Rainy Day Sunday

Apologies for no blog posting last weekend. I was going to write about various trips to Fred Meyer in response to Halloween decor fiascoes, but we got sidetracked at the 7th birthday party of the century. Unbeknownst to us, Mexicans take birthday parties seriously. Mason was invited to a party for one of his classmates. 4 hours, 70 guests, 30 kids, 2 pinatas, and a 2-tiered cake later it was 9:00 PM on Sunday night and we all had to go to bed.

Luis got a job working for Enterprise Car Rentals and is working weekends now so it's me and the kids entertaining each other. That is, when Mason isn't on Google Earth.

This morning we met our friends the DeCiccos at Elmer's for breakfast and then made our annual Halloween-time trip to the Roloff Pumpkin Farm.

Here's Mason, Siena, and Giada checking out some animals at the petting zoo.

Did I mention it was raining all morning? Luckily the rain did eventually stopped and it did a nice job of crowd control. Siena happily sought out the puddles.
The kids went on the pony ride, even Mason who was too scared to do it last year.Siena and Giada are regular cowgirls! Especially with their pink raincoats.

Mason found the one vintage car on hand. That's his new "rock star" pose.

Little kids, big chair.

Since the lines were shorter this year, we went on the "Town Tour". We got to check out the play town that Matt Roloff built many years ago. This was cool. Mason and Siena wished they could live here and play on the farm day in and day out. Mason said he would never get bored living there.

The kids in the western town.

A couple silly kids with the little town church in the background.

I think I posted a couple years ago a picture of the castle as a still work in progress. It has since been finished and is pretty cool.

The Cruz kids wouldn't have minded some play time on the pirate ship either.

The famous "Bridge to Nowhere". This is actually listed on the Oregon register of bridges.

For the next 3 pictures, I should mention that if you don't watch and have never heard of the TV show Little People Big World on TLC, these will mean nothing to you. Anyway, on this day Zach Roloff was busy driving one of the tour tractors.

We got to meet Jeremy at the town and he was nice enough to pose for a picture with me and the kids. Again for those who have seen the show, the twins buddy Mueller was the one who took the picture.

We also got our picture taken with Amy again. The kids have seen enough episodes of Little People over the last year that they recognized the kids around the farm when they saw them and were especially excited to see Amy again. They remembered meeting her last year also. She was incredibly friendly and talked with everyone who approached her for a handshake and a photo.

After the pumpkin patch, I needed to get started on Mason's Halloween costume. Siena's is easy - Princess. Mason declared that he wanted to be an airplane. Not an airplane pilot, the actual plane. Since you can't simply go to the store and buy an airplane costume, it's up to you know who to somehow make one. This isn't included in my copy of the parenting manual. Regardless, it was straight to Michael's from the pumpkin patch for a few pieces of Styrofoam. Then later to Fred Meyer for some duct tape.

Now, if I may allow myself a moment of hubris...I am darn proud of this result. It isn't done yet - we still need to add propellers, some stripes, and the shoulder straps, but Martha Stewart, eat your heart out:

Well, the kids are in the bathroom putting temporary tattoos on each other so I should go intervene and put them to bed before they end up looking like sailors.

A Random Weekend in September

Siena has been back in dance lessons for the last 3 weeks. Amazingly she is able to do things she couldn't do a mere 3 months ago. It's amazing how kids can change and grow in a short period of time. Course, her teacher told me at the end of class that Siena requested Justin Bieber's "Enie Meenie Miney Moe Lover" song. I went home and immediately uploaded some new, quality songs on the kids' iPod playlist.

We went to dinner at Yaya and Papa Ron's house Saturday evening. It was such a beautiful September day that the kids played outside and we all tried to enjoy the sunshine. Mason set up his "fort" outside. Cars on top of the toilet box, pillow and blankets underneath. Not sure where the pose came from.

Siena requested a bath at Yaya's, which is good as she spent the previous hour playing in dirt. Mason decided to join her. After an hour in the tub, she was the cleanest girl in the state.
We didn't do a whole lot today. Lots of football watching and fantasy football sobbing (on my part at least).

I spent some time attacking the dirt in the backyard with Round Up and Caseron so all my efforts earlier in the year aren't for naught once the rain starts falling in earnest.

The kids helped me big time in cleaning their playroom today. Look how nice it looks! We could hardly walk in it when we started. I think they're starting to realize that it's much more fun to play with stuff when you have space and you can see what you've got.

We had dinner tonight at one of our old Woodstock haunts, Mickey Finn's. Some of you may recall Mickey Finn's - it's where Luis and I had our rehearsal dinner. Anyway, one of the drawbacks of working out daily and running a lot of miles is this insatiable hunger. As such, I ordered the "Royal Humpy". The Royal Humpy is a hamburger with ham, cheese, an egg, bacon, and veggies. A.k.a. a gut bomb. Needless to say, I'm no longer hungry. However, I did have to come home and pop a Pepcid. Uff duh.

Green Pastures

Thanks to the gluttony of rain over the last week, our dried out, brown grass has been effectively restored its green. In addition to getting drenched at the Warrior Dash last Sunday, I got totally soaked playing flag football on Wednesday and again running on Saturday. What's sad about the Saturday drenching was that not a drop of rain had fallen all day until 5 minutes into my run. Any more of this and I'll be a prune.



Saturday night we went to Jay B. and Chandra's new house to celebrate my aunt Mary Lou's birthday. Unfortunately for Auntie Lou, she threw out her back several days ago so she wasn't feeling too hot. We tried to help her celebrate as best we could regardless.

Little Rory was so cute waddling around. She was also fascinated looking at this picture of herself on my camera. She stared at it for a good 5 minutes in awe.
Mason couldn't resist posing for the camera. Not sure where he learned the rocker horns though...

The kids found some instruments and put them to loud use. Here's little drummer girl before being relegated to the play room.

Berren thoroually enjoyed the wildberry gelato ice cream. Joker anyone?

Aside from the birthday party, we did a lot of staying around the house and watching football (collective sob for the whooping PSU endured).

As such, I proudly bring you:

Scenes from the Cruz House

(no, this probably isn't as exciting as it sounds)

Tommy D doing what he does best...napping on the couch. He has to enjoy whatever quiet time he can get without the kids accosting him.

Mason worked hard to set up a "car museum" for his Hot Wheels. Meanwhile, I searched the house top to bottom for the box of Lego's my mom held onto from when I was a kid to pass onto my kids. They're searching their house too but for now the location of aforementioned Legos remains a mystery.

Mason made a really cool card for Auntie Lou for her birthday which inspired the kids to play "mail" yesterday. This consists of using all of our household envelopes to deliver cute pictures and notes to friends and family. Mason made me this birthday card (who cares if it's a few weeks early). The front said "34" (how did he know how old I was going to be) and the inside he did all himself. He's a great little drawer (e.g. the flowers). He drew some really good balloons and a airplane for Auntie Lou too.

The perpetual state of our living room - aka Siena's domain. These are her dress up dolls and their million component parts. Sigh. I give up keeping this house clean. Besides, they're kids. They need to play with their stuff.

Here is the super cute kitty cat Siena drew me in her "mail" to me. He looks a bit like an old time bank robber in a mask...

And here's a sight you never want to come home to...

Broken dryer that is filled with my clothes. Another sob.

Cruz vs. Wild

So we didn't have the most exciting Labor Day weekend. I was getting over a bug of some sort so the weekend was spent watching a lot of college football. By Monday though, we were all up and ready to get out of the house. I had a great lunch/shopping/movie date with Mom. We went to see Eat Pray Love which was good but definitely long. Consume fluids accordingly.

While I was off with Mom, Luis took the kids to a farm out on Sauvie's Island. They got to pick some fresh fruit and veggies, plus explore the farm.
Not sure these are quite Little House on the Prairie clothes but close enough.
The kids picking something or other...

Raspberries for the kids.

Tuesday was the first day of school for my little first grader. He kindly gave me permission to walk him into his classroom on the first day. After that I was relegated to dropping him off at the curb. So far he's liking school. His teacher is "nice" and he has all of his friends from last year in class.

Yesterday Mason and I went for a walk at one of his favorite place - "the Paths". It's actually Elk Rock just up the street from our house and is basically an island accessable by a natural land bridge. Since it's on the river, you can't get there in winter and spring generally but it's no problem by late summer.

Here's Mason on the land bridge with the island behind him to the right.

Mason on the paths. There are lots of trails and places to explore.

Mason checking out the view of the river.

Mason on the land bridge. It's pretty dry this time of year.

Today was the Warrior Dash! Without a doubt, this is the crazies race I've ever done. Here's a link to the route and obstacles. http://www.warriordash.com/register2010_northwest.php

Luis and the kids joined me in North Plains for the event. The kids got a little warrior paint.

Siena before the race started.

Me and Angie - Angie is my fitness instructor at Mentor. As you can see, she's finished with the race. My heat was an hour after hers - hence the dirty and the clean.

At the starting line, getting ready to roll.

One of the few obstacles that you can see when not actually on the course. This was right after the jump in the pond and scramble over wet, rolling logs.

No, that's not me but that is one of the crazier obstacles. I took these at a flying leap. This is not one where you want to mess up and bite it.

The final obstacle at the end of the 3+ mile course - under barbed wire through mud. Then slide down the muddy hill to the finish line.

Off to the finish - muddy legs and all.

At the finish line. Happy to be done but it was sooooo much fun. This is my kinda race. Forget this jogging on the road business. Okay, well, I still may do a few of those. This was much more fun though.

And then the clean up in the muddy pond. Cold muddy pond.
And what do I have to show for my efforts? Aside from a couple of bruised knees earned scrambling over a cargo net bridge...

I may wear the helmet to work tomorrow. And never have I had a race number in such a beat up shape.

The race apparently wore Siena out. Note the drool coming out of her mouth.