Good day, and welcome to 2009. Happy New Year. By January 1, the roads around Portland were clear enough to venture out for something to do. The road to the mountain wasn't in great shape due to avalanches from too much snow, so we stayed local instead and headed down to OMSI. We went to the main event which was in it's last few days called Mindbender Mansion. It was a series of brain teasers, logic puzzles, and dexterity games that revealed a set of keys to unlock passwords in a bunch of different "rooms". Jada was the star who got us through most of the puzzles with only minor help from myself and Ellen.
Friday Ellen went back to her Math-a-mania class where she built a dodecahedron out of straws. She enjoyed herself in the class. We also had an appointment to get Flower checked out at the vet and get a rabies shot. She's doing well, and she is very healthy. Our friend Pete had given us a Scrabble set for Christmas so we all played that. I helped the girls against Jada. We didn't keep score. We just tried to use up all the letters.
Saturday we finally had our vents cleaned. We try to do it once a year. We had purchased a second kitty carrier to lock the cats up while they were working to keep them out of the way and out of the open vents, but Flower was able to tear out of hers in under a minute. We took it back in the afternoon to get a hard-plastic one. Papa came over for dinner and to exchange gifts that evening.
On Sunday morning we went to visit Gram and take down her tree and decorations. The girls snuggled in for about an hour watching the family video that had just been completed. The rest of the day was focused on getting ready to finally go back to school, however, it was in the upper 20's all day, and it actually started snowing around 5pm while I was talking to Nana and Bapa. We got quite a good coverage before we went to bed, but by morning, it was all gone and near 50 degrees.
I rode to work anyway. All the rocks and debris from the winter storms had been kicked to the bike lanes which when combined with the rains that came in that week created an unpleasant sludge which worked to bring my drive train to a stand still. It stayed warm (it seemed warm and spring like to me even though it was in the 40's) all week with high winds for the first half with rain. I had to hose off my bike twice during the week to keep it running relatively smoothly.
The weekend of the 10th (which is when I'm finally writing this) was a pretty low key weekend. We had planned on going up to the mountain, but the rise in temperature this week brought rains to the ski areas making for some really bad snow, so we decided to skip our first snow shoe trip of the season, and instead stay home after doing our grocery shopping. The girls played in the play room all day on Saturday while Jada and I read. I had finished my book from Jeannie, "Soon I will be Invincible" by Austin Grossman which is a fun read if you're into a bit of lampooning of the super hero genre. I'm almost to 1980 in the "History of Rock and Roll" book that Mandy got me. I've been enjoying that one too spouting out random bits of trivia that Jada doesn't know much about, but I got to talk about it with Jada's dad who is familiar with a lot of the musical acts.
Sunday we had errands to do. We started out visiting Gram where Ellen read a biography of Barack Obama out loud. It's written for children, so Ellen didn't have much trouble with it. We also filled up a new memory stick for her digital picture frame. Then we had to make a stop at Costco to pick up some of our big food things. The girls worked on their piano. This is the day when the minutes start to count towards the spring practice competition so they both wanted big numbers. Plus it's hard for them to get a lot of time during the week. In the afternoon, I took Ellen to her new Saturday Academy class called Intro to Lego Physics. I went in to work while she was at her class. She said she had fun.
I'm writing this update on the 24th because I've not had good luck staying on top of it this past week. It's review time at work, so I've been working a lot and staying up way too late, and Jada's been busy with her various work responsibilities. I haven't even touched my guitar in a couple weeks. Last weekend, we had hoped to go snowshoeing, but the weather has been a bit bizarre. It cleared off and we had temps in the 50's during the day and in the 30's over night. Government Camp was expecting temperatures in the 60's due to some sort of inversion pattern. Instead we stayed around the house. It's too bad they don't make comfortable cold weather gear for kids to ride a bike because it would have been a nice day for it. We did stop by the bike shop to see what we could do about Ellen's birthday present. She's outgrown her current bike, so we're looking to get her into one that will last her a longer time. We decided that we'll take her again closer to her birthday to look and try some out in the parking lot.
We received a great chess set from my friend Matt in Chicago, so we've been enjoying that when we can. It was dry all week again, so riding to work was easy if cold...and the days are getting longer so it's not completely dark when I arrive and leave any more. At school, Phoebe got to be the letter U in the marriage of Q and U. (To my knowledge, no one attempted to block the wedding on the grounds that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Apparently the letters promised to be letter partners in words like quick, and queen, and quiet. Maybe calling them "partners" avoided the issue.) Thursday night was a family math night. Ellen played chess, and she beat me quite handily in our first game. Phoebe tried some different number games.
This week has also been an interesting week for the kitties...Flower mostly. She can get up into our half circle window ledge that is about 10 feet of the group. She jumps on top of our book shelves and can move all the way across them to jump up into the cutouts over the doorways between around rooms too. We're worried that she is just out growing our house. She probably needs to be an outdoor cat, and we don't want to put her out. We've started looking into how we can take her back to the Humane Society, but we're torn. She's a bully to Scarlett too, but that's something that Scarlett has been getting better at dealing with. At this point, we're hoping it's just a phase, but she's definitely a bit more destructive than we would like. She can jump up and grab things that are 5 feet off the floor.
Phoebe has a birthday party today on the 24th. She's been very whiny all morning, and Ellen has been very screamy. We are worried the the girls may be getting sick. After I brought Phoebe home from her party, we played a few games of chess. Ellen beat me in 4 moves! I was able to win the second game though it took more than 15 minutes for me to do it. I also split a pair of games with Phoebe. All those years of not throwing games is starting to pay off as they are genuinely winning these games and making me look mortal all too early. Sunday was a lazy day after visiting Grandma for some painting. We went over to REI to find a new pair of shoes for Phoebe since she just inched out of her current pair. While there, Ellen picked herself out a pair of gloves and Phoebe picked out a new pink warm hat both of which were half off of half off, so we got some good deals. I was able to find another warm cycling jersey at a steep mark down.
Monday the 26th was an in service day for Jada, so Phoebe got to spend the day at her day care and Ellen went to a Nature Park Day Off class called Snow Day. They bussed the kids up to Government Camp to go tubing and learn about snow. Ellen had lots of fun. The morning temps continued to be quite chilly throughout the week. On Tuesday morning, I actually got to ride to work in snow. We had a good covering which all melted by the time I rode home. I drove on Wednesday since I had a hair cut after work, but both Thursday and Friday mornings, we had temps at 30 degrees and the wonderful oddity of the Northwest, Freezing Fog. I didn't feel like I was slipping much at all either morning, though I was riding through thick permafrost in the bike lanes. The regular roads looks slippery for the cars, and the parking lot at work looked slick, but I made it just fine. I did talk to a guy in the locker room who said he took a spill because of the conditions. This is my first Oregon winter that I can think of having this many days at or below freezing in a row. For the last almost 2 months, we've had temps in the low 30's every morning and it's been pretty dry (2 weeks of snow around Christmas excepted). Normally, we have temperatures in the 40's and rain. The upshot is I get to park right outside the front doors and closer to the locker room every day instead of all the way out in the parking deck where it's covered and protected from the rain.
Saturday morning, the last day of the month, we decided to go snow shoeing, finally. The snow wasn't very good, but it was still fun. We found a new loop, and we hiked parallel to the trail at Trillium Lake through the woods so we'd avoid the hard packed snow. We had our Huckleberry Inn brunch and were home by 12:30pm so I could get to my eye appointment. I rode my bike to the eye appointment since it's only a mile away from our house. Jada made a wonderful pork roast, and we played a new game called Buzz Words junior. Ellen was pretty good at it. Phoebe will get there. You have a card with a word on it and 5 phrases or questions that use that word in the answer. We had fun with it.
So that's the first month of 2009. Tune in next month...if you dare.
Journal Entry: January 31, 2009