June 2012
June 2
The girls had their field day at school on Friday. The weather even cooperated. The end of the year is coming like a freight train at this point. Oh, and Jada just reminded me that on Thursday (the last day of May), Ellen had her middle school “fly up” to get a feel for the school. Apparently it was a common day for all 5th grades since she ran into some friends that go to other elementary schools at what will be her new school next year. She’s pretty excited.
Today, we went to the farmers market and our usual grocery shopping stops in the morning. Phoebe and I did some planting of herb seeds in one of the gifts that Jada got this year. Our tomato plants are doing really well after 1 week too. In the afternoon, Ellen had her last soccer game. The girls were all quite lethargic, and it showed that they hadn’t played in 2 weeks, but they pulled out a tie in the end. Ellen had an almost. She just needs a little quicker reaction time with her kicks. There are definitely some things I wish we could have done a better job with coaching. Short passes in traffic is one of those things, but it’s been a mostly fun ride over the last several years watching these kids grow. I’m sure we’ll be replacing the soccer games with band camps, parades, and concerts next year.
June 5 (Venus transit across the sun)
Another awesome astronomical event is happening in our lifetime today. We had the annular solar eclipse early last month, and today, we have the transit of Venus across the sun. The last time this occurred was 1882, and the next one will be in 2117. So it is truly a once in a lifetime event. Unfortunately, we don’t have a welding mask, so we can’t view it with our naked eye, but I’ve been watching a feed from the Keck Observatory in HI.
Ok, to catch up, we went on a short quad ride on Sunday followed by letting the girls watch Flight of the Navigator until it was time for their swimming lesson. Phoebe and I didn’t have our guitar lessons because our instructor needed to cancel due to something else coming up.
June 9
This was the last full week of school. It was a little bit quiet in the afternoons with no soccer, no violin, and no math tutoring for Ellen. Ellen had her 5th grade send-off party on Friday. It sounds like they had lots of fun. There was a parent/teachers vs 5th graders kickball game. It was pretty rainy on Friday, so it was fortunate that they had field day last Friday. On Saturday, we went to the market. Fresh Hood Strawberries have arrived! Then I spent some time mowing the lawn followed by some maintenance that I found online for my reel mower which actually helped a lot. I staked and tied up our tomato plants which were drooping, and transplanted the zucchini’s into our new pot. It took a lot of dirt to fill that thing. Phoebe helped me with that. Then the girls played outside for a while after lunch.
June 14
Last Sunday morning, we got some yard work done. I cut back some of the branches on the trees on the west side of the house and mowed the lawn. We made a trip to the mall in the morning for some items. We couldn’t do much since I was oncall which was a shame because the weather was so nice. I had guitar after the girls had their last swimming lesson. Phoebe is done with guitar for the summer. It wasn’t worth the fight, and we’ve got several weekends that are booked with a bunch of other things this summer, that she won’t be able to practice anyway.
The last week of school was upon us. Ellen got up in front of the school on Wednesday at the assembly to give a speech to the school’s librarian who is getting cut, like all librarians, due to budget constraints across the school district. Both of the girls had glowing report cards and several awards for all of their hard work. Jada spent the evening cleaning out her classroom on Wednesday before coming home to start packing for our trip back to Illinois.
Today, we leave on our trip back to IL. More later.
July 2
Well, I overshot a bit, but I have a good excuse for turning this in late. Honest. Well, just listen, and you can judge me later.
Starting back in June during our trip on the 14th. We had a 1:30pm flight into Chicago so we got to PDX airport around 11:30am. We had lunch there before going through the checkpoint which went pretty painlessly. We would have arrived at the gate just in time for the plane to start boarding, but it was 30 minutes late coming in. The girls enjoyed watching the runway while we waited to leave. The flight was uneventful. Ellen and I were buddied up and Jada and Phoebe were on the other side of the aisle. We arrived in Chicago at 8pm and found our bags quickly after the long, long, long, long walk from C concourse to the baggage carousel. I had booked us a limousine through a company called Touch of Class Limousine Service which was recommended by our hotel. It was only $67.50 to get from O’Hare out to Elgin. We were at our hotel by 9pm and went out for a light-ish dinner at Jimmy’s Char House which is in the parking lot of our hotel. The food was pretty good for just appetizers.
June 15: I used the Sleep Sound Generator for the first time in the hotel last night. It worked pretty well. We had the girls in the front room on the pull –out bed while Jada and I slept in the bedroom portion. It was hot and humid, and the room never seemed to cool off enough. Phoebe was awake much of the night, though they were both asleep around 7am when I ventured into the shower. I rented our car from a Hertz rental place in a Honda dealership that was just across this road from our hotel. Sadly, there was no way to just walk over there. No sidewalks, no crosswalks. The Chicago suburbs were made for cars, not people. I asked them if they could come over to pick me up, and they agreed. They showed up in a Chevy Cruze with all the windows rolled down since it was actually pleasant out that morning. I drove back over to the hotel and parked with the windows rolled up. When we came back out to get ready to drive downtown to Chicago, Jada got into the car and then right back out. It was obvious that the car had been used by smokers because with the windows all rolled up, it wreaked of stale cigarette smoke. Jada refused to drive downtown in it, so we drove back across the road to return it and get another. They didn’t have any more sub-compacts, so they let us have a compact (Toyota Camry) for no extra charge. After we had just left, Jada noticed a garage door opener on the blind, so we went back again since we had remembered the guy at the desk saying he had driven this one home last night. We just drove through with Jada sticking it out the window for them to grab this time.
We were finally on our way to downtown Chicago by 10am. Traffic wasn’t horrible, and we made great time. Tolls are expensive these days ($1.30 at most stations). We also only made 1 wrong turn, and it wasn’t a tough one to get over. Chicago is a beautiful city. I’ve always said Portland is like a mini-Chicago. Lots of art intermingled with the city-scape. We parked at Soldier Field for $22, and we walked over to Shedd Aquarium where we arrived at 11:21 to find a long line. The sun was shining, and it was 86 degrees out. We waited in line for an hour before we got in. That’s the price to pay for not getting somewhere early, but I wasn’t going to be able to meet up with my friend Matt until after 4pm anyway. Pro-tip: know what ticket package you want before you get up to the counter. There were people who waited in line with us for an hour and ended up at the window not knowing what they wanted. They had a person standing outside just before we entered the building explaining the different packages. We had checked it all out online last night, so when we got up there, I was able to order the Shedd Pass with a side of Jellies, which actually drew a chuckle from the lady at the counter who had been dealing with the morons all day. The Jellies were the extra exhibit this time which was what we wanted to see most. However, first, we needed to get some lunch into the girls so we bolted for the cafeteria and had an assortment of ok food for too much money before hitting the Jellyfish exhibit first. It was a pretty neat exhibit. The girls both got some interesting pictures and video. They’re just such bizarre animals to watch move around (the jellyfish, not the girls). Some drift and float while others move quite quickly. I wish I had written down some of the names so I could remember them later. After leaving the jellies, we wandered around the other exhibits. The freakiest one to me was the spider crab. What an ugly animal. We happened to wind up in the central Caribbean Waters section just as they started a diver talk at 3pm. They had a volunteer diver in the central tank feeding the fish while a guide walked around the outside of the tank talking and explaining things. The diver was also able to talk to us, but she could only hear the guide. Phoebe got to ask a question about whether she liked her job as a volunteer. In the tank were large rays which ate right out of the diver’s hands. There was a huge sea turtle, named Nickel after the change found lodged in its throat, which had been rescued in Florida after being injured by a boat as well. After a stop at the gift shop, I set up a place to pick up Matt before going to dinner.
Since we still had a little bit of time left, the girls got to play in the Children’s Park near Soldier Field. On our way to pick up Matt, we took a drive on Wacker Drive which was where parts of Batman Returns were filmed with his fight against the Joker. We picked Matt up just down the street from the famous Billygoat Tavern. Then we headed back out of town to a pub called Ram in Rosemont on the west side where we waited to meet up with another friend of mine and his wife. We stayed there for 3 hours. They had seated us in a side room which had a few other people in it at first, but after a while, I noticed we were the only ones in there. Maybe we were a little loud. We bid adieu and headed back out to Elgin too late. We put the girls to bed, and we followed close behind.
June 16: Up at 5:30am to use the little gym in the hotel. They actually have a little weight machine deal in there now. I watched a little bit of the EuroCup 2012 tourney on the TV in there. When I got back to the room, everyone was still asleep. I finally woke the girls up at 7:20am since I was heading down to eat. I always like the spread at the hotel there. Jada used the gym while we ate breakfast.
We drove out to Rockford to see my dad’s side of the family. My aunt hosted at her house, and we were lucky to have just about everyone show up. We only missed my cousin’s daughter who is around the girls’ age. My uncle has a huge train set down in his basement that Phoebe and my nephews liked to look at. We really enjoyed ourselves, and we were glad everyone was able to make it so we could see them. From there, we went back to Elgin to spend the afternoon at my brother’s house. We ordered Giordano’s pizza for dinner. Oh man, that’s tasty. My brother and I watched some Rush concert video footage from their last tour that he had on DVD. Those guys are so funny in their little short videos. I would love to see a Rush/Barenaked Ladies joint vid. Then we went back to the hotel around 9pm.
June 17: Fathers Day. My dad took us all out for breakfast at the Randall Pancake House in Elgin. The food was good, but I had a little discussion with the waitress about eggs. I had asked for Phoebe’s egg “prepared any way”, according to the menu, to be done as an omelet, but the waitress said they don’t really do that. However, she said she’d see what she could do. It was supposed to be a 2 egg omelet, but when they brought it, it was probably a good 3-4 egg. All the portions were big, and we ate way too much, but it was so good. The kids played all afternoon over at my brother’s house. They made some video’s on my nephew’s iPod touch. They were funny, especially the one where Phoebe played the part of an evil fairy with her evil cackle, but they deleted them all for some reason that only kids would know. I played my new Get Bit game with the kids, and then they played it on their own after they understood the rules. They seemed to enjoy it. We had dinner, followed by a round of family pictures outside. We finished off the evening watching some Muppets shows before heading back to the hotel at 7:30pm for bed. The girls had a difficult time falling asleep. Just too worked up from their fun day.
June 18: We checked out of the hotel in the morning and drove over to Long Grove to see some friends for brunch and a session of bracelet making before driving south. Tolls on 294 are $1.50! They were $.80 when I used to live in Illinois. We decided that even though it was late in the day, we’d try to hit Champaign for a very late lunch since my sister wasn’t going to be home from work in Bloomington until after 4pm. We called in our order to Papa Del’s for 2 pizzas, one to eat there, and one to go. Arriving just in time for our pizza to come out of the oven at 3pm, we had enough time to eat and walk through Follett’s to pick up some UofI clothes. Sadly, I wasn’t able to meet up with any of my old friends who still work at the UofI. Around 4pm, we let my sister know we were on our way to her, and she asked if burgers were ok at 5:30pm. “Of course!” we said. We enjoyed dinner and hanging out until we went to bed.
June 19: We spent the day in Bloomington and even talked my parents into joining us. My sister and her husband took the day off so they could hang with us. My brother-in-law took us to his company’s private recreation complex that includes playing fields, courts or tennis, basketball, and volleyball, mini golf, and a big water park. We started with a round of mini golf which we did without keeping score before heading over the water park. We floated on the lazy river for a few laps before settling into some chairs in the middle of the park in a fountain zone (like the phantom zone, but with more whimsy and water spouts) which the girls went willy-nilly around the park enjoying all it had to offer. When we got back to their house, we heated up Papa Del’s for dinner before driving back to Pekin to stay with my parents for the next few days.
June 20: It was hot and humid in Pekin. My dad took Jada and me to his gym in the Pekin Park District so we could try to stay in shape for our upcoming tandem rallies and bike rides. It had everything we needed, and we could come back for the next 2 days for a reduced price which was nice. The first day was free! We spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool with the girls going down the slide. We all ended up with some sunburn. My sister and her husband came out for dinner, and we all went to the Dragonland Miniature Golf course where Jada and I crushed everyone else. The girls are playing much better than last year even, and they didn’t even fight or complain. After we put the girls to bed, Jada and I just made it to Dairy Queen before it closed.
June 21: Jada and I got to go to the gym again in the morning, and Jada and I went to see MIB3 in the afternoon while my parents took the girls to visit the library. They love the Pekin Library. My sister and her husband came down for dinner again, and we went out to Avanti’s. So good. Unfortunately, we only made it there once while we were back. We kept the girls up until around 9pm waiting for the fireflies to come out, and they waited until we had almost given up before showing up. I thought it might have been too early in the year.
June 22: We had one last day at the gym, and I managed to hurt my back. We met up with one of my friends from grade school at the pool in the afternoon so her girls could play with ours. I had forgotten our passes, so I had to run back to the house to get them while everyone else waited in the shade outside. It was nice to meet and catch up. We stayed for about 2 hours. When we got back to the house, my dad took the girls out to look for duct tape in fancy colors. I stayed back to start on our laundry. My sister came over for dinner again on her own this time. Jada and I went out for one last DQ night, and to secretly pick up a gift certificate for mom and dad.
June 23: We drove south to Collinsville on Saturday to see my mom’s side of the family. Unfortunately, there was a wedding going on that day too which pulled one of my mom’s sisters away from us for the day, but we still had a good turn-out. There were lots of kids to play with for the girls, and we saw people we hadn’t seen in a couple of years. It was a pleasant afternoon. We reluctantly headed out to St. Louis alone to our hotel near the airport. We got stuck in the perpetual construction through St. Louis until we were able to turn off onto highway 70 to the airport. There was a BBQ place called Bandana’s right next to the hotel which was pretty good. Ellen ate 2 dinners. I decided to go ahead and take the rental car back after dinner since the hotel had a shuttle to the airport, and we were leaving at 4:30am for the airport the next day. I was expecting to have to take the Hertz shuttle over to the airport to catch the hotel shuttle back from there, but I asked if they could drive me back up the road to the hotel, and they said yes. I never hurts to ask. We all went to bed early that night after Jada went down to their fitness room to walk the treadmill, and I walked up and down the stairs and tried to stretch out my back a bit more.
June 24: I was up at 3am to shower and woke everyone else up at 3:35am. We got lucky and there was a little bit of food out in the breakfast area downstairs so we could have some breakfast before we went over to the airport. The shuttle took a long time getting there, and it was packed too. I kind of wished we had taken the car back in the morning to use that shuttle, but who knows, it’d probably be just as full. The airport had been hit by a tornado just back in April, so they still had a lot of construction going on in there. Not much in the way of breakfast shops yet. We made it through check-in and security just fine though we were concerned about our second leg which had us spread out all over the cabin again. Our flight out of St. Louis left on time even though the plane arrived late. They were loading people up as fast as they could which was terrific. Once in Denver, we had an hour to grab something to snack on for a pseudo lunch. I picked up some beef jerkey and pretzels at a snack shop while Jada worked on fixing our seat assignments. Our flight had also moved up 30 minutes from the original take off of 9am to 8:30am, so we were going to get home before lunch time, PST. We were able to board quickly again, and Ellen and I end up in our own set of seats. I kept waiting for someone to come to fill in the aisle seat, and they never came. The flight seemed to go pretty quick, but that may have been because I was trying to doze.
When we got off the plane in Portland, and we were through the security checkpoint, Phoebe suddenly realized she had forgotten her personal bag that had her books and her Taggy in it. We got lucky again when a flight attendant who happened to be traveling on our flight heard about it, and went back through security (since we couldn’t) to get the bag. We were very grateful for her help. Ellen and I went down for our luggage while Jada and Ellen waited. We ended up eating a brunch in the airport at the Beaches restaurant there. Even though it was only 10am, we were well past lunch. We were home by noon greeted by our grumpy kitty. We kept ourselves up until bed time to help counteract the jet lag.
Over the last week of June, I worked, and the girls and Jada did other activities, but mostly a lot of errands. They did, however, get to see the new Pixar movie, Brave, in an actual theater. Jada said the girls did ok, but she was worried at times.
Towards the end of the week, it got rainy which was significant because we were going to the Northwest Tandem Rally in Salem, OR. We had originally planned to camp on the campus of Willamette University, the site of our soggy Cycle Oregon Weekend last year, but with the weather forecast, we decided to just drive down in the morning on Saturday, June 30. We’re glad we did. We had breakfast in the dorm café. We also won a raffle prize of a new pump which we picked up in the morning when we checked in. It wasn’t sprinkling at the mass start where we met up with our friends Paul and Becky, and reconnected with another quad family we had met in 2008 in the San Juan Islands at a rally there before we got our quad. It was quite the roll out. Too bad no one was taking pictures for us. It sprinkled on and off throughout the day. We rode with Paul and Becky for a while, but then they went on ahead on some hills. We stopped for a long time at each of the rest stops which all had playgrounds where the girls went to play with the other kids that were on the ride. There were 5 quads including us on the ride. It wasn’t until the last rest stop that the rain really came down hard. We were soaked by the time we finished our 48 miles. We had brought extra clothes, but no towels, so we did the best we could clean up a bit in the bathrooms of the University building where the BBQ had been moved to due to rain. Dinner was pretty good, and then we packed up and headed back home deciding that if the weather was horrible in the morning, we just wouldn’t go….but that’s a story for another month.
Journal entry: July 4, 2012