When we last left our story, Jada had just left for Washington DC the last day of June for the NEA convention rubbing elbows with our elected officials. I used the first day of July to test out what I could do by bike. It turns out that it takes approximately 25 minutes to get from our house to Garden Home Park District location dragging 2 kids. I dropped off and picked up on Tuesday by bike. I spent the afternoon trying to work from home and attending meetings where possible. Grandma Janet invited us over for dinner so the girls could play with her grandchildren. Wednesday, I was able to do the drop off by bike again for the gymnastics camp in the morning along with a trip to New Seasons for grocery shopping. I can fit quite a bit in Phoebe's trailer when she's not in it. I picked them up by car afterwards so I could be sure to be back in time because our other grandparent friends, Barb and Don Manghelli, came to pick the girls up to play with their other grandchildren giving me an afternoon to work uninterrupted. Thursday, I wasn't able to ride with them at all. It had rained off and on all night with massive thunderstorm rolling through around 3am. It was loud, but neither of the girls said they heard it. I didn't want them to get wet from all the road spray, and I needed to find a box for packing up my suit and the girls' dresses to ship for the wedding later in the month. The box couldn't fit in the trailer. In the afternoon, I had meetings, so I put the girls down for a nap which Phoebe did eventually get around to taking.
Did I mention that I had to do the girls' hair during this time? That's not an easy job for a boy with short hair and thick, stubby fingers. Ellen did ok with her patience while I worked through the process, but Phoebe almost immediately started crying like I was stabbing her with knives. However, I managed to get her hair finished reasonably well...at least well enough to try to get them through a couple gymnastics classes.
It's been fun listening to the girls play sometimes when Ellen isn't trying to control every aspect of their playing. Phoebe is fighting back, though. Phoebe and Ellen both have a gift for making up words to songs that fit well...It doesn't help that both Jada and I are always changing words to songs to suit our whims. It's nice to see that they are listening to us, just not when we ask them to do something.
July 4th I wanted to try to get the girls out riding on their own bikes. In the morning, we went down to the Fanno Creek trail. It was a very pleasant morning. We ran into someone from Jada's class last year who was in Ellen's reading group, so the girls had fun playing with them for a while. Then we continued on down the path. Ellen really improved her riding by the end of the time we were there. Though both girls fell a couple of times, they both got back on and kept going. Nothing worse than a small scrape and a couple of bruises, but lots of learning. After lunch, I did some yard work while they quietly worked on what Ellen called a "still play" which I think was her phrase for a sort of puppet show with her Groovy Girls. She wrote out an entire script with characters and everything. I found that she had her William Shakespeare biography out as well. I guess an infinite number of monkeys or a 7 year old with an overactive imagination... I spent much of the rest of the day trying to get my home movie to record onto the DVD correctly. It would record to the disc, but then it wouldn't play. Or it was choppy. Eventually, I recorded it to my hard drive, and copied it over to the disk. It still wouldn't make copies or play on our DVD player. We had a traditional cook out where I grilled turkey dogs and a feta and cheese chicken sausage along with baked beans. We even ate outside on the deck. The fireworks started in earnest around 8pm as it was getting dark. Ellen said she had trouble sleeping. Phoebe woke up around 2:30am yelling for me after having a bad dream that Savannah had been set on fire by a firework. She went back to sleep pretty quickly, though.
Saturday morning, I was up at 5:30am to watch the Tour de France coverage of Stage 1 . The girls love it because it's the only time of the year, they get to watch any TV. We went off to the Farmers Market before the end of the stage though. I had to find out later that Alejandro Valverde won the opening stage on a strong kick in the final kilometer. It was worth it though since blueberries were in as well as raspberries. I picked up a half flat of strawberries, but they just are going bad really fast. I also got a half flat of blueberries and a pint of raspberries. Mmmm. We ate lots of berries that day. We went over to visit grandma, and I brought the DVD that I had made to test it on her TV. It worked there, so I left that one with her. After lunch, we went back to the Fanno Creek trail for a little longer run on the trail. Both of the girls made huge strides. Ellen is doing much better at holding her line on the right side of the trail, and Phoebe is getting more comfortable with riding a little more quickly. I actually had to pick up my pace to try to catch up with Phoebe. We split a Strawberry shake at the Arby's after the ride. I made pizza in the afternoon. I made a couple of changes to my recipe to try something different. I reduced the amount of sauce, used grilled chicken from a dinner earlier in the week, spinach, and peppers in addition to my usual cheese topping. It was quite tasty. For desert, we had lovely fruit and yogurt parfait for Independence Day - red strawberries on the bottom, white vanilla yogurt, blueberries, and raspberries.
Sunday, the 6th, went pretty well. We were up early, so we went to Tom's Pancake House for breakfast. I had laundry done by 10am. I cleaned the kitchen floor and lower cabinet doors, and the girls put away their laundry and cleaned the play room for the 80th time in the last week. My aunt and uncle called to meet up with us. They were in town for the national Swedish Choir convention. Apparently, there is quite a large contingent of Swedes in the Portland area. I've passed a Swedish vice counselors office on the way to gymnastics. We met them down at the Marriot on Front street in Portland right across the street from the Blues Festival. We had lunch there at the hotel, and then we walked across the street to overlook the Willamette River. We were able to hear the Blues concerts quite well from there, but it wasn't so loud that we couldn't hear each other. It was quite a pleasant day too after being fairly cool, rainy, and cloudy all weekend. Phoebe asked if she could see their room. She's fascinated by hotels for some reason. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing in their room. We didn't get home until 5pm, so I just threw some hot dogs on the grill for dinner, warmed up some green beans for the girls, and I made a salad for myself with spinach, yellow and red peppers, a cherry tomato from the market, and blueberries. (An aside from Jada: apparently Dave was quite lonely, as he had time to add many details to his journal...seriously, Dave, what is up with the menu specifics?! :)
I was able to work from home on Monday all day, and Tuesday morning. But then we went off to the airport to pick up Jada and Manghelli. The girls brought signs, and we waited for them outside the exit area. It was nice to see her again after all that time. She looked exhausted from her trip. She fell asleep in the afternoon, and I managed to get a little work done. I was back at work again on Wednesday, Thursday, and in the morning at least on Friday. All week we had been working on clearing out the kitchen, family room, and front room in preparation for the painting of the walls and ceiling by Laurie and her dad while we were away. Thursday, the girls and Jada were able to clear out all the book shelves and stack them quite neatly in the play room, or as they started calling it, the storage room. We got our bags packed too somehow, and Friday morning after the end of the Tour de France coverage on VS, I started disconnecting the entertainment center and computer desk. We got it done just in time for Laurie to pick us up to take to the airport.
I decided (I went back and forth, and Jada finally convinced me just to do it) to bring my traveling guitar along...well, it's my red hollow-body electric that my friend Matt gave me many moons ago when I moved to Oregon. We checked 4 bags which included our ingenious camping bag packed with the girls' booster seats. I had shipped my suit and the girls' dresses about a week prior, so we expected them to be there when we arrived in Illinois. Our trip was uneventful once we got our seats cleared up...they had put Ellen and Phoebe about 10 rows away from us. In the end, we were able to get 3 seats on one side, and 1 across the aisle. I sat with between the girls on the side with 3 seats. Ellen and Phoebe were well behaved, and only occasionally let their voices get a bit loud. I also had to keep them from playing with their trays since I didn't want them to annoy the folks in front of us. We only had about an hour layover at O'Hare before we caught the smaller plane to Peoria. I bought the Eric Clapton autobiography so I'd have something to read as a birthday present to myself (did I mention that we flew out on my birthday?). The flight attendants took pity on us since the girls looked so cute in their bonnets, and let us board the plane first (which they should have done anyway since it turned out we were in the very back row of the plane). That's the only time we've traveled with the kids and gotten to board first (after the first class passengers who pay for the privilege of having we unwashed masses bang past them because they get to board first) as a result. It didn't happen at all on the return flight. The flight to Peoria was only 30 minutes long, and Nana and Bapa were waiting for us in the entry. The girls ran to greet them. We put the girls to bed as quickly as we could since it was around 11pm CST by the time we arrived at the house. We stayed up until 1am chatting, apparently forgetting that we were going to be there all week. Oh well. Mom had made Strawberry icebox pie (from hence forth referred to as SIP) for my birthday and left a piece out for me to eat when I got there.
Early Saturday morning around 4am, there was a really loud, crashing, and booming thunderstorm. Jada and I hurried upstairs to make sure the girls were ok since they were waking up in a completely different state and beds and may be afraid. We didn't need to be worried since it didn't seem to be bothering their slumber in the least, so we went back to bed too. It cleared out by the time we were all up, and left the morning nice and humid. A nice reminder of what summers are like back in central Illinois. We had a slow morning. The girls re-acquainted themselves with the Little People castle that Nana and Bapa had out in the front room. Auntie Mandy came over to see us for the day as well even though she was getting married in a week. All of our fears were calmed when the box with my suit and girls' dresses finally arrived just before we went off for lunch to Avanti's. After lunch, we came home via the church mom and dad are still members of so Ellen could play some piano for everyone. Unfortunately, there was a wedding going on in the church, so we couldn't use the big organ. After enjoying some more SIP, we put the girls to bed, but first we convinced Ellen to just pull her floppy loose tooth. She couldn't get a good hold of it, so she let Jada do it. She barely touched it, and it fell out. Mandy stayed until around 9 or 10pm that night, and she said we'd see her on Tuesday night. Jada said she bet we'd see her again the next day. And as she often is, she was correct. We all went out to Mineral Springs Park to play at the Kiddie Korral playground after Mandy arrived including a ride on the paddle boats out in the Lagoon. It was actually quite pleasant weather wise. Monday, Jada and I went to Peoria to get my suit pressed and pick up a wedding gift for Mandy and Nathan. Nana and Bapa took Ellen and Phoebe down to the library while we were gone, and then we all took naps in the afternoon. After dinner, we all went out to the park to play miniature golf at Putt the Magic Dragon which is built on the old plot of the original public pool which has now moved across the street. I managed to win for once by one stroke. The girls did a really good job for their first times playing. They didn't get too frustrated. We had ice cream afterwards, and then waited for the fireflies to appear back at the house. Ellen was brave enough to catch a couple. Unfortunately, it was too much sugar, and too late a night causing Ellen to have one of her patented massive temper tantrums touched off by us asking her to get ready for bed or something. She did eventually fall asleep, but it was a long wait. Our first trip to the Dragonland Water Park was Tuesday. We spent about 3 hours there in all. The girls (also Bapa and I) had a good time. We went down the water slide with the girls, they went down the slide together, and they even managed to find a couple girls that were the same age as them to play with. Unfortunately, Ellen and Jada managed to get burned; Jada's was a quite bad on one of the tops of her feet. In the evening, Nathan and Mandy came over for dinner, and we were able to give them their present. We stayed up too late again, but they had to get going since Nathan had one more day of work. Mandy, however, had her last day of work on Tuesday, and she swore, that she had too much to do to come back to see us again on Wednesday...So, of course, she did. We ended up having another go with the miniature golf with Mandy this time. Bapa won this time with Jada finishing second. The girls did pretty well again, even getting a hole in one. Thursday, After our usual lunch of sandwiches and pretty much anything else we can get our hands on, we made a return to the Dragonland Water park. We hit the slide hard and early - Jada went down with me, Phoebe with Bapa, Ellen on her own. Jada and I really got the raft up high in the corners. I don't know how many times we went down, but we eventually took a break from the slide. I played with the girls in the water pulling them down to the "deep" end (5 feet) and back to the shallow end where Ellen would launch herself off my leg and swim for a little bit. I got Phoebe to swim a bit too. To the untrained eye, it looks like a lot of splashing and flailing, but it's really progress for her. Ellen found another little friend to play with for a while. Then it was a few more times down the slide and home. We got the kids to bed early in preparation for the late night Friday. Then Jada and I went on a date to see the movie Hancock (it's the romantic in me).
Friday was the first day where we actually had to be places at certain times. I went with mom and dad to rent a car for the weekend to allow them to perform their duties as the parents of the bride independently of us. Even though mom had made reservations to pick up a compact car at noon several weeks ago, they didn't have any in yet. Since we needed to be on the road that afternoon to get to Normal, IL for the rehearsal dinner, we ended up with a black Dodge Charger. I assured them we'd have it returned with no new scratches, a full tank of gas, painted orange with a Confederate flag on top and the doors welded shut. We left for Normal early so we could check out the Children's Discovery Zone which has a reciprocal membership agreement with OMSI so we didn't have to pay to get in. (Apparently they've been having problems where people are going online to find a lower price membership to some other place not even close to their home and then using that to get in to this one so the reciprocity only works if you can prove you live outside a certain radius. Luckily I was able to produce my OR license.) The museum is 3 floors with each floor having a sort of theme. The first floor was very similar to the Children's Museum in Portland with a play food area with pretend grocery store. It also had a medical area, and science experiment things. The second floor was mostly dedicated to agriculture since the twin cities of Bloomington-Normal sit in the midst of hundreds of miles of corn and bean fields. Ellen really got into this one. There was also a climbing structure that Jada and Ellen (though reluctantly) got into to move around in. The third floor had some large play areas and seemed to be expecting something else there. The favorite place was a painting room where you painted on glass walls so we could see the girls' faces as they painted. The other place the girls liked was a room that projected their shadows onto the wall while music played so they could dance. We managed to find our way to the church for the rehearsal dinner without much difficulty. We ran through the proceeds. Allen and I got our instructions for what to do as part of the usherin', while the girls met and got acquainted with Mandy's best friend's daughter. I got to see my niece and nephews again. They've all grown so much since we saw them 2 years ago. We got to meet Nathan's family too who, of course, were very nice as well. We managed to leave the dinner by around 9pm to make the 50 minute drive back to Pekin.
Saturday was the big day. We left just after Nana and Bapa for Bloomington. We somehow managed to meet up with them for lunch at the Panera Bread Company right next to Mandy's apartment. She wasn't there, but she lent us her key so we'd have somewhere to change. We had to be at the church early for the plethora of pictures. The girls were super bored since it wasn't all focused on them, but they did all right all things considered. Allen and I got the guests seated in plenty of time to keep the schedule moving like clockwork, just the way Mandy likes it. The nice thing about being ushers is we got to see Mandy come out and get ready to head down the aisle. She looked beautiful, and yet very calm. She didn't seem nervous at all, and from our vantage point, we could clearly see Nathan as well who looked the same. It was comforting to feel like they were ready for this whole thing with no reservations. She's still my little sister, after all. The wedding went off with only a small hitch when the pastor dropped the rings, but he could conveniently bless them, so it was alright. Then it was off to the reception. The wedding party was introduced to the music of from StarWars Episode IV Cantina band playing, "Cantina Band #2". Then Mandy and Nathan were introduced to the "Throne Room / End Title" music from Star Wars Episode IV. It really worked well. Dinner was great, and the cake was good (well, it was no Beaverton Bakery). Then the dance floor was opened up, and the kids all started dancing while many of the grownups started stealing away the photographers to take extra pictures out side. It was nice being able to see everyone. It would have been nice have been able to see everyone more, but it was really nice to be able to spend the week all in the same place for once instead of driving from one end of the state to the other. We left the party at around 9:30pm, and changed the girls into pajamas for the ride home. They both fell asleep in the car. We had to carry Phoebe into the house. Ellen woke up enough to walk on her own. That's the first time I can remember Ellen falling asleep in a car, but she sure put up a fight not to.
Sunday was our last day, and we spent the morning doing laundry and packing up. We took mom and dad out to eat for lunch out at Avanti's. Then on to the airport. Mom was tearing up, and Ellen actually got hit hard by leaving this time too. She was crying as we were moving through security. She really had gotten attached to Nana and Bapa during the visit again. She was able to get calmed down before we got on the plane though. We didn't get any preferential treatment this time, but we did get seats near the front of the cabin. We had a 2 hour layover in Chicago, so we found a table to sit at and played some games. Phoebe was tired, so she mostly leaned on me. On the flight back to Portland, we were all the way back in the tail of the plane on the side with 2 seats where we had our own little compartment between the bathrooms and the rear galley. Phoebe fell asleep on my arm about an hour into the flight, and Ellen read for almost the entire time. It was late when we got home. We put the girls straight into bed, but we all got to admire Laurie's handy work. The rooms looked great with the new color, and the paint smell wasn't too bad.
Most mornings during the week were spent not doing much. I made the girls breakfast, and followed the Tour de France on the internet using the Live Update window on Velonews.com. Jada and I would walk for a couple of miles up to the high school (the only hill nearby) and back. A couple evenings, we were able to go out to Dairy Queen for ice cream after the girls were in bed. It was like we were dating again. Mom had made a ton of cookies for the rehearsal dinner, and possibly for my trip home, so we would munch on some of those...ok, a lot of those. We were so lucky to get to see Mandy so much during the week. The girls played board games and school with Nana and Bapa a lot, and they read their library books.
I was back to work Monday after the vacation trying to get caught up on the thousands of mail messages. It was a difficult adjustment going from 90 degrees and 90% humidity to barely getting into the 60's during the day and maybe topping out in the low 70's toward the end of the week. Jada spent a lot of time putting the house back together. I didn't get the entertainment center and computer back together until Monday night, so I wasn't able to do any work from home until Tuesday night. Phoebe had another few nights where she woke up yelling for me. Once for a bad dream, and once for a nose bleed. Then the next morning, Ellen called because the nightlight was out in the bathroom. Since I'm the light sleeper, I always get to respond.
The weekend was nice. We didn't do much other than go to the market on Saturday and run some errands. We tried to rest since I hadn't really been able to catch up on anything all week. I was exhausted, but didn't get to nap Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning, we finished watching the final day of the Tour de France to see Carlos Sastre roll across the finish line for his final Yellow jersey. The sprint finish was exciting to watch. We went for a ride after that. 1.4 miles into our trip, we rolled across broken glass in the bike lane and flatted the rear tire. After getting it changed, we decided to push on, and just cut the ride short a bit if it started to get too late. It was a pleasant afternoon, and we were able to get 32 miles in to prepare for next weekend's Cycle Oregon Weekend. (you'll have to wait for next month to hear about that) I replaced the fuse for the garage circuit to fix the short there. We also discovered that the garage door is split at the top so now we'll need to figure out how to get that replaced. Ah the joys of home ownership. I also did some yard work that I hadn't been able to do all week. Then we brought Jada's mom over for a nice healthy dinner. It was her first chance to check out the new paint job, and she declared it "beautiful!"
The last week of the month, the girls are both enrolled in OMSI camps. Ellen is involved in a class called "Engineer This", and she is the only girl out of around 20 kids. Phoebe is doing a class called "At the Sea Shore" where she gets to study tide pools. On July 30, we were lucky enough to have the girls invited to a birthday party that went from 5 to 9pm. We don't normally let the girls stay up late except for special occasions like weddings, but since it was our 8th wedding anniversary, we made another exception. So Jada dropped them off, and then she met me out at the movie theater where we saw what must be the most romantic movie of all time ("even more than Hancock?" you ask. Why yes)...The Dark Knight. It was very good. I won't say any more about it in case you haven't seen it, but Heath Legder is just a good as advertised as the Joker. I'm still hoping they do a movie version of Frank Miller's "the Dark Knight Returns" starring Tom Seleck as the 60 year old Batman that returns to Gotham after a violent gang has taken over. But that's for another time. Afterwards, the romance train continued on over to Pizza Schmizza where Jada ranked it in the top 8 best anniversary dinners. That's pretty good, right? We headed over to the pool where they were ending their time at the party. The rest of the girls were having a sleep over, but since Ellen and Phoebe both had to be up in the morning for their OMSI camps, we cut it off there. They were exhausted when we got back to the house, crawled into bed without being asked, and went to sleep. And they slept in a whole 15 minutes late the next morning.
That pretty much brings us to the end of July. We'll talk more next month where we'll have a little more to tell you about.
Journal entry: July 31, 2008