October 2
We had a nice beginning to our October. Bright colors are starting to appear in the trees, and the sun has been out in the afternoons after morning clouds. This morning we had 2 soccer games. Ellen's was at 9am and Phoebe's at 10 at reasonably close fields. Ellen's team really had some nice passing and spacing. On a goal kick, Ellen was able to take a pass from a teammate and score. Her first of the season. We were able to make it over to Phoebe's game just after it started. Phoebe didn't score in this game. I think that might have been her first non-scoring game. But she did have a good assist. We visited Gram after lunch, Jada went to her hair cut, and the girls and I went to the orchard. We went out to dinner near a park that we could walk to. We let the girls play there for about 30 minutes before calling them home. While they were getting ready for bed, I was brushing Ellen's teeth and got her very loose tooth to fall out. It was completely unintentional. I barely touched it, and it popped out. It was a lower side tooth.
October 8
Last Sunday, Jada wasn't feeling well, so I took the girls with me over to a friend's house. I was going to try to help them revive a computer that had gone belly-up, and one of their sons is one of Ellen's friends. The other is in Jada's Kindergarten classroom. I wasn't able to fix the OS, but I was able to determine that the data on the drive was ok, and explained how they could get it off of there after installing a new OS on a different drive. I ended up missing my guitar lesson that afternoon because I lost track of time.
We had pretty nice weather all week long. Ellen had soccer practice on Monday night, and Jada attended an art sale for our friend who painted our front porch bench while we were on vacation this summer. I had a teambuilding event out in Forest Grove at the McMenamin's Grand Lodge pub all afternoon. I played Frisbee golf for the first time. It was actually fun, but none of us was any good at it. I had to fish one of the "discs" out of a tree (don't tell anyone). I rode my bike home from there, so I had a very pleasant 20 mile ride through the valley. Phoebe's soccer practice was cancelled since the coach was ill. Jada had a massage appointment Wednesday night, so Phoebe practiced with us. Unfortunately, Ellen couldn't keep herself from being mean to her sister, so she ran many laps. Luckily she practiced with the boys Thursday while Phoebe was at practice.
Friday morning was when the fun started. I went to the gym and then over to play basketball as usual. I had played 3 games, and we were almost done with our 4th when it would be time for me to get home to start the morning breakfast routine when I made a boneheaded decision for an old guy with kids playing pick-up basketball. I went diving for a loose ball at the top of the key, collided with the opposing player, bouncing my forehead off the court, and opening a gash just above my left eyebrow. I rushed home to wake up Jada and let her know I was on my way to the ER. After about 90 minutes, I was all done with 2 stitches in my head. The funny thing is this morning, it had occurred to me before I left for the gym that maybe I should start carrying my wallet with me, you know, just in case. I also need to include bringing my phone in that instance. The guys at the game were helpful in getting the gash closed with some band-aids, and I grabbed an ice pack while I was at home. They deadened the area before stitching. I didn't feel queasy or get close to blacking out or anything so that was good. This has just not been my year for injuries and ER visits. Hopefully I'm getting them all out of the way for the next several years.
By the time I got home, the girls were almost ready for their trip to Fort Clatsop and the vent cleaning guy was on his way. I heard scratching in the same places where I had heard it 3 years ago when we had our big mouse problem. Except this time, I called in to get it checked out immediately. I had already schedule it for today, so having stitches didn't affect whether I went into work or not. He found lots of evidence of mice so he refilled traps with bait and sprayed some deterrent inside the crawlspace and around the outside too. Hopefully that'll help. Plus I'm going to have them come back out quarterly.
Jada took the Tribeca to Fort Clatsop as a test of it's hauling capacity. She had 2 adults and 5 kids in the car on a 2 hour drive. They had a lot of fun and all the kids earned Jr. Ranger badges and patches. They didn't get home until around 5pm.
October 9
It was a rainy day. We had both of the girls' soccer games at 9am on different ends of town. Ellen's team played a really good game. They were passing well, spacing well, and defending well. Ellen was able to score a goal in this game too. Jada reported that Phoebe had a couple scores in her game too, but she got hurt at the end of the game. She had gotten inadvertently pushed to the ground and the girl tripped over her head. It wasn't serious. She just walked it off. Ellen had a play date in the afternoon with a friend taking piano lessons from a different teacher, but she also participates in the competitions that Ellen is in. They just happen to both be practicing the same duet piece with the opposite parts, so they were each able to practice it together with someone. Jada said it sounded really good. And to cap off our all about Ellen day, she had a birthday party to attend starting at 7pm. We picked up one of Ellen's friends to take out to dinner before going to the party to help his parents out. He plays guitar, so he had fun playing the electric guitar while he played Purple Haze. He dressed up as Poseidon and Ellen was Athena. They are mortal enemies as they kept explaining. It was a Halloween themed party with a haunted house set up at the birthday girl's back yard. The party ran until 10pm! Ellen had a good time, politely refused treats, and when I picked her up, she was not out of control. It was nice. She said she wasn't tired, but I could tell she was. By the time we reached home, she could barely stand any more she was so tired. I don't think it took more than a couple minutes for her to fall asleep.
October 10
It was really raining this morning which was also the morning of the Portland Marathon. Ellen woke up late, thankfully. Phoebe woke up when I came out. I didn't sleep at all during the night again. I was bothered by my stitches itching. Napping was impossible as Phoebe cried and yelled instead of doing her piano practice. We did our grocery shopping and I made a trip to the orchard in the morning. We visited Gramma in the afternoon, and I went to my guitar class. Not much else going on.
October 16
We had a very pleasant and cool fall week. The sun was out most of the week with temperatures in the 40's in the morning and upper 60's in the afternoon. Wednesday afternoon, I got my stitches out. My head healed up really well. I can barely see the scar. I also ordered new glasses since my old ones are quite beat up and scratched. Though my eye doctor's office hasn't faxed my prescription over yet. Friday was the Fun Run at the girls' school. This is THE fundraiser for their school. They run laps for 15 minutes around a 100 yard square in the school. I volunteered in the afternoon to do lap counting. Ellen ran in the morning. Jada was able to be there for hers. Ellen ran 27 laps which is 2 better than last year. I got to see Phoebe run in the afternoon for 20 laps which is also 2 laps more than last year. Jada ran with her kindergarten class, she completed an impressive 21 laps, considering she didn't practice at all. She claims it was pride that kept her going, as her big buddy class of fourth graders were watching and cheering the kindergartners on. Pride has also given her a sore hip and an legs, gotta love those concrete and linoleum floors! It was hard to keep track of all the kids in our groups, but it was fun. From there we went to the group piano lesson so the girls could do their practice for Festival of Ribbons and Ensemble in front of their peers. It also gave Ellen a chance to practice her duet with her other partner.
Saturday we had a beautiful but chilly day. The girls had their soccer games later (Phoebe at 11 and Ellen at noon) so we were able to get our shopping done early. The fields were no where near each other. I had to leave at 11am just to make it to Ellen's field in time for warm ups. The girls did a great job again today. Ellen didn't score, but she did a good job of moving the ball up field and keeping it in the opposing teams zone. Phoebe did score, I heard. She also chipped her ball over a fence during the warm up time and a teammate's 5th grade sister was kind enough to retrieve it by climbing the fence. It was coming up on 2pm by the time Ellen and I got home. We drove out to visit Gramma, but she was sleeping. So we went on errands instead hitting the bank, library, bread store, apple orchard, and eye doctor. I had fun practicing my guitar to a play along track my instructor gave me. I've learned some fun fills using sixths and thirds along with some pentatonic scales to play around with. When we got back from the orchard, I had the gift I bought with my 15 year anniversary gift card sitting on the porch. It's the new Making of StarWars: The Empire Strikes Back book. It's big and heavy. I also got a new monitor for the computer. Our old CRT was starting to have issues, so Jada ordered it for me for an early Christmas present. She always knows exactly what I want.
October 17
It was in the upper 30's when we woke up this morning, and in the upper 50's in the house. This is the usual 2 week period it takes for the heater to start running again that I have to deal with every year. It ran last week, and then it just stopped again last night. I've had the furnace checked out, and it is fine. I think the problem is with the thermostat. I may have to look into replacing that soon. We went out for breakfast, though cooking at home may have made the house a little warmer. The girls did their piano practice. They're already practicing Christmas music for their winter recital, so that's a little annoying just because I prefer not to hear Christmas music before Thanksgiving.
It was a tough morning and afternoon with both of the girls. Every time we asked them to do something today it was a fight. As many of you know, parenting is a frustrating job. We had a nice visit with Gramma, she was in and out of sleep most of the time while the girls put together a puzzle, and I was sent on numerous errands by Jada to help out her mom-water, sweater, pillow, caregiver, etc. We returned home so I could get ready for my guitar lesson and massage appointment. It looked like both the girls were finally on track to get things done. According to Jada, they finally finished cleaning out the playroom, getting their lunches made for tomorrow, and doing their chores. Jada made a yummy soup for dinner, with a side of honey whole wheat bread from our new favorite bakery, Bungalow Bread. She put the girls to bed early to help them get ready for another busy week of school, soccer, piano, and hopefully a visit to Powell's on Tuesday night to see Ellen's favorite author, Rick Riordan.
October 19
Rick Riordan visited Powell's in Beaverton. In preparation, Jada wanted me to be at Powell's by 11am since there had been horror stories about how long the lines were for the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, however when I arrived there was no one there waiting in line. I milled about looking at books for about 30 minutes while our friend Sandi who also came to stand in line went shopping at another store. While I was sitting down in one of the comfy chairs, a woman went and sat at the start of the line. So I went over to sit behind her just to be safe. Sandi made it back well within time to be 3rd in line. More people started showing up around 12:30pm. There was quite a few people in line by 2pm when the tickets were ready to be deployed. We each picked up extra tickets for moms that couldn't make it over to pick up the tickets. Then I went back to work. By the time I got home, Jada had already taken the girls over to get the signatures from the author. They headed out early, just to be safe. Ellen brought the only hard backed copy of his books that she owned, and Jada pre-purchased another of his books that Ellen had borrowed from a friend. Jada had even pre-purchased a signed copy of his new book, just incase we were unable to get tickets. The girls met up with several friends at Powell's, only to find a mad house. The place was filled with people, some of whom were still in line to get tickets for the event. Just before 6 pm, the last ticket was given out-1,000 in total. It was recommended that anyone with a higher number head home or out to eat for a couple of hours, as they would not be getting their books signed until about 9pm. Since I had been the second in line, Ellen and her friends were in the first group to get their books signed. Apparently it went really fast, with few words shared between the kids and author. All the kids said Rick was very nice. One of Ellen's friend shared with him that she'd read his new book twice, and he was pleasantly surprised by the statement. After their books were signed, the kids played around in front of the store while the moms chatted. Then it was home and to bed for the Pearson girls. They had a great time.
October 20
At 11:38 last night, we had Phoebe outside our door calling for us and telling us that Ellen threw up. She threw up over the railing and all over her bed. I'm sure it must have been a pretty gross waterfall of vomit from the top bunk. We got Ellen cleaned up and back in bed by 1am, and we put Phoebe on the bed in the playroom just in case we had another incident. I lay in bed awake for about an hour waiting for the next coughing fit that would precede another attack, but it didn't come. I finally rolled over and went to sleep after 2am. Thankfully, I had remembered to turn off my alarm for 4am to go to the gym, but the alarm for 5:30am came too soon all the same. Ellen wanted to go to school, but we kept her home in the morning when she finally admitted that she didn't really feel very well. I took Phoebe to school to do the passport testing. Phoebe passed all levels including the flags. Ellen and Jada showed up a little before 10am. I had to take off at 10:30am, so I didn't get to test too many kids from Ellen's class. Wednesday night, Ellen stayed home from soccer practice, but I took Phoebe. We ended up scrimmaging the U11 boys that share our field for practice so Phoebe didn't play much.
October 24
Thursday I found out I was selected for one of the available tickets for the Blazers home opener next Tuesday. So that was pretty cool. Ellen was feeling a bit better so she was back at school all day. She even practiced with the U10 boys that practice over at the school along with Phoebe's team. Friday, one of Ellen's friends came home to play after school.
Saturday was a rainy day. Phoebe's soccer game was at 11am, and Ellen's was at 12pm again this week. Phoebe got sprinkled on during her game, but it was raining pretty hard at Ellen's field until right before we got out of the car. Then it magically stopped and didn't rain during the whole game. From Jada's reports, Phoebe's team had no subs again this week so they were tired. Ellen's team only had 1 person out sick, so we had 3 subs. Ellen wasn't all that into the game. She was still pretty worn out from being sick so she wasn't running much, and basically staying out of the action which wasn't great for the team. However, the team did a nice job. Good passing and defense. We had another girl trying out in the goal this week for the first time, and she did a good job as well. Every week we give someone else an opportunity to play in goal if they want to so our best keeper can run the field. Usually we swap her in the second half, but our new keeper was having fun, so we left her in. We stopped by to see Gramma on the way home from the games, and the girls were able to play one of the memorized pieces they're working on for the Festival of Ribbons next month. Late in the afternoon, I got called to the bridge for an issue. I'm getting ready to enter our pool of managers for oncall, and this was my first week shadowing the primary person. I was on the phone from 3pm until 7pm.
Sunday morning, we made our breakfast, and I had to get back on the phone at 9am since we hadn't completely resolved the issue from the night before. While on the phone I realized I haven't put up new pictures since August! I'll be working on that some today. I also got an email informing me that my guitar instructor is leaving the Take Lessons family to go on his own. He's taught me a lot of things that I felt were missing, so he's going to honor the end of our lessons since I paid for 3 months in advance which ends at the end of November. Then we'll see where we go from there.
October 28
It's been a typical fall for Oregon with much cooler temperatures and rain. Monday's soccer practice was cold and wet, but we had the whole field to ourselves so we were able to scrimmage a bit. Tuesday night I got a free ticket from Intel for the Blazers' home opener against the Suns through our "Great Place to Work" program. Unfortunately, it only extended to employees. I couldn't get one for Jada too, so she termed it the "Great place to get divorced" program. It was a fun game, and the Blazers won. It almost made me wistful for my days as a season ticket holder except that I got home late, and I'm not as young as I used to be. I just can't handle late nights any more. There's also the sitting in those seats for long periods of time that kills my back. While I was at the game, or more accurately, on my way downtown on the train, the girls were having soccer practice. It was Phoebe's last of this season. Ellen still has 2 more weeks. Wednesday's soccer practice was chilly but not rainy. We had the whole field to ourselves again and almost a whole team. We did another scrimmage. The girls like it, and it helps them work on their skills. Jada got some time out with one of her friends Wednesday evening. Thursday early morning, we had parent/teacher conferences for Ellen and Phoebe from 7-8am. Then Jada had another 11 hours of conferences scheduled.
October 31 - Happy Halloween
Friday was a no school day so the girls were at home with Jada all day. In the morning, Jada had arranged for the carpets to get cleaned. Then they got the grocery shopping done. Ellen had a friend over for a playdate in the afternoon.
Saturday was cold and rainy for Phoebe's last soccer game. Her game started at 9am, but Ellen's didn't start until 10:30am, so I was able to help fill in as coach of one of the fields for the first half. I asked one of the other parents to take over for the second half so Ellen and I could go to her game. It had started raining by then, and it was maybe 49 degrees (according to the car's thermometer). Ellen's team had a great game. Ellen had an assist in the first half from the side to the center for the score. She also got a goal off of the opposing team's goal kick. She also got cleated accidentally by an opposing player. She was fine after sitting out for a couple minutes. We were wet and cold by the end of the game. Jada, Ellen, and Phoebe went to the art studio for an open studio time in the afternoon so I used the time to take a nap. I made pizza in the afternoon for a Halloween party we attended that night at a friend's house. It started at 7:30pm, but both of the girls actually napped in the afternoon as well so they could go. Phoebe was Hermione Granger and Ellen was Athena. I went as Captain Hammer, and Jada went as my girlfriend, Penny. All she had to do was carry a clipboard to get signatures. I wore my Captain Hammer t-shirt, some black cycling gloves, and my cargo pants. We didn't take any pictures ourselves, so hopefully the party's host will post the pictures she took so we can get them. The girls ran around with the other kids who were there. We left there at almost 10pm.
On Halloween, we got out of bed late. I wish I could say I slept in, but I heard the girls' door open and close at 5:50am, and several times after that until I got out of bed around 7am. We made a big breakfast, and I went to the orchard followed by my massage appointment. We spent almost the whole time working on my right foot which has the start of plantar fasciitis which is a common basketball injury. Hopefully we're catching it in time. It was a sunny afternoon, and quite pleasant. We spent time over at Gramma's before I needed to rush off to my guitar class. (Today really was all about me.) By the time I got home, we were heading over to a friend's house for dinner and trick-or-treating. Jada went out with the kids and other moms, and I stayed at the house with one of the other dad's (whose house we happened to be at so it wouldn't be too odd for people showing up expecting find someone who actually lived there). The girls all had fun making the rounds in this neighborhood since a lot of their friends from school live there. They traded candy when they got back to the house with the other girls. Ellen and Phoebe earned a lot towards books tonight. Jada will take most of the candy to school in a couple of days after all of the first round is gone to keep the teachers going. We got home around 9pm.
Journal Entry: October 31, 2010