A Memorable Christmas

A most memorable Christmas here in Oregon. With nearly 2 feet of snow on the ground (and on the streets), not a lot of folks were traveling! But, Paula and I decided that visiting the kids at their house was a good change from our typical mass riot gathering here at the house. So here is a little travelogue of Christmas day. But first, a picture of the new Rainbow house in the snow! We are putting in the hardwood floors right now. My friend Terry Mecham is my boss, and we are having fun doing so! It is even beautiful in the snow!


We started out the morning at the relatively calm and pristine home of Hoa and Thuy. Lyan, Vivian, Dillon and Mia all waited patiently for Grandpa and Grandma to come to open presents. When we were finished, we got a piano recital! (Grandma by the way is the piano teacher for all the local grandkids, who are each learning how to play!)



First was Lyann who played several Christmas carols.


Next we heard from Vivian who is beginning to really become proficient. (Not to mention how studious she looks!)


Dillan then sat still long enough to prove that he has actually been practicing!


Of course Mia could not be left out. She watches her siblings carefully and is likely to be the best piano player of them all eventually! She had to make sure Grandpa was getting the picture!


After the gifts and the recital, we ate a really good breakfast of Pho (Vietnamese Soup), and then headed over to the crazy world of Nic and Hailey! Hailey by the way gets the prize for the most beautiful Christmas mantle in the family!


In stark contrast to the Pham's where no paper hits the ground for more than 1.3 seconds, the living room at the Vial's looked a bit more like a normal post present opening chaos location. Note the Beaver helmet on Nic, who doesn't seem to remember that his beloved alma mater lost the big one and isn't going to the Rose Bowl.


Here is another one a bit closer up of the very interesting crew!


While there, Nate took a quick run around the block on Nic's Banshee. (Which by the way sounds exactly like it sounds!) Gives you a good idea of what the roads were like and why so few people were traveling.


While most everyone got what the were hoping for, this note left on the piano at Nic and Hailey's certainly made clear Santa's feeling!


There may have been one or two disapointments, but CC definitely was proud of the new outfit that her Aunt Alicia had brought her.


Next stop was the Cuong, Chuong, Chi, and Hui gang with Grandma Su Lu presiding. We met and Cuong and Linh's house and again the children had waited for us to open presents! Grandpa got to be Santa, and had some great help from Kayla.


With so many people in the room, my package delivery system eventually took to the air!


Who would have thought that a girl from northern China would ever have the chance to have three kids. Liyan is really happy with baby Felix, and Victor and Eva are good older siblings!


Everyone was really happy to be together. Chuong and Grandma are having fun!



And Victor looks typically pleased with his haul!


Both Grandma's Paula and Su Lu are mighty proud of the little ones!


Oh and lunch was also Pho. Which by the way is a great Christmas Dinner!


Our last stop of the day was downtown Portland at the Watertower Condo home of Hai, Kyle, Cassandra and Jacob.


Hai is definitely liking this mother job a lot! And Jacob loved the Thomas the Train book which Grandma brought.


Honestly a very fun and memorable Christmas. We love the chance to see the family and being in their homes was especially nice. We hope to see the others soon as well, as we will be back in Virginia and Vermont in January, and down in California for Tyler Do's baptism in late February or early March.

Love to all, Rich

Rainbow Update

Still not in the new house, but it is coming along. These pictures give an idea of how the finish around the windows and doors came out. The structural member are darker, and the paneling is lighter.
The bookcases and the cabinets are also stained in the darker shade. All of the wood is knotty alder except the trusses and the glue lam beams which are fir. All of the black iron is also structural.
Today we had an unusual snow storm. The house is really beautiful no matter what the season!

The front wrought iron is turning out to reinforce the idea that it is a government building. I am still convinced that the doors, some of the commercial applications like the vertical cedar siding are contributing to a sense of security. We are really lucky that we have had no vandalism or any other problems since we started the project.

Finally, can anyone really say that they wouldn't like to sit in this hot tub in this place!

Next up is the hardwood floors. My friend Terry Meacham is helping me do this one ourselves. We spent the entire day yesterday gluing up the stair treads and the bull nose. This will really make the project more fun as we can see the results of our work every day. (I hope that is a good thing.)

Tucker and Alicia?

WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

Ok, I am not trying to push the envelope or anything but I am thinking that we are at that point here! Anybody else wanna get in on this?


Ok so I am the father of the potential bride, but I am now rooting for this thing to happen. I mean what is wrong with this kind of guy as a son in law?


I mean if Eddie likes him, then who am I to argue?


Besides, She really looks happy, don't you think!


Peace, Out , Dad

A Typical Family Gathering

DOES IT GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS? IF SO PLEASE ADVISE HOW!

As the family grows ever larger, it becomes more and more difficult to get together. But, those who can come home for a gathering bring more with them! This year the Thanksgiving time was really special. In this post I have gathered up mostly little children pics. There sure are a bunch of them lately!

This first picture comes from a common activity. Dancing Maddie, Sierra and Ava are showing how it is done.
Soon Maddie's mom from Vermont, Chelle was in on the fun.

And within minutes, Grandma was thoroughly tickled!


Maddie (from Vermont) was missing her brother Anders, but soon got into the fun, and became the life of the party. One of her new activities is dress up. Sometimes in quick succession.

First it was the red checked tights. Notice that at least she now has a top on! Next, she changes into a yellow tutu for a little dance with Grandpa!

Her talents were endless, including a great drummer routine!


She was also not afraid to belt it out when the opportunity arose!


Maddie's little brother Eddie (also from Vermont) was seen doing a little bonding with his Uncle Nathan who was clearly pretty fond of him.


A variety of talents was on display throughout the weekend. Sierra was also an excellent drummer, and Victor proved that Pavarotti has nothing on him!

Naturally a spirited game of pool is a necessity.

And the obligatory family picture is ultimately a must. Lot's of fun adult activities and games also happened, but it sure seems that the older I get the more the holiday's seem to be for the children.

Ecuador Pictures

See the album at http://picasaweb.google.com/hoalawman/SpecialPhotoEquador#. Paste this in your web browser.

Ecuador Adventure I

Trogan - San Isrido near Yanayaku Research Station

For the last two weeks I have had the amazing experience of visiting the beautiful country of Ecuador and with the help of a couple of incredible guides, see over 400 species of birds. The trogons, toucans, and hoatzin are fantastic, but you simply can't imagine the diversity of hummingbirds, tanagers, and many other birds endimic to this remarkable place.

We (BYU Business School Dean Ned Hill, Robert Parsons of Maryland and his son Daniel and myself) hired renowned bird guide Rudy Gelis to show us birds in all of the primary habitat. Starting in Quito which sits in the saddle between the east and west spines of the Andes mountains, we climbed up to about 14,000 feet and then eventually descended to the Amazon basin. Along the way we stayed at "Lodges", which were specifically set up for wildlife exploration. Most of them are associated with one or more research stations where students and scientists live and work on a variety of projects. While Ecuador has greater bird diversity than virtually any other place in the world on a per sqare mile basis, I was surprised to learn that most of them have not been studied at all. Rudy was constantly noting the location of nests, leks and other locations to come back and study.

I was shooting these pictures with my new Nikon D700. Most of the time I was using an 80 - 400 VR lens. For birds I usually use A-priority. I set the f-stop one up from full open, in this case at 5.6, and tried not to use any flash at all. Sometimes under the jungle canopy it was a bit dark, but we still got a lot of good shots. If I had wanted to carry a tripod and a larger lens around, it would have been possible to get a lot more of what we saw on film, but much of the time we were trudging along on very muddy, sometimes swampy trails, often for several hours, and I just didn't want to lug it. The 400 mm is hard to hand hold, but with the VR it worked out ok. The D700 allows you to shoot up to 6400 ISO without significant degradation, which was a big help!

Here we are (from left to right, Ned Hill, Rudy Gelis, Carlos (our native Kichua guide in the Amazon basin at Sani lodge), me, Daniel and Robert Parsons. We are in an oil town on the Napo river, just after a 3 hour motorized canoe trip back upriver from the lodge. These oil towns dot the banks of the Amazon and it tributaries, and are evidence of the real battle that continues between progress and protection. The towns have the feel of a true frontier enviornment. In this case the flight to Quito was only 40 minutes, whereas the trip by road had taken about 6 hours! The oil companies are mostly owned by big multinationals of course and the local labor works very cheap. For young men like Carlos, the increased interest in eco-experience is a real blessing as it provides an alternative to working in the oil fields.

This is an example of the beautiful Tanagers that are found throughout the country. We saw more than 50 species of them (remember Ecuador is about the size of Colorado, and there are only a half dozen or so tanager species in the entire US!) Here an enterprising local hung banana's in a tree with the idea that folks like me would stop by and buy a soda or something. Except that no one knew that tanagers would eat banana's! In the meantime, it ended up attracting a newly discovered species of tanager (not this one) which all of the guides are really excited about.

All told, this was a very full experience, one which I intend to do a few more posts on in the next few weeks. It certainly left me pensive about the poverty of our brothers and sisters in many places in the world which are so rich with natural beauty and life.

I Love This Counrty

I am not much of a photographer, but I feel even less comfortable as a writer. Nevertheless, I feel a need to attempt to record some of my feelings at seeing the speeches of still Senator John McCain, and President Elect Barak Obama tonight. I have been a loyal Republican all of my voting life, but I feel nothing but hope as I come away from this election.

The campaigns were tough. Obama was brilliant. His organization was incredible and deserved to win by virtue of it's breath and depth if nothing else. But, as I saw the tears in the eyes of my black brothers and sisters in the crowd in Chicago, I too felt the emotion of living in a place where as unlikely a candidate as Barak could become president, and am proud to be an American. I am glad that a little black boy or girl can believe in doing whatever they want. I am glad that my Muslim brothers and sisters can believe in a place where there is no reason to despair the opportunity to be whatever they want to be!

It does not matter who we voted for in this election, we are lucky to have the opportunity to see true democracy in action. I agree with John McCain's observation that we should be proud to live in a country where the process works. We have a person born poor, who worked hard, got an education, got involved and got elected. This is just not a likely story in virtually anywhere else in the world.

I believe in the destiny of the US. I also believe that Barak Obama will be helped in facing the challenges that we have as a country. 2 wars, economic distress, many without good health care, etc, etc. I for one will pray for him.

This is written mostly for my children, who have the world in front of them. I am positive about the future. I love this county, and I am proud to be an American. Love, Dad

New Baby Felix

Another landmark week with the birth of Felix VietHam Huynh, 8 lbs. 4 oz., born Thursday, October 30 at about 8:30 a.m. to Choung Huynh and Liyan Xiao. He looks a lot like his brother Victor, and is very healthy.


This was the second c-section delivery for mom Liyan, and she was really tired after almost 6 weeks of bed! She was really glad to have Felix here at last.



He wasn't staying awake much, but seemed pretty happy even when he was asleep.



All toes and fingers intact!


He doesn't seem to mind a snuggle with Grandma.


And even puts up with Grandpa!


Grandma doesn't trust Grandpa yet with the details.



And in the end, Grandma is ultimately the Queen of the snuggle!



Anybody else jealous of little Felix? Stay tuned, they just seem to keep coming.