Saturday, January 23, 2010

Happy Birthday, Meghan!

My Meghan is 13 today! Happy Birthday, Baby!

Leg warmers are back!

At the Marriott in Seattle

In Starbucks (maybe the original?) in Seattle


Meghan in her soccer uniform with Zoe

Deer stories

Deer abound in Victoria, and we often have them in our backyard. They've decimated one of the little deciduous trees there by eating not only the leaves, but also the newer branches. Because of the deer, we'll never be able to grow much of a backyard garden.

Mark and I witnessed a strange accident on Mackenzie Avenue a few months ago. While driving in Victoria, you always have to keep your eyes peeled for deer on the road, but one afternoon a young buck appeared out of nowhere, heading directly across four lanes of traffic. He hurled himself into the side of a small red car, hitting the back driver's side window with his head. All we saw after that was the deer flipping end over end over the top of the car and coming to a sudden halt on its back on the road. Within seconds, he got up, shook his head, and trotted off the rest of the way across the road to come to a stop on the lawn of a house on the north side of Mackenzie. I was so sure that the little guy was dead, but he was a tough one! The little red car pulled over to the side of the road and the occupants got out gingerly, shaking broken glass from themselves. As human/animal collisions go, I think everyone got off lucky!


One of the deer in our backyard. Notice the tipped-over chair from the latest windstorm.

Yesterday when I got home from work, I saw two little deer (probably last year's babies) bedding in the yard. Cameron said that they had been there for at least a couple of hours. I took some pictures of one of them from inside the house because I didn't want to scare them away. My new camera with its 18x zoom really did a good job -- especially through the window -- but I also caught part of our patio umbrella in the close shot.


This little one kept looking right at me through the window, and not long after I took these pictures, she and her friend (sister?) decided it was time to move on out of the yard.