Merry Christmas (Post Robot Apocalypse) 2008!

Merry Christmas from the Gomm family!

We decided that this year we would perform our favorite Post Robot Apocalypse Christmas song as our holiday greetings! Turn up your volume, press play, and start cringing!




This is a song by our family's favorite artist Jonathan Coultan. Click here for the lyrics.
You can download the mp3 of the OreGomm version of this timeless Christmas classic here.

We wish everyone a:

Merry Christmas,
Happy Hanukkah,
Killer Kwanzaa,
Super Sweet Solstice, and
Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday Yesterday!

My Dad's birthday was yesterday and so here are the Oregomms performing their rendition of Happy Birthday Grandpa. Only the cute Gomms were featured in the video portion but we're all singing (in other words, if you turn on the volume, you've been warned).





Due to me being technically challenged when it comes to internal usb issues on our linux machine I'm a day late. Due to the economy I'm also a dollar short but then again, aren't we all? Happy Belated Birthday Dad!

Picture Day!

When Random was born we looked at our brand new baby boy with his giant blue hands, gorilla shaped head and male-pattern baldness and had the following conversation: "Holy smokes." "Well, hopefully he'll have a great personality."

Not even a day had gone by, while we were still in shock at the wonder of new parenthood, when we received our first order form for professional pictures. It even had a note addressed to Mommy and Daddy from our brand new baby. "I know you want to share your joy with grandma and grandpa, aunts and uncles, doctors and postmen. Please buy some pictures so that I know you love me. If you really really love me I know you'll buy the photo sweatshirt and keyring as well. -Your Baby"

So we bought the photos. They put our child on top of a frightening background, laid an even more frightening vest atop him and snapped pictures while he laid there stunned and bruised.

Here we are, 10 years and 2 kids later. Luckily, they have cutened up a bit since day 2. And, not so luckily, we still get the forms home with the same plea--you love your child and surely want to capture this moment forever. We still get the same frightening background--although now we can choose between a variety of unflattering colors. We still get the same weird scrunched up face--Scout said, "Don't worry Mommy. I smiled my biggest. Like a pirate."

And yet, I still buy them because-- Yes. I love my crazy pirate faced kids and I do want to capture every moment forever. Even the moments with the abnormal head tilt, magenta background and creepy hair slicked down by the overeager PTA volunteers.

Another one of those things to put in the category with double sided wrapping paper, heelies (you know, those wheeled shoes that cost a bajillion bucks that you bought for your kid after all the begging but that he grew out of before he got over his irrational fear of wheeled shoes--feel free to substitute skateboard, blendypens, MioPup, Moon Sand or any other thing that cost a fortune, was imperative that they have and was discarded five minutes later) and ballet classes. In twenty years it probably won't matter but for now you just do the best you can.

The activist inside of me wants to lobby against picture day as an unfair practice of preying on the guilt of parents. The capitalist inside of me wants to figure out how I can hop on this gravy train...if you love your child you would certainly take advantage of this once in a lifetime business opportunity.

Super String Savannah

On Monday Savannah's class started a discussion on science. They talked about what everyone wanted to learn throughout the year and each child picked a special topic to study in depth. Savannah ultimately ended up picking Earth as her field of exploration this year but that wasn't her first choice.

In class she raised her hand and suggested that they study String Theory. When she told us this, Troy and I looked at each other then back at Savannah and beamed with pride. hehehe. The teacher asked her to explain String Theory to the class. She told everyone that some scientists have a theory that all matter is made of tiny strings that are so small we don't have a microscope strong enough to see them. She told them that these strings were smaller than air or germs or even quarks.

As you can imagine, the fact that our 8 year old daughter can even use the word 'quarks' in a sentence is enough to keep us going for weeks but the fact that she wants her 3rd grade class to study String Theory keeps us in happy giggles. I love that a giant poster of the Standard Model of Particle Physics would fit so nicely on the wall of the kids' room next to the Littlest Pet Shop wall stickers and the Gotta Catch 'Em All pokemon pictures. WOOT!

Savannah turned 8!

We asked her not to, warned her that it would only make us seem older, but she did it anyway. Savannah turned 8! We had a fun family party on her birthday with presents and her favorite dinner...rolls and fried ham. YUMMM.

She had a tea party with her friends on the following Saturday. They dressed up like princesses, painted their own tea cups and played a life sized version of Pretty Pretty Princess. Everybody had a smashing time and went home with their own personalized tea cup.

Later that evening Grandma, Grandpa, Emily, Jerred and Brooklyn came down and we all headed out to the Lake Oswego Stake Center. Savannah was baptized and we are all very proud of her decision. She has a strong testimony of Jesus Christ and has already shown how stalwart she is and chooses the right most of the time.

Grandma and Emily surprised Savannah with a brand new beautiful custom-made white dress that Grandma sewed in one day, shoes and accessories. She looked like like an angel. The next day in church she was called up to the front. We had gotten to church late so we sat in the back. Our ward is really big so we actually have 3 overflows and we were technically in the gym. She walked past the entire ward...it took over a minute to get up there. In the hallways people stopped me again and again to tell me how angellic she looked.

We had a family birthday party for her after we were home from the baptism (and everyone was out of their fancy clothes). We had a blue dragon cake and Grandma and Grandpa took us out to Red Robin.

Christmas at the Gomms'

Merry Christmas!

This year we're living the college lifestyle -- we're in a small 2-bedroom apartment furnished in an eclectic hand-me-down style (we call it vagrant-chic). Due to the lack of floor space, we decided to go with 2D decorating! The whole family had a lot of fun coloring and cutting out the Christmas tree as well as decorating it.

Savannah and Scout sculpted the star out of salt dough and painted it gold.

Since Santa needed a way to deliver presents, we had to make a fireplace too:Amanda hooked up a couple of strings of flashing lights to make the fire look ever so cozy.

We had a lot of fun during the vacation. We made lots of candy (fudge, caramels, divinity, and lots of cookies). I totally recommend this caramel recipe if you need a reason to gain a few delicious pounds.

We also tried making snowmen out of marshmallows, melted almond bark, and cocktail stirrers. They ended up looking nice but tasting a little too almond barky.


Now that we're in Oregon we've made a new tradition of having a Christmas hike! It rained during most of the week of Christmas, so we finally just went and hiked in the rain. It was a lot of fun! We went to Hebb Memorial Park (pretty close to where we live). Part of the park was flooded, but we were the only ones there and had a BLAST hiking through the woods! Yay Oregon!

One last thing, my brother David sent us a really cool stained glass snowflake for Christmas! He has his own stained glass studio here.


We put it up in the window and I think it brought us some luck - it snowed for a few hours on Christmas (our first snow of the year)!

Halloween 2007

Now that it's December I think it's finally time to take the lid off of the closely guarded Gomm Halloween photos!

This was our first Halloween in Oregon and it was great! Last year (in Michigan) we had to all wear thick coats and drive around trick-or-treating in a nice warm car. The temperature here was GREAT and there were plenty of autumn leaves swirling around to make it very spooky.


Scout dressed as a fairy princess, Savannah was an über-goth vampire, and Random was Link. The fabulous Link costume was tailored by Grandma Bryan!

I wore my warmest shirt which doubled as my costume. In case you're curious I'm a Totoro from Tonari no Totoro - a great Japanese movie. (By the way, I highly recommend all films by Hayao Miyazaki).

At the first door, Scout came running back to Amanda with wide eyes saying, "Mommy! They gave us CANDY!!" The kids all had a lot of fun and scored about 13 tons of candy. By the end of the evening, Scout was so tired she couldn't hold her bucket anymore. All the sugar lasted them until mid-November.

Happy Halloween!

Our Trip to the Pacific Ocean

Gomms Go Pacific

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Saturday morning Troy and I decided we probably ought to get out the ocean before it got too late in the year and the weather went south for the winter. It turned out to be a lot of fun and pretty memorable for our family.

The water was FREEZING cold but we had fun running from the waves, flying kites and finding smelly things on the beach.

One thing we realized as we plunged our feet into the water...aside from what an ice cream headache in your toes feels like...is that Random and Savannah are now Coast-to-Coast travelers!

Next time we'll try to remember our thermal wet suits and hot cocoa ^^