Hi everyone!  December was really wild, especially with me starting my new job as a Sr. Client Partner for SAP America.  I’m really happy to be back and we had a wonderful time playing in the snow this December!  We managed sledding at home, and several skiing trips already to Mt. Bachelor and up to Mt. Hood.

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Seth – 2009.12 – …“, posted with vodpod

The kids tackle Mt. Bachelor’s Dilly Dally Alley with commentary from Aunt Patti

What a great year!  We wish all of you the very best during this holiday season.

Much affection,

The Beefsteak, Roma, Cherry and Grape tomatoes

Holiday Letter for 2009 (click this link for the PDF letter)

November was a good month for us.  We hope this finds you all well and recovered from Thanksgiving feasting!

I started my new job on the 30th and we even managed a day skiing BEFORE Thanksgiving.  The embedded album and video are below

We had many things to give thanks for during November and we were glad to be surrounded by you, our family and friends, for whom we are extremely grateful.

Alpenglow on Mt. Hood - skiing with the kids (unusually before T-giving)

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Seth – 2009.11 – …“, posted with vodpod

Little Hikers on the Wildwood Trail near our house

Marilynne shows the way to crash a horse

Getting ready to release a wild John Day River steelhead!

Foggy morning on the mountain

October was a bit of a whirlwind month for us though very enjoyable.  We were really glad my Mom made it out from Florida to spend Fisher’s birthday with us.

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Seth – 2009.10 – …“, posted with vodpod

Some highlights from the month:

-Kicking off Shabbat School

-Fisher’s Family Birthday Party

-Portland Timber’s Game

-Mom’s trip to Oregon including Cannon Beach and the farm

-Fisher’s Friend Birthday Party

-More Skyline Bald Eagles (clearly my team to coach!) Soccer

-Halloween including the Skyline School costume parade

-Smith Berry Barn Apple Festival

-Celebrating Amber’s 2nd book release (Max Axiom Cell Biology)

http://album.mohrrothery.com/

September was fun for us.  We hope you are all well!

Ninjas

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Seth – 2009.09 – …“, posted with vodpod

Formal Tomatoes (photo by E. Schoonover)

The kids went back to school and we got back in the swing of that….

Beryl on the first day of school

We cycled…

Fisher in his new cycling jersey!

We reveled in the good weather of Indian summer….

Amber in the woods (photo by E. Schoonover)

Ben’s album from the Skyline Soccer World Cup -

http://picasaweb.google.com/skylineschoolk8/SkylineWorldCup2009#

More videos and pics from the Oregon vs. Purdue game -

http://isenberguncertaintyprinciple.wordpress.com/2009/09/13/oregon-vs-purdue-home-sept-12-2009/

Some pics of our family recently published in the Mohr/Rothery Wedding “highlights” album -

The much anticipated entrance of Jared Sessions Keyser (our nephew)

August heralded the arrival of our new nephew Jared Sessions Keyser!

We also had a blast at our friends’ family’s floating house on Hayden Island in the Columbia.

Rebecca and Marcus tied the knot and the rehearsal and wedding were a hoot and a blast.

I also managed to get in a little early steelheading and a work trip to Southern Cal.  We met the Ron and Tami and Piper for the Portland Twilight Crit bike race.  That was fun to watch though we saw a pretty dramatic crash.

Finally, we wrapped up the month with the big trip back to the cabin in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada including a canoe trip into Black Bear for 4 days.

All is well here and we are now trying to get back into the school routine.  Tough work along with coaching (and playing) U8 soccer!

Much affection,

The Tomatoes

John, Lonnie and Fisher decked out for Rebecca and Marcus' wedding

August 2009 without Canada

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Seth – 2009.08 – …“, posted with vodpod

Beryl at the Flo Ho

Seth paddling from the Flo Ho to the beach on the eastern end of Hayden Island on the mighty Columbia R

Canoe Trip Pics in Algonquin Provincial Park

How we single portage from lake to lake on our trips

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Seth – 2009.08 – …“, posted with vodpod

The Tomatoes on the south end of Big Porcupine Lake (old school name of Black Bear)

Pics at the cabin, etc in Algonquin

Adventurer dress-ups at the cabin

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Seth – 2009.08 – …“, posted with vodpod

Various videos

more about “Picasa Web Albums – 2009.07 – July 20…“, posted with vodpod

- The Garden Starts Producing
- Bethany’s visit from Belgium
- Rafting Trip on the Deschutes and 4th of July weekend at Crooked River Ranch
-Painting Boaz
- Seth’s visit to Manzanita to see the Horners
- Biking the Twin Tunnels trail and cherry picking
- Skyline Music Palooza
- Echoes in Time primitive skills workshop
- Chris Allen’s visit from TN
- MSH mc trip to Windy Ridge with Loni
- Seth’s work trip to SoCal with day in Carmel/Venice

Amber sits in her garden in the good heat

Bethany on the Deschutes

Painting Boaz as part of summer riding lessons

Emme and Fisher in a tube "tow behind" on flat water

A wonderful weekend for the fams at the beach near Salishan.

Beryl, Fisher and Fiona digging the sand (literally)

more about “Picasa Web Albums – 2009.06 – June 20…“, posted with vodpod

Coastal headland beach hike

Our rental pad in Gleneden Beach

We hope you are all having a great summer.

We’ll let the pictures and vids speak for themselves!

Cheers,

The Tomatoes

Paddling at Scappoose Bay on the Columbia with Little Garden Preschool

more about “Picasa Web Albums – 2009.06 – June 20…“, posted with vodpod

Little Garden Preschool Graduation at our house in NW Portland

Fielding a fly ball.

Fisher with a little rainbow at Kids Fishing Day at Bonneville Dam where I volunteered (background)

Nice pic of Gary H drifting salmonfly dries on the Deschutes during one of our trips

Mt. Jefferson and the Deschutes River in the gloaming (around 10 PM near the June equinox)

May was a very fun month for us.  In mid-May, I went to FL for a conference (SAP Sapphire).  I also had the chance to  visig my folks and get in a bit more fishing.  We split Memorial Day weekend between our 20 acres over in Goldendale, WA above the Columbia River Gorge and Amber’s folks place on Crooked River Ranch in Terrebonne, OR.

Click here for traditional Picasa web album link if desired.

We hope the summer is treating all of you well!

Amber's first harvest from here crazy 1600 sq. foot garden

Our kids and the Helmy boys at the Oregon Zoo (notice the elephants in the background)

more about “Picasa Web Albums – 2009.05 – May 200…“, posted with vodpod

Another eventful month and our little gal is now 5!

The arrival of new baby chickens

Bike riding on the Columbia River

Passover at Little Garden Preschool

Passover at our house

Little League/Coach Pitch Baseball

Fishing a family pond in Hubbard, OR on the ranch

Beryl’s 5th birthday party

The Clem Snide show at Doug Fir

Chocolate face at the ice cream shop

Fisher in the gear

Fisher and his teammates are having a great time playing coach pitch this year.

The coaches are doing a great job keeping it fun for the kids while teaching them some of the fundamentals of the game.

Holding on 3rd base

Picasa web album for baseball

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Seth – 2009.04 – …“, posted with vodpod

Batting Practice

Amber and the kids at Summit Ski Area - Government Camp on Mt. Hood, Oregon

The month of March was an amazing one in terms of both the weather and all the different things we did as a family, as a couple and alone.

Amber and I got to Vancouver, BC alone for a friend’s wedding.

I managed to fish my favorite river at the Oregon Coast for the largest steelhead in the state.

We got the kids out fishing for stocker trout and for some great skiing at Summit ski area on Mt. Hood.  Both Fisher and Beryl now ski independently!

Fisher started coach-pitch Little League and I managed to get out for a day of big boy skiing at Mt. Hood Meadows.

And so it continues…..

We hope this finds all of you well!

Much affection,

Seth, Amber, Fisher and Beryl

Picasa Web Album for March 2009

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Seth – 2009.03 – …“, posted with vodpod

Like father like son....

Amber and the kids at Summit Ski Area – Government Camp on Mt. Hood, Oregon

Like father like son….

For those of you that missed the earlier Vancouver, BC trip album, here you go.  Picasa Web Album

Earlier Blog Post

Few details on this special place.  It does not look like the railroad will be repaired.  The water was a bit too high and off color this time to coax a steelhead to a fly.   It was a great day on the water nonetheless (as always).

Rod carefully navigates the tracks

more about ““No name” River Trip – March 2009“, posted with vodpod

Suspended track before the second trestle

We found some softer water including this run, but did not find any willing steelhead there.

We flew up to Vancouver for Daniel and Leslie’s wedding.  While both Amber and I had been to Vancouver for work in the past, we’d never had a chance to poke around.  It is a wonderful, beautiful city (and might even give Portland a run for the money)!  I’ll elaborate on this post later, but I wanted to get these links up for a few friends who could not make the wedding.

Picasa Web Album & Slide Show

All in all, it was a super trip with lots of napping, good food and time with old friends.  The wedding was amazing and Daniel and Leslie were just beaming the whole time.  We also had the good fortune to spend time with our old friend, Amos and his wife, Lauren.   I’m very proud of my friend Daniel.

:”)

Caveat:  Be sure to click the “HQ”/High Quality button in YouTube or everything looks awful!

Picasa Slideshow direct link (click here)

Picasa Album (click here)

We were really excited that Amber’s Aunt Patti joined us in Orlando for two days of fun at Walt Disney World (Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom).  Patti had a meeting in Orlando and stayed over several days to help take the kids to the parks.  She had originally taken Amber as a kid to Walt Disneyland in Anaheim, CA!

On the second day, Amber was incredibly flexible and gave me chance to flyfish on the Mosquito Lagoon for Redfish and Black Drum.  It was quite the adventure fishing in the shadow of the Space Shuttle gantries on the FL Space Coast near Titusville.  I hooked four fish including the “puppy drum” below.  An @18 lb. black drum was a LDR (long distance release) next to the boat just as we were getting ready to land and release it.  I had two other larger redfish on briefly.  Tough fishing AND highly addictive.  I’ll be back.  I fished with Capt. Scott MacCalla at Redfish on the Fly and Mosquito Lagoon Flyfishing.  He is top notch and came recommended by my friend Mark.

Fish/barnyard animal caught by a client via spinning rod the next day using shrimp (above).

Fishing Picasa Web Album (click here)

Fishing Picasa Slideshow direct link (click here)

Not to take much of a break from our travels, in mid-February, Amber went to Terrebonne with her writer’s group for the weekend and I took the kids to Seattle to spend the weekend with our friends, Ethan, Bee and their 2 year old, Sage.  We had a wonderful time with them and they were incredible hosts in their home in the Greenlake area.  We also had a chance to visit our friends Jason and Deb that Sunday for brunch at their home before driving home.  It was a really fun trip and we had incredible sunny weather on Saturday.

Seattle Picasa Web Album (link)

Seattle Picasa Slideshow (link)

In early February, we cruised down to my folks place in Port Charlotte, FL for a week. We and the kids were very excited to see GrandB and Pops, Nana and Aunt Karen (visiting for a few months from NH), and Bethany who came in from her home in Belgium especially for this trip.

We had a great time and got in a fair amount of exploring including the beaches where we went “sharking” (looking for fossil shark teeth).  Beryl also got in a wonderful horsebackriding trip and my Dad and I took Fisher saltwater fishing in the canals leading to Port Charlotte harbor.  We lost a jack crevalle, but he was excited about the stingray he caught and the near miss on a large blue crab that held onto his shrimp on the way in.

We had a great family party and a nice dinner out amongst a lot of kibbitzing.  It was great to see everyone including George and Ellie, Dotty and Al and getting to finally meet Edie and Mark.  All in all, a great time was had by everyone over the week.  Thanks Mom and Dad for being such great hosts!

Part 2 of these adventures for early February will be on the last 1.5 days of our trip in Orlando.

Traditional Link to Picasa Web Album (embedded slideshow below)

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Seth – 2009.02 – …“, posted with vodpod

Swimming in GrandB and Pops pool

Tree Swallow Swarm (incredible, perhaps 30,000 birds in the larger swarm)

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Blowing in the wind on the cold and windy front-end of our trip at Stump Key Pass State Park

Somehow, the camera didn’t get a lot of use in January (don’t worry, we abused it in February).  I’m trying out a new embed function using Picasa Web Albums and VodPod.  Please let me know what you think!

The high country north of MSH

Picasa Web Album Link

Diaper Show Redux

Chanukah Moment

Picasa Album for December (click here)

Slideshow for December (click here)

December was wild, woolly and fun for the Tomato Family.  We found another benefit of our new home on the mountain – lots of snow and a 300′ street luge run to the bottom of the cul-de-sac!

Much affection,

Seth, Amber, Fisher and Beryl

[We hope you enjoy the album above and YouTube videos below]

Fisher shows off his skiing stuff video

Winds whipping over the Chicken Taj Mahal video

Snowball fight at the Mariposa (Fisher and Emme)

Just like Madeleine, my kids like winter, snow and ice (plus the Pilot stuck in the deep snow – high centered)

Yes, we have received a tremendous amount of snow here in Portland as the national news has reported!

We are getting around just fine in the truck, but Seth did spend 3 hours digging neighbors out on the 23rd.

Portland is ill-suited to a prolonged snow event (happens once every 5 years) due to a lack of investment in snow clearing equipment.

Celebrating after a 300 yd sled run

We did manage to extricate the Pilot with a little more digging

The 2nd night of Chanukah

The view from Skyline Blvd - December 23, 2008

Happy sledding gals

Seth guides a crew down the long run

Dear Family and Friends,

The close of 2008 finds the Tomato Family settling in to our new home on the “mountain,” as our neighbors call it. We’re still in Portland, but we’ve moved to a much more rural area called Skyline Hamlet. The new spread is 1.3 acres, and we also have deeded access to a 2.5 acre forested preserve. There are only nine houses on our little dead-end street, and the kids can really run wild.

Seth and Amber joke about the his and hers halves of the lot. His is a lovely sod lawn upon which Seth is waging war against gophers and moles. Hers is quite a bit weedier, houses our little flock of hens (Parsley, Hope, Piplup, and Charlie Parker) in the Chicken Taj Mahal and is the future site of Amber’s organic farmette. Beryl’s angling for pygmy goats and a miniature horse. Seth’s agitating for a bird dog.

We loved our house and neighborhood on SW Vermont Street, but as the kids have grown, we’ve been talking about finding a place with more space for all of us, room to entertain our family and friends, real home office space for both Seth & Amber, storage for all our adventure gear and moving away from a relatively busy road. We mulled over moving to central Oregon but were hesitant to leave our beloved city. We were starting to get an image of what we wanted, but we weren’t quite ready to start looking.

However, Seth, who does indeed love to look at property, serendipitously found a house in NW Portland (while driving the napping kids around after a zoo visit) that seemed liked it might really meet our needs. After a lot of agonizing, Amber decided she was ready to give it a go. The stars indeed lined up, allowing us to execute on our contingent offer to some motivated sellers. Even in this tough market, we feel very fortunate that we were able to sell our place on Vermont in just one month. Not that it was all easy, of course. Most of the summer was sucked away in selling/moving activities including Amber’s amazing staging of our old house (Seth’s grateful comment J).

On August 27th, we made it into the house, barely before school started on September 3rd. Fisher is a first-grader at Skyline School, which is a fantastic, small, public, K-8 school that is working toward certification as an International Baccalaureate World School. His blended K/1 classroom has only 20 students, headed up by Mrs. Cole. Beryl continues at Little Garden Preschool, but we’ve moved her to three days a week this year since the drive takes us 30 minutes. Beryl loves being home with her Mama on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Both Seth and Amber are working from home, and believe it or not, this has been great. Seth likes having a coffee delivery girl, and Amber likes having him home for dinner! Speaking of work, Seth has a new job. As of late May he’s managing business development for EDS’ new SAP Practice for both the West and Midwest.   EDS became an HP company as of August, and the corporate culture at HP is a good fit for Seth. He is thriving but also mindful of personal productivity and discipline to avoid working 60 hours/week (see 43Folders.com & David Allen’s book – Getting Things Done).

Amber continues her freelance writing. Her latest book is a graphic novel about cell biology commissioned by Capstone Press. Tentatively titled, Cells with Max Axiom, it’s due out in February and joins their popular Max Axiom book series. She also has a book on loon migration ready to go out to editors for review. There are several other books for kids in the works.

We did get in some fun this year but not as much as we usually do – just a little biking and zero camping close to home. Luckily, we got to make a trip to our cabin on Smoke Lake, which included a five-day canoe trip with Amber’s parents – great fishing and pretty good weather. The kids tromped over all the portages with nary a complaint and slept in their own tent every night. Fisher caught his first lake trout with Amber’s assistance. The kids also loved plunking worms for shiners and sunfish near cabin and camp.

We’ve mostly stuck close to home this year outside of Seth’s many business trips and our trip to Canada. Other highlights of our year included visits to Oregon by Seth’s parents in April and Seth’s sister, Bethany, which included a very fun weekend in Astoria at the coast in June. Pops and GramB got to watch Fisher play tee-ball, observe Passover with us, and help celebrate Beryl’s birthday.

Fisher mastered the bicycle this year along with his adventures in tee-ball in the spring. He likes the social aspects of team sports and has a lot of fun. Our winter exploits this year included many family trips up to Skibowl & Mt. Hood Meadows, cross-country skiing in central Oregon,and a powder ski weekend for Seth and Amber on Mt. Bachelor for their 10^th anniversary. Seth has also managed a fair number of trout and steelhead day trips on local rivers and even some duck and elk hunting this fall (he’s trying to fill up the new chest freezer in the garage).

We’re looking forward to visiting Seth’s folks in Florida in February including a search for Megalodon shark teeth on Englewood Beach. We’ve had our first rare snowstorm here and we are sure looking forward to seeing the family and enjoying the sun.

We’re hoping that this next year has a little less change and a little more peace and tranquility for our family. To that end, we’ve joined Temple Havurah Shalom and are attending quite a few of the family services on Saturday mornings. We hope that some of you might find your way to Portland. We think you will enjoy the sunsets over the Coast Range. Even the guest room has a great view of the valley and mountains! The hens promise fresh eggs, and the kids will let you race scooters down the driveway.

Much affection,

Seth, Amber, Fisher & Beryl

Amber’s website: www.amberkeyser.com

Amber blogs on books at: amberkeyser.livejournal.com

Seth blogs on family activity and posts photos here at: tomatofamilyjournal.wordpress.com

Seth’s personal blog: isenberguncertaintyprinciple.wordpress.com

The big news from November was that we hosted Thanksgiving this year.  It was amazing to be surrounded by our family and friends in our now relatively new home.  I apologize for the length of this album, but this has been a super month in terms of weather and we got out a fair bit.  Happy Holidays to everyone and you can look for our next communication to be our holiday letter.  We’ll post it here as well.

Serious by Ethan S.

Chipper by Ethan S.

Thanksgiving Album from Ethan & Bee (amazing photography by Ethan) -

http://beethan.com/2008/11/30/thanksgiving-with-the-keyserisenberg-clan/

November Album including additional Thanksgiving pics -

http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/200811November2008#

Direct slideshow link (click here)

VIDEOS

Raking leaves video -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz1KbXfo7×4

Dancing on the bicycle (select high quality replay)-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5QChzWmw1M

The 100 foot table....

Seth’s album of hunting and fishing in the land of plenty -

http://isenberguncertaintyprinciple.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/91/

Sauvie Island

October was an unbelievable month here in Oregon.  Typically, we get about 3 inches of rain in October.  In 2008, we received just over 50 percent of the average.  The party’s over however.  November has started off blustery as normal – avg. rain in November is over 5.5 inches.

Pics from throughout the whole month of October:

http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/October2008?authkey=giV6n6QtTuA#

Videos:

Fisher getting confident on his bicycle

Beryl working her muscles on the bike

Long haul trucker (Fisher on the track)

Pics from Fisher’s 7th birthday party:

http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/FisherS7thBirthday?authkey=XwoRqPdO1tg#

Pics from Halloween!:

http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/Halloween2008?authkey=bT-ddsrhrlw#

We hope all of you are well and we look forward to hearing from you.

Much affection,

The Tomatoes (on the Organic Tomato Farmette – according to AJK)

The new Tomato Family Farmette –

Pictures of the new pad (as of August 28th).   We’ve landed on 1.3 acres off of Skyline Blvd above Portland!

http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/20088August2008AshStTheNewPad?authkey=OC3OnA6ohoM#

Mosier Twin Tunnels September bike ride -

http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/20089September2008MosierTwinTunnelsBikeTrip?authkey=MtOvtTAAP78#

Portland Pirate Festival under the St. John’s Bridge –

http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/20089September2008PirateFestivalUnderTheStJohnSBridge?authkey=cvkFpkxxAW0#

Hi everyone!  July was a great month for us and provided a bit of a respite to our move pending in August (across town to NW Portland).  Below you’ll find three albums.

The first details our family canoe trip for a week in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario.

http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/July2008TomatoFamilyCanoeTripInAlgonquin?authkey=Yr-TKz3KaLI

Slideshow version – http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/July2008TomatoFamilyCanoeTripInAlgonquin/photo?authkey=Yr-TKz3KaLI#s5232767077810756626

The Paddling Team

The next is an overview of some of the family we are grateful to share our time with on Smoke Lake including Amber’s great aunt Mary here.

http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/July2008FamilyTimeInAlgonquin?authkey=9P5akaI8Rvs

Slideshow version – http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/July2008FamilyTimeInAlgonquin/photo?authkey=9P5akaI8Rvs#s5232766801411609394

Mary Cline & Amber

This last album is from Seth’s motorcycle adventure up to the southwest coast of Washington.  Gorgeous.

http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/July2008SethSWeekendMcTourToCathlametWestportAndBeyondInCoastalWA?authkey=4r7M3IiQYM8

Slideshow version – http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/July2008SethSWeekendMcTourToCathlametWestportAndBeyondInCoastalWA/photo?authkey=4r7M3IiQYM8#s5232769169117950194

Seth's Honda VFR800i Interceptor

Seth at the Westport, WA lighthouse

We hope you are all well and look forward to hearing about your summer adventures!

- Seth, Amber, Fisher & Beryl

Picasa Web Album for June -

http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/June2008?authkey=rMQivJWTYAE

Slide show link for the same album -

http://picasaweb.google.com/sbisenberg/June2008/photo?authkey=rMQivJWTYAE#s5218815945921971058

Link to May’s page if you missed it – http://tomatofamilyjournal.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/may-2008-family-adventures/