This is my last week at home on my sabbatical. After spending 3 days packing and moving Jada to her new school (unpaid, of course), we only had 2 and a half weeks available to cram as much family time together as we could. We kicked it off with a trip to the beach for 3 days.
We rented a beach house from a friend of ours in Lincoln City as we have for each of the past 3 summers. Ellen was very excited about playing on the beach. We were going to leave after her nap, but we made the mistake of telling her that we were going to the beach. She was so excited that she wouldn't nap. She just lay in her bed for over an hour talking to herself, trying to talk to us, saying anything to get us to come get her (mostly, "Come get Ellie please"). So we abandoned the nap idea, and we left earlier than we had expected. We had great weather each afternoon for trips down to the beach with pail and shovel. The mornings weren't always warm or dry, but it didn't matter. The first morning, we went to the outlet mall. The second morning, we drove down the coast to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport. It's a very neat place. We got to see their new "Passages of the Deep" exhibit which is a 200 yard habit trail through 3 different tanks where Keiko used to be (for those of you not forced to follow that story like we here in Oregon, that's the Orca with the limp dorsal fin that starred in the movie and many jokes, "Free Willy"). There were 2 with assortments of fish in them. Some funky, some more regular. The 3rd tank had the sharks and rays. I could have stood there to watch them for much longer, but our tour guide would say, "Ellie all done with the (fill in blank of the exhibit here)" so we'd have to move on. The funniest moment in the Passages of the Deep was the first "360 degree view" portal in the floor. We were walking along with Ellen in front of us as she looked around when suddenly, she stopped on a dime on the edge of the window, caught her balance, and backed into me scared that she had almost fallen through the floor. Once we showed her that it was ok to walk on and look through, she was fine, but I was impressed with her reflexes. We had Phoebe with us too, just in case you were concerned that we had left her behind. At the aquarium, she pretty much napped in the stroller on and off, and on the beach, I had her strapped to me in the front pack.
This trip also inspired 2 great new phrases that Jada and I have been quoting to one another. The first occurred on the first morning while we were getting ready to go to the outlet mall. I was downstairs doing something when I heard a thud as Ellen fell down from one of the beds or something. She must have landed right on her bum because all I heard after that was "Kiss my bottom". This was, of course, the funniest thing that I had ever heard considering a slight variation of this is one of Jada's favorite catch phrases. The other one happened as we were driving around waiting for the mall to open. Ellen wanted to eat her Ritz crackers, and we hadn't given them to her yet, so in her best "Flo" from the hit TV show Alice impression, she said "Eat my Ritz" ( for those of you not quite as quick on the Pop culture references, the actual tag line was "Kiss my grits"). A good time was had by all...except during nap times. Ellen was way too excited to be in a new place, and the room we had her in had a sky light, so it was very bright in there. She did not want to nap or go to bed. Nap times were especially fun, but we got through it.
On the Monday following our 3 days at the beach, we drove up to Hood River, OR (wind surfing capital of the world) so that Ellen could see Thomas the Tank Engine at the Mount Hood Railroad. Each year, they have a car that looks like Thomas, and it runs a 30 minute excursion up to the first switch back and back down to the station. The really annoying part is that they play some musical program all during the ride. We had a car all to ourselves. She's never seen the Thomas videos, but she enjoys her lift-the-flap books. Ellen enjoyed herself though so it was ok.
On the Wednesday following Thomas, we drove back to McMinnville to see the Evergreen Aviation Museum. This is the current resting place of the "Spruce Goose". They are also hosting one of first SR-71 Blackbirds as a display now. They are both a lot larger than I expected them to be. Ellen had fun looking around at the planes. They had a whole section for kids with flight simulators for a helicopter and a jet along with planes to sit in for pictures. (see these pages soon for photos)
On our way home from the air museum, we picked up some sweet Oregon strawberries. Man they were tastey. Sorry, mom and dad, but the season only lasted about 2 weeks. The weather just wasn't right for it this year.
I've been trying to get in some more time on my bike now that Jada is out of school and before I go back to work. Ellen and I have been going on out errands by bike. We do between 10 and 15 miles in our trips to the bank, library, post office, and bike shop. Then we explore bike paths and parks. It's been fun. Ellen just sits back there in the trailer reading, singing, asking questions, etc. It'll be nice when Phoebe can come along too.
The big news for our house is that we've finally saved up enough money to actually get the front yard done. We had a land scaper come in and work on the yard. By July 2, we will have grass in our front yard. Now I'm going to have to buy a lawn mower. We're pretty excited.
On June 30, Jada and I made arrangements with our child care provider to take the girls for the afternoon so that we could go out to see a movie in an actual theater. We saw The Matrix: Reloaded. We both enjoyed it and managed to stay awake. It was exciting, but we were both exhausted.
One of my biggest achievements of sabbatical (other than getting the yard done) was finishing the newest Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix book. At just under 900 pages, I still was able to finish it in 7 days. I am not a big reader, but it was a real page turner, believe it or not. I thought it was good. There were a couple chapters that could have been omitted, but Rowling did a good job of writing Harry as a surly teen trying to come to terms with his abilities. A contributing factor for my ability to finish the book that quickly is Phoebe's new ability to nap without me holding her.
In the most shocking story of the final week of sabbatical, Phoebe is now sleeping in her crib for naps and bed times. We can put her down in her crib at 7pm and she'll sleep in there until at least 2am before I have to go in and get her for her snack. It's like a switch just flipped in her that said, ok, now it's ok to sleep in the crib on my own this past weekend (June 27). Not only that, but she can roll from her back to her tummy. We had found her on her tummy in the crib, but we watched her do it for us a little later on June 28. This has certainly helped Jada with studying for her test, and it has given me a chance to work on these entries.
Phoebe had her 4 month check up this past week. We dropped Ellen off with her daycare provider, and headed off to the doctor. She is progressing just fine. Though it was another 4 shot day. She did not enjoy that one bit. We tried to calm her down for about 15 minutes, but she wanted to scream. Finally we just put her in the car seat, and I swung her back and forth for as we walked out of the building. She fell asleep in the car, and since it was a hot day, we stopped off at Dairy Queen for some cool treats. Here are Phoebe's current measurements:
Weight: 15lbs 10oz (75-90%)
Length: 25.5in (90%)
Head Circ: 15.75in (25%)
From the percentages, you'd think that her head was tiny, but it's on the growth curve just fine.
For July 4th, we drove up to Mt. Hood for the morning since Ellen had never gotten to go up there. We didn't spend a lot of time there, but Ellen got to see some snow, and she got to meet Bruno. He's the St. Bernard that is the Timberline mascot. He's not the original. I think this one's the second since I moved to Oregon. Ellen was scared of him, but he'd be taller than I am if standing on his hind legs, so I don't blame her. And he's only 10 months old. Then we went searching for strawberries at the Hood River fruit stands. None were available due to the horrible season for it this year. Savannah isn't very happy with us tonight since we can't let her out. Both girls are in bed, and hopefully they'll sleep ok with the fireworks going off tonight.
Happy Independence Day all. The Tour de France begins tomorrow. There are 7 Americans in the Tour this year with at least 3 of them capable of landing a spot on the podium.
I think that's it for now. I'm back at work next week, so the frequency of these entries will be even slower now as I try to spin back up there. Hang with me.
Journal entry: July 4, 2003