Wow. It's near the end of another year. This month got off to a quick start as Phoebe lost her first tooth. The story goes, as told by Phoebe, that over night December 1st or 2nd, she was playing with her tooth, and it came out. She woke Ellen to help her wrap it in some tissue and clean out her mouth of the blood. She wrote a nice note to the tooth fairy including a picture of which tooth it was (lower front left). The one right next to it is also very loose. It'll be out by Christmas, I'm guessing. Then she'll continue our tradition of requiring 2 front teeth for Christmas.
Jada was very busy with her report cards and TAG testing preparation this week, and I was busy with work things. It was in the 30's every morning, but I still rode my bike to work 4 out of 5 days. I had to drive Friday because I picked up the girls from school to take to their group piano session which this week was a rehearsal for the recital. Since I was accompanying Phoebe, I also went so I could practice with her and check the sound from my amp at the place in which we were to play.
On Saturday, the girls were signed up to play chess at what is called a practice tournament. It's a chess tournament format without the pressure, basically. There were I think 3 or 4 schools present, so the girls were playing against other kids at their level that are in chess clubs at other schools. Phoebe had 2 wins, a draw, and a loss. The only time she cried was when I told her she couldn't have the "snack". It was 10am, and they had already had a good snack before we left the house. The "snack" was a bag of chips, so I said no. She got it together and headed back into the fray. Ellen and Phoebe's coach said that Ellen was an artist...all 4 of her matches ended in a draw. (I thought that was pretty funny) She can get people on the ropes, but she doesn't have that killer instinct. That'll come in time. Jada and I split the 3 hours block up so she could get to the gym, and I could get some errands done before our 1pm hair cuts. In the afternoon when we finally got home, we spent the rest of the afternoon, since it was dry and sunny, raking and cleaning up the front yard. I also put another shelf up in the garage to try to get a few things up off the floor using the leftovers from when I tore out the shelves from our closet. Phoebe came outside to "help", but mostly ran around the yard. When she came back into the garage with 2 hula hoops, 1 around each shoulder singing a song about being a butterfly, it was time to go inside. It was terribly cute though. Jada took Ellen to a birthday party that was supposed to be a sleep over, but since Ellen had her recital Sunday, she didn't get to stay the night. She did get to stay pretty late though. When she got home, she admitted that she wasn't sad that she missed staying late because she was really tired. She still was up the next morning a little before 6am.
Sunday was a very busy day. We kicked it off with some French toast followed by a lot of cleaning. We also decided to preview the movie "The Polar Express" that came out a few years ago starring Tom Hanks. Ellen's school is going to show it before Christmas break as a whole event with the kids wearing their PJ's and the principal as the conductor. We'd never seen the movie before, but Jada and I pre-previewed it ourselves to get an idea of how bad it'd be for Ellen. Let's just step over to Dave's movie review booth. I have to say that Robert Zimmekas' Polar Express is one of the worst movies I've seen. Starting with the running time, clocking in a 100 minutes, it's at least 80 minutes too long. It's based on the popular book of the same name which is a favorite of ours that we read every Christmas Eve. The movie includes the basic premise of the book. Boy takes Polar Express to the North Pole. Meets Santa. Gets a bell only those who believe in Santa can hear. Loses it in Santa's sleigh. Finds it under tree the next morning. Believes in Santa forever. However, the movie had to include tense event after event most of which were life and death type things involving walking on top of a speeding train, skiing on top of a speeding train, train out of control with kids on the front of the train going down steep tracks, across an ice field, etc. Oh, and the bizarre hobo that may or may not be real. It wasn't necessary. It smelled of a movie trying too hard to make an already good story "exciting" when instead it became pretty much unwatchable with lame musical numbers (why is Aerosmith as elves included at the end?), and CGI characters with no facial expression. That was disappointing, and has been talked about by other movie reviews too, but it was such a waste considering how good the rendering of eyes and hair were otherwise. In closing, if you're a fan of the book, don't bother with the movie. This has been Dave's movie review. Come back next week when I'll be reviewing another American Classic, "Anchorman: the legend of Ron Burgundy". Anyhoo, Ellen wanted to stop watching when the first child was almost left behind, and it didn't get much better until they got to the North Pole and met Santa. Once we assured her that they got home without issue, she was fine. We then picked up Jeannie and went to the piano recital. Phoebe and I went first. Phoebe's godfather, Pete, flew in from San Francisco (not just for this recital, it was just a pleasant coincidence) and took the video duties for me. Ellen and Phoebe did a great job. It ended up being over 2 hours long! We rushed back to the house to get ready for dinner. We ended up putting the girls to bed a bit early. It was a very long day.
Since Papa was not able to attend the recital, he came over for dinner one night and the girls did a special concert for him. We also had two other music events this week-the Christmas Program for Phoebe's day care and the Winter Program for Ellen's school. Phoebe's program included 3 year olds, pre-kindergarten, and kindergarten students. They were all very cute, but by the time Phoebe took the stage, we could tell she was exhausted. She knew most of the words and seemed to sing loudly, although she stopped doing hand motions during the final song and almost fell off the risers at one point. The very next night, Ellen had her concert at her school. It was just the second and third graders on this night. Ellen was singing loud and proud, but she was a little less than "professional" between songs. She looked tired too. At least we should be able to get them to bed a little earlier Friday.
Saturday was a day of activities. We started off with a grocery shopping visit. I had to pick up some lights for the outside of the house because I misplaced the ones we had before. I spent a bit of time putting up the lights in the cold. The first time I stepped foot outside the back door onto the porch, I ended up on my behind. Not because of ice, but because of all the decay of dead leaves and things that lend to the slipperiness of wood here in the Northwest. I was much more careful after that, and successfully ran the rest of the lights around the rail of the deck. It was in the mid-30's in the morning while it snowed for about 5 minutes. The girls decided it was time to hand down their kitchen set to some friends whose kids are right at the age where they would just start enjoying it. Jada and the girls had their annual Christmas Tea to go to (for ladies only...rats), so I went out and ran some errands. According to Jada, the girls were well behaved, enjoyed the food, and were disappointed not to win one of the baskets at the raffle. Jada and her friend Meryl had given each of the girls a ticket, so Ellen and Phoebe placed all four tickets into the raffle for a basket of cat toys. Overall, they enjoyed themselves. Following my errands, I pulled the big box that contains the tree we bought for Gramma last year down from the attic, and I found the lights I had been looking for packed in there. After a quick bite to eat, well, what should have been a quick bite, we went over to deliver the tree and some healthy foods to Gramma and the girls decorated the tree for her. From there, we went to a Christmas party at a school friend's house. The girls were able to play with the hosts little boys and some other kids that were at the party. It was funny near the end because it reminded me of when I was a kid over at friend's houses. Mom and dad would say it's time to go, then they would talk for another half hour before repeating the process again. We did the same thing, though this time, Ellen was actually pleading to leave because she was so tired.
Sunday the weather called for temperatures to not even get into the 30's, but when I got up, it was 34 degrees with no snow on the ground. However, after mocking the weather predictions, the snow started to fall, and the temperature started to drop. It's a decent covering, enough to decide not to drive over to a play date we had planned for this morning. I'm sure we could make it, but I was more worried about the other folks out there. It snowed all day long. The wind was blowing pretty well too. They wanted to go out and play in it, but I kept telling them that there needed to be at least 6 inches so their sleds would actually float on the snow, and I didn't want to still see any grass. Phoebe went down for a nap, and Ellen had quiet rest time in the afternoon while I did laundry and Jada did her usual dizzying amount of work before laying down to rest. After nap time, my criteria was met. It was still snowing, and the temperature continued to fall into the low 20's. I decided that I should go do a first pass at the shoveling to make it easier in the morning, and while I did that, the girls played in the snow. They like sledding down our little hill in the front yard toward the house. When I was done with the shoveling, it didn't look like I had done much. I watched cars get up and down the hill, so I don't think it'll be a problem driving tomorrow, but Beaverton has already cancelled school for tomorrow.
Monday we all stayed home. It was sunny, windy, and cold. It was actually in the low 20's all day long which is terribly odd for the Portland area in my 13 years of experience. It is supposed to be like that all week. We live on a road that runs at roughly a 10% grade, so when it's slick, it is not an easy road to get up. Plus we have kids in the neighborhood trying to win the Darwin Award by sledding down the road into the busier road that runs perpendicular at the bottom of the hill packing down the snow and making it that much slicker. I know there are 2 cars currently at the bottom of the hill that look like they couldn't make it up. I was able to attend all my meetings remotely anyway, so I just worked from home like half my team. I'm supposed to fly to Arizona tomorrow, but the school district already canceled classes tomorrow due to poor neighborhood road conditions and the poor performance of diesel fuel at temperatures around 15 degrees. I don't understand this last one since I'm sure the snow plows back in Illinois ran on diesel. Jada spent almost all day cleaning the house in preparation for Nana and Bapa's visit this week...I hope they still get to make it with this bizarre weather. We finished the day with a family sing-a-long with everyone playing an instrument.
Tuesday was more of the same. School was closed. I stayed home even though I probably could have made it to work. I was supposed to fly to AZ, but the flights were all departing from PDX instead of Hillsboro, so we wouldn't even be leaving until 15 minutes before we were supposed to be in AZ, so we cancelled the trip, and phoned into the meeting instead. I spent all day on the phone again in the meeting. The sun was out all day, but it was still in the 20's for temps though the wind wasn't as bad. The girls kept themselves occupied with piano and games. Phoebe and Jada napped, but I kept waking Jada up with my talking on the phone. We finally ventured out late in the afternoon to pick up some last minute things for Nana and Bapa's arrival. The roads around the neighborhood were still icy, but the main roads like Murray and Farmington weren't too bad. The Subaru was able to move along ok. We finished the day off the girls taking showers, and another carol session. Though the girls were a little cranky. Jada found out that school will be closed again tomorrow because the weather is supposed to be bad again.
Wednesday was another day at home, but the weather was a little warmer. The forecast called for freezing rain in the afternoon which didn't materialize, but I still was cautious when I went to pick up Nana and Bapa from the airport. I spent the morning on the phone for work stuff, and then headed out to the Beaverton Creek MAX station to take the ride out to the airport. It went pretty well. I transferred from the blue line to the red line at the Beaverton transit center since it was parked and waiting instead of getting off way out at Gateway and waiting in the elements. It took a little over an hour. The roads along highways 217, 26, and 84 looked good, and the traffic was light, so it looked like I could have driven instead. Their flight was an hour late, but that's not too bad considering the weather. We looked around Powell's and got them something to eat while at the airport before picking up their bags. We were able to get right on the MAX heading back west and find seats for all of us. We transferred back to the blue line at the Beaverton TC again and were home in about an hour and 15 minutes. It was rainy and snowy which actually helped the condition of our street. If it does freeze tonight as predicted, it'll be another morning stuck in the house. We'll see. The girls were super excited to see Nana and Bapa when we pulled up, and immediately put them into service reading story after story until dinner time.
Thursday, I actually made it into work, but the schools were still closed. It was probably the best day to have school too, but the side streets still weren't very good. I passed a cyclist on the roads, and I felt like such a fair weather rider. Though by the time I got home, the melt that had occurred during the day was starting to refreeze to the point that when I went outside to make sure the road was ok (thanks, Laurie!), our hill was an ice rink, and I had to miss my basketball game. While I was at work, Jada was able to go out to New Seasons to get some shopping done. Friday, we were was stuck at home again because of the ice and snow over night. School was called off in the morning which completed the whole week before vacation starts. Jada wasn't happy because she had a lot of work to do this week. I shoveled in the morning at least. We found out that Phoebe had lost her second tooth over night, and she had just forgotten to tell us about it. The girls played chess and checkers with Nana and Bapa in the morning while we waited for the temperature to rise so Jada could go out and get the rest of her shopping done and go take some things to Gramma. We ended up being able to all go out in the van to visit Gramma, and then eat outside the house for a night. The traffic around the mall was just insane. We're guessing it was because everyone had been stuck inside, and finally got a day to leave their houses to do some shopping. Because of the weather, we ended up deciding to cancel our ornament party this year. Our street just isn't good for having people come and park on it, and our driveway is only big enough for 2 cars.
Saturday, it was snowing when we woke up, and it continued throughout the day. Jada and I made a quick run to Target to pick up some things, and we also finally picked up a tree. We decided to get one at Haggen's. It's a small one, but it looks ok. It's a good thing that we got out when we did because it just got worse throughout the day. I think we ended up with about 10 inches of snow in our yard and street out front. We did end up having just a mini-ornament party which was nice, but we do wish we could have had our friends over, too. Later in the afternoon, the girls and Bapa got to go out and play in the snow while I made another futile attempt to shovel. They got to play for close to an hour in the 20 degree temps. Saturday night we found out that the Northwest Dance Theatre had to cancel all performances of the Nutcracker Tea that Jada had purchased tickets for back in October. They won't refund, but they are going to see about making it a tax deduction. There are 120 dancers who had been practicing for months in preparation for this that now don't get to perform. It's sad for them, too.
Sunday morning, I walked out to check on the damage, and everything was iced over with about an 1/8th inch glaze. Bapa and I went to shovel the driveway, but the ice made it slow going. I went out again later to try to get farther, but everywhere we had just shoveled had iced over again. I'll wait for it to warm up a little. We finally got the tree decorated today. The kitties managed to not knock the tree over during the night, but they are getting brave again. We just don't have a good way to protect it. We've had several ornaments removed from the tree by the kitties by Monday morning. It was snowing again by mid morning. We had another day spent inside watching the snow fall.
Monday morning, the 22nd, we were woken by Phoebe yelling that her nightlight was out. I noticed that our clock was also off. It was a little after 5am, and our power was out. I told the girls to go back to sleep while I went around the house turning off power strips. We got up around 6am and ate breakfast by candle light. I went out to shovel a bit, and Jada called PGE. Our power was back on just before 8am, and there was much rejoicing. (yea!) The first thing Ellen said was, "Christmas tree lights! and took off to turn them on. Since we had another 4 inches of snow, we took the girls (and Bapa) out to play in the snow. It was quite fluffy with a layer of ice below the surface. Ellen decided to play ice scientist where she and Phoebe went digging up ice slabs to take to their ice lab. The best pieces would be displayed in the "auditorium". Bapa helped get some nice specimens from the tops of our bushes. We stayed out for about an hour with the temps around 25 degrees. Phoebe took a nap in the afternoon, followed by most of the rest of us. Ellen steadfastly refused and read the whole time again. I made pizzas for dinner. One was a vegetarian as something different. The other was grilled chicken.
Tuesday morning, we had to get out of the house to pick up the ham for our Christmas eve dinner (and subsequent leftovers). It took me 10 minutes to get the windows chiseled off, but the Subaru did it's job once again. The roads were all pretty bad. It was like driving the DisneyWorld cars because of the deep ruts in the road. I couldn't even get out of them to make a left turn, so I just went straight and tried it again later. They were jarringly bumpy, too. We decided to get everyone out of the house while we could, so I put my old chains on the van, and they fit...mostly. I had to employ some creative bungee strategy to make sure that they stayed in place, but it worked. While we were out and around, I dropped everyone off and stopped over at Les Schwab to pick up a set of chains that actually fit the van. In the afternoon, we just had quiet rest time. The girls played and read, I played a guitar. After dinner of leftover pizza, our neighbor across the street called for help getting her Jeep unstuck from her driveway, so Bapa and I went over to shovel out her drive and help her get the car back into the garage.
Wednesday was Christmas Eve Day, and the temps got up above freezing. I shoveled out our next door neighbor's driveway. Papa called in the morning to regretfully cancel our plans for Christmas Eve dinner. We had already been deciding on how to handle the weather related cancellation. Gramma is very disappointed to not be able to come over Christmas Eve, but this year, we've all had to make some changes for our traditions. Nana and Bapa flew out here for a vacation, and they have ended up being sequestered in our house for all but about 5 hours of their 10 day stay. In fact, cabin fever may have officially set in today when we were literally watching the snow melt as the storm forecasted to come in missed Beaverton but nailed Vancouver where Papa lives. It was 36 degrees, and the roads were extra wet and slippery. We had our Christmas Eve dinner and the girls opened their 1 present each. The traditional pajama gift. With the sudden end to school last week due to weather, Jada wasn't able to bring a bunch of her books home including the Polar Express. So we weren't able to read that to them and give them their bells this year to wear on Christmas. Just lots of traditions being thrown to the side this year, but we're rolling with it.
Christmas morning, I was up early enough to check on where Santa had hidden the gifts from the kittens so I could set them out before the girls came out for breakfast. They know they're not supposed to look into the front room before breakfast, but just in case, I wanted to make sure that everything was out there. Before releasing them, I pulled all the other gifts from us out to place around the tree. Flower knocked my tripod over twice before I put the camera up and let the girls in. They seemed happy with their presents from Santa, Nana, Bapa, Auntie Mandy, Great Aunt Jan, and Great Aunt Sandy and Gary. We had hoped to bring Gramma over for brunch and to have her open her presents from us. I went out to pre-drive the route to see if there were trouble spots. The main roads were pretty clear, but the streets right around our house and the Murray crossing were like a terribly rutted back country road. I was able to make it, but her back would not have been happy with the ride. Our hill was so rutted, slushy, and bouncy, I just lightly held the wheel and let the car go where it needed to go to get up. We pushed on with brunch. Jada was trying a new recipe for sweet potato waffles, but they did not stay together in the waffle iron. She then changed tactics and made them pancakes, which required that she add more milk to thin them out. They were quite yummy even if they didn't turn out perfectly. We had snow showers off and on all afternoon, but nothing stuck. A lot of melting was going on. The girls played with their new toys and read their new books. The adults all read their new books/napped. We had our fancy leftovers for dinner and put the girls to bed ending our odd Christmas day.
Friday I checked for the paper, but it wasn't there again (we didn't get one at all on Christmas day). I started to walk out into the street to check the ruts and almost fell down on the ice. We spent the morning taking down the tree, or as Ellen called it, "De-lighting". The tree really looks bad. The bottom 3rd is stripped of ornaments and all the branches have been pulled down because that's as high as Flower can reach. For some reason, they didn't go after the light cord which is what I thought they would go for most. Speaking of Flower, for some reason Nana and Bapa have taken to calling her Lightning. I don't know why. Probably because she's so unpredictable. Did I mention that the garbage hasn't been picked up in 3 weeks? We've got 3 weeks of garbage that I've started putting in our yard recycling. Pretty soon, we'll be re-enacting Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant". (Remember Alice? This is a song about Alice) You'd think if city buses can get through the snow with chains on, a garbage truck that weighs a lot more would be able to make it too. We also haven't received a newspaper in 3 days, and the roads have been better in that time.
Anyhoo, Saturday we woke up to temps in the 40's with rain. Things were starting to melt pretty well, but our street was still pretty rough in taking dad to send back his box at the UPS store. The girls spent the morning playing games with Nana and Bapa before we left for the airport. We were able to get the van down the hill and to the main streets successfully. Once at the airport, we had lunch and did a little looking around at the Powell's and Made in Oregon stores since we hadn't been able to do much all week. It was nice to stretch our legs somewhere other than our house. The lines for their flight were short, and they were through security rather quickly and without incident. After our final waves, we headed back home for a quick rest time. We monitored their flights in the evening, and they were only delayed by ~30 minutes it appeared. Even though we were all cooped up in the house, it was still a nice visit. Jada and I were lamenting all the things that we had planned to do that slipped away, but the important thing was spending time with them. Hopefully, we weren't too difficult to put up with. We ended the day with some stories and went to bed.
I was back at work on Monday, Phoebe was back at her day care for the mornings, Ellen started her week-long Math-a-mania class, and Jada spent her mornings with her feet up eating bon bons...or getting the carpets cleaned, taking the cats to the vet, driving the girls around....one of those things. On Tuesday afternoon, I had an appointment with a sleep doctor to see if I could find out why I can't stay asleep at night. Turns out I just have insomnia, and there's nothing they can do for that without prescribing habit forming medications. I took some pamphlets on bio-rhythms and insomnia. I haven't read them yet. Ellen made a polyhedral shape out of straws on Monday, an abacus on Tuesday, and she learned binary on Wednesday (you know, there are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't).
Wednesday is New Years Eve. I left work early so I could make pizza for the friends we had over. We tried something different this time. I still made the 2 separate dough balls, but one of them I split into 4 equal parts to make small personal pizzas for the kids. They chose their own toppings and put them on themselves. The girls put together a little program for us including a piano duet that they made up themselves. I tried to get it on tape, but I couldn't get them to do it the same way the second or third time. They each did a set of Christmas songs, Jada and I played Auld Lang Syne together, and I played a couple songs as dictated by Ellen. Then we played charades..well, the kids acted out things that we adults guessed for some random points. Kind of like Drew Carey's version of Who's Line is it Anyway, where everything's made up and the points don't matter. Phoebe did a great job. Ellen teamed up with Hayden for almost all of theirs that they made up themselves. The girls got to bed really late, almost midnight....on the East Coast.
It's been another busy year filled with fun and frustration, but we made it through ready for more. From a cycling perspective, I missed my goal of 3000 commuting miles by just under 300 miles thanks to jury duty and this winter storm, but I still commuted to work for 2771 miles with a total number of miles biked at 3677. As a family, we put in 640 miles including 56 miles on the quad. My goal of 4000 miles per year is reachable, and with the quad, we can get out more often together. We got to snow shoe a lot last winter, and we look forward to doing the same this winter.
Thanks to all for reading. Have a happy and healthy new year. See you again in 2009.
Journal Entry: December 31, 2008