This month run'th over. It was full of food with friends, school pictures, soccer games, ballet and tap classes, and Halloween related activities.
Ellen's school had a Fun Run school fund raiser where each of the students took pledges and raced a certain distance back and forth to complete a lap to see how many they could complete in a minute. Thanks to all who donated with by the lap or regular contribution. Ellen showed that she is taking after her daddy in the speed department by completing 22 laps in her minute, the second most of all the Kindergartners, and raised a good amount of money for her school.
The first full weekend of October was Jada's BEA weekend retreat at Cannon Beach. Jada packed the girls own suit cases which they kept referring to as "suit bags." They were the cases that their baby dolls came in. Phoebe was so excited about them, she sat in front of them the night before like they were a radio or TV just looking at them.
We drove out Friday night so that Jada could be there early to introduce the political candidates. (She chairs the Beaverton Teachers Political Action Committee, and she was recently featured on the cover of the Today's OEA (Oregon Education Association) publication with Oregon's current Governor, Ted Kulongoski which some of you may have heard about by now from our P.R. department...aka, my mom.) While she went to work at that, I took the girls across the street to Mo's for dinner. The sky was cloudy over the Pacific, but it had breaks towards the horizon that allowed great shafts of light to fall through to the water. It was, as always, a stunning sunset. We watched as we waited for food. We had the misfortune of coming in just behind a large group of people, so we had to wait a long time for food. But even after the 1.5hr car ride, the girls did a terrific job sitting at the table, coloring their placemats, and generally behaving. After dinner, I took them back to our room, got them ready for bed, played a little while on my guitar, and then I sat in the near dark of the room with my laptop getting some work done on the September journal.
The next day, we got to watch the full moon descend over Haystack Rock as I took the girls to Pig n' Pancake for breakfast while Jada headed over for the full day of work and meetings. They were well behaved again. Ellen was putting away her breakfast like she always does. I don't remember what all she ate, but I'll just say it may be easier to list what she didn't. After heading back for a quick break, we walked down to the beach to enjoy the beautiful day. It's been several years since I've been to the beach on one of these trips, and not felt like I needed a stocking cap and gloves. The wind was not blowing much at all, the sun was shining, and it was downright pleasant. We set to work digging a hole because that's just what kids do at a beach. Whilst digging, the girls were talking like pirates, making random "X's" in the sand (to throw off any would-be treasure stealers, of course) and digging for buried treasure. Phoebe started singing songs and showing me where each pail of sand should be dumped for her sand castle towers. Eventually, we struck water in our hole. So we dug a new one and started work on the grand sand castle. Ellen requested that I make a tunnel under it, and Phoebe wanted a bridge over the moat that connected the big castle with the outlying towers. I had left the camera in the hotel room. After 2 hours on the beach, we headed back for lunch and rest time. Rest time wasn't all that restful. So after a couple fruitless hours of trying to nap, we headed back out to the playground across the street in the parking lot next to the beach wayside parking lot. Jada called to let me know that her meetings were finally done for the day, and we were meeting some of her friends for dinner. The girls and I walked back down to the beach for a bit to see if we could find our castle, but the tide had come in during the afternoon and completely washed it away leaving no trace it had ever been there. We went to a fancy-ish restaurant where the girls got lots of compliments on how well behaved they were at the table. Later that night, they even both fell asleep very quickly compared to the night before. The next morning we were up early again for our Sunday breakfast at Pig n' Pancake (we just love that place), and then we were on the road early enough to make it home for lunch and naps.
The next weekend I took the girls to OMSI while Jada hosted a book club meeting. The StarWars exhibit is there right now, but we weren't able to get in that day. Plus, Ellen is still very scared of people in costumes. We passed by a Jawa on the way to the Discovery Zone where they like to play, and it was all I could do to keep Ellen moving forward. On the way back out, she almost ran right into Boba Fett who had just walked out of the elevator as we walked by. We tried out a new area of the exhibit hall that we don't usually make it to. The thing they enjoyed most was the exhibit where you get launch 2 liter bottles up a track to the ceiling by mixing air and water pressure. Ellen also created a paper cup helicopter that she was able to make fly over a big wind table. I'll have to go back another time by myself for the StarWars exhibit.
During the week, on Monday and Wednesday nights, Ellen had soccer games. Ellen finally had a game where she took a pass from a teammate and scored. They really did seem to improve during the course of the season, and Phoebe got to play on the sidelines with a soccer ball during the games. Also, Phoebe and Ellen both continue in their dance classes which they really enjoy
Throughout the month, we kept finding Phoebe in various positions in her toddler bed that made it very clear that she had reached the point where she needed a new bed. We bought 2 new mattresses and set up the bunk bed in Phoebe's room. She spent her first day in there successfully. She's very excited. We figure we'll give her time to adjust to the new bed before moving Ellen into the room with her. We'll keep the other room for the play room, and Ellen's old bed for a day bed.
Phoebe has also been our little song bird. She sings a lot, and both the girls really love dancing. We continue to read a lot, and Phoebe likes to "draw pictures of words" as she calls writing.
This month was also parent-teacher conferences. It was strange to be on this side of it. It was strange for Ellen's teacher too since she had to give feedback to her partner teacher. Ellen's teacher started off the conversation with "Well, it's obvious you don't read much at home." Luckily Ellen seems to be behaving very well at school. She interacts well with her classmates, and contributes to the class. Ellen still loves school too. So hopefully it continues. We were given some tips on what to work with her on at home which won't be difficult since she's just a little sponge. She's also enrolled in a "Mad Science" after school program one day a week which allows her to get a little more hands-on science fun. They're working on building rockets and watching chemical reactions. Last week, she told us that they were observing a reaction involving "sodium boring" and a nickel.
Finally, the main event, Halloween. We had a slew of activities so let's get to it. We started with the traditional trip to a pumpkin patch, but with a twist... We went to a different pumpkin match. (Oh, you can't stop us. You can only hope to slow us down.) We headed out to Sauvie Island just north of Portland on the Willamette River. There were several to choose from, but we chose the one with the massive corn maze. It didn't open as early as we got there, so we went on a little hay ride out to the pumpkin patch to select our little pumpkins, and then rode it back in. It only cost us $2 to get 2 small pumpkins. It was something different, and the girls had fun other than Ellen throwing a fit after we first got there when she had to use a port-a-potty. We picked out a pumpkin for carving at our normal orchard on a whim, and we took it home and carved it. It turned out pretty well. While Jada and I got things ready, I had the girls each draw a design for the pumpkin. I then chose features from each to make a hybrid pumpkin. There will be pictures.
The girls were both very excited about their costumes. Our little Phoebe was Cinderella ("I was dressed in tattered rags") and Ellen was Snow White. They got to wear them several times. They got to wear them to their dance classes. They also got to showcase them over the weekend at a Halloween party of one of Jada's friends from college. Jada dressed up as the alphabet, and I dressed up as Arthur Dent. Then Phoebe got wear hers to her school party on Monday. I took the day off to run the chauffer service. I went to pick her up exactly at the time it gets out, and she points at me and says, "you're late". Apparently they had ended early because of their Halloween program, but I didn't know about that, so we missed it. The next day, they both got to wear their costumes at library time, and then Ellen got to wear hers for the Halloween party at school where she drank punch, ate cookies, and cupcakes.
For Halloween, Jada lit up our pumpkin. We shoved the girls into sweats under their costumes, and heavy coats over them. It was cold and windy with temps in the upper 30's. Ellen didn't get to go out for the first half of trick or treating because she had a stomach ache from all the sweets she ate during her parties at school. So after she got out of the bathroom, she was able to go out to do a little trick or treating. They had more fun answering the door and seeing the other costumes. We had a decent showing, but not a lot. Kids just don't come down the hill from the cul de sac. We did get a lot of tweens.
Finally, because of the aforementioned cover photo of Jada in the OEA magazine with current Oregon governor, she has attended a variety of events this month. Well, she went to a special event where Al Gore was speaking, and she got to meet the former Vice President and get her picture taken with him. Hopefully, we'll have a picture to post for that one as well.
See ya next month.
Journal entry: November 1, 2006