Welcome to 2007. This is has been a busy year already. It's months like these when I wish I had the time to write up entries more frequently like I used to before Phoebe was born. But alas, this is how it is, so I'll just get right to it.
We had some very uncharacteristically Oregon weather. It was below freezing for about a straight week and a half which for this part of Oregon is "very cold" (hold your giggles you readers from Illinois). I rode my bike to work on a Monday when it was cold, but not slick. My water bottle was slushy by my midway point by Nike campus and completely frozen by the time I got to work (total travel time was 50 minutes that morning). I found out that it was in the teens that morning. The next day, I got up and was ready to ride again. At 4:30am when I was at the gym, the roads were dry. When I came out an hour later, it had started to sleet and snow. By 6am, flakes started to fall on top of the icy sleet that had fallen earlier. All school districts had already called in to cancel except Portland and Beaverton who entered into a game of school closure chicken. Neither willing to call school in spite of the overwhelming evidence that the "light dusting that would clear off by 10am" had become a full-on winter storm snarling traffic and making the morning commute unsafe at any speed. I headed into work at my usual time, but it took me about an hour to get there. Everyone was behaving themselves for the most part, but it was very slick. Portland finally called off school around 7:30am, and Beaverton didn't call it until kids were already at school, on the woefully late busses, or were still standing at the bus stops. Instead of calling a 2 hour delay, they chose to make a dangerous situation worse by calling all the parents who somehow got their kids to the school to have them drive out in the weather to pick their kids up from school. Only a handful of teachers and bus drivers were able to make it in, and many incurred damages to their vehicles or themselves as a result of the slippery conditions. That doesn't speak to the many parents who had to brave the conditions possibly twice who may have had accidents. Once again, the well-paid administrators don't think of the much less paid teachers and the fact that those who had accidents will lose time and work to take care of the damages. Ellen's poor kindergarten teacher slid off the road and then had 2 more cars run into her car which is now nearly totaled. It'll be interesting to see what falls out of this. Beaverton School District got a huge black eye for this one. I termed them the George W. Bush of school districts due to their need to stay the course in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. (This web page has now been added to the top secret database somewhere in Virginia, I'm sure)
While I was at work, though, the snow continued to fall until well into the afternoon. The girls got to play in the snow. I left for home around 2pm to avoid the skating rink that I was sure the evening commute would become once night fell. I had to pick my way carefully between all the kids skiing and sledding down the streets in our neighborhood. Luckily someone had dumped a bunch of gravel at the bottom of our hill, but I didn't have too much trouble getting up to the driveway. Though there were about 7 cars parked at the bottom of the hill by later that night. After I got home, I dug the sleds out of the storage space in the garage, and the girls sledded down the hill in our front yard toward our house. They had loads of fun. Then we made a snowwoman on the area next to the road. I worked from home the following day just like most people since our road had become a big sheet of ice. I watched a few people slide down it, and decided against making the attempt myself. We still have a tiny patch of snow in a shady corner of our yard. It's only just now starting to warm up again to 30's and 40's during the day, but it is staying in the upper 20's over night.
During this time while we were stuck in the house, we actually let Ellen and Phoebe watch a couple movies. This month they got to see Finding Nemo, and both Toy Story movies. Phoebe seemed to enjoy them, but Ellen was scared to the point of shaking through most of both the movies. She is really freaked out by the getting lost and finding ones way home again story lines that all 3 of these movie share. After seeing them, she talked about them a lot and really enjoyed Jessie from Toy Story II, but during the movies, she just didn't have the patience to follow the story through to conclusion. She had a problem the first time we read many of the Grimm fairy tales where people were getting left in the woods to die all the time. I think we'll wait a little while longer before we take her to see something in the theater.
We got both the girls registered for dance classes again. The just love it so much. They dress up in their play dresses and have dance class here at home all the time. Of course, the snow day also kept them from having their first class.
The snow gave us a hankerin' to get up to the mountain again. It was snowing pretty good the weekend following the snow storm. We went up to Glacier View sno park where we do the Enid Lake loop, and we were the first ones there. The snow didn't look too bad down to the trail head, so we drove all the way down there, turned around, and started driving back up a little ways to park. As we were driving forward, we stopped moving forward, and started sliding sideways. What an odd feeling. We slid to the side of the road to the snow bank and stopped. We spent the next little while digging out the wheels and getting the chains on to get us out. By the time we got ourselves out, we were too tired to snow shoe, so we just went ahead to Huckleberry Inn for pancakes and to Pete's house to see him and a couple other friends who happened to be visiting him. The next weekend, we tried it again. It had been sunny and dry all week, so the snow conditions were as good as far as quiet, fluffy, soft snow, but we saw the reason we got stuck. Underneath all the snow, was a sheet of ice that was still there even though the snow had melted. We stayed close to the turn-off from highway 26 this time where the road was dry. This time, Phoebe didn't complain or cry at all. She hiked almost the entire 1.3 mile loop on her own (albeit at her own slow pace). I only picked her up twice just give her a rest and move a little more quickly. The snow was crusty, but we still had fun. Ellen was our little trail blazer. We taught her how to read the trail last year using the trail markers on the trees, and identifying where it looked most likely people had last walked. She did a great job of keeping us on the right track. Lots of people were at the trail head by the time we got back, but we had quiet (other than the loud chomp of our shoes in the crusty ice) hike mostly to ourselves. Then, of course, it was time for pancakes at the Huckleberry Inn in Government Camp, or as Phoebe calls it, "The Huckleberry End".
This month, Dave also got to volunteer in Ellen's classroom finally. Ellen was very excited, but she did a good job of ignoring me. I have 2 volunteer days coming up in February too.
There was also a gathering of all of Jada's mom's grandchildren. All the kids came over to our house to see grandma and cousins. The house felt full and Gram was excited to see everyone.
Now that the family stuff is out of the way, I'll get into the anecdotes on the girls. It's really funny how Ellen grabs on to things and incorporates them into her play...especially holidays. Jada mentioned once just after the new year that Christmas wasn't technically over until Epiphany, so Ellen pretended that. She also saw a bride and groom set of Groovy Girls, so she was playing wedding with them. And, of course, after seeing Toy Story II, both girls pretend to be Andy going away to CowGirl camp and learning how to yell, "Yeeehaw!" Ellen's also started saying Grace at the dinner table. We're not sure where exactly she picked this up, being heathens ourselves, and all. But we encourage her to do it when she wants to, and we participate by saying something that we're thankful for as well.
At school, Ellen's teacher came in to talk to Jada about something that Ellen had done. Bracing for the worst, Ellen's teacher relayed a story about how Ellen had corrected some classmates to say, "My mommy and I...". And so it begins. At home, Ellen reads her reading group books from school to Phoebe, and makes Phoebe read the word "the" each time it appears in the text as it is one of the sight words that Phoebe knows. Ellen has also become a big sister to our friends' two year old. Ellen "baby sat" for him twice - once at our house while Jada and his mom went to get massages, and another time during Jada's inservice day to help give his mom a break (she's close to making him a big brother himself). Speaking of books, Ellen wrote her first novel this weekend about a bear family. It has 2 chapters, pictures, and I think it's about 8 pages long. She's going to take it in to show her teacher, but then we're going to have her bring it home to put in with her scrapbook things.
Phoebe has continued to develop her personality. She has taken to answering questions with a cheerful, "yes, indeed." I think she picked this up from her grandmother because she's the only one I can think of who says that. She also has a cute fake surprised gasp. We were looking at her map of the United States placemat and when we got to New Mexico, she gasped and said, "there's a New Mexico"? Her sense of humor is developing as well. There's a sub shop out here called Quiznos. When we drove by it one time, Ellen pointed it out, and Phoebe said, "Quiznos. Get it? Quiz. Nose (pointing at her nose)?" Here's the obligatory potty story (spoiler alert). When Phoebe was pooping on the potty once, she said she was done. Jada asked her to try to get just one more out. When she did, she said, " I have magic poops!"
Phoebe's new pre-school loves her, and she loves being there too. Her teacher told Jada the other day that, "if every student loved to be here as much as Phoebe does, we would have no problems at school". She's working on her sight words, as I mentioned before, and Ellen is helping her with that. Of course, Ellen hasn't been all terrific big sister either. The battle for "First" is constant and ever lasting in our house. At one point, when Jada picked up Phoebe from school with Ellen in tow, they were being naughty. Phoebe got to the front door before Ellen, so Ellen ran to push it open, catching Phoebe's finger in the door's push bar. It pinched off a bit of skin and started bleeding quite a bit along with a deserved bout of screaming and crying. But luckily, I have super hero and StarWars band-aids. She loves her Yoda band-aids. Unfortunately I'm down to my last one. Then she'll have to settle for Spiderman.
So, all in all, a pretty good month.
Journal Entry: January 28, 2007