Oregon Trip Day 1

There was a day zero, Mollie and I are both computer scientists after all.  But it was less eventful.  Mollie and the youngest three drove to The Dalles to pick Harrison and me up at the Discovery Science Center.  It was the end of Harrison's school trip (2 day campout). We drove into Portland and got to our hotel.  I went out to get our dinner (at Elmers, which you don't need to revisit) and then we pretty much hunkered down for the night. Harrison had been up late for a few nights on the campout, and the other kids needed rest too.  Harrison was taking a test early in the morning, and so he got a room to himself.  Olivia ended up coughing most of the night, (apparently, she had a light case of pneumonia, but we'll get to that later...), so it was a rough night of sleep for all of us, except Harrison.

So Day 1. We started the day with a wonderful full breakfast at the hotel.  I think one of the things that helps to narrow our hotel search is whether they offer a free breakfast or not.  We only stay at those that do.  This had a pretty great breakfast bar with eggs, sausage, hash browns, fresh waffles, cereal, bagels, muffins, fresh fruit and yogurt. The kids went down in shifts, and some of them went multiple times.  When you wake up at 6:30, you might as well use all of the morning.  At about 8:30 we headed out  for our day.  Harrison and I went to his testing center while Mollie took the rest of the kids to Grant Park, home of several Beverly Cleary statues. She said that the sculpture garden was unexpectedly small, but did have a few statues of favorite Beverly Cleary characters.

The park had a great playground area.  Olivia and Noah loved the teeter/totter, and there were great swings on 15 foot chains.

After we all met up again, we set out to the zoo.  Arriving at the zoo around 10, we found a very full parking lot ... and several school buses.  We wandered through the parking for a few minutes and didn't see any open spaces, but it was a very small parking lot. When we finally found a attendant, we asked where the overflow parking area was.  He said "sorry that's all we got."  Feeling a bit confused and definitely disappointed, we followed signs to the rose garden, another destination in our plans for later that day.  We had planned to take the train from inside the zoo out the rose garden at the end of the day. The Rose Garden is massive; rows and terraces filled with beautiful roses.  We found a shady spot next to a fountain and sat down for lunch while we figured out what to do next.  A woman and her in-laws passed by and started watching the kids play.  While chatting the topic of the zoo came up, and we asked if she knew if you could take the train from the rose garden into the zoo.  She was pretty sure you could but also mentioned that she was a zoo member, and could get us free passes. She headed up to the train to pick up our tickets and in a few minutes she came back with zoo passes for the entire family.  We only had to pay for the train tickets, which we were planning on riding anyway. What an amazing run-in and turn around to our day. We lazily finished up our lunch in the roses, and Olivia made quick friends with one of the rose volunteers who
was dead-heading the roses.

She carried her bucket for her while she told her all about not finding a parking spot for the zoo.

Levi loved playing in one of the fountains.

 I had Harrison hold on to his ankles so he wouldn't fall in head first.

  After a few pictures, we set out to the zoo.

The train was lots of fun.  Levi and kids loved the ride through some really beautiful woods.

Since the zoo tickets were free, we splurged on ice cream cones from a vending machine while we waited for the train.  That's what's dripping from Olivia's chin...

On the ride, the kids looked at the map and settled on the 'must see' list animals.  Harrison wanted the big cats and Noah wanted the elephants.  Olivia wanted the horses, which we substituted with gazelles. Mollie wanted to see the polar bears and I wanted to see monkeys. Luckily the Portland zoo had all of those.

Harrison in front of the tigers.  Making his best frightened face. 

So glad we had the baby backpack.  Allowed Levi to get a good view at the zoo.

We had great views of a lot of the animals.

We almost missed this little viewing window, but I'm so glad we didn't.  I've never been so close to a big cat before!  It was pretty amazing.

Checking out the elephants.

Got really close up to the polar bear as well. He was hanging out in the shade.

We walked through a single loop and found everything.  It was a pretty warm day for Oregon, and Olivia continued to cough all day long. After the zoo, we rode the train back to our car and set out to get our dinner.  We planned to hit up a pizza place near the rose garden.  I called ahead to order the pizza and got a very generic answering machine, which made us feel less than confident.  When we drove there, it was boarded up (recently, since I had downloaded the menu just days prior...)  Confused and hungry we drove to the hotel.  And hit a good bit of Portland traffic on the way.  It was good, though, as it gave the kids a chance to sleep in the car.  We had noticed that there was a Red Robin in the shopping area near the hotel, so that became our dinner.  We also found an urgent care facility near the hotel.  The urgent care had a great website where we could fill out the paperwork online and set up an appointment time. It was  a quick visit where they concluded it might be pneumonia, prescribed antibiotics (which they were able to fill on site) and recommended a chest x-ray.  Olivia started the antibiotics, and managed to sleep a lot better that night.  We all tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour, which is never easy on a vacation after an amazing day.

OMSI camp (Harrison guest blog)

I was on a trip to an OMSI camp in upper Oregon, near Mt. Hood, that my fourth grade class went to, along with another fifth grade class. There was a long bus ride that started about 7:30 and ended at noon. I did not like it. I sat up front because I felt "bus-sick"  I got off the bus while the bus was trying to find a spot to park. Afterwards,I got together in a group with other people and had a lesson called 'field study'. Our group leader found a slug and offered that people lick it.  I was not up for it.  We discovered orange/red berries called salmon berries. they looked like raspberries.I had quite a few  They were very good.

salmon berry bush

 I am in the cabin with my friends: Felix, Diego, Brandon, Nikhil, Carlos, Ean , my dad and Nikhil's dad.
After field study I had some free time and then went to a camp fire where the OMSI staff did very funny things.  There was a skit called Johnny got run over by a water buffalo.  They did the skit normal, dramatic, slow, fast,backwards, and with zombies.  The best thing at the campfire was the "Great OMSI Staff Nymph".  It was basically four staff members with linked arms.  They would answer questions by one head saying one word and the next head saying the next word. I  asked them what was 33*33?  They answered, 'Once there was a beautiful lady. She got a carpet but it had mice. So she got a new one.' I was not impressed by their answer, but impressed by the correctness of their grammar.

June 4 - Day 2

Today I woke up early to the light outside the cabin. My cabin had to go help the kitchen get ready for breakfast. Afterwards we had breakfast.  Then we went to field study where we caught critters and learned about ecosystems in the water. I caught a water skimmer and a roughskin newt. The newt was like a little alligator. I forgot I had my digital camera and was reminded right when I let the newt go. Luckily Dad got a picture of some newts with his group.

roughskin newts

Deer!

I saw a deer afterwards.
  Then we went on a long kike around looking and asking questions about plants. In the middle we had lunch. A deer came to about 2-3 feet away. It was so cool.

Afterwards I had something called an interest group. That day I had signed up for survival.  It was great. Me, Ava, Ean and Mason build a fort using ferns, moss, dead sticks and a fallen tree.

 Then we toured around other people's forts. One was very large with a pit, one used mainly live trees as a rain protection, and one was small. Then there was rest time. I rested and practiced a skit called Who's on First  By Abbott and Costello with Felix. It was fun.



Then there was EcoJep, an ecology themed jeopardy. I liked the question from odds and ends: "impersonate an OMSI staff member". I was part of a great OMSI staff nymph impersonation. It was fun trying to end the sentence.  Instead of getting the normal (as our leader tells us) score, -1, we got the score 'A LOT'!  Then was time for the campfire.  I did my skit with Felix and it was definitely the least random and most classic thing at the campfire. Just before bed, Dad took my cabin out stargazing. Mrs. Maxon, my teacher, came too. Then we had to go to bed.

June 5 - Day 3
I woke up today to people talking.  I thought it was still nighttime, so I was going to ask them to please stop, but then I saw the light coming from the window inset into the door. Then I had breakfast. Afterwards it was time for interest groups. I signed up for Squid dissection, but it was way too gross for me.  I instead went to early Oregon studies.  There I threw a spear with a tool, called an atalal(prnoced atal-latal), and tried to make fire with a spinning bow. After a short while I boarded a bus back to the Dalles. My family picked me up and we started the Portland/Seaside trip.

Olivia learns to ride a bike

Olivia is surprising.  There are some things that she just figures out without much help.  I remember when I came home one day, Mollie told me that she had learned to swing on her own. The only help she needed was an explanation of "pump your legs."  She got it from that.

She has had a bike that without training wheels and without pedals for a while.  Actually she left this bike behind the van.  So one day I backed over it and broke the front crank.  Because it could not keep the chain on, I took the pedals off.  Olivia would cruise on this bike, half running half gliding.  Using that bike probably really prepared her for balance and other needs of a two wheel normal bicycle.

After the effort that it was to get our boys comfortable on their bikes, I was wondering how much effort it would be to teach Olivia. Saturday morning, she asked me to take the training wheels off her bike.  Just a few days earlier Mollie had suggested that she try to ride without training wheels and Olivia defiantly said "maybe when I'm five." However, today she was ready.

I don't know if I gave her any explanation, but the video below is her first attempt.

Kids Dig Rigs

On Saturday morning, the youngest three kids and I set out to Columbia Park for a community event called "Kids Dig Rigs".  It was a hands on display of many different kinds of large equipment from farms, construction sites, and public safety.  Our first stop was a sprayer, a big tractor with 120 foot wingspan to spray crops.  We waited in a short line to hop up inside and sit in the driver seat.

Levi was a trooper for me.  He didn't get to go up into the tractors and push buttons.  He mostly played with the gigantic tires.  He also had a lot of fun playing in the bucket of a big front loader. He ran back and forth in that thing for at least 10 minutes.

After looking at a couple of varieties of farm equipment, we were lucky to see some demolition!An old SUV was compacted in a car crusher and everyone cheered as it was smashed.

I think that the kid's favorite part was the police/fire/ambulance.  While Olivia and Noah got excited being in the back of a squad car, Levi simply poked at the lights on the grill.  He loved it.

A final cool thing that they had was a fire drill like RV.  Kids got inside and it was decked out like a house.  The kids got to wander around and then the RV filled with smoke.  Firemen prompted the kids to stop/drop and roll.  Then they talked about how to find a good exit.  The door had a hot door knob and so they made it to a window and climbed out.

This was a fun quick Saturday activity.

Levi's First Birthday

I can't believe how fast this year has flown.  Sweet Levi turned one on April 11th.  We celebrated as a family with lots of color.  Levi loved all the attention, and especially loved having birthday cake.  He didn't nap well at all, and seemed to know that the day was all about him, and he wasn't about to miss any of it.

We had the house all decorated when he woke up, and he loved playing with the balloons, and a few of his unwrapped presents.

One of his first (and still few) words is ball.  He loves balls.  So a basketball hoop seemed quite appropriate.

All the kids were excited to help Levi open his presents.  He got plenty of lift the flap books, which he loves flipping through.

I just can't enough of this kid's infectious smile.  He's got 8 teeth, and I keep thinking the molars are coming any day...

Levi is all BOY.  He loves balls, throwing things and grunting.  He also loves music, and can't help but move to the beat.  He really enjoys looking through books, and flipping all the flaps.  He is a great sleeper, sleeping 12 hours at night, and still takes 2 naps, although he's close to dropping one.  He loves to watch his older siblings, and get in on the action when he can.  He's walking everywhere now, and loves to push books off shelves and make a mess out of the Tupperware.  We love having this sweet baby as part of our family!

Easter

This year we organized an Easter Egg hunt with some local friends on Saturday.  It was a huge success.  I plan on doing this every year!  It's fun to throw a party when there's no clean up (before or after) involved.  We just set a date and time, and told each family to bring 10 eggs per kid to be hidden.  We did our best to corral the kids on one side of the park while the dads hid the eggs on the other side.  I tried to get some games going, but the kids were pretty anxious to get hunting.  We managed to get a semi good game of duck duck goose (I tried calling it chick chick bunny, but I think that confused most of the kids...)

Then we let the kids go find eggs - releasing them by age (2 and under, then 4 and under, etc.) and told each kid to only find 10 eggs and then stop looking.  We had at least 50 people there, friends from work, our neighbors and church friends, and we were pretty much the only people at the park.  The weather was perfect, in the 70's and sunny, which is warm for early spring here.

Olivia with one of her best buds, Eliza.

The kids also got their Easter baskets from the Easter bunny on Saturday morning.  Levi loved his new ball.  He's pretty easy to please!

Here's some photos I took of the kids in their Easter duds.  I can't resist dressing the boys  up a like on Easter.  There's got to be something fun about dressing little boys, and Easter is one of those things.

We had a fun meal of ham, asparagus, homemade rolls and strawberry pie.  Sam helped the kids do origami lotus flower for place settings and we turned the napkins in to festive little bunnies.  Sometimes on holidays like this I envy people who have lots of family around, but at the same time, I really enjoy it being just us, and pretty laid back.