March 2: Phoebe's Birthday
Today was Phoebe's 7th birthday. She actually chose eggs for breakfast, but I didn't make them green (today is also Dr. Seuss' birthday). She had a good day at school. Since this was the last day of drama club, Jada bought both of the girls flowers to give them after their performances. We had dinner followed by the opening of presents. Then it was off to bed. I played in my first basketball game since my injury. Unfortunately, it was a first round playoff game, and we lost by 3. However, my ankle held up well. The rest of me was sore though.
March 4:
It's just after midnight, and Phoebe just threw up again. It happened at midnight, exactly. Why always the middle of the night? She got most of it on the floor the first time. The second time, she recognized the symptoms and went to the bathroom. She was telling me how much she hates throwing up, and how she wishes she didn't throw up at all. I told her the story of when I was her age or younger I went all the way down the stairs of my house to Nana and Bapa's room to tell them I was throwing up passing a perfectly good bathroom along the way upstairs. I'm sure that was a fun one to clean up. Ellen woke up this time, unfortunately. Phoebe will have to stay home from school too. I'm starting to feel a little off myself. I hope that goes away.
Yesterday, I picked the girls up from Jada at her union's office after school and took the girls to gymnastics. Unbeknownst to us, they had called just after Jada had left to let us know class was cancelled due to their teacher's illness. So we went to Chipotle for dinner (I hope that's not the cause of the vomit), got a little more piano done for each, and we played Phoebe's new game from Auntie Mandy called Aggravation.
March 5:
Ellen and Phoebe's school had "Donuts for Dads" this morning, so I went with the girls. They didn't really sit with me for more than a couple minutes before running off to hang out with their friends, but I saw several of our friends there. I went off to work afterwards. Jada had to leave for Eugene for the OEA convention, so I was back to pick up the girls after school. It was such a nice day, we went to a park first up on Cooper Mountain before coming home to get piano and dinner going. While Ellen did her piano, I helped Phoebe with her science fair project. Her purpose was to see how many cars she could get on a bridge made of a single sheet of notebook paper to support. She did 3 different types of bridges. On the 3rd one, I showed her what cardboard looks like so she could come up with the idea of multiple opposing folds to create more strength. She was able to put all 11 of her cars on it. We had enough time after dinner to watch some Olympics. We got through almost all the pairs figure skating from the first night plus sampled some of the other sports so the girls knew what they were like too. Then I spent the rest of the evening working.
March 6:
Jada's gone all day today too. We got the grocery shopping done this morning. Ellen finished her piano before the carpet cleaners got here. I put Scarlett in her carrier and placed that in our room while the girls spent the hour in the play room. (We use ChemDry for anyone interested) They were able to get all the tossed cookies out of the carpet which is what I was looking for. While Phoebe did her piano, Ellen and I worked on her science fair project. We expanded on the filters concept that I had done for her classroom presentation. She devised 3 different filters, and she ran our muddy, gooky, mucky water (aka sludge) through each of them. We didn't make too much of a mess at least. I'm trying to determine how to preserve the results. After I get the pictures all printed out, I'll see what physical props need to come with her for the fair. Then Ellen made lunch for both she and Phoebe. Not just sandwiches. Jada had shown her how to make quesadilla's, so she made those for both she and Phoebe. Phoebe said hers was good. I guess I'll have to teach her how to make my oatmeal next so she can do breakfast too. We walked to a nearby school to play since it was 60 degrees and sunny out today. I couldn't convince them to go out to ride the quad to a park without Jada though. At least I avoided a car ride. On the way there, Ellen found a stick that she felt was the perfect wand, so she spent the whole time shouting "Wingardium Leviosa" and "Immobilis!" at passing cars. Phoebe complained most of the way about walking. I've got to toughen her up before hiking season. Hopefully soccer season will help with that. Once home, I had to get the girls back to the piano to finish up. We went out for dinner. They'd been pretty well behaved all weekend. Even Phoebe didn't put up a big fight when I was trying to get her piano done. She complained, but at least she did it on the way to the piano. Jada got home a little before 9pm, made fun of what I was watching on TV(Balls of Fury-you'd critcize,too), and went to bed.
March 7:
It was a pretty typical Sunday. We went out for breakfast and made a CostCo run. Then the girls did piano practice, and finished up their science fair display boards. After lunch, we went to Gramma's and to swimming. Ellen was heart broken by not moving up in swimming even though the rest of her class did. I think it is starting to drive home that she needs to really practice when we do have free swim instead of refusing to do anything but play around during that time. Her back stroke looks really good, she just has to get down the side breathing on the front stroke. Phoebe didn't move up a level either-she needs to work on the same thing. The most important objective has already been met though in that they can both do well in the water on their own. Once home, it was time to get back to work. Ellen worked on her thank you cards from her birthday, and Phoebe did her piano before Ellen started on piano. Ellen also started the Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief series, and so far she has been enjoying it. Jada cooked her whole chicken for dinner tonight. Those girls can really strip a chicken thigh and leg to the bone. They both ate more than me.
March 11:
Monday was the last Chess club for the girls. Wednesday they had their second to last gymnastics. I had a work function down town to get to know our new department manager. I took Max down. I may have mentioned before, but I love living here where mass transit is so easy to deal with. The only thing not so good was that it was running behind, so I just made it for the dinner. Jada got the girls' science fair projects to school, and they were set up by the volunteers. On Thursday, they got to answer questions from the 5th graders. Both girls got positive notes on their projects. In the evening, we all went to the school to see the projects. There were 201 projects this year.
March 13:
I forgot to mention earlier in the week Jada noticed Ellen's head was above the head rest of the car seat so she removed the booster chair. Also, Ellen started her breakfast apprenticeship by making oatmeal from my secret recipe (water, cinnamon, and oats...Shhhh. Don't tell any one the secret is I boil the water and add the cinnamon and oats to it) both Friday and Saturday. Today is another busy day. The girls have their doctor's appointment this morning. Phoebe is symmetrical: 47.5 inches tall, 47.5 lbs. Ellen is 51inches tall and 61lbs. Both are healthy. No major issues. We had Phoebe's birthday party at the Conestoga Rec Center pool. We had 12 kids there. We spent 2 hours in the pool. Well, I spent the time in the pool chaperoning along with one of the other dads, and Jada kept watch for the guests up in the main area as well as ordered the pizza. Then we finished it off in a room with pizza and a little wall walking toy which Phoebe tossed at the very high ceiling where it stuck hard. After 15 minutes of hard work involving a chair, a roll of banquet table covering, and a broom I was able to get it off the ceiling. During the party, Ellen had to go to a party for one her friend's birthdays. Luckily one of the parents had a sibling going there too so she was able to take both Ellen and her friend over. We visited Gramma after Phoebe's party for about 45 minutes before we had to run to pick up Ellen from her party. It took us a while to extract her from there, so we ended up rushing home to get dinner, showers, and into bed since time jumps forward tonight so we're losing an hour.
March 14: (Happy Pi day)
Time changed, and there was nothing we could do about it. Luckily I didn't get paged during the night due to issues in the factory so that's good. I hope I got all the clocks changed. It's Pi day today. For those of you not mathematically inclined, this is the day that celebrates the world's most popular non-terminating, non-repeating decimal constant which is the ratio for any circle's circumference to the diameter. The shortest form used in most equations is 3.14 (hence today being Pi day). In 2015, we'll get ever farther along (3.1415). We got a pass to the Columbia Employee Store from a friend of ours that we made use of. I've been looking for comfortable shoes. I found a pair of comfortable but ugly Montrails. Jada picked up some things for herself and the kids too. We visited Gramma in the afternoon where the girls played piano for a small audience of residents one of whom was a retired piano teacher. She thought the girls did very well. We pushed on to swimming even though Jada wasn't feeling well. Ellen was re-tested this week, and after swimming across the pool and back the first time, her teacher thought she did well enough to try the full 25 yard lane which she also did twice. As a result she was able to move up a half level to spend more time in the long lane. Unfortunately, they didn't have room for her to move up in that time slot, so we are moving their next session time to earlier. It gives us less time to do other things on Sunday afternoons and moves us away from the free swim immediately after their current session, but it's only for the spring session. We can find a free swim spot elsewhere.
March 15:
Beware the Ides! I know what you're thinking, et tu, Dave? Four years of high school Latin, and that's all I can remember. Anyway, we had another really nice day. I'm starting to worry about what the summer is going to be like since we have been so warm in the spring. It was a report card day, so the girls were at Nature Camp all day. Jada stayed in bed pretty much all day to try to recover from the illness that struck her this weekend. We also had our first soccer practice of the spring session, so the nice weather was convenient. Our head coach is gone this week, so it was up to the assistant coaches to get things going. Myself and the other assistant coach handled the practice, and we'll be going again Wednesday. We had a few new girls from the fall, but one of them had played with us three seasons ago. I got to wear the new soccer cleats Jada bought me over the winter, and my ankle did ok on the uneven ground.
March 18:
I had ridden my bike to work Wednesday since I hadn't been able to Monday or Tuesday. I didn't bring my lunch so I could fit my soccer shoes in my packs. However, during the day, the head coach and I exchanged some emails, and he found out we couldn't do practice on Wednesday night. Apparently, they don't want anyone doing more than 1 night of practice due to not enough fields, so I rode my bike over to see Ellen and Phoebe's last gymnastics class instead. Since it was their last class, parents are allowed to come in to watch. They both are able to move up to the next level now. The weather has been great this week. The temps were in the upper 50's. Today, was even warmer reaching into the 60's. I took the van in for a tune up, so I got to ride my bike again to work from the dealership. It was a really nice day. I didn't even need to wear leg warmers on the way back after work.
March 19:
Today I am going to Phoebe's classroom to do National Engineers and Technicians Month presentations. Only 2 first grade classes accepted my offer, so I'll be volunteering around the school when I'm not presenting. I'll probably spend some time in Jada's class. I spent the morning volunteering in Jada's class. Then I went to Phoebe's class to help out there before my presentations started. The presentations seemed to go ok. I think I could have done better, and I remembered to say a few things up front in the second class that I hadn't done in Phoebe's class. Then I helped out some more until the end of the day. After getting Phoebe some piano time, we headed out of town to the coast.
March 21:
Friday when we left off, we headed for the coast around 3:30pm. It was nice in the valley, and it was still about 65 in Cannon Beach when we arrived. We checked into our hotel, and then we didn't even take our stuff to the room. Instead we headed straight out to dinner at the Lumberyard Restaurant. We were able to sit immediately if we sat outside. Since it was so nice, we took that option to sit in the sun. It was a little windy, but nice otherwise. Dinner was great. I had steak, Jada had a home made turkey pot pie, and the girls each had something from the children's menu which was free because we were staying at the Surfsand Resort. We really like staying there. The rooms are nice and apartment like. They're setup more residentially instead of office like, so there aren't desks and tables. As we were getting ready for bed, Ellen realized that she had forgotten her PJ's, so she threw a little bit of a fit. However, we came to a solution that she didn't particularly like at the time(ever heard of the t-shirt nightgown?), but in the morning, she admitted that she was just fine. I spent the evening finishing my weekly status report for the team (free Wifi!), and Jada finished the final Percy Jackson book so Ellen could read it.
We woke up to a beautiful morning on Saturday. Unfortunately, I heard the first trip to the bathroom at 5:15am. I made a bathroom run myself a little after 6, and I heard them up so I told them they could read quietly. Jada and I laid in bed until 7-ish. I made Ellen's shake while Jada took her shower. I turned on the TV for the music station, and it just happened to be on a channel showing the first Harry Potter movie just after the sorting had completed. We only watched it for a few minutes so the girls could see the characters as they appear in the movie. However, since we hadn't come in at the beginning, and we were leaving for breakfast anyway, we didn't leave it on. We listened to the classical music channel which was playing composers that the girls are learning about in their music class. Temperatures were pretty warm already in the morning and the sky is clear. The forecast called for mid 60's and low tide at 10:12am.
After breakfast we walked down to Haystack rock for low tide. The wind was really strong on the beach. Stronger than normal. Ellen lost her hat a few times in the wind and had to chase it down the beach. The tide was much lower than last time we were out. We were told that it's usually much lower at the equinox. We could see aggregating sea anemones, razor clams, and sea stars. We were also able to walk all the way out without fear of sneaker waves coming in this time. We had originally planned to walk all the way down the beach to Mo's for lunch, but with the wind blowing like it was we decided against it. We went back to the room to read instead until we drove to lunch. As we drove to Mo's, we could see that the weather had definitely turned. Clouds rolled in and temperatures stalled at 55 degrees with the wind still very high. After we got back to the room and digested for a while, we spent about an hour at the pool. Jada stayed in the room to get some quiet time. The pool actually had quite a few people in it this time. It wasn't as nice as having the whole pool to ourselves, but it wasn't too bad. The girls had fun, but after an hour Phoebe decided she was done.
We read and played some board games after the girls took a bath in the huge, deep tub, and I took a shower. Around 4pm, the rain started. I fell asleep for about 20 minutes just sitting on the couch. I woke up just before our 5pm reservation at the Wayfarer Restaurant. As we were walking there, the girls and I were rushing into the wind and rain, but Jada who was behind us saw someone smoking on their patio in front of their room. The whole place is a non-smoking facility, and she let them know. The smoker's partner decided to get rude and say "yeah, it's bad for your health too" as if Jada was the one being rude to point out the rules. They really need better signage for that since in the 2 times we've stayed there, we've had to deal with 3 different incidents. At dinner, Jada was still upset over the whole thing and wasn't very hungry. We got to sit next to a window and watch the rain blow in sideways. Dinner was good as always. The girls had been hoping for eating a whole crab, but we didn't do that. I don't think they really would have liked that. (But then, who's Dave to judge a great meal from the sea?) On the way back from dinner, we stopped through the main office to talk about the smokers. They said they'd check it out. We went back to the room, got the girls ready for bed, and read from our classic Myth's book the story of Jason and Golden Fleece. Because of the Percy Jackson books, Ellen has liked going back through the myths to refresh her memory on the different characters in the book. Phoebe just likes the stories, but she's not old enough for Percy Jackson yet. We put the kids to bed. Shortly afterwards, Phoebe must have been messing around because she said she hit her mouth on the side table and knocked one of her loose teeth loose enough to come out. Jada helped her extract it the rest of the way. We didn't leave a forwarding address for the Tooth Fairy because I figured she had held onto those teeth this long. There's no way she'd lose them in 2 days away. So we put it in a tissue and placed it in a plastic ziplock bag to bring home. We put her back to bed, and then watched Star Trek on the massive TV.
The wind really howled and the rain pounded all night long until around 5am, it got really quiet. The girls didn't wake up until a little after 6am, and I set them up with some books until we decided to get up. We had another great breakfast at 8am over at the Wayfarer. Then we finished packing and checked out of the hotel. We left the car parked in the hotel parking lot and walked back down to Haystack rock to look around more during low tide. The wind was back to the normal wind we have at the beach here, and the rain had stopped. We saw lots of sea stars and anemones again. We left the beach and headed downtown to walk around the shops since we don't usually get a chance to do that. We stopped for lunch at the Lumberyard since the girls still had their bracelets for free lunch from the kids menu. The food is really good there. The girls were a bit tired and cranky by then too, so it wasn't really pleasant. The drive home was uneventful, but Phoebe fell asleep near the end of the drive with her head resting on her hand. Very cute.
March 23:
Spring Break is in full effect. The girls are each in a class in the mornings. Ellen is taking a writing class through Saturday Academy and Phoebe is taking a science class through the Conestoga Rec Center. Jada is taking care of everything else and visiting her mom every day. On Monday, we found out that the soccer coach for Ellen's team decided to have a practice for anyone who was still around. Only 3 girls showed up. I couldn't make it due to a late meeting since I hadn't originally planned on having practice. I had ridden my bike to work too, and I didn't have my cleats, so it was a total loss. The girls got to play with some friends though. Phoebe went over to her friend's house while Jada took that friend's sister to the soccer practice with Ellen since they're on the same team. It was a little rainy on Monday too. Tuesday the weather was really nice. Clear with a high in the 60's. Though with the activities, it doesn't sound like the girls got outside. They got a lot of work done after their morning classes, and Jada cleaned the refrigerator and vacuumed the whole house.
March 24:
Wow, what a day. After a chilly morning, the temperatures got up into the 70's. The morning wasn't so pleasant as the girls woke up grumpy. I took the car in for an oil change and to get the windows tinted. We had done this with our last Subaru to keep help the girls stay more out of the direct sun in the car. I rode my bike to work from there. During the day, after the girls finished their morning classes, they had play dates with some friends at a school playground in the beautiful spring sunshine, where they rode bikes, played soccer, climbed the play structures and even some small trees. They followed this with a trip to Powell's as a treat for being so well behaved the rest of the day. I got to enjoy the sun at work too. I had 2 of my 1:1's outside in the courtyard instead of in the cafeteria. Then I rode my bike back to pick up the Subaru. I got to spend much of my trip in a tight little pace line with 2 other commuters, so that was fun. Oh, and I got stung by a wasp before I even got on my bike outside work at the bike racks. I must have set my bag down on it, and when I picked it up, the wasp fell on my shin and stung me as I brushed it away. I didn't realize what had happened until I felt the sting and looked down to see the wasp on the ground. By the time I got home, the area was raised a little, but not too much. I think I'll survive. We read some more myths before bed
March 27:
The week continued rather oddly switching back and forth between summer and winter. After our 70 degree Wednesday, we switched back to winter on Thursday with low 40's, rain, and wind, followed by a Friday that started in winter rains and ended in mid-spring upper 50's with clear skies. I met the girls for dinner after work on Friday before driving downtown for an appointment with Jada's massage therapist. Because it's spring break here, the traffic was light, and I got there in plenty of time. So I went walking for about 20 minutes around the NW 23rd area. It's changed a bit since I moved out here 14 years ago. Jada stopped at the Nature Park on their way home from dinner to walk around a bit in the nice weather. This time of year, you take what you can get. I had a funny thing happen the other night. In the middle of the night, the light for our air purifier came on indicating the filter needs to be vacuumed. It was so bright and shines straight up, it makes a circular shape on the ceiling like the Eye of Sauron. I instinctively grabbed for the one ring.
Saturday shaped up to be another nice spring day. After grocery shopping and visiting Gramma in the morning, we had lunch and geared up to take the quad out for it's first roll of the season for real distance (not counting me riding it by myself over to the school or the short route to drop Phoebe off at her party). We ended up doing about 29 miles. The weather was great, so we saw a lot of cyclists out. The girls counted over 30. The girls are definitely stronger this year. Fortunately, as we were grinding up our hill almost to our driveway, the drive chain snapped and we toppled over. I say fortunately because we were in front of our house at that point. Phoebe suffered a scraped elbow and Jada hurt her wrist. I'm definitely buying 2 chains when I buy a new one so we can keep one in the bike trunk just in case.
March 28:
A rainy Sunday. We went out for breakfast followed by a trip to REI with our dividends to pick up some more camping things that we thought would be nice to have for out next camping trip. I also picked up a chain for the quad. I was hoping to get my chain rings swapped on my commuter, but they didn't have any in stock. It's been hard to find what I need to get this done. I thought compact crank rings would be easy to find since they're pretty popular, but my particular tooth number isn't very popular. We spent the afternoon playing piano and doing laundry and reading before visiting Gramma. We were planning to go swimming too, but when we pulled up in front of the swim center we found it closed for maintenance, so we just went home for dinner. Jada taught Ellen how to make corn bread. We ate, watched a little more of the Olympics, and then it was time for bed.
March 31: Happy Birthday, Mom!
The last half week of March went by in spectacular winter fashion. Cold, windy, and rainy. We had soccer practice anyway. The rain held off mostly for Ellen's practice on Monday night. Phoebe practiced mostly in the rain on Tuesday. Wednesday was cold and sunny-ish. The field was still pretty muddy. The girls both did well on their passport program checks. Ellen did all 5 levels plus the special itinerary, and Phoebe did 4 levels total which included 15 countries and 5 capitol cities. I took a couple hours off work in the morning to do testing again and Jada arrived to help when her kindergarten session ended. Weather man says potential for snow above 500 feet tonight. You'll have to wait for next month to find out if it happened.
Journal entry: March 31, 2010