Who Do You Want to Be Today?

We always love dressing up for Halloween here at the Worle house, and this year was no exception.

Teri and I helped the girls put together their costumes and I think they turned out pretty cool.

Christine dressed up as a Vocaloid, which is a Japanese digital anime character that sings pop music.  There are a whole handful of different Vocaloid characters, but Christine opted for creating an original character inspired by the look of the existing characters.  I think it turned out pretty cool.

Ashlee wanted to dress up as Megara from Disney's Hercules, so I modified a second-hand dress to get the look.  I think she looks pretty awesome too.

I reused a costume from a number of years ago, but I think it looks pretty good.  I dressed up as Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings.  Looking at it again, maybe I can do a little work to improve and add to the armor.  Ah well, that'll be for some other Halloween.

You may have noticed that I grew a goatee for my costume.  Well, technically, I've had it for a couple of months now.  I like the way it looks, but I was ready to get rid of it so I decided to play around with my look a little on Halloween night.

#1 - Just trimmed the edges of my goatee a little to shape it.  I like this look pretty well, though I have to say, the last time I grew my beard out those grey hairs weren't there... where did those come from?!?
#2 - This one looks like I either need to join the musketeers, or maybe join the Confederate Army.

#3 - Really different look for me, but actually not terrible.  Maybe I should dress up as Super Mario with this one.  Or Ray Magliozzi.

#4 - And back to normal.  Ah, that feels nice.

Up, Up and Away in My Beautiful Balloon

We had a bit of an adventure this weekend.  Earlier this summer, I noticed an interesting deal in my email, and Teri and I decided we should go for it.  We tried in July, but the weather didn't cooperate, so we were re-scheduled for October.  So this weekend it finally happened - we got to take a hot air balloon ride.  It was really cool, and I took lots of pictures.  Enjoy!

Getting set up. We didn't know yet which balloon would be ours.

One is nearly ready

And away it goes!

Now the next one is nearly ready.  Our balloon would be the one in the background, "Desert Rose".

A whole fleet of balloons ready to go!

And off they go! Another group is in "Desert Rose" for the first flight; when they land, we will get on board for our own flight.

A sky full of balloons.

All aboard!

Oh, wow, here we go...

Christine was nervous about the height, but she did great.

Come on baby, light my fire.

And up we go!

Thinking of balloons?

So cool.

Two other balloons, and the shadow of our balloon.

...and back down to Earth again.

Helping deflate the balloon.  The girls and I are keeping the basket from dragging, while Teri helps deflate at the top of the balloon.

Everything all packed up.  That bag there has the whole balloon packed away in it - and it weighs some 600 lbs.!

Whale of a Tale

So last week we went to Newport, Oregon for some fun and relaxation.  We've been there before, so this isn't one of our more adventurous summer vacations, but we decided to go someplace we were more familiar with so we could relax more and take it easy.  I often plan vacations that involve a lot of sightseeing and trying to pack a lot of things into our time, but wanted to be more laid-back this year.

We did still see and do some fun stuff, though.  And I got some pictures.  Yay!

We played a bit on the beach - the weather was probably as nice as it ever gets on the Oregon coast.
Here's Ashlee hanging out next to a big jellyfish we found washed up on the shore.  Don't touch!

We brought Aspen along on the trip, and she seemed to have fun running on the beach and meeting lots of new friends.  She's not very good around other dogs (she barks and growls) but she got a lot of practice and seems to be getting better.

Here's Aspen and the girls running through the surf.

We did have a sudden shark attack, but as you can see, I took care of it.

One of the coolest things we did was to take a whale watching trip out of Depoe Bay.  These little boats hold between 4 and 6 people, and had the ability to get us really quite close up to any whales.  However, because of their size, they also can be a bit like riding a roller coaster.  Here is a picture of one of the other boats that went out at the same time as us, so you can see what the boats were like.
Teri got a little sick, but we all had fun.

We were able to see several whales, and twice a whale breached not more than 20 feet away from the side of our boat.  It was really cool.  Here are a couple of pictures of whales that we got really close to.

The big aquarium in Newport is the Oregon Coast Aquarium, which I highly recommend visiting if you are ever there.  However, we had been there twice before, so we decided to check out a smaller place that we had not seen before, the Hatfield Marine Science Center, which is an extension of Oregon State University.  The visitors center is free to visit, though they do suggest a donation of $5 per person.  The highlight of the science center is the pacific octopus, which they feed publicly twice a week.  We showed up just in time to see it being fed, and it was pretty cool to watch.

We saw a ton of sea lions on the docks downtown when we were visiting.

In the wax museum, Christine and I found a scruffy-looking nerf-herder we recognized.

And finally, here's Sasquatch sneaking up on Teri in Ripley's Believe it or Not.

Band on the Run

Well, it's a little late, but a few weeks ago my band got together at Jeff's house (our bass player), and had a barbeque and put on a little concert for some of our family and friends.  We did a solid set of 14 songs, and I think it went pretty well.  Due to technical difficulties we weren't able to get video, but we did get audio for the whole thing, so here they are.
Enjoy!

You May Be Right

Free Falling

God Put a Smile on Your Face

Ain't No Sunshine

Wonderwall

Low Rider

Take it Easy

Small Town

Flake

Love Me Two Times

Crocodile Rock

Brick in the Wall

Learn to Fly

Through it All

If I Had a Hammer

According to the instructions that came with our gazebo kit, it should take two people two days to build.
It's now been nearly one month, and we have finally finished it.  Whew.  I was going to build a shed after we were done with this gazebo, but I think maybe that can wait a couple of months.  I'm ready to be done building stuff for a while.

Big huge thanks to Christine who was willing to climb all over the roof of the gazebo for the last week or so helping us do the shingles and the cupola.  She is awesome, as you can tell from this picture below.  :-)

Listen to the Band

Eric, a friend of mine, had his 50th birthday at the beginning of the month, and what he wanted to do was to get the band together and perform for our friends and family.  He rented out a space in Eagle, and we had BBQ pulled pork sandwiches and potluck, as well as cake and ice cream.  We played nine songs as a band, and then Nick, our drummer, performed a song he had written.

Our band (informally called the BCI Band, since we all met through Blue Cross of Idaho) is comprised of Eric Millet, vocals and acoustic guitar, Jeff Wokersien, electric guitar, Nick Jones, vocals and drums, Jeff Crouch, bass, and Sean Worle, vocals and keyboards.  Also, behind the scenes, Dan Brickey ran our sound board.

It was a fun evening for us, and hopefully also for our audience.

"Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day

"Take It Easy" by The Eagles

"Viva La Vida" by Coldplay

"Ain't No Sunshine" by Bill Withers

"Free Falling" by Tom Petty

"Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons

"You May Be Right" by Billy Joel

"Superman (It's Not Easy)" by Five For Fighting

"Dixie Road" by Lee Greenwood

"Through It All" by Nick Jones