Christmas Pictures/ Birding Rant

I had a really good time visiting friends and family over Christmas break. Here are just a few pictures from my travels. Not that you really want to see pictures from my various family gatherings, but for those foolish enough to continue to visit my lame blog site now that my life has become boring, I will force them upon you.

I visited two sets of grandparents over Christmas break as well as spending some time with my family in Camano Island.

We had Christmas morning at my Grandpa Stan and Grandma Lorie's house (aka Gramps and Grams) in northern California. Their house can be summed up in one word: Birds. Everything is about birds in that house. Pictures of birds, sculptures of birds, paintings of birds, books about birds, birding handbooks, windows to see birds out of, 10s of bird feeders so that birds will come to the yard, a basement to store bird seed in, spotting scopes and binoculars to see birds with, a coat rack to hold birding coats and hats, a driveway that holds a car so that they can go birding, etc. What is the reason for this bird mania? Gramps (aka 'doc') was a professor of ornithology at Humboldt State University for over three decades and he is pretty much as bird crazy as they get (but we love him for it)! After reading this, you may not be surprised to know that their Christmas tree is decorated primarily with bird Christmas ornaments. Gramps counted them one year. I think there were 120 bird ornaments then and there are probably more now. I have included a picture of the tree just to illustrate my point.

The bird ornament tree. Unfortunately, the top of the tree got cut off in the picture. What was topping the tree? Was it a star? Was it an angel? Nope. It was a bird, big surprise there. :)

This is Gramps after we all opened our presents on Christmas morning. He requested socks for Christmas and was satisfied. In his lap was his biggest present: Handbook of the Birds of the World volume whatever (or something like that). I love the fact that it is called a "Handbook" when the whole idea of a handbook is something that can fit in your hand, i.e. is small and concise so you can take it in the field with you. I don't think he will be taking that huge book out in the field with him.

Speaking of books, Gramps has actually written a book himself. I know, impressive isn't it? I know your mind is going wild right now with interest. Am I descended from a line of great writers? Is my grandfather's book perched at the top of the New York Times Best Seller list? You might even be wondering what the book is about. Is it a thriller novel? Perhaps a mystery? Memoirs from his travels to nearly all the continents in the world? I think that if you dig deep into the depths of your mind you can probably guess what the book is about.

Think....



Think harder....



You're getting there....


Yup! You guessed it! His book is about birds. It is called, "Northwestern California Birds" and it actually has some nice pictures and useful information (if you are an avid birder, that is). It has been a good retirement project for him. Every few years or so he starts revising it again between coordinating Christmas bird counts and the like. I think he recently finished the 3rd edition.

Don't get me wrong. I am poking this fun at birders, but I actually like birding myself. It can be fun, particularly if it is nice weather and the birds are big and easy to see. It is also a good way to get a little exercise, enjoy nature and socialize with friends. I have just never been completely off the deep end about birds. I have tried, believe me. I even took a birding class at the UW during my undergrad years. (When they asked, "Why are you taking this class?" My response was, "Because I want to be accepted by my family." It turns out that the professor of UW class was friends with my grandpa and wrote him a letter at the end of course to tell him that I had done well in the class, but that I missed a robin on the second field identification exam). However, the birding madness has never quite infected me like it has with the rest of the family. Oh well, I guess they still love me even if I am the mutant non bird crazy granddaughter.


After Christmas I went back up to Washington. Here is a picture of my mom back in Washington making one night's dinner for 14 people. Yup, we really did eat it all.


Before going to see Gramps and Gramps I was visiting Granny and Spiro in the Bay Area in California. Here is a picture of Granny and Spiro together. Aren't they cute?
Spiro and me.
Granny and me.
I thought this was pretty funny. My older brother, Aaron, is actually staying with Granny and Spiro while he starts a new job in San Jose so we were both there visiting Granny and Spiro together. Granny is ULTRA organized and she had a towel rack for Aaron and a towel rack for me both clearly labeled with post-it notes. Granny is a retired message therapist/counselor.



Here is Spiro. It was so much fun to spend time with him. He told me (and Aaron) about the Great Depression, about how he meet Granny and other fun stories. It was a blast.