March 2011

March 1

    It was raining again this morning, and boy did morning come fast.  Ellen was up late last night coughing, and I didn't go to bed until midnight after my basketball game.  Ellen's Dream Readers Battle of the Books team still managed to squeak out a 5 point (1 answer) win over their arch rivals (and best friends) in 4th grade for the privilege of competing against the 5th grade winning team tomorrow.  We'll wish them luck.  My ride home from work went well since it wasn't raining finally, and Beaverton had been working on cleaning up the gravel on Murray Blvd.

March 2: Phoebe's Birthday

    It was raining as we said Happy Birthday to our newly minted 8 year old.  I made eggs for breakfast again since that is her favorite.  During school, Ellen and her Dream Readers team beat the 5th grade champions in a best of 3 Battle of the Books to win the right to go to the regional event this Saturday.  Apparently, they won the first, tied the second, and won handily in the final round.  We were very proud of the work they put in.  Now it's off to regionals  to see how they do against other school champions.  Jada picked up a deli bagel sandwich from New Seasons for Phoebe's lunch (did I mention Phoebe placed 3rd in another coloring contest at New Seasons?), and she made Phoebe's favorite dinner chicken cordon bleu.  Phoebe opened her presents after she had her rice pudding.  She loved all of her presents including her brand new bike - a light blue Trek 24 incher.

March 3:

    Ellen sounded horrible this morning, and she was a little warm.  She was coughing all night again.  Jada took her into the doctor to get checked out, and found out that Ellen had a lower respiratory infection.  She did not think it was bronchitis yet.  She got some antibiotics and went back to school.  I had the beginning of the season coach's meeting for soccer where they remind us about attitude, and how we present ourselves to the kids.  One of the coaches who spoke had a nice perspective saying that more coaches should keep their mouths closed on the sideline, and let the kids make the decisions on their own.  I know I tend to have a steady stream of direction going during the games, so I'm definitely going to try that this year.

March 4

    On this Friday, I went in to do my National Engineers and Technicians Month presentations for the 4th grade.  I taught about electromagnets.  It wasn't one of my strongest lessons, but I think the kids had fun.  Another dad from Intel helped me in our first class, and then we split up for each of our kids' classes.  The magnets worked, but the more interesting thing was how hot the connections from the battery to the copper cable was.  We had electrical tape to hold the ends, but it was melting through.  A lot of the kids seemed like they were having fun, but it doesn't seem good for groups of 5 kids as I had hoped it would be.  Maybe next time, I can give each group an additional wire and core to work with so the groups are smaller and everyone has a chance to do something.  Ellen's class didn't seem to have the same problems as the first class did, but some of that comes from just having run through it once already and working out the issues.  While I was there, Ellen's teacher announced that Ellen had won first place in her division for the OSPA 2011 Student Poetry Contest.  According to the letter, Ellen's poem "Morning" received the highest number of 1st place votes for the entire contest.  She was invited to read her poem at the state ceremony, but it's the same day as Reach the Beach so we'll have to decline.  After school, we had Phoebe's birthday party at the Conestoga Rec Center swimming pool.  She had 10 friends join her for her pool party.  This year, we only had them in the pool for an hour and a half.  That was a lot better than the 2.5 hours of last year where even the kids wanted to get out.  They devoured 3 pizzas and a whole bag of Cuties (oranges) afterward.  I think they had fun.  Jada drove Ellen over to the Dream Readers prep meeting/party before tomorrow's big regional battle.  They have a pretty good attitude about it.  Ellen actually said, "if we don't win, at least we're only in 4th grade so we can try again next year."  It's hard to believe she's the same kid some times. 

March 5

    We were at Sunset High School this morning at 8:30am for the Oregon Battle of the Books Region I competition.  Ellen's team was competing for a chance to go on to the state competition.  There were hundreds of kids there this morning elementary, middle school, and high school.  The Dream Readers were loose in the morning before the competition.  They were assigned a room with 2 other teams.  All 3 teams would play each other.  The moderator would give 4 questions on book and title, and another 4 questions on content.  Each of those questions were good for 5 points total, but some questions have 2 parts so it's possible to get partial credit.  If one team misses a question, the other team has a chance to steal that question and the points that go along with it.  The teams with the highest total points get to advance.  Ellen's team did pretty well, but they didn't end up with enough points.  One of the teams they played against was obviously a super team.  They only missed 1 question the entire time.  The kids were visibly flustered when they missed their first content question 7 questions into their round with the team that advanced out of their room.   By the time the competition was over, though, I think they had moved on.  All of the parents were there to comfort and tell them that now they know what they'll need to do for next year to prepare if they want to try this again.  I was surprised at how serious this is taken by a lot of schools.  The team that advanced was pretty annoyed by our team when they weren't giving up as many points as the first team they played.  They actually challenged our team on one book title they felt our team had said incorrectly even though they had won by 10 points.  Smart kids can get just as nasty as anybody.  On the bright side, we were out of there by 11am so we could do other things with our Saturday.  I did some errands by car, and then since it was nice, I rode to the bank to deposit our state refund check.  It was a pleasant ride, but my lungs are still recovering from last week's illness.  We stopped by Gramma's to play piano.  Ellen read her prize winning poem.  Then after dinner, we headed over to Powell's Books.  We ended up buying a bunch of books...again.  I said to the check out guy, as we put our piles on the desk, that we just can't help ourselves.  We might have a problem.  He said it was a good problem to have...Enabler.  We ended up starting Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tonight with the girls.  We'll see how well they do with that one.  All of Ellen's friends have read all the books, so they're talking about things that happen that Ellen doesn't know about yet.

March 6

    Since we had no food in the house suitable for breakfast, we went out to our favorite breakfast spot not on the side of a mountain followed by a grocery store run.  We spent the rest of the morning working on science fair project presentation boards.  I helped Phoebe type her results into a PowerPoint presentation to print it out while Jada helped Ellen with hers.  In the afternoon, Jada went to visit her mom while the girls took care of their piano.  Our guitar class was canceled due to our instructor's illness, so the only thing left for the day was Jada's massage.

March 10

    Ellen's illness has cleared up this week with her antibiotics.  We all appear to be somewhat healthy for the moment.  This was a busy week.  All the work on the science fair projects paid off since both girls got to display their work at the science fair along with 212 of their classmates.  That was a new record for turn out this year.  They didn't win prizes, but I think they enjoyed their work.  I did my second grade NEM presentations on Monday and Tuesday to all 4 classes.  I do my second grade lesson on semi-solids to go along with their matter unit.  I thought I did an ok job, but I always worry about rambling too much.  (The teachers said he was well organized, taught interesting information, and was able to keep the students engaged while he whipped up a stellar batch of Flubber.)  I stopped by the Bike Gallery on the way home from work on Wednesday night to have them tighten up my cables after the big overhaul.  I have had a clunking in my rear hub for a couple years now, but I've not wanted to have it looked at yet since my wheels have been otherwise bomb proof since I got them.  I haven't had to true them once in 4 years!  That's a first for me.  I have a pair of more expensive wheels I have to true every year, and on my previous commuter bike I was truing wheels so much I own a truing stand.  So I've been hesitant to get it looked at.  It's become more prominent, so I'm going to schedule an appointment to have them take a longer look at it to see if they can save it.  I just need to setup an appointment to have them give me a loaner wheel.  With gas at $3.59, I can't afford not to ride to work at least 3 days a week.  And my lovely wife always tries to make sure I get my opportunities.  Tonight, Jada has her kindergarten round up.  I think it's where all the kindergarten teachers roam the surrounding neighborhoods with a cart yelling, "bring out yer kindy's!  Load 'em on the carts!" in cockney British accents.  I could be wrong about that though.

March 14: Happy Pi Day

    What a really busy weekend.  This is the first time I've had to write.  We started Friday afternoon.  Phoebe was headed to a sleep over birthday party, so we let Ellen invite one of her friends to spend the night at our house.  I met them over at Red Robin near work for dinner.  Then we went to REI so I could get some new shoes.  My old ones have just been really uncomfortable lately.  We put the girls to bed around 9pm after they watched Ramona and Beezus.  They were awake by 6am the next morning.  I let them watch Veggie Tales after breakfast, and I went off to meet with my assistant coaches to talk about the season plans.  When I got home, Jada left for the gym.  I took Ellen's friend home on our way downtown for Ellen's last writing class.  I spent the time working on my laptop.  There's not wireless access for non-PSU students, unfortunately, but I had copied everything I needed locally so I had plenty to do. While we were downtown, Jada and Phoebe visited Gramma.  After class, we drove back out so Ellen could get her piano done before she had to take off again for a birthday party in the afternoon.  I took the rear wheel of my commuter out to Bike Gallery for them to have a look at the knocking in my hub they couldn't fix during my overhaul.  They gave me a loaner wheel so I could still ride to work this week.  Then it was back home to have Phoebe play some guitar.  Then we made "Brinner" when Ellen came home from her birthday party.  We started setting clocks forward so we could put the girls to bed early since the plan was to be up and out the door to the mountain by 6am the next morning. 

    Five AM rolled around really quickly for all of us.  I was first up as always making breakfast and trying to get things ready.  Everyone was ready to go before 6am so we had time to stop by the gas station to make sure we had plenty of gas.  The drive up was a lot easier Sunday morning than last time we went up.  There was no traffic and the roads were clear all the way up to Government Camp.  We parked really close to the lodge too.  It was snowing lightly, and the wind didn't seem too bad at the base area.  We went over to the Rider Services to get our pictures taken for our spring ski passes.  If we can make it up to Meadows just one more time this spring, the pass was worth it.  We got the girls checked in for their classes and this time they had plenty of books to read while they waited for their lesson to start.  Jada and I picked up our skis.  They gave us skis that were probably about 5cm longer than last time.  I didn't notice too much difference.  I'd love to figure out a way to bring my skis up so we don't have to spend money on the rentals every time, but it's not too bad since we have everything else.  It's just skis.  I've seen ski racks that fit in smaller places.  I'll have to see if I can find some.  Jada and I had a great ski day.  It was windy and low visibility at the top of the Mount Hood Express lift, but it wasn't horrible.  We skied almost all blue runs today, and they were a lot longer than last time.  For some reason, no one was at the mountain that day.  We got straight back on the lifts with very little waiting each time.  We think it was because everyone forgot to set their clocks and plan for the extra hour.  Whatever the reason, it was great for us!  We got in 7 runs in about 2.5 hours.  At the end of the morning around 11am, we went over to Buttercup to find the girls.  They had just started down, so we watched them and skied behind them down to the lift, and then we got on behind their class (only 3 kids which is perfect for them).  They finally saw us at the top.  We followed them down again and got on the lift right in front of them so we could turn around and talk to them.  I wish we had had a camera.  It was too windy for me to feel comfortable taking my phone out to get a picture.  I didn't want to fumble it out of my hands.  We watched them go down the hill again before calling it a day for us.  We were really tired after all the runs that morning.  We did a lot of steeper terrain and longer runs this time.   It was tiring.  In one of the lift lines, I saw a couple of kids with their dad.  They had Star Wars rebel alliance X-wing helmets.  I complimented them, and resisted the urge to call them out for being part of the rebel alliance and traitors.  The girls had done well in their class.  Ellen is ready to move up to the next level.  Phoebe's close to moving up, but just needs to work on her snow plow a little more.  We went to the Huckleberry Inn for brunch.  Then headed down the mountain for home.  We hit big traffic just as we got into town.  I saw a rear-ended car after crawling along for miles, and then it sped right up after that the rest of way.  We arrived home just in time to drive to guitar lesson with Phoebe.  We returned home just in time to eat a quick dinner and then I headed off to my massage.  Like I said, it was a busy weekend.

    Monday, I let the girls sleep in a little bit until I finished breakfast.  It was back to school as usual.  I was able to ride my bike to work (because Jada loves me, and gas is $3.63/gallon), and we had our first Intel league basketball playoff game in the evening.   We ended up winning, so we advance to the second round.  We won't play again until after spring break though.

March 20

    I've let it ride for a while now, so I better try to figure out what I haven't written about this week.  I know that I volunteered in the morning on Wednesday for the monthly passport day at the school.  I took Phoebe out of school in the afternoon for a doctor's appointment because she was coughing really horribly like Ellen had done earlier this month.  They took a chest X-ray, but they didn't get the results while we were there.  I worked the rest of the afternoon from home.  Thursday we had the first soccer practices for U10 and U8 teams.  Phoebe was first up at 5pm.  It was a little sunny when we got to the field.  The fields were declared "open" by the park district even though we've been getting drenched all week, but they still have rules for us to abide by so we get to be the bad guys if we have to cancel practice.   Our field definitely did not meet the requirements for a playable field since water spurted up with each step.  There was another team already practicing next to the fields where we were supposed to practice.  It was a bit higher spot, so the ground wasn't quite so bad.  Still spongy though.  After my talk with the parents, we went ahead and did a quick practice.  No sooner did we start, and I learned all of their names, the rain and wind came in.  It was raining sideways and cold.  I still had them do some dribbling and passing drills, but I called practice early.  I waited for the U10's under the covered area at the school, but the sun came out shortly.  The U10 field wasn't too bad.  One corner was a bit swampy, but the opposite corner was ok.  I didn't feel either practice was as efficient as I could make it, but the girls seemed to have fun. 

    Friday was a busy day.  I started off the morning attending the school's "Donuts for Dudes" with Ellen and Phoebe.  Phoebe setup her table for her last day of money collecting for Pennies for Peace.  She ended up with a very full bucket for the 2 months she was collecting at the school.  Jada will take it in during spring break to get it counted and have the check written to the charity.  Friday afternoon, we finally heard from the doctor's office. They went ahead and recommended that antibiotics might be the way to go for Phoebe, so we picked them up on the way out of town.  We had booked 2 nights at the Surfsand Resort in Cannon Beach.  We left town by 5pm, and we arrived around 6:30pm.  Traffic wasn't bad, and we drove through rain showers over the coast range.  However, it wasn't raining in Cannon Beach.  We checked in and went out for dinner at the Lumberyard.  The Surfsand has a deal with them for free kids meals for guests.  I kept tabs on the Illinois/UNLV game (Illinois won!) during dinner.  We settled into the hotel after dinner, and we put the girls to bed.  Phoebe was up a lot with coughing fits, sadly, throughout the night.  So Jada and I didn't get too much sleep even though they were in a completely different room on the other side of our room.  The girls were up bright and early on Saturday morning.  The sun was up too.  The weather had called for quite a bit of rain this weekend, so we were pleasantly surprised to see the sun.  We went to the Wayfarer Restaurant for breakfast followed by a walk on the beach.  The girls brought their buckets and shovels to play a bit.  There was very little wind, but the waves were really going.  We had missed low tide at Haystack Rock, so we just let the girls dig and run from the water a bit.  The water was coming in really fast.  The girls read the rest of the morning until we went to Mo's for lunch.  The high tide was the highest we'd ever seen it this time of year.  It was almost all the way to the end of the beach at times.  We watched the angry waves roil and crash on themselves as a couple intrepid surfers attempted to paddle out to where the waves were breaking the biggest.  We  drove into town for a visit to a toy and game shop, but we didn't buy anything.  We spent about an hour and a half at the pool.  We had it to ourselves for a while.  I was attacking the girls on their foam tube boats with plastic balls and my octopus arms.  They were taking tubes from my raft as well.  Then other people came so we had to give up some of our toys.  The girls played with the boy and girl that were there too who were the same ages as Ellen and Phoebe.  After that, and we were all cleaned up, we let the girls watch the last 30 minutes of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on TV, then we listened to some more Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire while I was dozing in and out before dinner.  We went to the Wayfarer again for dinner.  There's not a large choice for we landlubbers, but the steak was really good.  We walked to the tidepools after dinner as the sun set on a surprisingly nice day at the beach.  We just got really lucky.  We got the girls to bed late, and Phoebe had another bad night, though I think she slept a little better.  At least, after about 11pm, I didn't hear her again until morning.  Sunday morning, we had breakfast again, and then the girls watched "Ramona and Beezus" while I napped.  We checked out around 11am, and we drove south to Tillamook to visit the cheese factory.  The girls didn't remember being there before.  The machines weren't running today, but the samples were working.  It started raining while we were inside, and it continued to rain all the way home.  Overall, we had a nice weekend though it appeared it had been quite wet here in Beaverton.  The only complaint, if you can call it that, was Jada prefers to have the room on the opposite side of the wall from the room we had this time because the couches are all setup so you can see out to the beach whereas in this room, it's mirrored so the couches are on the beach-side wall facing away from the beach.  Next time, we'll know to request the different room.  No smokers ruined our stay this time though, so that's nice. 

March 25

    On Monday, the girls had their first day of soccer camp.  They got to practice next to the Portland Timbers, our local MLS team.  They didn't get to scrimmage them though.  I assigned the girls to bring  home drills that they do in the camp for me to implement in our soccer practices.  In the afternoon, they had their dentist appointments.  Ellen hasn't been brushing well enough, so I've got to start brushing them a little more.  She had the start of a cavity.  The dentist told us she produces a lot of tartar, so the help with flossing and brushing is a must.  Phoebe's teeth were pretty good, thanks to me, although the dentist told us she has a bit of a weak enamel on her teeth, so she's going to be using some fluoride rinse..  Ellen got to have a friend stay overnight Monday night.  They were up a little late.  I still heard them after 10pm, and I heard Phoebe have a bit of a coughing fit around 11pm.  I went to bed around midnight thanks to some work I had to get done.

    We've been testing out putting the girls to bed at 7:30pm all this week instead of 7pm.  So far, I've been having to roust Ellen out of bed this week though.  Phoebe's been getting up mostly around 6am.  Of course, the weekends are always an early up time even though they don't watch cartoons.  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the girls had soccer camp again.  They even got to meet some of the Portland Timbers and get autographs on their camp T-shirts.  Thursday night, I held soccer practices for the girls who wanted to come during spring break.  For Phoebe's team, I only ended up with 3 including Phoebe.  It was sprinkling when we started, but stopped after not too long.  It didn't rain at all again for Ellen's practice, and there were 7 girls there for a pretty good turn out. 

    Friday I took off of work so we could go skiing.  We were out the door by 6am.  We arrived at the mountain near the front row of the Meadows parking lot a bit before 8am.  Jada was suffering from a bit of a headache when we arrived, but she know that the endorphins she gets from skiing would take care of it quickly.  They did.  The weather was good.  There was light snow falling all day for us, and the wind on the upper slopes wasn't too bad.  We got the girls checked in to their classes.  Ellen was one class up from Phoebe today.  We started off on Mount Hood Express(MEx) when the lifts opened at 9am.  We came down by the Cascade Express lift which was running for the first time when we were at the mountain this season, so Jada thought it'd be fun to go up there.  It drops off the highest of all the lifts from the appearance of the maps, and it was completely socked in.  It was hard to see very far in front of us.  We started down the Texas Trail from the lift house which just runs a wide path across the shoulder of the ski area down toward the top of the Vista Express lift which was also running for the first time when we've been up.  It was so hard to see, we were really feeling our way down the mountain on the groom.  (The groom is where they run a machine over it the run to make the snow on the ski run more smooth and even)  We lost it a couple times and ended up in deep powder and went down.  Jada ended up hurting her knee somewhere along the way, but she was really good at keeping us on the groom on the way down.  Back below the top of the Vista Express lift, things were a little better visibility-wise.  By the time we made it down the mountain, it had already been an hour.  We took a bit of a break so we could rest and recoup.  We went up MEx again and enjoyed a smooth and visible run.  As we returned to the bottom of the run, we found Ellen and Phoebe on the lifts of Buttercup and watched them for a bit.  Jada was done for the day, so I went over to Vista again for a run.  It had gotten a little cloudier since the last time I'd come that way, but the next few runs on Easy Rider which Ellen had gone on actually had some sun breaking through.  The girls had a great time.  They both ended up on some intermediate (or Blue) runs, and they said that they got to ski through the trees, but I'm not sure where they got to do that.  If we make it back up, I'll have to go look for that.  We stopped by the Huckleberry Inn for brunch.  It was really busy, so we had to sit at the lunch counter.  We still got to eat though, and it was snowing heavily at Government Camp, so it was nice to look outside.  The roads weren't too bad, and traffic through Portland wasn't too slow either so we made it home by 3:30pm.

March 27

    Saturday was spent doing errands and what not.  We did grocery shopping and visited Gram in the morning.  After lunch, we visited my friend Kathy and her new baby (well, she's almost 3 months now).  It's just so odd seeing tiny babies after ours are so big.  Jada got her baby fix by getting to hold the baby for a couple minutes until it was time for us to leave (and snack time for the little one.)  We followed that up with a trip to REI to see what we could do with our dividends and 20% off coupons.  Unfortunately, they didn't have a GPS unit for our trip that we liked.  The Garmin Oregon which was recommended by our ride leaders had a really dim screen even in the store, but the screen was nice and big.  Plus it would allow the transfer of waypoint routes from one unit to another.  The eTrex wasn't one that was mentioned by our ride leaders, but it had a much brighter screen (and less expensive) and the main functionality was there.  However, it didn't have the ability to wirelessly transfer data for maps.  There was one that they were out of that seems to be rather popular, and pretty inexpensive.  The bicycle specific one is really expensive, but it's completely touch screen and wireless.  I ended up buying a trailer hitch mounted bike rack so we can take the girls' bikes over to the bike paths until they're more comfortable riding on the roads solo.  Since the front wheels aren't quick release, I can't put them easily on my roof rack.  By the time we were done there, we went over to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner since we had a gift certificate.  While we were there, Ellen made an exasperated move that was exactly a move that Jada makes all the time.  We listened to Harry Potter some more before bed time.

March 29

    The rains continue.  I picked up my new bike wheel on Sunday for my commuter.  I went with a slightly cheaper machine-built wheel like the original commuter rims were.  They lasted pretty well, it was just the hub that went bad.  So the new wheels have a serviceable hub so it can be cleaned out and re-packed every year.  Monday night, my basketball team had our second round playoff game.  We hung with the team for all but the last 10 minutes of the game when we just stopped being able to get any lucky bounces.  The other team pulled away quickly, and we ended up losing by 12 points.  This was the same team that bounced us out of the playoffs last year.  On the bright side, I hit my first 3 pointer of the last 8 seasons.  I usually play closer to the hoop.  I am the world's shortest power forward.  Today, Ellen managed to hurt herself on the jungle gym at recess.  She stood up underneath one of the ladders and banged her head knocking her glasses down her nose.  Now she has a nice goose egg on her forehead and scrapes down her nose where her glasses were pushed.   I picked the girls up from a friend's house where Jada had dropped them off so she could go down to see Sara Vowell do readings from her new book.  So I got to do the dinner and everything.  Luckily, Jada had already set everything up.  All I had to do was warm things...and I didn't even do a very good job of that.  Oh well. 

April 2

    Well, I overshot the end of the month due to just being plane busy.  March 31 was mom's birthday, and the girls had their last soccer practice before games start today.  You'll have to read about that next month.  However, we had great weather for practice on Thursday.  The temperatures were actually in the 60's finally, and it didn't rain.  Out like a lamb, I suppose.

journal entry: April 2, 2011