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This page has our most recent Byrd Blog entries for 2012
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May 2012
Well, we thought we would start off our month by trapping a mouse on the first day!
Yesterday morning — the last day of April — I (Brian) was standing in the kitchen reading the news on my iPad, when suddenly a dark, somewhat large mouse ran from the pantry closet in the kitchen, keeping to the edge of the cabinets, ducked under the stove, came out from under the stove, kept going past the sink, and then disappeared ... I think under the dishwasher. I was so shocked I just stood there for some seconds with my mouth hanging open! Then I quickly jumped up on a stool, just in case he had friends! Later we looked and found lots of mouse poop in the pantry and under the sink! Yuck!
Later in the day I went and bought some mouse traps. I bated three with peanut butter, and set them out before we went to bed. In the morning, I looked first at the trap by the dishwasher, but nothing. Nor under the sink. But as you can see by the photo, we did have some success in the pantry! It's a fairly large mouse, and gray instead of the brown I thought I saw. Fortunately, you can't see the puddle of blood that was beneath the trap!
Before going to bed last night, Catherine had written Joanne a little note in German: "Passe auf die Maus!" (Watch out for the mouse!) This morning I added a new line: "Eine tote Maus in den Schrank!" (A dead mouse in the closet!) And that's the way it was on this first day of May, 2012!
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Yesterday morning — the last day of April — I (Brian) was standing in the kitchen reading the news on my iPad, when suddenly a dark, somewhat large mouse ran from the pantry closet in the kitchen, keeping to the edge of the cabinets, ducked under the stove, came out from under the stove, kept going past the sink, and then disappeared ... I think under the dishwasher. I was so shocked I just stood there for some seconds with my mouth hanging open! Then I quickly jumped up on a stool, just in case he had friends! Later we looked and found lots of mouse poop in the pantry and under the sink! Yuck!
Later in the day I went and bought some mouse traps. I bated three with peanut butter, and set them out before we went to bed. In the morning, I looked first at the trap by the dishwasher, but nothing. Nor under the sink. But as you can see by the photo, we did have some success in the pantry! It's a fairly large mouse, and gray instead of the brown I thought I saw. Fortunately, you can't see the puddle of blood that was beneath the trap!
Before going to bed last night, Catherine had written Joanne a little note in German: "Passe auf die Maus!" (Watch out for the mouse!) This morning I added a new line: "Eine tote Maus in den Schrank!" (A dead mouse in the closet!) And that's the way it was on this first day of May, 2012!
April 2012
Well, spring has sprung in Oregon: the rain is not quite so cold, and another term has started at nearby Linn-Benton Community College! Last term, Joanne and Jeremy both earned A's in their English Composition class — bravo, good job! Unfortunately, it didn't work out for them to take a class together this time around.
As I mentioned last month, Jeremy has four courses this term. At the last minute a slot opened up for Joanne in the Speech class she was wanting, so she's all set too. Even I (Brian) got into the act: I'm taking a Backpacking and Map-Reading course — by an ex-military instructor who taught similar courses to new recruits! — which will hopefully aid me on all my wilderness photo outings. I'm going to be writing more about the class on my photography blog Web site; you can follow the links in the black box above.
Catherine and Olivia are at home each day, plugging away at fourth grade. In addition, there are activities outside the home, like piano lessons, Awanas, P.E. at the Albany YMCA, and more!
During the middle of the month I (Brian) made a five-day trip to Southeastern Oregon — sometimes known as the Oregon Outback. It was the first time I had been to that part of the state, and I can testify that it is VERY different from the western part of Oregon! You can read all about my adventures, and see some of the photos, by following the blog article links above, starting with number 15 — Base Camp: Frenchglen.
For your entertainment, we'll leave you for now with this crazy video:
As I mentioned last month, Jeremy has four courses this term. At the last minute a slot opened up for Joanne in the Speech class she was wanting, so she's all set too. Even I (Brian) got into the act: I'm taking a Backpacking and Map-Reading course — by an ex-military instructor who taught similar courses to new recruits! — which will hopefully aid me on all my wilderness photo outings. I'm going to be writing more about the class on my photography blog Web site; you can follow the links in the black box above.
Catherine and Olivia are at home each day, plugging away at fourth grade. In addition, there are activities outside the home, like piano lessons, Awanas, P.E. at the Albany YMCA, and more!
During the middle of the month I (Brian) made a five-day trip to Southeastern Oregon — sometimes known as the Oregon Outback. It was the first time I had been to that part of the state, and I can testify that it is VERY different from the western part of Oregon! You can read all about my adventures, and see some of the photos, by following the blog article links above, starting with number 15 — Base Camp: Frenchglen.
For your entertainment, we'll leave you for now with this crazy video:
March 2012
Well, all I (Brian) have to share so far this month is photography-related, so to find out what that is, you can follow the Brian's Photographic Blog article links above. It would be great if I could convince Catherine and the kids to contribute to this Swiss Byrds blog too!
Hey! Maybe my wish has come true! Catherine has contributed to this month's entry by taking these photos of Olivia playing in the snow! The top photo show her with her neighbor friend, Hope. In the bottom photo, they are sliding down a very short incline just on the other side of our neighbor's house.
As we awoke this morning, the first day of spring, we were greeted with the most snow we've had all winter! Of course, here in the Willamette Valley, even just an inch or two of snow is a big deal. And besides, in a place like Oregon, where the rainy season can last up to nine months, the dividing line between winter and spring is only a little footnote in a box on the calendar!
You can see a couple more photos that I took this morning on my Photography Blog Web site: Oregon Snow Greets the First Day of Spring.
The latest alert from the weather service reads:
Seeing that Albany is at only 210 feet above sea level, it doesn't seem likely that we'll get as much snow as they are predicting. But it isn't over yet!
Well, it finally stopped snowing after about, I would say, 12 hours non-stop — not hard, but steady. I suppose it snowed about 3 inches or so, but it's kind of hard to tell, because the temperature has not been low enough to keep it from melting somewhat. Still, there's more on the ground now than probably any other day of the year here in Albany.
Olivia has been taking full advantage of the wintry weather. Besides having her homeschool canceled, just like all of her public-school neighbor friends, she played outside with those neighbors all morning, and in the afternoon made a snowman in the backyard with her brother, as you can see from the photo.
From what the weather service is saying, it's supposed to keep snowing throughout the night. I wonder what it's going to look like tomorrow morning?
I had mentioned in our January blog entry (see below) that Joanne and Jeremy were starting their first college course, at the nearby Linn-Benton Community College (LBCC). Yesterday — thankfully, not today, with the hazardous roads! — was the final exam, so now they are officially finished with their first college course. They seemed to handle the work in their English Composition class quite well, so we can be proud of their abilities and achievements.
We've decided to have Jeremy take the majority of his remaining high school courses through LBCC rather than at home. Next term, he will be finishing his junior year of high school by taking four classes: Intermediate Algebra, History of Western Civilization, Digital Literacy (a beginning computer class), and for P.E., Ultimate Frisbee (kinda like football, but with a frisbee instead of a football, and there's no tackling). Also, Jeremy is giving weekly beginning guitar lesson to three students, raising money to buy some audio equipment he's been dreaming of.
For the remaineder of his high school education (until June 2013), he's limited to only 11 units of LBCC classes each term, so he will still be doing some subjects at home — particularly French lessons with his mom!
Joanne's going to be done with high school in just three months! She hopes to take a Fundamentals of Speech class at LBCC next term, but as of now all the classes (ten of them!) are full, so she's going to be making the rounds the first week of class to see if an empty seat opens up. Even if it doesn't, she's got plenty on her agenda with a variety of subject, including Human Anatomy (that's why she's dissecting a sheep heart in the photo!), French, German, Islamic Studies, and all the books she's reading in preparation for following her dream of becoming a midwife.
This Autumn Joanne plans on attending a six-month Discipleship Training School at the Youth With A Mission center in Burtigny, Switzerland, which includes a three-month missions outreach, most likely in Africa. That ought to be quite an adventure!
Hey! Maybe my wish has come true! Catherine has contributed to this month's entry by taking these photos of Olivia playing in the snow! The top photo show her with her neighbor friend, Hope. In the bottom photo, they are sliding down a very short incline just on the other side of our neighbor's house.
As we awoke this morning, the first day of spring, we were greeted with the most snow we've had all winter! Of course, here in the Willamette Valley, even just an inch or two of snow is a big deal. And besides, in a place like Oregon, where the rainy season can last up to nine months, the dividing line between winter and spring is only a little footnote in a box on the calendar!
You can see a couple more photos that I took this morning on my Photography Blog Web site: Oregon Snow Greets the First Day of Spring.
The latest alert from the weather service reads:
A winter storm warning for heavy snow remains in effect until 11 PM this evening. A total of 7 to 10 inches through this evening ... with up to 15 inches above 700 feet.
Well, it finally stopped snowing after about, I would say, 12 hours non-stop — not hard, but steady. I suppose it snowed about 3 inches or so, but it's kind of hard to tell, because the temperature has not been low enough to keep it from melting somewhat. Still, there's more on the ground now than probably any other day of the year here in Albany.
Olivia has been taking full advantage of the wintry weather. Besides having her homeschool canceled, just like all of her public-school neighbor friends, she played outside with those neighbors all morning, and in the afternoon made a snowman in the backyard with her brother, as you can see from the photo.
From what the weather service is saying, it's supposed to keep snowing throughout the night. I wonder what it's going to look like tomorrow morning?
We've decided to have Jeremy take the majority of his remaining high school courses through LBCC rather than at home. Next term, he will be finishing his junior year of high school by taking four classes: Intermediate Algebra, History of Western Civilization, Digital Literacy (a beginning computer class), and for P.E., Ultimate Frisbee (kinda like football, but with a frisbee instead of a football, and there's no tackling). Also, Jeremy is giving weekly beginning guitar lesson to three students, raising money to buy some audio equipment he's been dreaming of.
For the remaineder of his high school education (until June 2013), he's limited to only 11 units of LBCC classes each term, so he will still be doing some subjects at home — particularly French lessons with his mom!
Joanne's going to be done with high school in just three months! She hopes to take a Fundamentals of Speech class at LBCC next term, but as of now all the classes (ten of them!) are full, so she's going to be making the rounds the first week of class to see if an empty seat opens up. Even if it doesn't, she's got plenty on her agenda with a variety of subject, including Human Anatomy (that's why she's dissecting a sheep heart in the photo!), French, German, Islamic Studies, and all the books she's reading in preparation for following her dream of becoming a midwife.
This Autumn Joanne plans on attending a six-month Discipleship Training School at the Youth With A Mission center in Burtigny, Switzerland, which includes a three-month missions outreach, most likely in Africa. That ought to be quite an adventure!
February 2012
February has been a month of adventure, with both great good news and unfortunate bad news — and there's still a week left until March! First, let's start with the good news.
On the third day of the month I (Brian) took a shuttle bus from Albany — at 4:30 AM! — to the Portland International Airport. There I caught a flight to San Francisco International Airport, then connected to a flight further south to the San Luis Obispo Airport. My parents picked me up, and after treating me to a great lunch at McLintocks, we headed back to my parents' house in Santa Maria. It was the first time I had travelled by air with so little baggage — only my normal, everyday backpack, stuffed with my iPad, iPod Touch, camera, a thrilling paperback novel,
and a change of underwear! Having no bags to check in or pick up sure made the flights much easier!
I actually wasn't planning on taking any pictures on this trip, but when I glanced out the window right after takeoff and saw the gorgeous view of Mt. Saint Helens and Mt. Rainier, I quickly pulled my new Canon PowerShot S100 camera out, and didn't stop snapping photos the entire flight down to San Francisco! I got some great shots of most the major peaks along the Oregon Cascades, as well as numerous awesome pictures over the San Francisco Bay area. You can see all of the pictures I took while airborn in my new Aerial Oregon & CA 2012 photo album.
Speaking of my online photo albums — for the past couple of months I have been hard at work creating a new Web site to host my growing collection of photos. Most of the pictures that used to be on this SwissByrds Web site have been moved to my new Brian Byrd's Photo Gallery Web site. The remaining family-oriented photos can still be found on this Web site in our Byrd Family Photo Album.
OK ... back to my trip. The whole reason I flew down to Santa Maria in the first place was because my mom got a new car, and decided to give her previous one — a 2005 Chevy Malibu — to Joanne and Jeremy. Wow! That's a pretty nice car to be giving an 18-year-old who just got her driver's license, and a 17-year-old who doesn't even have his learner's permit yet!
So after spending the night at my parents', I got up around 4:00 AM and was on the road less than an hour later. I made the 830-mile trip back to Albany in about 13 hours. After parking in front of the house, I quickly put the huge bow and gift tag that my mom had prepared onto the hood of the car, and then called the kids out to see their new car.
But not all the news is good news when it comes to cars in the Byrd family.
I had mentioned in last month's blog entry below that two days after her 18th birthday, Joanne got her Oregon driver's license. Only four days later she, regrettably, got into an accident.
As Joanne was driving to her violin lesson in Corvallis, with Catherine as a passenger, the front of our Subaru Outback was sheared by a young lady — probably not too much older than Joanne — who ran a red light. Fortunately, Joanne was not broadsided, and no one was injured (just the cars).
As you can see from the photo, the damage wasn't too bad, but still, the hood had to be replaced, as well as numerous parts on the inside and the outside. Because the other driver was at fault, her insurance company, Farmers, ended up having to foot the entire $6,000 repair bill. This second photo is one that the body shop sent us as they were in the process of repairing all the damage. We got the car back yesterday, three days ahead of their estimate, and it looks great — as good as new!
Well, that's enough excitement for one month! To lighten things up a bit, I'll leave you with a link to this very funny, yet all-too-true, story: The Young Man and The Cowboy.
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On the third day of the month I (Brian) took a shuttle bus from Albany — at 4:30 AM! — to the Portland International Airport. There I caught a flight to San Francisco International Airport, then connected to a flight further south to the San Luis Obispo Airport. My parents picked me up, and after treating me to a great lunch at McLintocks, we headed back to my parents' house in Santa Maria. It was the first time I had travelled by air with so little baggage — only my normal, everyday backpack, stuffed with my iPad, iPod Touch, camera, a thrilling paperback novel,
and a change of underwear! Having no bags to check in or pick up sure made the flights much easier!Speaking of my online photo albums — for the past couple of months I have been hard at work creating a new Web site to host my growing collection of photos. Most of the pictures that used to be on this SwissByrds Web site have been moved to my new Brian Byrd's Photo Gallery Web site. The remaining family-oriented photos can still be found on this Web site in our Byrd Family Photo Album.
So after spending the night at my parents', I got up around 4:00 AM and was on the road less than an hour later. I made the 830-mile trip back to Albany in about 13 hours. After parking in front of the house, I quickly put the huge bow and gift tag that my mom had prepared onto the hood of the car, and then called the kids out to see their new car.
But not all the news is good news when it comes to cars in the Byrd family.
I had mentioned in last month's blog entry below that two days after her 18th birthday, Joanne got her Oregon driver's license. Only four days later she, regrettably, got into an accident.
As Joanne was driving to her violin lesson in Corvallis, with Catherine as a passenger, the front of our Subaru Outback was sheared by a young lady — probably not too much older than Joanne — who ran a red light. Fortunately, Joanne was not broadsided, and no one was injured (just the cars).
As you can see from the photo, the damage wasn't too bad, but still, the hood had to be replaced, as well as numerous parts on the inside and the outside. Because the other driver was at fault, her insurance company, Farmers, ended up having to foot the entire $6,000 repair bill. This second photo is one that the body shop sent us as they were in the process of repairing all the damage. We got the car back yesterday, three days ahead of their estimate, and it looks great — as good as new!
Well, that's enough excitement for one month! To lighten things up a bit, I'll leave you with a link to this very funny, yet all-too-true, story: The Young Man and The Cowboy.
January 2012
Like last year, most of my (Brian's) news revolves around photography. Therefore, all of my writings on that subject will continue to be posted on my Brian's Photographic Blog Web site, which is actually part of my Brian Byrd's Photo Gallery Web site. That way, this family Web site will not become cluttered with too much camera talk. As you can see above, there will be a black box with links to the articles each month. Be sure to check it out regularly!
The next big news is that Joanne turned 18 on the 24th! After all these years of preparation, she has finally reached the legal age of adulthood!
We celebrated by heading for Eugene to have dinner at the Red Lobster, and then to catch the concert of Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser and cellist Natalie Haas. It was a great concert — see the video below for a small sample of what we experienced.
And now the next big news is that today, two days after Joanne's birthday, she passed her driving exam! After months of hard work and preparation, she got a 95% on her driving exam, and the examiner even wrote on the evaluation in French: "Très bien" ("Very good")! Hip, hip, hurray! Congratulations Joanne!!
I don't think that I've mentioned yet that Joanne and Jeremy are taking a writing class at Linn-Benton Community College (LBCC), which is conveniently only one-and-a-quarter miles from our house (as the crow flies). This is their first official college course. And today is the first day that Joanne will officially drive her and Jeremy to class all by herself!
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We celebrated by heading for Eugene to have dinner at the Red Lobster, and then to catch the concert of Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser and cellist Natalie Haas. It was a great concert — see the video below for a small sample of what we experienced.
And now the next big news is that today, two days after Joanne's birthday, she passed her driving exam! After months of hard work and preparation, she got a 95% on her driving exam, and the examiner even wrote on the evaluation in French: "Très bien" ("Very good")! Hip, hip, hurray! Congratulations Joanne!!
I don't think that I've mentioned yet that Joanne and Jeremy are taking a writing class at Linn-Benton Community College (LBCC), which is conveniently only one-and-a-quarter miles from our house (as the crow flies). This is their first official college course. And today is the first day that Joanne will officially drive her and Jeremy to class all by herself!