With the passing of August, so too comes the end of summer vacation for the kiddos. We managed to keep it busy as always, though. Ellen had 2 soccer camps this month. She really enjoyed it. She was learning how to juggle the ball on her knee. Phoebe is still too young for the soccer camps this year, but she was able to start school a week early to help Jada get work done at school. Ellen was a big helper for Jada at school. She was able to get many things done around the class room for the Kindergarten team. She seemed to like helping out too. The last day of the month at Phoebe's school was also the last day of the summer session before the kids moved up to their next age groups so there was a family picnic there. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get away from work to attend, but I'm told that a good time was had by all.
We had a bunch of other things that needed to get done before the start of school, and we had lots of busy weekends. Swim lessons came to an end, and we had the all important back to school hair cuts. We did the annual Providence Bridge Pedal 10 bridge route with our friends Pete and Robert, but this year, we brought the girls along too on the big train. I have to admit, I had my trepidations maneuvering around 20 feet of bike and trailer through the throngs of cyclists (20,000 this year), but we didn't get in or cause any accidents though we did witness one in front of us. We also had the benefit of Robert and Pete performing the similar duties of the Bandit to our Snowman as we were east bound and down, (Jada's sitting next to me now saying what a dork I am) protecting our rear wheel. We did 36 miles that day. That was a new record for the girls. On Tuesday night of the same week, we went to REI for a talk on camp cooking. It was interesting, but not what we were looking for as much, though we did get some good recipes for no-bake cookies.
The next day, Jada had a conference for OEA at a resort on the Oregon coast for 2 days, and I took the rest of the week off to come along. So we left early for Newport to get to the Oregon Coast Aquarium before she had to get to her first round of meetings. The girls enjoyed it more this time than last, I think. They were both more brave in touching the sea stars in the, well, I can't think of anything better to call it than a petting zoo. And we all enjoyed the trip through the shark tanks as always. We got back to the resort, and we were thankfully able to check in early and get some lunch. Jada ran off to her meetings while the girls and I got settled in. We went straight to the pool. It's fun to see how confident the girls are in the water. We stayed there for about an hour. Then we thought we'd walk down to the beach. However, we found that it was a little farther than we thought, and the girls didn't really want to do the hike. Instead, we found that the resort had a playground so we went looking and found that. We met up with Jada again for dinner during her break. Then we said good night as she went off to another few hours of meetings after dinner. The next morning, we got up early for breakfast, said good bye to Jada again, and then we went to the pool again for around an hour before bidding adieu to Jada again. She'd get home a little later in the day when here meetings were done. To cap off that week, we met up with our child birth class mates at Jurgen's Park in Tualatin for a play date. It was great to see the kids again and visit with the moms. It's harder and harder every year to get everyone together. We still try, and we get lucky some times. We're going to try it again around Halloween to get the dads to come too. Finally that week ended with Big Truck Day at the Conestoga Rec center. They were full this year. I think Ellen's favorite was the crane, but she was brave enough to get up into the SWAT truck turret on her own this year. Phoebe seemed to like the digger best.
It was around this time, that we started considering the Portland Century half century (that's 50 miles). To see if it was realistic, we took the girls out to do a 40 mile ride. They handled it very well, so we signed up. It was to be the following weekend. We got up super early the next Sunday to drive downtown. We were able to park really close to PSU where the start line was, but we were there an hour before the 50 milers were to start. We rolled out at 8am. We got lots of compliments and encouragement, and as far as we could tell, ours were the only kids on the ride. The rest stops were good. At the mid point, we had Hot Lips pizza. There was also a playground at that one, so the girls were happy. We had to have a little talk with Ellen about sportsmanship just before that rest stop because she was sort of trash talking some riders that we passed. Then there was the train. Just after the third rest stop, we came out of a little path through a park in North Portland and found a train that stretched as far as we could see in both directions. Fortunately, they were flat beds right in front of the path, so some people had started climbing over with their bikes to continue on the other side. I said aloud that I don't know how we were going to get over, and some people in front of us said that they would help. So I broke down the bike and trailers, handed the kids up, handed the trailers and bike up, climbed over, took the kids and the bike and trailers down, re-assembled the whole thing, and we were on our way again. We had a lot of help, and we couldn't be more thankful to those fellow riders who helped us get our rig across. As we rolled across the finish line, we had a lot of people come up and congratulate us and compliment us and especially the girls on the ride. We had a salmon dinner cooked right there on the PSU campus (I had the chicken). The official mileage on the day was 54 miles. A new record for the girls. It has us thinking we can do the Peach of a Century metric century (that's 62 miles) next month. Considering we only did 0 miles with the girls last year, and we've done over 400 miles this year we're doing much better. And we're doing it together as a family. We had people at the Portland Century tell us that they've seen us around on our training rides. We're quite recognizable.
The final week of the month was a rough one. Jada had to be at work to get the class room set up and attend meetings prepping for the beginning of the year and meet the teacher night. I was able to do my phone conferences from home in the mornings when she had meetings that Ellen couldn't go to. I took Thursday off almost entirely (I still had a 2 hour phone conference that morning to attend), so I was also able to help out our friends who also needed some day care due to school duties. So I took care of 4 kids ages 4 to 9. They played with the girl's toys for a while. Then we went bowling for a while. They were bored after a few frames, but it was still fun. We only had one ball that didn't make it all the way down the lane. After bowling, I pulled out my real Legos for Kevin and Phoebe while Julia and Ellen played random games. The day went ok, though. That night, we went to meet Ellen's First Grade teacher. It was fun getting to see the classroom. Ellen was happy to see her friends again. It was also funny to watch the kids who had Jada last year come to see Jada's new classroom. We only stayed for a little while, and then we headed for home.
So that's the month. As I write this, tomorrow is the first day of First grade for Ellen. You'll have to hear about that next month.
Journal entry: September 3, 2007