The Last Trip of The Summer - California

Last summer we went to California to visit my family there. My mom and my grandma and my aunt all live there in the Bay Area, along with a few friends who mean the world to me. I decided to repeat that this trip this summer and will probably do it again next summer as well.

We left on a Wednesday and made it down to Grants Pass and stayed the night with my dad and step mom, then finished up the next day.  I am glad we went because it turns out my mom had been in a minor car accident that left her with some vertigo and she needed my help.

In between helping out my mom, we did get in a few activities. Beach trips and park trips and visiting my grandma and swimming and so much else. I love seeing my family.

 In Grants Pass, after I let them out of the car, the kids ran wild around the house. Who can blame them after 5 hours in a car?

 Shasta Lake was really low. The drought in CA is very real and a bit on the scary side.

 One of the first things we did upon reaching California was take my mom to the chiropractor and then stop for some cupcakes while she was getting fixed.

 Mama's neighbor has chickens, we went over to get a few eggs and show the kiddos what chickens are like. They were very interested in them and very gentle with them.

 You can't be in Santa Cruz without seeing the little local aquarium, it is small but fun. The Marine Discovery Center was just the right size for these two.

 We spent a morning at my favorite beach in all the world, Bean Hollow's Pebble Beach. The kids and I had fun with the rocks and the waves and the little caves.

 Liam enjoyed climbing the tree in Great Grandma's backyard. Visiting her was hard. I wanted to take a picture of her, but I don't want to remember her stuck in a bed unable to walk. I chose not to photograph her that way. I don't think I will regret it.

 We spent a morning with my Michelle. This girl is one of the most loyal people in all the world and has been my friend for a long time. She loves my two little ones and has a lot of fun with them. She showed them the tide pools and one of her favorite beaches. I miss her.

 On my last day there I stopped by the reservoir at the bottom  of Hwy 17, the water level is the lowest I have ever seen it. It felt more than a little heartbreaking, but also made me glad to be heading home to my beloved rivers in Portland.

Our last stop was seeing some friends in Dublin, CA. We met them by chance in the park and it turned out that the girl went to the same school Liam was going to be starting at, but then they had to move. A few hours with them was a great morning and a good way to end the summer trip.

And of course I had to stop at a yarn store in Santa Cruz and pick up a little something for me.....

Yummy! I have plans for these!

Summertime Trip Number 1 - Grants Pass

We took a few days to go see my dad and step mom down in Grants Pass Oregon. The trip down took about 7 hours, 2 hours longer than it needed to, mostly because the kids, once you remove them from the car, do NOT want to get back into it.

Of course, there was the one funny stop. We had just gotten back into the car after stopping for a meal and were just back on the freeway when my son announces with great urgency that he needs to poop. We get to the next stop as fast as we can and figure we can fill up with gas while he poops. He is a rather shy pooper, so we have a little training potty from IKEA in the back of the car for him to use. We got him sitting on that while the car filled with gas. We didn't really NEED gas, but figured it was better to get it while we were there. My son ended up taking longer than expected to do his business and there was a line starting to form behind us. I had taken off to make my own pit stop and my husband made the decision to ever so slowly drive the car away from the pump. With the 4 year old sitting on his potty in the back of it. Yes the door was shut, he only traveled about 40 feet, just around the building to get out of the way. We spent another 15 minutes waiting for my son to finish up before we had to get him back into his car seat and clean the potty and finally get back on the road. As I sat there leaning on the car waiting for my son to poop, I had one of those "this is something only parents get to experience" moments and couldn't stop laughing because it was all so absurd.

We made it to the house late at night, around 9:30 and after unpacking and getting the children into pajamas, they took forever to fall asleep. At my dads house, there are guest rooms downstairs, but of course my son will not sleep there, and my daughter will not sleep in a playpen or even her own bed. No. She sleeps on a dog bed.




She ran around with my dad and the dogs there. The yellow labs are his, the grey and black Aussie is our dog, and the retriever is a neighbors dog who has adopted my dad and step mom as his own family and they treat him like one of their own.

So we got Evie's dog bed set up, and we pitched a tent in the living room for my son to sleep in. He likes it. Around 11pm we got him settled and asleep after reading a few stories, and then we tried to get my daughter calm and sleepy, but she was so keyed up that every time someone came or went into the main room she had to see what was going on. Well, my husband got the idea that she needed to watch some My Little Pony to fall asleep, but the TV was not set up to access the on demand stuff. My husband and my father spent an hour trying to get it set up, during which each time they left the room and I got her almost calm and sleeping, they would return and she would pop awake again. Finally, around 12:30, Ponies was happening, and the baby was dozing, and then my husband tried to move her into the other room. Yes. He did that. Of course she woke up and screamed. So it was back to the living room with her where she spent the night on the dog bed.

In the morning, we headed down to the Rogue River to play and splash and look for rocks. It didn't last long as the kiddos were tired and snoozy, but we had a bit of fun! Before we left, Liam spent some time talking to Amber about planes, and everything else that mattered to him. Amber is a good listener.

The kids spent the afternoon with Grandma Kathy and made home made ice cream, while my husband and I spent the afternoon with my dad. He is convinced that there is some gold on his property and we needed to help him dig up dirt and pan for gold. In a dry creek bed.  We tried, but found nothing but mica. Maybe in another spot on the mountain, we can try next time. When there is water running, so we don't have to haul dirt back to the house in a bucket. The kids had fun licking ice cream off the blades when the machine was done making it, so did the dogs....
 

We left in the afternoon on Tuesday after having lunch at this great little burger place, Jimmy's. Wow those were some tasty burgers, and truly hand made onion rings and frickles (fried pickles, YUM!). The drive home was a lot shorter, as the kids were already tired from all the having fun, so we could make it in great time with no stops.

Oh, and I almost forgot, before we left Evie got into the baby powder while I was packing the car and decided to make a mess. In my bedroom. That was fun to clean up!

And I even managed to get a nice picture of me and Evie, complete with her messy face!

The Story of Liam

I figure its time to get a little personal here. I thought I would share the story of my son and how he came to be.

It starts with a little bit of my own back story.

I had moved from Salt Lake City to Portland a few months ago, ended a rather toxic relationship that never should have happened, and was single but wanting to STAY single for a while. I was all geeked about the idea of dating someone and not just jumping into a relationship.

I was living with an old friend who had once been more than a friend many years ago, though that had fizzled out long ago by now.

Back when I was seeing that person, K, he lived with a roommate named Dan. Dan had a girlfriend and was never even more than a "hey hows it going" type of friend. He bought me a drink when I graduated from college... that was about it.

Well, one afternoon K and I are out on the patio doing whatever the hell late 20's  to mid 30's adults who never really grew up do. Talking, drinking, being silly. Well, Dan showed up out of the blue and brought his laptop. We all decided that watching a movie on the back patio on a late spring evening was a GREAT idea. Dan bent over to plug in the power cord and I... I admired the view. Keep in mind, I have not seen Dan for 5 years at this point.

K gets all happy and in a rather odd way says "Oh my gosh, you are single, he is single, you should totally go out!" and its like someone just dropped a HUGE elephant in the room because now Dan and I are trying not to look at each other because obviously there is some sort of attraction there and both trying to think of a way to diffuse the situation without saying anything like "No way, I'd never do that" and putting an end to anything before it could even start.

So K cost me my sweet moments of dating, of getting to know someone, of moving slow. Because now there was nothing to do but admit that there was an attraction and without having seen each other in half a decade decide if this was something to pursue or not.

Thankfully, we decided that we should go out a few times and see if we had anything in common. A month later we were moving him into the house in an open room that needed a tenant. Two months later we took things to the next level. A month after that I felt kinda off for a couple weeks and realized I was Late.

I peed on a stick and it had two lines. But I didn't want to believe it just yet. I went to work. I stopped at a clinic after work and got a test. Yup. It was real. I was pregnant. I still love the way the lady confirmed it, sweet thing, maybe 60 or so. She comes back into the room with a basket of hand made baby booties and hats and says "Pick one out Honey!"

After getting everything straight and processing the new information in my head I needed to go tell Dan. We had been together for less than 5 months at this point. But we had found that we had a lot in common. We were a good match. He loved his family, he was devoted, funny, a good friend... he was kind and generous and gave good hugs.

I got home and sat him down and just told him. I also told him, while he was sitting there stunned that I was going to keep this baby no matter what and that he had a choice to make. One option was to run away right now. He could leave. He could give up all parental rights and obligations and leave and go about his life like these 5 months never happened. His second choice was to stay, as a friend or a boyfriend, but he could stay. The only thing though was that once he made this choice there would be no second chance to change. I was not going to have someone coming in and out of my child's life and my life and making things weird. It was all or nothing. We didn't have to get married or anything if he did stay.

He needed time to think. Of course. He left for a few hours and those were some hard hours for me. I called my mom and told her the news. She was thrilled to bits. She cried, I cried, we were happy. I took a nap and then woke up to my phone ringing. Dan had crashed his bicycle in the driveway and needed my help. I went outside, helped him to his feet. We went inside and he told me that he wanted to stay, that he wanted to be part of my life, of the babies life, but that he wanted to do it as my husband.

We got married two months later in a small quiet ceremony. We were married by Dan's mom, a wiccan priestess. We found out Liam was a boy a bit after that and spent weeks thinking about names. We moved out of the house we shared with others and into our own apartment. We decided on Liam J. finally. Liam because it was a good name that we both agreed on and J. for our grandpas. Dan had a Grandpa Jay who he loved, and I had a Grandpa J.T. who I loved. Both of our J's were gone, but they had both been good men who loved their families and lived life to the fullest. J. was a good name for a boy. Both of our families had an unofficial  tradition of naming children after grandparents, but giving them the name for a middle name. We were happy to continue this.

Liam was born at 10:06 pm on June 2nd 2010. He was delivered by Lisa Chickadonz, one of the midwives with the Providence Maternal Care Clinic in Portland Oregon. He was perfectly healthy and just wonderful to see. I will never forget seeing him for the first time.

 And that is the story of how Liam came to be. I am sure that eventually without the interference by K that Dan and I would have found our own way, but K sure sped it up and then it got put on the fast track again with a kiddo on the way. Sometimes I am still stunned to look at him and think about the time when he was nothing more than a friend and be amazed at where life has led us.

Spring Break Part 1

For some reason I can not figure out my sons school has split his spring break up into one week break, two weeks of school, then another one week break. This isn't really a problem this year, so I am just going with it.

This week, we started out sunny and are ending it with rain. Saturday and Sunday and Monday were BEAUTIFUL.

We celebrated the start of spring break on Friday by grating sidewalk chalk to make chalk paint and made a mess in the driveway. Our neighbors came over to help too! Then we moved our little party into the back yard. We played in the yard and I moved some branches from the cherry plum tree that were cut when we got it trimmed and made a little barrier in a circle shape to designate a "garden" where the kiddos can dig holes and make a mess. I got out the kid sized garden tools and let them go nuts.

Saturday we made a mess in the yard digging a hole, Sunday we made a bigger mess making the hole even deeper and then Monday we took the mess to the river.

We live only a few miles from the Sandy River. There is a little sandy beach you can get to through Glen Otto Park, but I decided that we needed to go play with rocks this Monday.

We headed up the road to a state park and paid the credit/debit card ONLY machine 5 dollars to park the car. I get that its awesome to have parks that are cared for and all, but 5 dollars to park for less than 2 hours in an EMPTY parking lot. Yeesh! Either way, we paid and put rain boots on the kids and headed down to the river bank. I put Dan on Evie Watch, and I was on Liam Watch. Liam and I explored a little rocky beach and then crossed some rocks onto a little island of rocks. We tossed rocks into the water and I found some quartz rocks and something I think is jasper and a small piece of agate. Once I showed Dan what river agate looked like he pretty much blinked and then pulled up a HUGE piece from the rocks right where we had been playing. Yea, I was jealous. We spent the rest of the time alternating between keeping Evie out of the water, keeping Liam out of the water, making sure no one got mud inside their boots and looking for rocks.

The agate Dan found

I love rock hunting. Just so you know.

We ended up being DONE when both kids fell down within 2 minutes of each other and got water inside their boots. Once they were cold and wet it was time to go. I had packed some PB&J sammiches and after we peeled wet and muddy clothes from the kids and buckled them in we headed home. Evie got a small nap in the car too! SCORE! I turned them loose in the yard when I got home and let them play in the garden. We packed it up and did baths around 4 and then goofed around inside for a while. Pillow fights and coloring and a movie ended the night.

Tuesday it was raining and I had ended up tweaking my back somehow at the river, so we had a lazy day. I looked up new places that I could take the kids for some rock hunting, I found a few good ones too! Super excited for it to dry out so I can go play with them outside and find pretty rocks.

Wednesday we spent the day baking and making a mess. I made a cake for my husband and the kids were stir crazy so the day was filled with tantrums and fights and crying and time outs. I find myself hoping for them to grow up JUST enough for me to be able to say "I don't care if it is raining, GO OUTSIDE!" and not have to worry about them getting too cold and not knowing how to tell me. But those days are a ways off.

I thought about finding an Easter craft for them to make, but it is hard to find things for them to do that are Evie safe. She is one of those babies who eats crayons and paper and puts everything in her mouth. Scissors and anything with a point is out, even pencils.... and glue... I don't even want to THINK about that with her! Maybe I will just cut out some egg shapes and give them crayons.

Thursday we had a lazy movie day. We colored a bit and had some snuggles and tickles.

But today, Friday, was the best! We went to the Vancouver library and played with our cousins and read books. Then went to their house for lunch. Now Evie is napping and Liam is watching a tv show and I get to relax for a bit with Katchoo in my lap as I type this and get ready to grab the pictures to post with it.

Evie's cousin Grace read her some books, and I am in love with the tables they have in this play area of the library. I want to duplicate that at home!!!!

Even with the rain we had a good spring break! Another weekend, and then back to school. I will be glad for my 4 hours of Just Evie time in the morning, and then my running crash hugs from Liam when I pick him up!

The First Day of Spring

Yea. Ok. So the first day isn't until the 20th, but today FELT like the first day. It was rainy this morning, miserable and dreary. Drizzly and cold. Then, right about 11:30 the clouds broke up and the sun came in like a raging inferno. The sidewalks dried up, it was WARM outside, and the afternoon sunshine was gorgeous.

A friend from knitting had invited me to the park, if it wasn't raining, so of course we went out into this gorgeous afternoon.

Now, I have to explain something here. I love it when my kids get messy, but I HATE it all at the same time. I love the idea of them having fun and being kids and exploring the world but I hate the clean up. Wiping muddy boots, stain treating muddy pants, that dingy grey stain on the bottom of socks that never goes away once they have gotten mudded. I hate those problems. I hate peeling wet muddy clothes off the kids before putting them in the car because by God I WILL NOT CLEAN MUD FROM A CARSEAT!

So of course, because it was sunny but still damp on the grass and downright marshy in some places and there was a lake under the swingset... (no really, a lake. Not a puddle in the groove from where feet slide to stop the swing, it was a full out lake. I totally expected to see ducks out there paddling along under the swings.) ... I knew I was in for a muddy day. I embraced it. I even welcomed it, because with mud comes fun, with fun comes tired kids, with tired kids comes a mommy who can have a relaxing evening. So bring on the mud!

And we did. Liam was muddy kneed before 5 minutes went by and Evie started off slow with just her hands being dirty from some playing in the pathway pebbles. Soon though she took off to try stomping in a puddle and got her boot stuck in the mud and pulled her foot out and landed on her butt. In the mud.

Yup. It was that bad.

   But we got in some quality duck watching time before that!

And in the end, the kids were not at all put off by a little mud. We played, we romped, we got a corndog from the corner market. Liam crashed out in the car on the way home, Evie lasted until 4:45 and managed to stay awake through a bath before demanding her "baba" and falling asleep.

Today I made memories. I made a friend, which is a big deal for me. I made it through the whole day without once panicking about the muddy clothes I was going to have to deal with.

And now that I have written this while eating my homemade chicken burrito, I am off to go scrub some boots. I really need to buy these kids real rainboots. 

I Don't Want to Write This Post

I thought I would have longer before I had to write this post. I thought I would have another month or two. But life is what it is.

On Monday, January 13th, my mother in law passed away.

Most girls whine about their mother in law, they dislike them, think they are controlling, wish they would keep their opinions to themselves. But this mother in law was not like those mother in laws. She told me something about being a mom that I will keep with me forever. She told me that in any situation, no matter how sensitive, I have the right to do anything I need to do to keep my children safe. I was worried about offending her because I wanted to run the vacuum before I put the baby on the floor at her house. She just welcomed the help in cleaning up and told me I had a job to do, to keep my children safe, and if that meant running the vacuum, then I should do just that.

She was one hell of a special person.

So let me share a little bit about what I learned about Julie in the time I had her in my life.

Julie knit. She made beautiful things out of strings of yarn. She was a Wiccan. She was blindingly intelligent. She gave birth to and raised three boys, of which I married the eldest. She lived in a little house in Mississippi in the time that I knew her.

The rock in Julie's yarn

She had divorced the father of her boys when my husband was in high school, so a while ago. She had since remarried someone else who she loved greatly. She had rescue kitties, and a good dog. She worked for FedEx. She could fly small planes.

She made a blankie that my son loves,

and one for my daughter that she sleeps with every night.  

She came to see Liam when he was born.

And again just after he turned one.

We went to see her when Evie was about 6 months old, after she couldn't travel to us any more. 

She inspired me to learn how to knit.
She is the one who married us.

She battled cancer with good humor and grace. She lost the fight.

She will be missed.