December 2012
6th
So much as already happened this month, it’s hard to believe we’re supposed to be winding down this year. Jada took Phoebe to the mall for some shopping like she did with Ellen a while back. Ellen and I stayed home, but I did get a little bike ride in while we had a break in the rain to the bread shop. Then I took Ellen to the make-up session for her aerials class from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. On Saturday night, we attended an annual cookie party that our tandeming friends throw. I brought a set of StarTrek cookie cutters (beware geeks bearing gifts)(Live long and eat cookies)…one more (set your phasors to yum). They seemed to be a hit. The girls each made several cookies, and I got to help decorate some too.
Sunday was pretty much dedicated to preparation for and travel to the state piano recital at Linn-Benton Community College in Albany. The girls both did a good job with their playing. Ellen’s second piece with her partner was the best version that we had heard. As with every year, there were just amazing pieces played on 2 pianos and the same piano by kids in high school and younger.
On Monday, the girls started at their new Kumon location. When I got home from work, Jada pointed out a water stain on our bedroom ceiling near the wall. With the lighting in there, it wasn’t easy to notice until she pointed it out, and now I can’t un-notice it. It didn’t feel wet at the time, but I still called a place that advertises on our favorite radio station to schedule an inspection for the following Monday which was their earliest availability. I didn’t push it since I couldn’t tell if it was new or I just hadn’t noticed it before. However, the rains continued to fall, and by the time I got home from work on Tuesday, it was definitely feeling wet so I called back to try to get an earlier appointment, which I was able to get for Thursday. We put a bucket beneath in case it started to drip. We caught a break with a full day without rain on Wednesday, and the stain definitely dried considerably. Turns out, there were a couple holes that he fixed with some metal shims, and we’re going to meet again next week to talk about our options.
Also on Tuesday, Phoebe got to go out to breakfast by limo ride with her Principal and several other high earners for the Fun Run. She’s been working hard at her chess too. My friend Matt gave her chess software to help her with her practice at home, and she’s been diligently working on that. Her coach has been very complimentary about her improvement this year.
9th
Saturday morning, Phoebe participated in the Chess For Success practice tournament over at a school in Hillsboro. There were 10 schools there. It’s definitely the most crowded I’ve seen a practice tournament. Phoebe started out in the Intermediate category. At the practice tournaments they do their best to match kids to someone close to their level so they can have more challenging games. While we were waiting for the start, I played her a game, and she beat me. Phoebe won her first, but lost her second. However, she finished out the rest of the morning undefeated and moved up to the Advanced group during that time. She was able to beat two advanced players as well. Since it’s a practice tournament, there’s not a lot of pressure, and no awards given. However, she was excited to see that the hard work she has been putting into her chess has paid off. While I was there, Jada got all of our Christmas presents wrapped up and ready to ship out. In the evening, she prepped the dough for her batch of Christmas cookies.
Sunday morning, I made my peanut butter balls. We also went to a friend’s open house for her son’s birthday. Our massage therapist called in sick, so we had the afternoon available to do other things. So we packed up our Christmas boxes to get shipped out, coated the peanut butter balls in chocolate, Jada baked some of her cookies, and a chicken to bring with us in the evening when we attended our friends’ Hanukkah celebration. Every year, we get to go celebrate with them on one of the nights. We had brisket and potato latkes along with the chicken we brought along.
15th
I got another week of 5 days riding to work this week. I was finally able to volunteer at Phoebe’s school for the Passport Program for the first time this year. On Tuesday night we met with Roof Life of Oregon representative to go over estimates for the roof. I’m hoping we can get a good interest rate on a loan. Ellen brought home her mid-year progress reports, and she also found out she made the honor roll. She’s pretty happy, and we’re proud of her. Her progress report notes show that she is doing very well in all of her classes even her new math class.
Saturday we met up with Jada’s dad and his wife and her grandson at Big Al’s family fun center which isn’t too terribly far from our house. We had lunch, and then bowled, but the girls didn’t seem to have much fun with that. They had fun playing games with the grandson though, and we spent all afternoon there. In the evening, we went to another friend’s house for a holiday party. It was a nice time as well. The girls got to play with their friends. In the evening, we had friends over for pizza and games. It was fun as always.
16th
We finally picked up our Christmas tree a week before Christmas. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to actually put it up since it was really wet. We picked it up in one of the many tree places in the parking lots around town. The girls helped me pick it out.
20th
We attended Ellen’s first band concert on Tuesday night. It was cute. They started out with an informance of how they started, and where they are now with different pieces and bits. The progress that the kids have made in 3 short months is truly extraordinary. Their teacher deserves heaps of praise, and the kids deserve their share too for working hard to improve. Unfortunately, we couldn’t actually see Ellen from where we were sitting, but we’d been hearing the pieces since she started, so we could imagine hearing her. Jada volunteered to help chaperone the warm-up room to supervise the kids and get them organized into groups before they went on the stage. I helped with the equipment return to the school which entailed moving the bigger instruments, chairs, and stands into the U-Haul, and then unloading to the music room back at the school.
On Wednesday, I met up with Jada at home after Phoebe’s basketball practice to go pick up Ellen from Hip-Hop class. Contrary to my belief that they were learning how to perform as bunny rabbits, I found that they were actually dancing. It’s the first time I’ve gotten to see her dance. She was having fun, and she was definitely concentrating hard on the moves. We went out to dinner at the Fresh Grill since a portion of their proceeds was going to support Ellen’s band program that night.
On Wednesday night, I noticed the wet spot on our bedroom ceiling had returned after a couple days of heavy rain. We placed a bucket underneath, and I called our contact’s number for the roofer since he said if it came back we could have them come out and do something a little more substantial. I left a message with the service. In the morning, after I had already gotten to work, Jada saw that the ceiling had started dripping. I called the roofer again to change my message to one that was more urgent than the one from the previous night. They called me back and had someone come out to lay down a tarp over the suspected leak area. Hopefully, that’ll do it. I came home anyway to work for the afternoon to keep an eye on things. So far, so good. They tarped a large section of roof.
22nd
On Friday, the girls didn’t have school, so they went to Maryville Nursing Home and played some of their Christmas songs for the folks there. Phoebe had a cookie decorating party at a friend’s house in the afternoon. Jada got all of our holiday cards into the mail too. It just seemed like we never had time to do anything this year. Oh, and shockingly, the world did not end. Phew. On Saturday, we finally got our Christmas tree decorated, and we watched Elf.
24th
For Festivus yesterday, we aired plenty of grievances, but we didn’t really have any feats of strength around the old aluminum pole. We did, however, go to the Nutcracker Tea at the community college. It’s a shorter version of the Nutcracker put on by the Northwest Dance Theater. The girls love it. We all got dressed up (Jada had to locate a dressier outfit since I don’t seem to have any button-down shirts that fit. The sleeves are all too short. Darn my monkey arms) for the occasion. We followed that up with dinner out at Pastini Pastaria and a walk through Powell’s. Once home, Phoebe played some chess on the computer with the Chess King software my friend Matt goave her last summer. I read a couple chapters of The Hobbit with Phoebe (Ellen thought it was boring) before bed.
Christmas Eve morning involved a bunch of errands so far. I picked up my Cinnabons and waited in line for 30 minutes at Honeybaked Ham. It only takes a couple minutes once the door opens, but I didn’t want to be way back in line. Then I went to get some watch batteries replaced at Batteries Plus. The weather started to clear a little bit today which was a welcome bit of sun for our poor roof. Ellen was invited over to a friend’s house for a couple hours this morning. Jada ran some more errands while I did some year-end maintenance on my commuter bike – replacing the chain and brake pads. Then, while I went to pick up our rolls at the Bungalow Bread, Jada decided that she needed to sweep the front porch and walk. Jada’s dad came over to visit around 5pm before dinner to drop off the girls’ presents. They got some cute PJ’s and bracelet-making kits. They were only here for about 30 minutes before they went to their next stop. We had the pizza I had made and read The Polar Express with the girls. I also read Phoebe another chapter of The Hobbit where we met Gollum for the first time, and they had their riddle contest. Then it was time for bed.
25th: Merry Christmas!
It’s snowing like crazy…up on the mountain. It’s very rainy here in the valley. I heard the girls awake very early this morning, but they said they didn’t go peek at the presents. I found an empty cookie plate with crumbs and a mug that had milk in it. We hadn’t left any milk out, but Santa left a note thanking Jada for the cookies and explaining he got out the cup and some milk. Before presents, we had a breakfast of cinnamon French toast. Many presents were opened, and they were all terrific, except when Jada opened her present from me, and it turned out to be a scarf she already had. At least I still have the receipt. Ellen helped Jada in the kitchen create the quiche that we’ll enjoy for lunch. We watched Brave in the afternoon. I hadn’t seen it yet. It was ok. Not Pixar’s strongest effort, but the world was pretty incredible. We ended our day with our friends over for dinner which Jada slaved over all afternoon. They brought us a new game to play called Forbidden Island. It’s a cooperative game where you have to keep an island from sinking. It was fun. The game beat us the first time, but we won the second time. This company makes a harder game too called Pandemic where you have to stop viruses from spreading around the world.
26th
I was back to work, but at least I got to ride my bike again. I also met a friend out for lunch at a place close enough to walk to. It was only about a mile walk. The girls spent their time at home mostly, and got some errands done. They found out that the Barnes & Noble that’s closest to us at the mall is gone. Just up and vanished. Luckily there’s still one left in Beaverton where the girls can use the gift cards they received for Christmas.
28th
Ellen’s magnificent Christmas continues as her cousin gave her one of her old phones to replace Ellen’s phone. She’s happier with it. Today, her sewing machine arrived from Santa at the Sewing Room in Beaverton. She’ll get to take 2 free classes along with it, so she’s pretty excited. I came down with a cold yesterday afternoon while I was at work. It increased in intensity overnight causing me to feel really crummy all day today so I stayed home. I didn’t get much work done, unfortunately. Though I was able to finish one of the things I was working on yesterday. The girls spent a lot of time together in one of their rooms making duct tape things. Ellen made a new pair of slippers and flip flops. Phoebe made a patchwork quilt (don’t worry. It wasn’t very big). Then we watched some more Muppets episodes in the late afternoon.
30th
Yesterday was lost in a fog of illness for the most part, but we did take the girls to an NBA game. Phoebe had brought home a flyer that we could use to get less expensive tickets to Blazers games, so I decided to do it this year over the break. We saw the Blazers v 76’ers, and it ended up being a close game. The girls seemed to enjoy it, but Phoebe was a bit disturbed by all the open air and audio-visual input that comes with sitting in a modern NBA arena. We saw one of the families from our child birth class sitting in just the next section over from us, so we chatted with them after the game for a few minutes. It had been quite a while since we last saw them. We got home at 10pm, so of course the girls were both up around 6am again on Sunday morning. I got the tree out the door to be picked up, and Phoebe swept up the needles on the carpet.
31st.
The end of 2012 has come and gone, and I forgot to get this posted on New Year’s day. We spent our typical New Year’s with homemade pizza and friends. We didn’t stay up very late though since we were going skiing in the morning.
I have made a difficult decision to discontinue this web site. With the kids getting older and the lures of the interwebs for their friends, I don’t want them to be embarrassed by things that would be put here in picture or prose. So I will discontinue updating this site. I will search for a secure way to still post to keep the people who want to keep up with us informed. Maybe I can enable some level of security on this very site. Until then, Happy New Year.
Journal Entry: January 4, 2013