April 8 - Happy Easter
I have been remiss since the start of the month. I don’t recall doing anything on the 1st except doing errands and getting ready to go back to school after our Spring Break. Monday was back to school for the girls, and it actually wore them out a little bit. Ellen had soccer on Tuesday, Phoebe had gymnastics on Wednesday. I got to ride my bike to work the last 3 days of the week. Chilly mornings, but pleasant afternoons in the upper 40’s/low 50’s. Then Saturday, we went to the mountain for a beautiful spring ski day. Everything was in groom for the spring after a week of snow. We went straight over to Shooting Star, and we noticed that the black run called Apollo was even groomed, so we made that our first run of the day before it got all mogul’d. I made it down and waited for Phoebe. As I turned to look for her, I saw her point her skis straight down the slope from a little under halfway down, and I just knew it wouldn’t end well. She hit the change from slope to flat hard and almost kept it upright, but she went down pretty fast after that losing both polls and a ski. It looked like she scraped her face somehow in the process, but it wasn’t bad. I checked to make sure she was physically fine, since that was my big worry. I had taken off my skis to run back to her to make sure she was ok, and I gathered all of her things to get out of the way of people coming down the slope. Ellen did a great job of making it down well. From there, we got Phoebe back up and on the lift again, and she did fine on the Star Ridge run on the second time down. Then we worked our way back over to the middle and up. We took Phoebe’s favorite Tunnel of Love run. Then we went to Cascade which is where we stayed the rest of the morning. We happened to run into some friends while we were there. They saw us from the lift, and we met them at the bottom to ski a couple more runs. By 11:45am, we were really tired, so we went in for lunch. We met up with our friends again after lunch so the girls could ski with their toddler son on the Ballroom carpet. Then we headed home in the early afternoon and were greeted with a gorgeous afternoon back home. I rode my bike over to Bungalow Bread to pick up my bread for the week. Mostly we just hung out at home and did some grocery shopping at New Seasons in the evening.
On Sunday, The girls got some nice office supplies from the Easter Bunny, as well as the first two seasons of the Muppet Show. Phoebe and I went on a bike ride on the tandem in the morning. It was pretty nice. It was only 50 when we left the house, but it was a warm 50. I overdressed. Ellen and Jada went grocery shopping, and then they took their bikes over to the bike path to ride around for a while. Phoebe and I put in 22 miles and hit some new roads. Ellen and Jada did 5 miles on their single bikes, and it was close to 60 by the time we all returned home. In the afternoon we went over to some friends for Easter Brunch. We spent 4 hours over there enjoying great food and meeting some new people. The girls got to run around outside with some of the other kids there all afternoon in the warm sun.
April 13
Phoebe found out yesterday that she was selected for the state piano composition award with her ambitious duet arrangement. We assume that there will be a performance at some point, but we haven’t heard yet. There will also be a book with all the compositions. Today they had Junior Festival where they each had to memorize 2 challenging pieces to play. They got to play them on the really nice Steinway & Sons pianos downtown at Sherman and Clay’s piano store. I had to miss it, but they both achieved superior ratings on their performances. They put in a lot of hard work, but we were still worried for them as they each had things they were still working on right up to the end. Those were the very things that the adjudicator made mention of in her notes to each of them too, but they weren’t so noticeable to people who hadn’t been listening to it for the last few months. They still did really well with their pacing and “confident” playing of their pieces which is what the adjudicator made mention of for both pieces.
April 15
We had a nice weather day on Saturday with temps in the low 60’s and some sunshine. Phoebe and I went out for a 28 mile bike ride in the morning before it got really nice, but it was still mostly sunny and while not warm, it wasn’t chilly either. While we were out on our ride, Jada went shopping and Ellen had to do a makeup for her tutoring. No soccer again this weekend, but only because we had originally had a bye week already scheduled, which is good considering that all the fields are still a mess. After lunch the girls each had eye appointments. Apparently, their eyes are getting better so that’s nice. The eye doctor noticed that Phoebe was less willing to say what she saw if she thought it wasn’t going to be right than Ellen. In the afternoon, we had gotten E.T. from Netflix, so the girls got to watch it. Based on Jada’s description, Ellen wasn’t so sure she would find it interesting at all since (Spoiler Alert) it’s about a boy finding an alien and all. A little ways in, Jada asked if they wanted us to turn it off, but they had already gotten hooked. It’s been a long time since I’d seen it, but aside from the incredibly lax parenting skills of the suburbs in which the movie takes place (seriously, watch that Halloween night scene again with flaming garbage cans rolling down the street and tell me a tactical response team doesn’t need to be sent into that neighborhood) it still holds up pretty well. I picked up some pizza for dinner to end the day.
Sunday was a nice day, overcast, but in the upper 50’s, low 60’s. We went to OMSI to see the The Art of the Brick Lego exhibit. It was by the same guy (Nathan Sawaya) that we had seen in Peoria, IL in 2010, but with some different pieces. They were still pretty neat. The girls liked them too. They also featured some Portland based people who do Lego sculptures there. Then we came home and took the quad out for a shakedown run for the first time since we got back from Spain last year. It went ok, but I need to modify the timing chains for a more even power stroke distribution and the shifting was a little off. Otherwise, it went pretty well. We got 5 thumbs up according to Jada’s tally. Phoebe is out of the child stoker kit so she’s sitting lower now. It helps with overall stability on the bike. When we got home from that, the girls had their first swimming class, and Phoebe and I had guitar afterwards. We finished off the night with another couple episodes of the Muppet Show. The girls are really enjoying it. They sit on the couch in rapt attention. I don’t know if it’s more the novelty of watching TV or really enjoying the show. Probably a little of both.
April 22
It’s been a normal week of rainy days with a brilliant ending. On Friday, Phoebe’s class did an Arts for Learning presentation where each student wrote an original poem and then worked with a group to choreograph a routine to go along with it. I couldn’t go, but Jada was able to record some video on her phone for me to see. The weather kept getting better as the week progressed until Saturday we had a sunny and beautiful day. Ellen spent the day in a babysitting class getting certified to be a babysitter which meant that she had to miss her double-header soccer game that morning. I still went since, as a coach, I have a responsibility to be there. I took Phoebe with me, and she spent the whole time with one of the soccer family’s dog. It’s just a small dog, so she’s fine around it. Jada spent the morning feeling rotten and nauseous thanks to a killer migraine, so she got to have a quiet house after she did the grocery shopping. In the afternoon, Phoebe had to do piano practice since she needs to get prepared for syllabus next Friday, and she’s not ready yet. I haven’t ridden my Specialized Allez in 2 years! So it was very nice for Jada to push me out of the house for a solo ride. It was like learning to ride all over again because it’s so light. The bike just shoots forward with every pedal stroke. Quite a difference from what I’ve been used to with the commuter and tandems. I also got to try out my new Garmin Edge 500 I got with my REI dividend. I like it so far. It’s a good thing I got it too since my old computer wouldn’t work that I was going to use as a comparison. In the evening, we went out to dinner with our tandeming friends for Indian food. We went to a place called Chennai Masala in a little strip mall in Hillsboro. It was authentic food. We ordered a bunch of dishes and ate family style which has been our custom in our dinner outings. Ellen liked everything, while Phoebe found everything too spicy. We went for a walk in their neighborhood after dinner up the top of Murray Hill which I didn’t know was there. It was a little romantic overlook with a teenage couple all decked out for prom. We had to try to keep the girls from going down to the overlook where they were sitting.
Today was even warmer than Saturday. We went out to breakfast with our friend Sue. Then I took the girls home while Jada headed downtown for a massage. In the afternoon, Phoebe and I went on what will likely be our last training ride before next weekend’s Monster Cookie ride. The weather was terrific. We didn’t have enough time to get everyone out on the quad before swim class. I went to guitar on my own since Phoebe had a lot of work to do for piano next week.
April 26
We had the girls’ teacher conferences last night. You’ll be surprised to hear this, but they’re both doing well. Ellen’s teacher said she should be prepared for middle school, and Phoebe’s teacher says she’s ready for 4th grade.
Today, Jada has her conferences so she’ll be at school until late tonight. I’m home making the girls do their piano practice so they’re ready for their testing tomorrow for Syllabus. My cousin is coming out for a trip to Astoria, but she’s stopping by for lunch on their way to the coast. We went to lunch at Fresh Grill and then the girls each played their piano pieces for them before we sent them on their way to the crab festival in Astoria.
April 28
Friday was piano Syllabus for the girls, which is their big test to make sure that they have learned everything for the level they’ve been working on this year. It involved scales, arpeggios, progressions, and memorized pieces. It’s basically what we’ve been trying to get them ready for over the last few months, but especially over the last 2 weeks since we found out that they hadn’t really been using their practice time as wisely as they could. Jada kept me posted through text messages after each of them got their certificates indicating they can move to the next level. We were very relieved. Then Jada took them both over to Maryville Nursing Home to play while their pieces are still perfect. They weren’t excited about the idea, but then they got into reading their books and no longer were paying attention to where Jada was driving so she went there anyway. It was lucky that they did because there was supposed to be a performance by their regular piano guy, but he wasn’t able to make it. So the staff was trying to play whatever they could remember from whenever they had taken lessons in the past. They were very thankful when the girls showed to help out with their 8 pieces between them. They got to see some of the folks they hadn’t gotten to see for a while. In the end, they both said they were glad they went. Maybe as they get older, they’ll volunteer there to do piano for occasions. Who knows?
Saturday, Phoebe had her girls’ chess tournament in Portland at Jada’s old middle school, although it is now a K-8 with a different name. Ellen and I went to her soccer game. It was rainy in the morning, but the sun started trying to force its way through the clouds as the morning went on. The girls fought hard in a pretty even match. Though we had 3 different girls contribute to goal scoring on our side, the other team only had 1 girl score all of their goals. Ellen fought hard for the ball which was good to see this year. She had an almost that was called off-sides. From where I was standing, it looked like she had gotten behind the defender, but I’ll leave that to the ref. Phoebe had a good tournament with 2 wins, 2 draws, and 1 loss. The added bonus was a girl from our school won the tournament. After Ellen and I had lunch, we rode the tandem to Bungalow Bread and back. Then I mowed the lawn and fixed a flat tire on my commuter that I noticed while I was in the garage.
April 30
Sunday morning, Phoebe and I drove down to Salem for the Monster Cookie ride under misty skies. By the time we got there, the rain was done. It was cool, but dry with spotty blue sky. We got our registration packets and were underway by about 7:50am. We took it easy on the way out of town, but we were really moving once we escaped the stop lights of the city. We saw a hot air balloon that had taken off under hopes of calmer skies, but it looked like it may have just decided to come back down again since it wasn’t up very high, and it had changed position since we first saw it. We arrived at the first rest stop before we knew it. We grabbed some peanut butter and jelly bagels, and I put two cookies in a ziplock bag to take back to Jada. We watched a couple of crop dusters fly their acrobatic circles over the fields on the way to Champoeg park. Phoebe only made a passing comment about her bottom hurting and her feet being cold, but I had put the Garmin on the back for her to track our progress, so she enjoyed that. We pulled into Champoeg Park around 10-ish. I tried to send Jada a progress report, but it didn’t go through. We ate more PB&J bagels and fruit, and I let Phoebe have a small cookie for some energy. I’ve learned a lot over my years of doing this ride. The first thing was to keep the stops to only about 15 minutes so as not to cool down too much, but the single biggest thing was to not eat so many cookies at the rest stops. It helps me a whole bunch. As we returned to the middle rest stop, the sun was starting to poke out some more. I found Phoebe making friends with a 6 year old on the back of a tandem while I took off my top layer for the final push to the finish. Along the way, we saw a crop dusting helicopter parked in a field next to the road with its rotors still running getting more dust for the crops. We made great time to the finish after turning back east to get more of the wind at our backs. It was getting sunny by the time we arrived at the finish for our monster cookies in front of the capitol, but first we were interviewed by the Statesman Journal. We didn’t make it into the article, but you can find Phoebe’s picture in the article online (http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012304300012). She’s the last 2 pictures in the photo deck. Once at home, we had just enough time to eat a real lunch before the girls went off to swimming, and it was only a short time after that when I had to pick Phoebe up for guitar lessons. After guitar lessons, I rushed home, ate dinner, and headed downtown for my massage.
And that brings us to another month’s close. Maybe I’ll be able to post new pictures soon. You never know.
Journal entry: April 30, 2012