We're already up to the big birthday period. Lot's o' birthdays are happening in this time of the year. Lots of party invites. Most important of which is our very own Ellen.
The first day of the month was a Friday where I volunteered at Jada's school participating in Big Rig day for the Kindergarten classes. I brought in the whole setup to show the classes. Then Jada and the rest of the Kindergarten team took MAX downtown to take the OHSU aerial tram. Luckily the weather wasn't too bad. Ellen started her new season of drama club at school. It was our birthday present to her. The very next day we had snow falling from around 6:30am all the way until 10am at our house. It was all gone by the end of the day, but it was unexpected. In most places, though, they only saw rain. Ellen got lots of piano practice in, but we didn't do much. The mountain and gorge were getting hammered with snow, so the only way anywhere east from here was over highway 26, and even that got closed for periods of time. Sunday was just rainy and cold.
The week was anything but uneventful. Monday Jada had her BEA meeting, so I had to pick up the girls really late. Tuesday I flew to Arizona for a day for a meeting. Wednesday we had our annual tickets to see the Bulls vs the Blazers. I rode my bike to work in the morning so Jada could pick me up after work to head straight down town. There was a bit of frost in the morning which made for some iffy stretches and treacherous corners. My training from my winter commuting in Illinois paid off, and I kept the rubber side down. I had purchased the tickets last year at a silent auction. They were awesome. We had seats 10 rows up from the Blazers bench right on the aisle. I was able to get a good look at the Blazers newest rookie (out for the season with micro fracture surgery in his knee), Greg Oden. He had the look of a 40 year old accountant not looking forward to the coming tax season. There's just no way he is 20 years old. The Blazers ended up winning by 3, with the Bulls hanging around for the whole game even without both of their leading scorers. I got to ride to work both Thursday and Friday.
The second weekend had errands and a the girls had a birthday party to attend on Saturday. Jada and I got a whole 2 hours to ourselves to go to Gateway Bicycle shop to talk about quads (that's a bike with 4 seats in a row...not a bike with 4 wheels). We got a lot of good information from the owner of the place, and we may be setting up a test ride later this spring or summer. Our goal is go buy one by next year. I've been saving for a few years now, and I should be able to pull it off by then. Sunday we had planned to go up to snow shoe with the Emslie's again for Brycen's first birthday celebration. We got up early to rain, and a change in the expected snow level in the wrong direction. We pushed on anyway. Unfortunately, the rain continued at Government camp and even a little farther up the mountain, so we packed it in and went to breakfast. The lodge was pretty full because of the rain, but the food was good as always. Then we came home and napped.
I was sick both Monday and Tuesday (11 and 12th of Feb) and consequently stayed home from work. I mostly slept, but the siren song of work kept pulling me back over to my laptop in the afternoons to make an attempt to at least catch up on my email before it got too out of hand. Savannah had a checkup to get her vaccinations up to date. She hadn't had a physical in a while, but she had been throwing up about once a week lately. They said she was in great health. However, she is a senior now (she's almost 13!) so we should start feeding her the senior blends for cat food. She also got her teeth cleaned. They have to knock her out to do that, so let's just say she was a bit grumpy when Jada picked her up. They ended up having to pull 2 of her teeth due to cavities, but there's no way I'm going to brush her teeth like I do the girls'. Otherwise, they said that her teeth were pretty good.
Friday the 15th wasn't a great day. Ellen had a performance for her piano class, but most of the students must have gone to the earlier one. She ended up having a second private lesson with her teacher instead. Jada started coming down with the same thing that had taken me down earlier in the week, and then she picked up Phoebe who had puffy, watery eyes a stuffed up nose. She was feeling pretty miserable herself.
February 16th was Ellen's 7th birthday. She woke up quite cheerful, but Jada and Phoebe were still sick. We had breakfast and gift opening. Jada had to regretfully postpone dinner with Grandma and Grandpa so they wouldn't get sick, but we pushed forward with Ellen's roller skating party. Everyone was able to come. Ellen did much better this year. She fell, but she got back up. Several of the kids that had come last year were also more confident. Phoebe sat out most of the time with me, but Jada found an extra ticket for roller skate rental so we let Phoebe give it a go for about 20 minutes. It was enough time for her to make it around the rink at least once. Some of the kids played air hockey while we collected everyone to have their cookie (we did shortbread frosted cookies from Beaverton Bakery this year). Then we opened all the books. We will be donating more than 28 books to the SMART program this year in the name of Dylan Emslie just from Ellen's party. Then we came home for a very late lunch and nap. Unfortunately, Phoebe didn't sleep, but Jada got some in. Ellen did some piano practice, threw a big fit, calmed down enough to have dinner and cake (Jada made it this year), and before we knew it, it was time for bed! Phew! Not so fast!. As we were cleaning up to get ready for bed, Phoebe threw up on the kitchen floor...at least it was the kitchen, and not on the carpet. So Jada threw her into the shower, and I cleaned the kitchen floor. Phoebe made it successfully through the night without further incident, but you could tell by her face she didn't sleep well. We had a very low key day, but the weather was so nice, we were disappointed we couldn't get the bikes out.
Monday was a holiday as well, but it's also our annual President's day tax appointment, so we spent a lot of time getting ready for that. The girls went over to a friend's house while we were at our appointment. We found out that our withholdings are way out of whack with our current income and new rules for deductions. We're going to have to pay a lot to both federal and state. However, our tax guy printed out some new W-4's for us to submit to help a bit next year. I was also missing one of my tax forms, and it wasn't available online, so I'll have to fax that in later. When we got home, the weather was so nice (62 degrees and clear skies!) that we hooked up the train and took it out for an early season shake down. I'll need to get it in to the shop for a tune before the first rides, but luckily it's supposed to return to wintry weather starting Tuesday with the snow levels returning to 2000 feet by the weekend. What climate change?
While we were grocery shopping on Saturday, Ellen described the rhubarb display as looking like a waterfall of blood. (I believe somewhere, Steven King is reading this and saying, "There's my next book") The girls both had their first eye checkups with the optometrist. No issues, but he did give Ellen the tip to keep a hand to elbow length between her eyes and her book and use indirect light. Then we put Phoebe down to take a much needed nap while Ellen went off to a birthday party at a friend's house. The next stop was picking up Grandma to bring her back to the house so that they could all pick up Ellen from the bday party and go out to dinner. I went out to dinner with my friend Greg and my boss from U of I, Declan, who was in town for a conference. Sunday was just a lazy day.
Monday, the 25th, I went to Jada's school for National Engineers and Technician's Month to give my presentations in hopes of inspiring young minds to think about math and science as they go through school. I did all 5 kindergarten sessions, and Ellen's first grade class in one day. I was quite tired by the end of the day. For the kindergarteners, I did my usual Lego tower lesson. However, for first grade, many of those kids had already done that lesson, so I had to come up with something new. Luckily, one of Jada's partner teachers had found a book that had a potential lesson plan on bridges. Fortunately, we live in a city with 7 bridges that are all different, so I was able to print out examples to show during my presentation before letting them loose to see what they could do with 2 wooden blocks for supports, and paper for the spans. I brought in some matchbox cars to test out the strength of the bridges. It went pretty well for the first time through. I'll have to come up with something new again for 2nd grade. But at least, I'll be able to re-use my lessons when Phoebe comes through.
I had to fly to Arizona for the day again on Tuesday, and the girls had their gymnastics classes on Wednesday. Poor Ellen got a bloody nose when she fell at one point. She was ok, but it was shocking for her. She's still doing well in piano, and you can really tell she's improving. I've recorded some of it on video. Finally, in our extra day thanks to Leap Year, I went with Ellen to her school for Doughnuts for Dad where they provide doughnuts for dads. Pretty self explanatory. Ellen turned in her form indicating that she was going to do a science project this year. She was inspired by the lunar eclipse, so she wants to do her project on why a lunar eclipse happens. She's already started research in her journal. In the evening, we had our friend's the Casey's over since we haven't seen them in forever, and they are moving back east this summer. We'll miss them.
Journal entry: March 1, 2008