"littlered" the netbook

our families computing power just grew leaps and bounds - by one cool little netbook. amazon.com has a good deal going on their asus eee 901 netbooks, and this cute little red/pink number with blossoms on it screamed KRYSSSSA at me from over the interweb. she isn't about to morph into a techno-geek like me, but i've got some fun visions of her kicking it at the coffee shop updating facebook, the blog, skyping with some friends - and this little gimmick put her one step closer to fulfilling that dream. plus, and i'll be honest, the thought of doing some major upgrading/modding/hacking on these very customizable netbooks has crossed my mind (new SSD drive, ram, linux OS, GPS, 3G data, etc... hmm...).

as this is kryssa's very first very own very brand new computer, i took some pictures to share with you.

mid-winter break

k and i have a 5 day weekend and we decided to sneak down to depoe bay, OR for a few nights. we left home saturday and spent the evening and night in portland with our friends molly and megan at their awesome NoPo house. we ate some great local thai, played with molly's brand new macbook (photobooth photos for hours), and enjoyed some strawberry tarts i had purchased as a v-day surprise for k from a french bakery at home. this morning we woke up, walked to the little red bike cafe and ate some amazing fried egg sandwiches on fresh baked ciabatta. we left for depoe bay around noon and arrived around 330pm at the channel house, the same place we stayed at during our honeymoon. we went budget this time around though and are staying in the crows nest (as small as it sounds) for the first night, and a larger room with a jacuzzi on the porch the second night. they swing sweet deals for return guests. i took some video with our new vado hd along the bay, but it takes way too long to upload on the internet here. you'll have to suffice with some pictures of k looking prettier than her surroundings.

teacher's weekend at pac sci center

last weekend k and i took the heavilands to the pacific science center for some free fun. we had hoped to score some free tickets to the lucy exhibit and learn more about being descended from apes and amoebas, but we arrived a bit too late. we did however get four tickets to 'under the sea 3d'. it was our first experience watching imax 3d, well any 3d, and it was a lot of fun. i was literally reaching out my hands to touch the fish as they swam right at me. the tech was very good - we wore some glasses, but they weren't the normal red/blue. these were very high tech and i think allowed only certain wavelengths of light through each lens. at any rate, the 3d was very convincing and the pictures were gorgeous of the great barrier reef and surrounding oceanfloor. the best part was 16 month old james sitting on his dads lap with a baby pair of the glasses on, completely engrossed with the movie. he lasted nearly 2/3 through before starting to get a little bored.

we wandered through the butterfly hall after that and then went over to the kids area. while james and the girls played with the percussion instruments, mark and i went over and rode on one of those 'motion simulators'. 90s graphics, a mini-van type chamber poised over a bunch of hydraulics, some screaming kids in the front seat: it was a pretty good ride. they let us on for free after i showed them my teacher id and gave them an email address.

here is a video of james playing in the water.

pretty cruel how the guy standing next to me giggled when james did that. we left for home soon after, james was wet and needed a nap. a fun, free outing on a saturday morning.