August 23
Yes, I have almost let the entire month go by without updating the journal, or pictures, or pretty much anything at all. But I’ve got legitimate excuses, to quote Jake Blues, “I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT.” Phew. What a load off my mind.
What this means is that we have spent the month busily enjoying our summer, friends, and family. We started off the month with the girls attending gymnastics camp. They spent 3 hours a day working on improving their skills and practicing for a Friday performance that Jada was able to attend. Ellen was excited to have another job as a “Mommy’s helper” where she enjoyed playing with a 2 year old for a couple of hours. She doesn’t consider it work. The second week of August had Phoebe attending a Lego Engineering camp. She was mum on the details, but she was eager to head out each day. She also attended a friend’s birthday party with the theme “Princess, Piñata, Pizza Party,” she appreciated the alliteration and the candy. Ellen was able to see four of her friends that week-three who will be attending different middle schools in the district, and one that she’s known since she was born who will be joining her at her new school this fall. On the 11th we were excited to see our friends the Emslies who were recently returned from a trip to London where they had the good fortune to see some Olympic events-tennis at Wimbledon and also swimming. They kindly brought the girls back Olympic cycling pins. On Sunday the 12th, we drove down to Albany, OR to participate in the Covered Bridges Bicycle Tour with our friends, Paul and Becky. We did a ride of 65 miles and crossed 4 covered bridges. We had fun meeting new people and enjoying the scenery. It was really hot by the afternoon, so we stopped at Dairy Queen before sitting on the parking lot known as I-5 for the return trip to Beaverton.
The next week brought a visit from Ellen’s friend Noa who had spent most of the summer in Israel. The girls kept in touch by email and were excited to see each other again. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Jada drove the girls and a friend out to Oregon City for horse camp. This time they spent the entire day at the stables, arena, and wooded trails. Ellen was saddened to hear that the horse she’d been riding for 2 years had passed away in the fall. He had a tumor located between his heart and lungs that was inoperable. She tried out two different horses during the camp and enjoyed riding both. Phoebe was excited to able to ride her horse Elmo again. They returned home exhausted, covered with dust, and smiling each day. On Thursday we rose early and headed to Sunriver for a long weekend. We brought the tandem for Jada and me to ride, along with my mountain bike (which I overhauled myself after many years of neglect. I was very proud of myself for being able to do it myself) and the girls’ bikes. We also brought along a friend who had never been to central Oregon. It was a fun trip for all. Jada shopped for some school clothes, and we finally found a pair of gym shoes for Phoebe. There is a new aquatic facility at Sunriver called SHARC where we spent two of our days in town. The girls spent much of their time at the lazy river, we all tried out the waterslides, and Jada and the girls all found their way to an obstacle course of “logs” and a rope canopy. The slides were really interesting, one was your standard inner tube type, and the other was closed in and completely dark. It was disorienting as you wind your way down in total darkness as you keep picking up speed until you pop out into the sunlight and a trough of water. I only did it twice. Jada, her friend, and I spent much of the time enjoying our books while relaxing in the sun. Although I didn’t try out the hot tub, Jada seemed to like it. On Saturday, the weather was cool and misty. Ellen and I found the rain when we went for a little bike ride around the trails of Sunriver. When we got back, we opted to visit Lava Lands and Lava Butte for a drive to the top. Even with the clouds, we could still see many of the mountains in the area. Since returning from this final trip of the summer, Jada has been back to work meeting kindergartners and starting to get her classroom ready. The girls spent time at school, sometimes helping and seeing friends, but mostly just reading their books. I am almost at the end of one of my few full work weeks this summer.
August 28
Over the weekend, on Saturday, we got up early to ride the Beaverton, Banks, and Beyond metric century from Papa’s Pizza in Beaverton, out to Stubb-Stewart State Park, and back. The weather was perfect. The crowds seemed lighter than normal, but that may have been because Hood to Coast was also going on that weekend. The organizers took lots of updated pictures of us for the website, I assume. I can’t imagine why else they’d be taking so many pictures otherwise. We were able to finish the ride about an hour and a half faster than last year with a full mph increase in our average speed. That’s with the really big climb halfway through the ride on the Banks-Vernonia rail trail. We met our friends Paul and Becky as we were heading down and they were heading up. We made arrangements to meet for dinner later that evening for Indian food. That was fun too. We tried to eat reasonably, but it was very good.
Sunday, we didn’t do too much. We met another friend for breakfast, and she showed us some of her cool pictures from her trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. Jada headed downtown for a massage, and I watched the end of the USPro Challenge Bicycle race which was really exciting. It was great all week with Garmin-Sharp animating the race every day.
September 1
The last week of August was Jada’s first official week back at school (even though she worked all last week too), and the girls helped her get ready in the classroom. They also helped other teachers out in the building. They had the last week of their swimming camp too. On Friday afternoon, I came from work to walk Phoebe down to meet her teacher. She got the same teacher that Ellen had in 4th grade. I thought that would be good, but she was really hoping for her chess coach who ended up with many of her friends. She cried in the classroom. She tried to be brave in front of her new teacher, but you could tell she was fighting back the tears. I felt worse for her teacher, and I apologized and told her she’d be fine once the classes started. Ellen told Phoebe how “awesomely awesome” the teacher is too. We met some friends out for dinner at Fresh Grill in the evening, and we sat there for 2 hours chatting.
Journal entry: September 1, 2012