Spring Break Bash 2011!

Beaches! Sun! Bikinis! It's Oregon. Who are we kidding. Spring break means rain. We got a little lucky at the beach and got a couple of minimal rain days. I won't go so far as to say it was sunny but after the weather we've had the last few months, no rain is saying a lot. Mary Lou and Heidi also came down to the coast with the kids so our kids had all kinds of fun playing. Before they got there, we caught some clams and Mason and I did a hike. Mary Lou and Heidi were staying at the Grandparents beach house. Over the years, the Grandparent's beach house had fallen into a bit of disrepair. There is foliage growing on the roof. The furnace wasn't working. Termites were eating around one of the windows. Without Grandpa being able to keep it up, the house is falling into sorry shape. Wednesday morning we met the Ham/Evans crew at our favorite breakfast place, the Spouting Horn. The kids kept themselves occupied playing Angry Birds while we waited for food.

The Spouting Horn overlooks Depoe Bay which was recently hit with a couple of tsunami waves after the earthquake in Japan. One of the docks in the bay was rendered unusable following a large surge.

Heidi and Mary Lou and never been to the Spouting Horn. They seem to be enjoying their experience.

After breakfast, we took all the kids to the aquarium in Newport. We may have only needed to take them to some rocks.

Posing by some garbage/art.

More posing and more garbage art.

Most people became familiar with the Oregon Coast aquarium when it was the home of Keiko...aka Free Willy. I never had much interest in seeing Keiko. Sharks on the other hand are much cooler. Don't fret Willy fans, the shark tank was Keiko's old digs! Dut dut. Dut dut...

Mason tries out the old scuba gear. Somehow I don't see serious scuba diving in his future. At least not in this kind of get up.

Siena tries out the shark teeth. Yup, pretty big.

The outdoors. There's supposed to be birds and stuff here. All I see is sand. And Mason's head.

One kid.

Two kids. Three kids.

And then there were four.

And another poor turtle holds up the four...

Note Heidi's "Hairy Otter" shirt...a good purchase me thinks.

Eeek! Anaconda! Mason seems much less scared than I was. That is one big snake.

Getting a feel for being explorers.

So is Mary Lou. This might be a better way than following Uncle Bruce on one of his adventures.

The token nose pick shot. Sorry Ellia, the camera never lies.

I see this wonderful Japanese crab and I think: lunch?

Jelly fish. Big jelly fish.

Mary Lou and Heidi had to head up to the beach house to spend some quality time with the furnace guy so we hit up my favorite place, Rogue Brewery, for some lunch. For those not familiar with Rogue, they have a number of award winning brews and is by far my favorite brewery. The food's not bad either.

Siena plays some games with Daddy while we wait for our food.

Mason and Siena, getting ready for some Jenga.

The view from the brewery. Can't get much more costal than this.

The rest of the spring break week was pretty low key. I helped out Isler with some tax returns again yesterday. Do they know I'm not a tax accountant? :-)

I took the kids on another walk today. Siena took the '57 Chevy pedal car. It was the only way she'd agree to go. These walks are supposed to be about fun and togetherness. Sometimes it becomes me telling the kids what not to do and them trying to do it. Mason came home muddy and Siena wet. I needed a glass of wine after sounding like every grown up on every hike I went on as a kid.

Regardless, I'm ready to face the working world again tomorrow. Bring it on!

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Happy first day of spring! Mason's basketball ended a couple of weekends ago. He got a medal and a cupcake to cap off a good season. It's amazing to see what he was able to do this year compared to last season. There was no practicing in the interim. Just typical growth and development.
Mason's friend Evan was in basketball with him. Evan's parents are friends with Jose and Gloria. Mason and Evan were in daycare together for a couple years at Gloria's.

Last Saturday Mason had his first sleepover ever at someone's house that wasn't a grandparent. His friend from school, Aiden, was having a Star Wars slumber party. Mason was ecstatic about this party for weeks leading up to it. Of course, on the morning of, apprehension set in when he realized that he would be there without me. After hours of convincing him that he would be fine, an hour before he came around to the ecstatic state again.

We weren't sure if he would be fine staying all night so Aiden's mom had all of our various phone numbers. I brought the cell phone in with me at bedtime. However, the phone remained silent. Mason did great!

In other news, I decided that running an 8k in the rain on the Sunday morning of the daylight savings change would be a good idea. It was a good run though the weather was terrible. My time was a minute slower than last year which was a bummer. I'll just have to keep at it this spring.

My cousin Judy was visiting last weekend from Montana. I haven't seen Judy in at least 11 years. The last time was at Grandma's funeral. Course I somehow managed to not get her in a picture. Maybe 11 years from now I'll get another chance!

I did get a nice shot of my mom and Aunt Lucie.

And the kids entertained themselves with Uncle Ron and a bunch of red cups.

Luis caught the kids and I snuggling one night last week. It may be time for a bigger chair.

A teenage friend at Gloria's curled Siena's hair one afternoon last week. Meet Farrah Siena!

Mason wanted in on the picture action. No, he's not swinging a bat. That's a light sabre.

I got an unexpected email on Wednesday from one of the partners at Isler, the accounting firm I used to work for. They asked if I wanted to make a little extra cash helping them with tax returns on Saturdays. Despite the fact that I haven't done a tax return in the 4 years since leaving there, they offered up some decent money so yesterday I went back to tax season. I have this week off from my real job or I probably wouldn't have agreed to work the extra Saturdays. However, this week should give me time to rest up after a busy stretch at Mentor. Plus having some extra money will be nice.

Today I took the kids to Washington Park for our Sunday walk/day out of the house. We went first to the rose gardens but they're a couple months from being in bloom. We'll have to come back in June.

Washington Park has a great playground though so the kids went down there and played for a while. At least until it started raining. Again. Did I mention it's rained every day for what feels like the last 6 months?

The kids were playing "ship" on the big play structure. I'm not sure of the details but Mason must have been the captain as he was barking out instructions to Siena the whole time. She was happy enough about it though.

We've Done Our Work, Lets Go Play

Another long week at work. I think it will be that way until the 10K is filed. 2 days for a weekend is hardly enough to get rested up for another one. The hours aren't so bad but going 200mph day in and day out for so long gets tiring after a while.

Short though it seemed, we had a good weekend. Driving home from Siena's dance class yesterday, as we neared our house, we saw a small white house with smoke and flames coming out of it. As that isn't a sight you see every day, I of course pulled a u-turn and we went to check out the show. Lest you think me a heartless rubbernecker gaining entertainment from the demise of someone's home, rest assured it was a firefighters training session. They were out taking pictures themselves. They gave the kids some plastic firefighter hats and we were close enough to feel the heat from the flames.

One of the perks of my job that I only just recently learned about is that Mentor has several member passes to OMSI that employees can check out. They're good for 2 adults and 2 kids to get into the museum. Plus, as they were member passes, we got to skip right ahead of the giant line outside.

I remember going to OMSI a time or two when it was located in Washington Park by the zoo. It was a much smaller operation then but still fun to visit.

The kids really liked the Science Playground portion of OMSI. There are a lot of hands on activities. Mason liked the construction area.


Siena liked dressing up in the construction area.
They also loved the big market area, setting up their own little fruit stands and haggling with the toddlers that came by their shops.

Siena is an excellent shopper, price checking all of her produce goods.

Of course there is much science and learning to be done at OMSI.

And animals to learn about.

As part of our OMSI pass, we got to take the submarine tour. This is the USS Blueback. The Blueback was first launched in May 1959 and was the last non-nuclear submarine to join the US Navy. It spent the majority of its sailing days in the Pacific from its home port of Pearl Harbor, making many trips to Japan and serving time in the Vietnam war zone.

The Blueback was decomissioned in October 1990. It was briefly featured in Hawaii 5-O and The Hunt for Red October.

The kids' favorite part of the submarine was being able to sit at the steering wheel. The camera with it's flash is masking the fact that this whole room was in red light, much like it appeared when in actual use. We also got to look through the periscopes which were pointed toward Portland's Waterfront Park.

Due to tight quarters and poor lighting, it was hard to get many good pictures in side of the submarine but it was really cool. I got so into it that I stuck in a submarine movie to watch now while the kids are in bed, albeit K19 The Widowmaker, which is about a Soviet sub. That's close, right?

We had a nice Red Robin dinner tonight with Yaya and Papa Ron. Another good weekend in the books. Wish me luck for the upcoming work week.

Cat and Mouse

Thanks to an ear infection on my behalf last week, no blog. Sorry about that. However, the week wasn't going to slow down for that. We had our big earnings release at work. Hopefully reporting good results will take a little wind out of Mr. Icahn's sails.

Siena and Tommy found each other to be good snuggle buddies in the cold weather we've been having.

Thursday was Luis birthday and it brought with it a snow day for Mason. We didn't get a lot of accumulation but had some flurries on and off. Typical Portland...one flake and the entire city goes into a frenzied panic. The kids had no complaints though. Even a little bit of snow is fun.

Someone taught them how to make snowballs too.

After some snow bliss, we all went out to dinner at Red Robin for Luis' birthday. Mason was making a joke of reading the menu upside down. Cracked himself up.

Of course we told them it was Luis' birthday! The kids got a kick out of having the Red Robin crew sing to daddy.

Luis was a good sport too.

This morning we went out to breakfast at the Bomber with the Cruz clan. Junior, the die hard Portland Timber's fan, got Luis an official Timber's t-shirt. Hopefully we'll catch a game or two this year. Andre is a bit of a soccer fan as well.

The boys exchanged conversation about Star Wars.

Siena practiced her Angry Birds on my new phone.

We wore out Trystin who found Andre to be a nice pillow.

The Cruzes and a bomber.

After breakfast the kids and I were ready to resume our Sunday walks, this time downtown at Waterfront park. It was pleasant and dry when we parked. Course, 5-10 minutes in, the wind picked up and the rain came. We're troopers though. Living in Oregon, you have to endure some cold and rain if you want to leave the house.

They especially liked the rocks.

Playing on rocks in Old Town.

By this time, we were pretty cold and miserable. Spirits were good though. I was proud of the kids. They walked a lot in bad conditions, didn't complain, and did great.

And Tommy earned is worth this week...

The A Gap

Apologies for being a week behind. I knew if I didn't blog this week, I'd lose all 3 of my followers.

The first piece of excitement to share is that Mason's tooth finally came out. He now has a big space in his mouth that a straw can fit through. The tooth fairy came through as promised and the cash was burning a hole in Mason's pocket. He really wanted a Star Wars book. He got on the computer and looked up the ones he liked. It looked like there were some prospects at Target and Toys R Us. We headed first to Target. They had no Star Wars books (despite the online ads). We decided then to try Toys R Us. The only book they had that Mason liked was $50. Unfortunately, the tooty fairy isn't that generous. They had a couple of Star Wars posters he liked though which, of course, were out of stock. I remembered Fred Meyer sold posters, or used to, so that seemed like a good next prospect. We drove back toward our house and tried Fred Meyer. Turns out Fred Meyer no longer sells posters. I didn't get the memo.

Mason was starting to get bummed out at this point. I didn't want to give up though. It then dawned on me that there's a Star Wars store at Clackamas Town Center...right where we were when we were at Target and Toys R Us. We hoofed it back there, found the store on the mall map, and made our way there only to discover that the store is newly out of business. Last hope was the Barnes and Noble on the other end of the mall. I was ready at this point to pony up whatever difference it was to get him a Star Wars book, any Star Wars book, just so we could go home. Fortunately he found just the one he wanted and it was only $4. A win all around.

After the shopping expedition, we went to the DeCiccos for our annual (with the exception of last year) Super Bowl party. Mason was content to watch Star Wars on the computer and the girls played together in Giada's room while the grown ups watched the game.

It was a very busy work week for me as Jan. 31 is our year end. To add to the excitement, Mr. Carl Icahn, who has been buying up Mentor stock since last spring, went on the media voicing his displeasure at Mentor management. Specifically he's upset about the moving up of the shareholder's meeting. He and some other activist shareholders went on CNBC calling Mentor a company run like a "country club" and that changes are needed.

I worked 60 hours last week and never once did I find a golf club in my hand. Where is this country club?

There are some around the office concerned about what Icahn is up to. The comment boards are lit up. I don't really tend to get worked up about this stuff. Maybe it's having been surrounded by business working my whole life but I see this as part of being involved with a company. The one thing companies are not is stagnant. There are buyouts, mergers, shake ups, meltdowns, profits, losses, highs, and lows. The best we can do in periods of uncertainty like this is to show up and do our jobs. I have no crystal ball so who knows what, if anything, will come of all this. I'll be waiting to see like everyone else.

As for this weekend, Mason wasn't feeling good yesterday so we mostly stayed home, aside from taking Siena to dance class. He had a fever that kept coming and going so I wanted to keep him laying low.

Today he was feeling better so we went out and about. I decided to start doing weekly weekend walks with the kids. There are so many parks and trails around Portland that I figure we can go different places every weekend and make it an adventure.

Mason is a good walker. He enjoys getting out and about and is always willing. Siena on the other hand, generally declares herself hopelessly fatigued 100 yards in. Whn she tried that this time, I told her about our upcoming (well October) trip to Disney World with the DeCiccos. We talked about all the fun things at Disney World but that she would need to be able to walk around the parks all day. Mama and Daddy won't be carrying anybody. The mere thought of Disney bliss seemed to be all it took for she enjoyed a good walk with Mason and I at Oaks Bottom Refuge this afternoon. It was so much fun to get out and spend some time with the kids, just getting outside and exploring the town. I think it's good for all of us to unplug for a little while each week.

We had dinner tonight at Yaya and Papa Ron's. To share a quote from Siena:

"Papa Ron, I love you. Yaya, I love you. Mama, I love you. Mason, uh, Mason, I uh, Mason I like you".

On that note...