September 5
On the first day of September, the girls had their meet the teacher night at school. I met them over there so I could take them to their classes. We met with Ellen's teacher first for 5th Grade so I could talk to him about her absence for Cycle Oregon the second week of school. The rooms all looked very clean, but it's going to be crowded in there with all 32 students that are registered for class. Phoebe is going into 3rd Grade, and we got to meet her teacher as well. She'll also have around 30 kids in her class. The classroom that Phoebe is in is the same classroom Ellen was in, but with a different teacher. They both put their school supplies in their desks, and we went out to the playground to wait for dinner. The PTO had arranged for hot dogs for dinner. They were pretty good hot dogs too. Large and with a good flavor. I picked one up for Jada, but by the time she was able to get away from her classroom (she's going to have 29 students in her Kindergarten class) it was cold. She ate it anyway. The girls ran around with their friends, and they danced to the tunes the DJ played. Yes, they had brought in a DJ. I'm assuming it was someone related to a family at the school that was donating their time. We got to meet the new principal, well, I got to see the new principal. I haven't met her yet. She seems nice. She is already very familiar with the girls and Jada from setting up the classrooms all week. I found out that Phoebe gave the new counselor a tour of the building at some point during the week. Then one of Ellen's friends came home with us to spend the night.
Friday the 2nd, the girls went to their horse riding class. I think this was their last one for a while. They had fun as always riding the trails. Ellen's friend got car sick on the way home though, so I set up time to get the Tribeca cleaned next week. We haven't driven it since then, but Jada did her best to clean it up before they all went to lunch.
Saturday we went grocery shopping, stopped at the market, and then Gramm's. She was in a pretty good mood most of the time. After lunch we went on a medium ride. Jada and I apparently had a difference of opinion on what that was as we were out about an hour longer than she wanted to be. However, it was really, really windy after we stopped at Rood Bridge park for a rest. There were some kids that looked probably around Phoebe's age who were asking lots of questions about the bike, but they were fairly respectful of it and us. Lots of cyclists were out riding that day even though it was in the 80's. The wind kept us pretty cool though, just slow.
Sunday we went to Bullwinkle's for some mini-golf to use the free coupons the girls had gotten. I finally beat Jada. I think that may have been the first time I've beaten her in anything. We stopped by REI on the way home to pick up some waterproof journals for Cycle Oregon. The rest of the afternoon, we just hung around the house. I also made a run to Performance to get a new chain for the tandem to make sure I had an extra just in case before heading out to guitar class. Our teacher taught us how to setup the electric guitars to make sure the tone was all correct. It was actually not too bad on either, but they did need some adjustment. Jada had her massage in the evening, so I read some of the book "the Sixy-Eight Rooms" to Ellen and Phoebe before bed.
Monday was Labor day, and the temperature was expected to be in the upper 80's again, so we got out early. We headed up into Washington Park. On the way there, at the entry to the Sunset Corridor multi-use path, a club ride was just getting ready, and they gave us a round of applause. I thought for sure they would all pass us, but they either went a different way or they took a longer time to get started than I was guessing since we didn't see them again. Their cars were all still there when we came back down. We made really good time. Driving into the wind on Saturday made us stronger, I think. At the Rose Garden, we stopped at the usual place near the gift shop, and then we went down the hill past the usual park we go to and over to the playground at the roundabout at the top of Taylor street. The girls played on the teeter-totters the whole time. Its a more classic park there. Just swings and a slide to round things out. It was peaceful. We were the only ones there other than the folks occasionally passing through. We had a good climb up Fairview and back home. We were home by lunch time. We didn't do much else.
September 10
The week starting September 5 marked the first week of school. Jada had between 28 and 30 kids to start the year. She had a difficult time getting things going with that many little bodies in her room. She needed more chairs, tables, and Alphabet spaces on the rug, but there was none. She figured out a way to make due. The girls were both excited about their first week of school. Phoebe’s class has 28 students, while Ellen has 32 students again, but they each have some friends in their classes. As the week came to a close, Ellen didn’t really want to go on Cycle Oregon. She didn’t want to miss school or her friends, but we were going to go regardless.
Ellen and I went on Cycle Oregon 24. You can read all about it here.
September 10-17 Jada & Phoebe
While Dave and Ellen spent a week riding around the state as a part of Cycle Oregon XXIV, Phoebe and I spent a pretty low-key week at home. We went out for a 4 mile ride on our own bikes at the Greenway Park on Sunday and visited Gram both days of the weekend. Monday through Friday was less hectic school schedule than usual. On Monday we went out to dinner with my friend Meryl and her son Liam to celebrate both of our birthdays. Tuesday we headed over to Phoebe's piano teacher's house for her to practice with her ensemble partner. Wednesday was my actual birthday, so after Phoebe attended her first gymnastics class of the term, we enjoyed dinner at the new New Seasons on Barrow's Road. It was full to capacity and crazy busy. We shared a piece of chocolate cake and poor Phoebe was in bed late that night. Thursday was Back to School Night, and without Dave in town, I had to present to my kindergarten parents and manage to find out what our own kids will be doing this year. Another night to bed late for Phoebe. We didn't miss having to drive around to Ellen's many activities, since the week turned out busy enough for the two of us. By Friday, we were looking forward to an early night to bed and a late wake up time on Saturday. Unfortunately, I woke up with a headache and Phoebe woke up grumpy. We spend our morning resting at home, then went to lunch at Panera and to visit Gram. Phoebe and I took turns reading aloud from one of the American Girl books. Gram napped most of the time, but Phoebe and I enjoyed ourselves. Upon arriving home, we realized that Phoebe had forgotten her rain jacket at Panera, so it was back across town to retrieve it. I was able to take a 20 minute nap before Ellen called to say that she and Dave were within 30 minutes of town, so off we went to meet them for dinner. We were all very excited to see each other!
September 28
It’s been a while since I updated this journal. Part of that was because we’ve been so busy with school, catching up after Cycle Oregon, and upgrading my computer. During the week, Jada continued to take her bike when she dropped off the girls at school, and she rode her bike home a couple days a week. Then she rode back to school when it was time for her class to start. We started the Saturday with a trip to the market and grocery shopping. That Saturday was also the first soccer game where Ellen was able to play. You could tell she was a little out of practice, but she did ok. Jada’s dad, his wife, and her grandson came out to watch the game as well. It was nice to see them since it had been a long time. We all went out to grab some lunch after the game since it ended at 12pm. We had Jimmy John’s and talked for a while after lunch. It was late by the time we got home, and it was hot. So we decided not to take a ride on the quad. We went to visit Gramma for a while in the afternoon. She was awake, but not terribly alert. We stopped by Beaverton Bakery on the way home to pick up a birthday cake for the surprise birthday party we were giving Gramma on Sunday.
On Sunday, our PC that has valiantly tried to keep up for the last 11 years of service finally just ran out of resources. There’s only so much space I could make on the hard drive, so I ordered a new, larger drive before I left for CO, and it arrived on the Friday before we left. I finally decided last Sunday to go for it and complete the upgrade. I bought a copy of Windows 7 and more memory to max out the system to a whopping 4GB. I started to work on it in the morning when I realized that my new drive didn’t come with the SATA cables I needed to install to the motherboard. I was able to find the SATA cable at BestBuy, but the power adapter cable was at Radio Shack which didn’t open for another hour. So I spent the morning running back and forth. I finally got everything backed up that I was going to get backed up and powered down the PC. Since I was just starting up on a whole new drive I didn’t have to worry about losing data because it was all on the old drive or the external drive. Then we left for Gramma’s to meet up with some of her old friends who came to town as a birthday surprise. She was surprised and happy. Unfortunately, she slept almost the entire time, but she looked happy every time Jada woke her up to make sure she knew we were there. We left half the cake for the nice people at the facility who take care of Gramma, and we brought home about a quarter of it to finish ourselves. When we got home, Jada finished making her soup, and Phoebe and I ran off to guitar class. She’s starting a new song, Morning Has Broken. Her Ode to Joy is sounding great, and she plays along with a Garage Band recording that our teacher created for her. I’m still working on the solo for Collin Hay’s Overkill. It sounds like it should be easy from the song, but it’s got some quick changes that my fingers are refusing to get easily. I also picked up a new song by Blind Faith, Can’t Find my Way. It uses a drop D tuning on the guitar which I learned how to use a bit, so that’s fun. Lots of Joe Walsh songs use drop D too. After dinner, I started on the computer, and everything went pretty well. All the hardware came up and was recognized by the system. The OS install had a little hiccup, but I went online and found a solution quickly enough. I got the OS installed before bed. I spent a couple evenings last week just getting everything else installed that I really need, and I have now gotten to the point where I can start typing this again.
Ellen started violin lessons this week. She was a little disappointed though because it was a group lesson with most of the time spent with basic setup instruction and no actual playing. It’ll likely be like the first couple of lessons as they get through the beginning things. There’s only 1 other 5th grader in the class, and the age range is spread between 1st and 5th. I got a couple days riding to work this week, though both days had rain as fall is starting to make a few starts. Today and tomorrow look to be back to summer before another jab from fall over the weekend. Maybe I’ll make use of the rainy days to do some brake and shift cable replacements on the quad I’ve been putting off because one of them involves re-taping the handlebars. I think that’s one of the things I’m most scared to do on the bike. It seems so easy, but it’s something that a lot of people have very strong opinions about the right way to do it. But you have to start somewhere. I think I’ll just have to get it over with and try it out. If I can’t do it, I’ll have to have the Bike Gallery guys help me again.
October 1
I completely forgot yesterday was the last day of September. I thought I had one more day. On Thursday night, I got a lot of work done at Ellen’s soccer practice. I brought a mobile hot spot with me so I could connect to the work network. Ellen’s practice went a little past dark even though it starts at 5:30pm now to get a little more time in. Jada rode her bike to work for the last time on Thursday. I rode my bike to work for the last time this month on Friday. There was construction near the Nike campus on Murray that reduced the normally 4 lane road to 2 lanes, and forced car traffic to turn left because the northbound lanes were closed. However, the flaggers let me ride through the cones since the work was off to the far side of the road so I had 2 whole lanes of road to myself for a block after the dumptrucks. That was nice. Of course, there was also the distracted mom not paying attention and no turn signal that turned right in front of me at an intersection. I’m sure she never saw me despite my 3 flashing white lights in front. I watched her the whole way. She didn’t even glance over her right shoulder to check the bike lane. As a PSA, please use your turn signals. I am not a mind reader. They’re right there at your fingertips. I signal my turns, and it requires me to take a hand off my handlebars. As a motorist, I don’t have to so much as remove a hand from the steering wheel. This concludes my turn signal PSA. See you next month, and hopefully I’ll get some pictures posted in October.
Journal date: October 1, 2011