.
In honor of the Olympics, here's me as a Team USA hockey player!
Me as a plushie.
Jax as a plushie.
In honor of the Seahawks playing in the Super Bowl tomorrow, here's me scoring a touchdown for them!
Me as a Team USA halfpipe snowboarder!
20 January 2026
We got a dog! He's a 4-month-old black lab/husky mix (or so we were told) and he is absolutely adorable! He came from Texas, where animal overpopulation is very real. He and his litter-mates were found in a box by the freeway, in the hot Texas sunshine, with no mama dog around. A rescue picked them up and placed them with a couple who knows how to bottle feed, which they did for the whole litter until the pups could eat mush and then normal dog food. When he came here, we named him Jax. Here's the picture they got of us just after he was put in my arms. Don't we look like a happy family? His page has been added to the Family tab, though obviously we only have a few pictures so far.
12 January 2026
I posted the pictures for most of the last year on the Pictures page (click the tab above).
Enjoy!
9 January 2026
Another year is here. I did better, for a time at least, in regularly updating this blog last year but there's still room for improvement. I guess I better start off by summarizing the last quarter of last year.
BYU continued to do very well, finishing the regular season with only two losses - but to the same team (Texas Tech, ranked #4). Not bad at all! They were left out of the College Football Playoffs but played in the Pop-Tarts Bowl against Georgia Tech. The opponent was supposed to be Notre Dame but they basically threw a tantrum when they were also excluded from the CFP and said "we won't play in any Bowl game if we aren't in the Playoffs." Their loss. BYU was able to eke out a win by scoring the winning touchdown with 2 minutes left in the game and intercepting the ball when GT tried for a touchdown on 4th down. The hubby watched part of the game from an airplane, as he and my brother were returning from vacation in Alaska at the time, but made it home in time to watch the last 5 minutes virtually with us. Such a precious moment to share!
BYU's QB, Bear Bachmeier, enjoying a Pop-Tart next to the trophy... which doubles as a toaster!
Marisol successfully completed her time at OYCP, earning enough credits that she only needs to pass a single English class when she returns to the local high school for 2nd semester. She's taking some fun classes as well so she'll be eligible to do all the fun extracurricular stuff but she only needs to pass the one. Such a different situation than she was facing a year ago. I'm so proud of her. She had a surprise for me at her graduation when she signed the National Anthem. Ain't gonna lie -- that was special. Really special.
Marisol with the family and friends who attended graduation.
Marisol signing the National Anthem while other cadets sing it
For Christmas, we went to Alaska, at the invitation of my mom and her husband. We had a FANTASTIC time. We ate far too many cookies and good food, visited various animals (Reindeer Farm in Palmer, Wildlife Refuge in Portage and Sealife Center in Seward), were gifted far too many presents, played in the snow and otherwise completely enjoyed ourselves. I'll put some pictures up shortly.
