Friday morning, the girls had their last piano test of the year, and both had a successful evaluation. This involved playing scales at their respective levels, answering music questions, sight reading music, and then playing three different pieces. Each of the girls were required to play a Baroque, Classical and Contemporary piece and know information about the composer and time period. We are very proud of the enormous amount of time for study and practice that they devoted.
Saturday morning we woke up to rain. Ellen's soccer game was at 11am, and during that time, Phoebe had a party to go to. In the afternoon, the rain held off until I was half way up the 15% hill near our house. Luckily I had brought my rain jacket, but unfortunately I didn't have my shoe covers so as the rain and wind picked while I pushed ahead on my ride my socks got squishy. I cut my ride short at 25 miles, but the rain had settled into a light sprinkle as I rolled into the garage, and the sun was starting to poke out. About 30 minutes later, we got hammered with 50 mph winds, hail, thunder, and heavy rains that knocked out power all over the area. Luckily, we just had a few blinks in our power since Jada's dad was coming over for dinner, and I was only half-way done making pizza. The bad part was that the next day, we found out that Jada's mom's facility had the power out too. Everyone was ok, but it was a shock to many. Sunday was the day of Ellen and Phoebe's piano recital. We picked up Gramma and headed over. Both the girls did a great job. I took Gram back to her place since she was exhausted after the interesting night without power, so I missed about half the kids, but the ones I heard when I got back were really good. The performances were varied and longer as the kids got older. There were 3 original compositions, and one of the seniors played the entirety of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. It was all pretty impressive. Even though it poured down rain while we were out to eat after the recital, it hadn't rained at our house at all, so I was able to get some mowing done. The mower started a little bit easier this time. Hopefully I'm wearing it down.
What a busy week the first full week of May was. Phoebe developed a cough that didn't sound good at all. The weather was horrible. It poured down rain all day, and I rode my bike to work in it. However, we didn't want to send Phoebe to play in the rain with her cough. Tuesday we got a little break from the weather during Ellen's soccer practice. Also, during piano practice on Tuesday, Ellen got her original piano composition ("Fairies in the Woods") back from the judges. Other than hoping it had been longer (it was 1 page), she got good marks from the judge. Wednesday was not too bad. Just a little rain in the morning. We had decided to keep Phoebe home from school since her cough hadn't been getting better. Jada was able to find a sub, so she stayed home with her. Unfortunately, Phoebe didn't nap. When she lays down, her clogged nose just makes everything hard. Thursday was Ellen's informance at school. That's where they invite the parents to the music class to show what they've been working on. I wasn't able to go due to work, but Jada was able to attend with Phoebe (we sent her back to school on Thursday). Thursday night, our soccer team scrimmaged the boy's U-8 team that practices on the field next to us. They're mostly from Ellen's school like her team, so most everyone knew each other. It was interesting to watch the usually aggressive girls suddenly stop and watch the boys just holding the ball. We didn't keep score, but I think it was good for both teams to have a little extra for practice. We all had fun too. One of the parents said it was a lot more exciting to watch than some of our regular games. Hopefully we can do it again. Finally the weather turned, and Friday was much nicer leading up to the weekend. Also Phoebe's Kindergarten Mother's Day Tea occurred on Friday, and Jada was able to attend since she held her class' tea the day before.
Saturday the 9th was a busy day. We weren't able to take Ellen to her soccer game because of the girls' well child checkups being at the same time as the game (originally the game was going to be later, but it got moved). Both girls are doing well. Ellen has a planters wart on her toe, so she got the dry ice treatment and a pumice stone to try to wear it down. We had her write a question down that she'd like to ask the doctor, and that was it. But when it was time for her to ask, she got really nervous and wouldn't ask the question. Eventually we had the doctor read the note Ellen had written so we got it out. After the appointment, we headed to the Woodburn outlet mall for summer clothes for the kids. They just keep growing. We got a bunch of stuff from OshKosh. Jada was able to find a few things from Columbia and Van Heusen. I got a pair of shorts at Columbia, a Garmin Slipstream cycling team cap, and black leg warmers at Pearl Izumi. (I couldn't justify the money for a full team kit as much as I considered it) Later in the afternoon, we packed up the girls bikes to head off to their school to do some riding. Ellen was very nervous again, but Jada helped her get through her crisis of confidence. Before we knew it, she was riding around people who were on the play ground and making tighter turns than she'd ever even attempted before. Now she can't wait to try again. We were so proud of her for not giving up this time. She didn't fall once, and she practiced using her brakes to get out of trouble instead of bailing out. She was even able to ride really slow and still stay up right. Phoebe wanted her training wheels off, so we haven't put them back on yet. My back still hurts today from holding her up, but she's getting it. The next thing we need to work on is her starts to get her feet up on the pedals and moving. I didn't bring a wrench to adjust her seat, so it's a little high still. Next time I'll bring it down a little. There were a few times where I was barely holding her up, but as soon as I would get close to letting go, she'd lean one way or the other. It's taken a while, but we're getting there. I wish we had a flatter area around our house so they could just go out and practice, but I didn't think about that when I was looking for the house initially. I was selfishly thinking how much I'd enjoy having to climb a 14% pitch every time I was coming back from a ride.
Sunday was Mother's Day. Jada didn't get to sleep in like I let her do every other day since we needed to get the grocery shopping done early. We had an appointment at the Zoo for the Mothers Day Brunch. Before our reservation time, we headed straight for the elephant house to see the (not so new any more) baby. We hadn't gotten to see him clearly last time, but this time, we were there practically first (the only ones to beat us to the spot were a bunch of Girl Scouts who had stayed over night at the Zoo). Brunch was excellent as always, and we all ate so much we were logy the rest of the day. Between Jada's soreness in her back from all the work she was doing the past week and the weather not being quite as warm as expected, she opted to lay down for the afternoon. Since I have a 100 mile ride for Reach the Beach on Saturday the 16th, I opted to go out for a ride by myself. I chose a route out to Hagg Lake and back for a 64 mile ride...the longest by half of any ride I've done this year so far. I did ok. After commuting to work and the quad, my Specialized racing bike feels like air on the climbs. It took me about 4 hours to complete the ride. Then I sent Jada off for a massage in the evening to cap off her Mother's Day.
The weather (I know I talk about it a lot, but it's just been so odd lately) was cool for Phoebe's game Monday night, but the sun held for us. Tuesday night we had our last practice for Ellen's team. We mostly scrimmaged and continued to try to teach how to spread out and run lanes. We realized that we mostly have been teaching offense this season, but oh well. Too late to try to teach them some better defense. Wednesday the rains came back in with a vengeance which was unlucky for us considering both girls had games. Ellen was first up with a makeup game from earlier in the season. It was maybe 49 degrees out, but the girls played great. We saw some great passing and even defense. They worked really hard and still didn't complain too much. When they were out, they made a hut out of a couple golf umbrellas. During our game, Jada had to leave to take Phoebe to her game to play for another hour and a half in the rain. On Thursday, the dry weather returned, and it was quite pleasant by the afternoon when the girls' school hosted their open house. We got around to visiting Phoebe's class room, and taking her around to the first grade rooms where we watched a series of plays written and directed by the kids in the class, several of whom are on Phoebe's soccer team. We didn't have much time to visit Ellen's room, but I got to see some of her wonderful writing. Now that we have a scanner again, maybe I'll start scanning in some of her works. She has already started her third (?) novel (she wrote her first in kindergarten) based on the American Girl series. She's quite prolific. We didn't have time to visit any of the 3rd grade rooms before they closed up the classrooms and were serving dinner. Finally Friday morning, I took off from work to chaperone Ellen's class field trip down to OMSI to see the Wild Ocean on Omnimax. The teacher grouped the kids with each of the chaperones - I had 6 kids. I knew all but 2 of the kids from soccer. Ellen was fine during the movie. There wasn't a lot of scary stuff in it, but it was really interesting. I enjoyed it. I'm not one to get headaches, but man, being on a school bus full of second graders really kind of drove it in. It's funny how all the girls do the little hand clapping games. Ellen made one up with one of her friends called "clip-clop". Then I went back to work in the afternoon. Jada handled a playdate for the girls after school.
The weather really spruced up by the weekend which was nice since Saturday morning was when I left to Reach the Beach - my annual 100 mile ride for the American Lung Association. I had picked up my registration packet ahead of time for the first time this year. It was nice to be able to roll out of my driveway at 7am and not have to worry about standing in line waiting to get up to the table to sign in. I hadn't really trained (again) this year, other than putting in over 1000 base miles via commuting, the quad, and the 2 measly rides I did on the Specialized so I was pleasantly surprised when I flew up the first big hill as if I was riding air. It was quite cool through the first 2 hours of the ride as the temperature slowly climbed out of the upper 40's to the 50's. I was able to ditch my leg and arm warmers for the rest of the day. I was rolling well at around 20 mph all the way across the valley. Occasionally when I'd pass someone, they'd jump on my wheel to draft. I knew they were back there, but I didn't make them pull through. However, after a climb I'd check back, and they'd be gone. I can't ride all that fast, but I'm very consistent. The first time I drafted with anyone all day was in the coast range where I exchanged pulls with someone until the last rest stop before arriving at the coast. I pulled a group of 3 riders to the base of the very last climb when the last 2 kids jumped and sprinted up the hill. I didn't have the explosiveness I usually can muster for it, but I didn't labor too much either. Down to the coast, I went and just ended up in a pace line by accident (for those of you who have done these sorts of rides, you know how that works. For those that don't, basically, you're riding at a pace, and a group overtakes at only slightly higher pace. The group pulls you in as they pass, and suddenly you're just in there.) They weren't working all that well together though, so I went to the front and eventually dropped them. I towed one more person all the way to highway 101 who had been on the front for a while. I rolled through the finish line right around 2pm. I had the free dinner, and hung out for a bit. Then I waited for Jada and the girls to arrive. We were driving back to Beaverton by 3:40pm. We stopped off at Sweet Tomatoes for dinner and saw one of Phoebe's soccer coaches there. They had just finished up the soccer jamboree which Phoebe had to miss to come get me. It's always very nice that Jada and the kids are willing to sacrifice so much time to come get me every year. That morning, though, they were able to go to Ellen's last game of the season. From what I hear, they did pretty well as the game wore on.
Sunday morning we had the Walking with a Vision charity walk for our friends whose child is losing her vision. We rode the quad there. I almost dumped us when I went into a turn a little too fast, but I was able to keep us under control and pulled out of it. I'm still learning the characteristics of the bike, but I do need to be more careful. The walk itself was a 5k through the Tualatin Community Park. I wasn't able to successfully win my Blazers tickets this year, but they went for a lot more than face value to the winner. So that was fun. Phoebe bid on a necklace that hadn't received any bids, so she won that. Ellen made herself 2 braided bracelets. Then we rode home (17 miles round trip) so that we could get ready for Ellen's soccer party. We presented each of the girls a dog tag, a certificate that Jada made with their pictures on it, and a soccer wall hanger with encouraging words written on the back from coach Rob. The girls presented us with signed soccer balls. Afterwards, we visited with Gram. When we got home, we found that our power was out. Luckily, no one was all that hungry. Since the power was out anyway, I mowed the lawn, and Jada did some pruning. The power was back by 6 pm. We were all completely exhausted by the time we went to bed that night, I can tell you.
Tuesday afternoon we got word from Ellen's teacher that Ellen had gotten in trouble that afternoon after lunch recess for kicking 2 of her friends after losing a made up dance contest. It's very sad for her, but she needs to find a way to control her temper. When she feels she has been wronged she just sees red. Wednesday night I picked up the girls for Phoebe's soccer party and parents against kids game. As part of Ellen's punishment, she wasn't allowed to play or read while we played. When I got home, I found that the cats had chewed through the cable to my now useless sub-woofer. They'd been getting at my speaker cables too. I just don't have a good way to cover all of them. Thursday night I got home a little late, but Jada was still able to get out to enjoy her work party.
The Saturday of Memorial Day was shaping up to be a great day. Nice and sunny with temps in the '70s. We made our first visit to the Beaverton Famers Market where we picked up a couple of tomato starts and some early season Oregon Strawberries-no Hoods yet! After are morning shopping was complete, we decided to load up the bikes and head over to the school for another riding session for the girls. Ellen got going right away. At first she kept to what worked for her the last time we went, but then I challenged her to turn around both to the right as well as left. She successfully went right on the first try (just as Derek Zoolander before her, though, that was left for him). Then she started mixing it up with different turns, riding around different posts on the playground, and making sharper turns. She did great, and no accidents. She rode almost constantly (except for a few brake checks) the whole time we were there. For Phoebe, we started out with me running with her holding onto her seat. On the second run down the playground, I was able to take my hands away from her a couple times for increasingly longer tries. Then I had to rest my back for a bit while we had her work on her starts. Suddenly, she's off and riding on her own before forgetting to use her brakes and falling down. It took a while to build her up again after dusting her off. I ran with her another time up and down the playground, still taking my hands away for a longer stretches without telling her, but obvious enough that Jada could tell. Then we were talking to Ellen and challenging her a little more to try going off the pavement into the grass a little bit when all of a sudden, Phoebe comes rolling by on her own again the length of the playground, turns around on her own, comes back and stops without falling. We were all flabbergasted and proud! She was too. She even gave us a fist pump. We got her to do it a couple more times before we headed home, triumphant. After lunch, we let the girls play, and Jada and I did some yard work for a couple hours. I have to say, the front lawn looks pretty good if you ignore the clover that has invaded. I trimmed back the willow from the over the sidewalk, as well as re-shaping the hedges, edging the lawn, and mowing. Jada potted some geraniums and fed the roses. We made a trip to Home Depot to pick up another pot to plant our tomato shoots in followed by dinner and a little more riding at the school. Phoebe was able to get even longer runs this time. She still fell a couple times, but she got back up. (Never give up! Never surrender!) So as of May 23, we have 2 more self-sufficient cyclists. As soon as Phoebe is steering her bike more than the bike is steering her, we'll be able to take them to the bike path. We're looking forward to that. Now we need to think about getting Jada her own bike. We think Ellen's bike is probably the right size for her.
Sunday morning, we had our usual breakfast, and then got ready for a ride on the Quad. We decided (I decided?) on a trip up to the Washington Park Rose Garden. It was a long slow climb there, but we made it without too much trouble. We stopped and had a snack at the restroom area where there are also some tables. We had lots of onlookers and answered some questions. Some random people stopped to take pictures of it too. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of haze over the city, so Mt. Hood wasn't very clear, but we took a picture of ourselves up there anyway. Then we headed up again through the neighborhood above the park. The girls really enjoyed it because the architecture of the houses is all so different. The grade was probably between 6 and 10% through there. We grinded it out, but we never really felt like we were going to stop. It was fun getting up to Skyline for the first time on something other than my Specialized Allez. The ride home the rest of the way was mostly downhill until we got near our house. It was about a 26 mile ride. After we settled in and had a quick snack, we took the girls out riding again on their own bikes. They had great improvement over the previous day. Ellen was all over the playground, and Phoebe was able to get started just about every time. Though there were a lot of kids there this time, and towards the end of our time, she had a couple collisions, and Ellen took a turn a little too tight and fell. Not a lot of tears, but they were both tired from our ride earlier, so we headed home so I could run off again to pick up Gram for our belated Mother's Day dinner. We cooked out, and since the weather was just so pleasant all weekend, we even ate outside on the back deck.
Monday morning was Memorial Day, so everyone slept in at least for us. I found out last week that I can watch the live feed of the Giro d' Italia online on the Universal Sports web site. Good race that morning with Carlos Sastre (last year's Le Tour winner taking the stage on a final climb attack with the Pink Jersey for the overall leader (Denis Menchov) crossing the line 30 seconds down, but retaining the jersey. Levi Leipheimer had a bad day with an inconvenient puncture and didn't have the legs to stay with the attacks. Lance Armstrong (his teammate) stayed back to help pace him up the climb to the finish, both losing time and dropping down the standings. Well, I guess that's enough of the update for this day. It's just fun to get to watch these non Tour de France grand tours instead of just reading about them. Anyway, after Jada and I played a game of chess with each of the girls (Jada won against Phoebe, and I won against Ellen. I have to say that since it's not always so sure. Jada always wins, but Phoebe and Ellen have each beaten me more than once), we took the girls out riding again in the morning for a while before running a couple errands, lunch, and heading out for another ride, this time on one of our usual routes across the valley to Rood Bridge park where we let the girls play for about 20 minutes. That ended up being a 32 miler. Though we had a little stop heading up to our house where a bee landed on Phoebe's hair, so we stopped to help her take care of that. No stings, just a case of the creepy crawlies. We get lots of thumb's up signs (I guess if I had to choose a digit, I'd prefer that one to any other) from people when we're out. When we got home, we had to settle into our normal Sunday night routine since it was back to school the next day, including eating dinner outside, before we finished up the day with a quick game of Scrabble.
The week was filled with ups and downs. Jada was busy at school preparing for the fast approaching end of the year. She attended a volunteer tea where she was both honored for her volunteerism and honoring the efforts of others. Jada's mom had two hospital visits on Wednesday due to her high blood pressure and breathing problems. The doctors are now looking at providing more comfort to her as she deals with her medical issues. The girls enjoyed their final "Mad Science" class. Each week they have been learning about physical science and bringing home a new project ranging from periscopes to magnets to glow-in-the-dark slime. Finally, on Friday afternoon was the piano awards ceremony for the girls' music studio. The Pearson girls went 1-2 in the practice minutes competition for their age group and received handsome trophies for their (and our) efforts. They also received certificates of accomplishment for their first/second years of study. Both Phoebe and Ellen earned many ribbons for their participation in events, areas of piano study including theory, and the "One Minute Club" for memorizing the notes on the staff to play and say in one minute. I was not able to make it to the ceremony due to a work commitment, so Jada took the girls out to dinner afterward to celebrate.
Saturday morning, we had an early birthday party to get to where both girls were invited. It was at a cinema to see the new Pixar offering, UP - in 3D. Luckily I had read the reviews prior to going, so I knew that there would be some scary parts. It was too loud for Phoebe, and too scary for Ellen. After listening to Ellen whimper through most of the movie, and finally going to hide in the bathroom, I asked Phoebe if she wanted to stay to which she replied no as well. So we left. Luckily the birthday girl's sister was sitting next Ellen so I was able to at least ask her to give our regrets to her sister and mom. We just did some hanging around the house in the afternoon. It was a little too hot to go for a bike ride, so I napped and mowed and then took the girls out to ride their own bikes. We stopped by the bike shop while we were out to get Phoebe a new helmet and another pair of cycling shorts. Now each of the girls have 2 pairs. We had hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner out on the deck, and we put the girls to bed. I stayed up way too late working on a project for Jada's teams kindergarten classes. I was to copy 70 CD's of a slide show one of the other teachers put together, but I also decided to play with some CD labels and put their picture on it. I ended up working on that and some regular work for the rest of the night. Jada was off visiting and checking out some new books at a book party.
Sunday dawned sunny and warm. We went out for a tasty and filling breakfast at the Murrayhill Cafe-we highly recommend it! After that we geared up and headed up to the Rose Garden for the second Sunday in a row. (I was just planning on a light 30-40 miler around the valley, but the girls requested that trip! "It's going to be hot out today, but we really want to go up really steep hills on our heavy bike." Them's my girls!) We get quite the attention when we're out. People ask to take pictures of the quad...while we're parked at the Rose Garden. We spent about an hour up there at the park. The girls got to play on the playground while Jada and I found shade to sit in. We headed back up the climb through the houses of the West Hills. Lots of cyclists were out. The heat was difficult to climb through, but we ground it out. As long as we're going forward, we're not going backward or stopped, it's good. We were out for about 4 hours and 28.6 miles. Jada got burned a bit, but I think she was the only one. It was back to normal Sunday chores once home followed by dinner, showers, and to bed for the girls. Jada continued working on her Kindergarten books, and I worked on trying to finish up this journal since this is the last day of the month.
Journal entry: May 31, 2009