Good evening. (that's my spooky Halloween greeting voice...perhaps you needed to be in my head to hear that. Anyway...) Since my weekly updates went so well though excruciatingly long winded, I'm going to do it again. Starting with the first day of the month.
Ellen had a soccer game with surprisingly nice fall weather. The air was that of a crisp fall evening, and the ground was damp. Ellen scored a goal in traffic, and almost had an assist on another. Most of the time she almost literally floats about the field only vaguely aware of where the ball is. But she has fun all the same. When she was doing full field dribbling and shooting, she was doing very well keeping the ball in front of her. If only she'd try to take the ball away from her teammates as fervently as she tries to take things away from her sister. Speaking of Phoebe, we went in to sing the bed time song, and we found that she had made a little room for her Greg Anthony doll. It's behind the door of their bedroom with her tool box for his bed. It's been a while since she last loved Greg. I guess she found him in her basket and rekindled her affection for him. (A reminder for those of you who are not familiar with basketball over the last 20 or so years, Greg Anthony was the star point guard for the UNLV Runnin' Rebels who won the NCAA championship in 1990. Then he bounced around the NBA where he became a defensive stopper and 3point shooter. He finally landed in Portland for a few years where he quickly became one of our favorites leading the league in kicked balls. He always hustled even running in and out of the game. Jada likes him because he's vertically challenged for a basketball player and he's well spoken, even though he's Republican.)
Ellen's second game of the first week of October ended in cold rain, and when she came home, she threw up right in the front entryway. Luckily, it was pretty much contained to the wood floor and some of Phoebe's jacket. She wasn't feverish or complaining of stomach problems before then. It just literally came up. Jada took her to the shower while I cleaned up the mess. No one was too traumatized by it, other than Ellen worrying about not getting a perfect attendance award if we kept her home from school. We fed her breakfast in the morning, and made sure she was ok. She still didn't have a fever, so Jada took her to school. I stayed home to make sure she was going to make it, but since I had back to back to back meetings all morning, I didn't have time to drive in before the first one. So I worked from home. Lucky I did too, since the roofers finally came to do some cleanup on our roof. Meanwhile, our little Phoebes is spitting it out the back-end since Monday, though it finally cleared up by Friday.
The first weekend of October, we went out to join Jada at the beach for her annual BEA meeting. This year we were back in Seaside, OR. Jada carpooled out with some folks, and we followed along the next morning, but not without some issues. The girls weren't terribly cooperative, and then Savannah threw up. I almost got her out the door, but she ended up getting Ellen's pillow which was already near the front door ready to go. We got to the beach around 10:30am, and we found Jada having a meeting in her room. Since it wasn't raining at the time, we went down to the beach. Man, was it windy and cold, but it didn't stop us from making a sandcastle and digging a small hole (small by the girls' normal standards). After lunch at Pig'n'Pancake, we went swimming. There weren't any clocks in the room with the pool, so when I thought it had been an hour, we headed back to the room and found we had been there for an hour and a half. It's nice to see that the girls are so comfortable in the water. We played some games while waiting for Jada to be done with her meetings. Phoebe did some crying and Ellen did some yelling. We had a good dinner in Cannon Beach at the Wayfarer with Manghelli. Then she and Jada went to the outlets in Seaside, and I was left to put the girls to bed again. That didn't go terribly well either, but after about an hour, they finally fell asleep just before Jada got back. Jada and I quietly read before turning in exhausted just after 9pm. The next morning, Ellen woke up at 5am and decided to keep us up, well, me anyway, but I woke Jada up telling Ellen to be quiet. We had breakfast at Pig'n'Pancake (it's one of my favorite places) and checked out. We all went down for a nap when we got home after lunch and slept for around 3 hours. The girls were much more pleasant after the rest, I must say.
Phoebe spelled "mess" on her own and with lower case letters on Sunday, October 7. Ellen wrote her own travel log for her class from this weekend. At Phoebe's gymnastics, she's using the bar and learned how to hang like a bat. (it's really fun to watch her try to demonstrate it on the floor pretending to be on the bar). She's really improved quickly on her forward rolls. Also on Wednesday afternoon, I came home to take care of Ellen while Jada went to all of her parent/teacher conferences. I helped make an apple crisp for the teachers dinner put on by PTO. Ellen's conference was that afternoon as well. She went with us to the conference and participated. She's doing well, but we'll be working on improvements just as we're supposed to. She was very squirrelly and nervous. She didn't seem to know what to do with herself with us all there at the same time. Of course, I'm on call this week, so I got called in that night. I had to hurry Jada home from her conferences (luckily she had just finished) so I could head in to work. I got home around midnight, and got called again at 2am. I didn't have to go in for that one, but I still had to get on the computer which woke me up for a while.
October's second weekend brought us an assortment of things to do around home. We had our usual array of errands and classes. We've replaced the weekly trip to the farmer's market with a trip to the orchard and moved that to Sundays. Jada took Ellen to her gymnastics class where she got to learn some things to do on the rings such as the bird's nest (described thusly by Ellen: "I hold like this (motioning with her arms up over her head), and then I hook my feet into the rings and we turn our bodies like a ball that gets big." I don't understand myself, but she liked doing it) and the pencil where she's upside down with her toes pointed straight up. Finally, she learned how to do a backward flip while holding onto the rings. It doesn't sound like that last one was meant as part of a dismount. In Phoebe's clay class, she got right to work and made a little clay basket with handle all on her own. I just rolled the clay into a ball and handed it to her. The project in class was to make a cave painting on clay. Phoebe's turned out really nice. Saturday evening we went to Mass at St. Pius X for our friend's baby christening. Jada and I are his Godparents. He did very well with the water - no crying! After dinner at their house, we didn't get home until almost 9pm. Ellen still woke up at 6am on Sunday, but we didn't come out to get her until 6:45am or so. Sunday was more relaxed. Just a couple errands in the morning. Our roof work was completed before the rain is supposed to come back in, and we went looking for pianos. We've been talking about it for a long time, but we're just now starting to actually look. The girls had fun, though I must say that it's disconcerting when your 2 young children are literally pounding on the keys of a nearly 130 year old Steinway worth $45000. We weren't looking in that range. Phoebe fell in love with a glossy black Falcone upright. She was plucking the keys, and she said that she liked it because the high keys sounded like bells ringing. However, she really liked playing and singing along to her own songs. We're thinking that we'll head down to the main downtown store to see what they have in used pianos before we even consider a new one.
Ellen's soccer games ended on the 17th. The last 2 games were played in low 50's temps and near darkness. Ellen really does a nice job dribbling when she's all alone. In her final game of the season, Ellen scored a goal! She also got knocked down by a little girl who was frustrated. Ellen came out of the game to settle down. She was muddy and a bit surprised by the whole thing, but otherwise she was ok. The girl's coach made her apologize and took her out of the game as well. Ellen was able to calm down and return to the game.
Ellen lost another tooth (her top front) finally on Friday, October 19th. She lost it while eating a pickle slice at Sweet Tomatoes restaurant. It took forever to fall out. We were all pretty happy.
The weekend of the 20/21st of October was pretty laid back. We didn't do much. We went to grandma's apartment to visit and setup a bit of security on her computer so not just anyone can get onto it. Since Phoebe's clay class was canceled because of an event at the site where her class is, we all went to Ellen's gymnastics class. Phoebe and I watched from the hall windows while Jada went and got a work out in at the gym on site. Ellen is quite good at gymnastics. She never stops bouncing around in there. The only thing I saw her have trouble with is the high balance beam where she is definitely nervous about the height, but she did it without out holding on the teacher. We had Sears come over to do maintenance checks on our washer and dryer since we've never done it. We got bad news on both fronts. We'll need to replace the washing machine. The transmission is leaking oil so it'll have to be replaced. They could have replaced it then, but the tech said that we could buy a whole new machine for less than that. He suggested running it until it dies, so we have some time before we have to replace it. We don't know just how long though. We also found that the dryer, although in good working condition, can't be used until we can get the vent duct completely cleaned out. There's a blockage still that I can't get to. So I made a few phone calls to some places, but none were open on the weekend. We'll have to wait on laundry until later since air drying doesn't work terribly well in the house, and we've had a lot of rain lately. After the whole laundry fiasco, we settled in to let the girls watch the Charlotte's Web movie that came out a few years ago. Ellen was very emotionally involved in that movie as well even though she had read the book and knew how it ended. Phoebe handled it ok. After that, we made my Chicago-style pizza, played some Mancala, started the next Little House book, and went to bed. Sunday we went looking at pianos again, and we found a new washing machine.
Phoebe woke up on Monday with a fever of 102.4 so I stayed home with her. After her nap in the afternoon, her temp was down to 99.5, and by Tuesday morning, she was back to normal. However, she was congested. We let her go to school though. She has continued to have a cough and raspy voice all week, but she's otherwise ok. On Wednesday, we were able to get the carpets cleaned and the dryer vent pipe cleaned. The dryer vent pipe was so clogged, they had to go into the crawlspace to take the pipe apart to clear it. It's a good thing that they did since they discovered that we have quite a mouse infestation down there. They've been chewing the insulation, and they've chewed holes in the vapor barrier. All the construction behind us drove them into our neighborhood. Savannah's been doing a decent job, but she's only one cat. So now we're going to have to get all that taken care of too. I set that up for November 1st. This has been the year of home fixing. The house is 15 years old, so I guess that is one of the big milestone years. It definitely hasn't helped our pocketbook much, though. But that all goes under the column "joys of home ownership" I guess. Thursday was library story time where the kids got to wear their costumes. Phoebe was excited for that. She dressed in her new Minnie Mouse costume, complete with gloves and mouse ear headband. She was quite adorable. She kept smoothing down her skirt in the car and at the library. The room was filled to capacity and beyond.
On our last weekend of the month, we had terrific weather. It was cold in the mornings, but at least it was sunny and clear. The foliage is bright and colorful, and with the high winds over the last couple days, most of it is in my yard. The girls had their classes on Saturday morning, we visited grandma, I picked up a new guitar book with a variety of songs, we all had a good nap, and we did some book shopping. Sunday was more errands, yard work, and getting the cars washed while the weather lasts. The girls got some quality time outside, something that we really don't do enough with them just at home. They played with their chalk coloring some of the river rock in our front yard like Easter eggs as well as some of the paving stones on the barrier wall.
Phoebe quote after a shower: "Brrrr. it's in the cold season". Both of the girls are showering now which my back appreciates.
Finally, the last day of the month. All Hallows Eve. This year, Ellen went dressed as a cowgirl and Phoebe went as Minnie Mouse. They were so cute. They had their parties at their respective schools. Ellen's teacher Mr. Mack dressed up as a cowboy. She really liked that. On the way to Phoebe's party she said that she was "more excited every minute." Jada dressed as a gardener for her party. I just dressed as a bike commuter on the way to and from work. Then after school, Jada took them over to Grandma's to score some ooh's, ah's, and yummy candy there as well. Papa came over after that for a little bit to see their costumes. Then it was actually a pretty good night for trick-or-treating. It was around 50 degrees, overcast, with a hint of the waning moon filtering through the clouds. We had a big boom of trick-or-treaters right off at the start, and it tapered through the night. However, we had a pretty decent turn out this year. Many of them were from the new development behind us.
We finished off the night by clearing our closet so that the workers can get into our crawl space tomorrow to try to clear out the mice. What fun. Happy Halloween.
Journal Entry: October 31, 2007