April came in after March, as expected. However, the weather also seemed to turn for the better towards the end of the week. It was still rainy, but it wasn't quit so cold. We had soccer practice in the rain for about 20 minutes, but then the sun came out. We got our schedule, and the first games start the second weekend of April. Friday's weather was pretty nice after some sprinkles in the morning, it was sunny and 50 in the afternoon. Friday evening was the first night the girls have slept with out a nightlight. They didn't like the idea, but they survived the night. We were going to try to make it to the summer solstice, but there is so much light coming in around the blinds, that we figured we could just start now since the sun doesn't even set until after 8pm already.
Saturday morning was around freezing when we got up, but it was clear. We made our usual trip to the grocery store followed by piano and a trip to Gram's. We delivered our old table to her so she doesn't have to have a card table and chairs. The weather was really nice by afternoon, so I took Ellen over to her school to practice some bike riding while Phoebe got some piano done. Ellen did a pretty good job. It was a rocky start while she was trying to figure out that the brakes are how to keep from running into things instead of just bailing out of the bike when things don't feel right which inevitably leads to bruised knees if you're lucky. But as she kept doing her circuit she got more confident. Hopefully we can keep her going this spring to get her skills up to par with her friends so that they can ride on bicycle paths eventually. We only had about an hour since we had to go to the ballet in the afternoon. It was the make up event from the Nutcracker Tea that was cancelled due to snow this winter. They didn't put on the Nutcracker again, instead they did the first act of the Sleeping Beauty Ballet. For those of you not so familiar with anything but the bit where she pricks her finger, falls asleep, and gets awakened by a kiss from a prince, the first act is when the fairies bestow their gifts upon the princess. However, just before the Lilac Fairy gives her gift, the evil fairy, Carabosse, storms in upset about not getting invited and gives the gift of dance...no, no, no. I'm only kidding. She gives the gift of death upon the prick of the princesses finger on a spindle. Then she storms off again in a huff. However, the Lilac fairy can't take the whole curse away, but she can turn the death into just falling asleep instead. So, the princess has that going for her. Which is nice. After the intermission, they had an all new choreography number created by the choreographer of the company set in a cafe (or as Phoebe called it afterwards, the cafeteria. Just doesn't evoke the same French romanticism, does it? Oui.) in Paris, France. I liked that one, perhaps mostly because of the live jazz band, and it was pretty short. But the company does a good job, and the dancers seem like they are enjoying themselves. Ellen and Phoebe enjoyed it as well. Especially the fairies in Sleeping Beauty. They liked some of the humor in the second set too. When we got home we found out that Gram had to go to the hospital again, so Jada took off to check on her while I put the girls to bed. She was released that night, though, so that was good.
Sunday morning wasn't quite so cold, and our good friend (and Phoebe's Godfather), Pete, came by for breakfast. It was great that he was able to fit us into his crazy whirlwind visit to the Northwest since it'll likely be his last for a while. He showed us his gorgeous pictures from his trip to Argentina. Afterward, we went to OMSI with a brother and sister who are Phoebe and Ellen's age respectively so their parents could get some work done on their house uninterrupted. The special exhibit until May features the works of Leonardo da Vinci. It included a lot of models of inventions of his as well as actual notebooks where you could see how he wrote in them backwards even though I can't read Italian very well. We got to create a "safety" bridge out of building logs to replicate the bridge that he designed for the military that could be created from logs found on the side of rivers. There were also lots of examples of the gears and bearing joints that he created. I hadn't realized just how many of his designs used the screw to translate energy to different kinds of motion. The upstairs gallery was devoted to the "Secrets of the Mona Lisa". I won't give them away since you can read about them on the site. However, a French engineer named Pascal Cotte created a camera that could create 240 million pixel images of the picture to see details that weren't seen before and get through the layers and layers of renovation that have been performed on it over the decades. I thought it was very interesting, and the kids enjoyed the exhibits. Unfortunately, the chemistry lab was closed, but we were able to spend some time in the Physics lab and tower building areas. Then on the way out, the Portland Astronomy Society had set up some telescopes to view the sun and Venus. Unfortunately, there were too many high clouds to see Venus, but we were able to see the sun. There wasn't any sun spot or solar flare activity today, but that's still the first time I've gotten a good look at our Sun so I was happy. After dropping the other kiddo's off at their house, we had a quick lunch and got the quad ready for its first voyage of 2009. We decided that since it was 70 degrees out and sunny, we would take the quad to the birthday party the girls were invited to that afternoon. We still don't have the bike computer and rack installed (hopefully we'll get that done next weekend), but it doesn't matter. I carried the stuff that we needed in a back pack. We stuck around for the party and ducked out before cake so we could get home. We ended up getting 11 miles in and lots of smiles along the way. The rest of the evening was spent on laundry, piano practice, and dinner.
Phoebe had 3 nights where she woke up between 3 and 4am and came knocking at our door because she had a nightmare. Usually they involve Savannah being hauled off by a wolf or something. They seem to be combining fairy tales with Savannah's disappearance and her Gram's failing health. It's sad, but the best I can do is take her back to bed and then hope I can fall back to sleep which of course I can't. It's been a rough week with soccer practice every night and getting to bed late every night as a result. After the very warm start to the week, the end of the week ended in typical Oregon spring fashion with temps in the 40's and 50's with rain over night and not much else during the day.
Saturday was Ellen's first soccer game. The rain held off for us, but it was cool. I spent most of the time before the game trying to keep the girls warmed up with some running and jumping jacks and passing drills. The girls did a good job for their first game. We saw a lot of good passing and looking for each other. Ellen still doesn't attack the ball, but she tries to get back on defense. They both had naps in the afternoon and slept for about 3 hours. However, they still woke up grumpy. While they were napping, Jada ran some errands, and I worked on getting the bike computer and rack setup on the quad. It's all setup and ready to go now. The only other thing I'd like to do is add a couple more bottle cages, or at least change the location of the ones that are already there.
On Easter Sunday morning, we broke with tradition of going to a Mass, and instead served up a hearty breakfast for Gram. We brought her over for a yummy breakfast of eggs, pancakes, and strawberries. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to stay all that long because the oxygen canister she brought only had about and hour and half of air in it (though, we had to figure that out ourselves afterwards), and she was getting tired anyway. The weather was quite windy with showers rolling through the area. It seemed like we got a lot done on Sunday in spite of my afternoon nap. Also, with my first "I shrunk your pants in the laundry" capri joke, it is officially spring. The Easter bunny brought the girls a few things including a Sudoku for kids book, a magnifying glass, horse and pony sticker books, a new spring blanket set for each, as well as an individual gift of a "Cat's Cradle" game for Ellen and an art book for Phoebe.
It was a mostly rainy week, but only Ellen's soccer practice got rained on. The weather started getting really nice on Thursday. Saturday morning started off cool, but sunny. The girls had their piano competition for Junior Festival, but I went to the soccer game anyway since I'm assistant coach. I rode my bike to the game since I was on my own. Meanwhile the girls were earning "Superior" marks for their pieces. Jada said they did a really good job. The afternoon, we put Phoebe down for a nap, and I took Ellen out to ride her bike. It was a bit of a problem this day. Her first ride off, she forgot to use her brakes again, and ran into the railroad ties that separate the bark chips of the play structures from the playground and fell. I talked her into trying again, but it was only 1 more minute before she hurt her calf just standing next to the bike to turn it around. So we headed home. She probably needed a rest, but by the time we got home it was too late for that. Instead, she read some books while Jada and Phoebe napped, and I worked on my bike in the garage. We were invited to an impromptu BBQ in the afternoon since it was such a nice day. We brought some chicken sausage and mac & cheese, but the food of the night at these particular friends' house is ribs, and they know how to cook them well. Ellen liked them, but they were really too sweet for her. It was nice to get to see everyone and their kids, and we had a good time up until Phoebe accidentally hit Ellen in the ear with a foam bat. That brought our evening crashing to a halt. Ellen ended up being ok, but since it was right on the ear, I'm sure it hurt quite a bit. The sad thing was that there were 2 people there (the hosts and one other) who are expecting their 2nd children. So this ended up being a little bit of a sibling preview. The girls had been playing really well mostly until that point. It was almost 7pm anyway, so we headed for home. Hopefully we still get invited back some other time.
Sunday was promising to be even warmer. We got up early and had a wonderful breakfast at a place nearby called the Murray Hill Cafe. We ordered 5 breakfasts for 4 people, and we split almost all of them...except for Ellen who absorbed some of Jada's and Phoebe's. It was all very good. We had a pleasant visit with Gram after grocery shopping. By the time we were heading home, it was already nearly 70 degrees. We got a light lunch (we were all still stuffed from breakfast), and headed out on the quad. Now that we have the new cycle computer and rack, it's nice to know how fast and far we're going. Jada was hoping for something between 20 and 30 miles that had a rest point at Rood Bridge Park in Hillsboro. That much, we were able to do...but we ended up doing 37 miles. Just a little over. It was a personal best for Phoebe, and our first long ride of the season. The weather was beautiful, and we saw tons of other cyclists on the road enjoying the day. We still are getting lots of friendly waves (waves marked by the presence of all 5 fingers showing) even when we are holding up traffic a little on the country roads. I think a lot of it was just everyone was in a great mood thanks to a summer like day after such a rotten winter by Pacific NW standards. The sad part was as we were coming up our hill at the end of the ride (a ~15% grade), I shifted to the granny gear while we were climbing, and it just didn't make it. We were already barely moving, but that brought us completely to a halt. The whole bike fell over in slow motion. Jada got the worst of it with a scrape on her elbow, and Phoebe got a scrape on her knee. However, Ellen and I escaped relatively unscathed. In the end, we were still able to get dinner and laundry finished, but I didn't get to the lawn as I had hoped. I still need to get some gas for my mower. I should just spend the money and get one of those electric ones.
The beginning of the week continued hot summer-like weather. On Tuesday night, Ellen practiced in 80 degree heat. On Wednesday night, Phoebe played her game in 50 degree cool. Love those 30 degree swings. We were all freezing watching the game. Many of the kids left their jackets on. At some point last week, Ellen had won a raffle to be on a talent show edition of her school's "K-5 News" program, so on Friday morning, she went in early to play one of her pieces in front of a camera that broadcast it to the entire school. Jada said she did it without any mistakes. Hopefully, we'll get a copy of the program too. All this week Jada had meetings after work, so I picked up the kids from her, and on Friday afternoon, she went to the OEA convention in Portland so I was on my own for the rest of the day and all of Saturday.
Saturday morning we were up early for Ellen's soccer game. It was chilly, and the other team just barely fielded a full team, but they still dominated. We didn't have our full team either, but the girls still did pretty well. Ellen ended up scoring our only goal just before the final whistle. They don't keep score in our league yet, but the girls were pretty disheartened by all the scoring by the other team. They haven't been used to being on the receiving end like that yet this season. We'll spend some more time scrimmaging in practice this week to get them more comfortable in game situations. Right after the game, we went over to Chehalem Elementary for the area bike rodeo. Ellen was tired from the soccer game, so Phoebe did all the riding with Mr. Bear from her kindergarten class in her basket. Plus since we weren't there to pick up free helmets, we got to get right on the course before very many people were there. After lunch, Phoebe got her piano done, and then they both played quietly in the play room...all afternoon. I didn't have to go referee at all! I even was able to get a new chain put on my Specialized bike to get it ready for Reach the beach. I took the girls out for dinner to their favorite place, and then we started a game of Monoply Jr. before bed. Much to our surprise, Jada was able to come home way earlier than she thought she'd be able to, so the girls got to see her before they went to bed.
Sunday morning, Jada was able to stay with us long enough for breakfast and half of grocery shopping. Once we were home, it was piano time for Ellen. Phoebe took her nap after lunch while Ellen read. Jada came home before Phoebe got up from nap. I finally had gotten some gas for the mower, so I was able to mow. However, it took me 15 minutes to get the mower to start. It might be time for an electric or a push mower. I also had to pull out one of our fir trees in the back yard that had been knocked over with the heavy snows this winter. It's too bad too since it was the one that was going to block the house behind us.
The week was more soccer with rain and cool weather until Thursday when it was back up to 70 degrees. It was a nice day to end the month on. And as you read this, you can see that this is the first month that I've failed to get this posted on the first day of the month. In fact, I probably wouldn't have realized it was May if my parents hadn't reminded me.
As for the kitties, they're doing ok. We've managed to cut off one of their avenues to the high places...or at least they've just gotten smarter about getting up there when we aren't around. We've gotten a laser pointer for them to play with too, but I think they just use it for giving presentations to each other...again, I'm just guessing because they do it when we're not around.
Journal entry: May 3, 2009