I Am Old

Apologies for no blog last week but I had nothing to blog about.  Tax returns kept me from any Saturday excitement and rain kept us from leaving the house last Sunday.  Fortunately, things turned around this week.

For me, the weekend started Friday night when I got to go watch one of my favorite comedians and podcasters, Mike Schmidt, perform his one man show.  It was a small affair but I laughted harder than I had in a long time and it was a great evening.

After Siena's dance class on Saturday, we went to Jose's work for their annual Easter party.  We were too late for the egg hunt.  The kids still got candy and cupcakes though so it was a success.

It took a good half hour, but we were eventually able to convince all of the cousins to join Tristyn with the Easter bunny.

Mason was especially fond of the carrot car Easter bunny. He may love Star Wars and Ghostbusters, but he's still a car kid at heart.

Yeah, you know these guys.

Here's an actual interaction I had with Siena one morning this week.  She has taken to wanting to put on makeup with me in the morning.  While I was putting on foundation...

Siena: Mama, can I put that on?
Me: No Siena, your skin is perfect already.  You don't need this.
Seina:  Okay.  I'll just use it when I'm old like you.

I'm still recovering from that one.

I had to tear myself away from the tv to take the kids on our Sunday walk.  It's the first round of the playoffs so there's 4 playoff games on each Saturday and Sunday.  I LOVE it!

Mason picked out today's walk on google earth.  He chose the walkway along the Columbia River on Marine Drive.

It's a nice paved walkway so of course he wanted to walk on the grass.

Siena did great and had fun!

The kids left a grass path so people could find our trail (ala Hansel and Gretel).  As you can see, getting lost is a big risk on this path.

After our walk, we went to my cousin Brian and his wife Deb's open house in Vancouver.  They now have an awesome new house, complete with Brian's mancave. 

Someone in the family got artsy last weekend.  There is still some improvement needed but it was fun nonetheless.

Think this is my favorite.

The Spirit of the 90s is Alive in Portland

After a week of work, today is break time.  I have been continuing to help out Isler with tax returns on Saturdays.  One of their interns had to quit last week as a result of some health issues so they are even more behind.  I have to admit, it's somewhat nice being an outsider just helping out at this point.  It also seems like the staff are doing the required number of hours and not a minute more.  When I was a staff, we tended to work above and beyond as the work load dictated.  I came home lamenting "kids these days"...

Back at Mentor, Mr. Icahn continues to orchestrate his media game against us.  What the outcome will be, no one knows at this time.  We have to continue to see how it plays out.  I'm just happy to be in between quarter ends at this point.  I can go to workout classes and get home at normal times.

We continued our new tradition of Sunday walks today by going up to some of the trails around the zoo.  Blinky Siena and Mason had take a break at one point.  We did a lot of walking around on the trails around the Hoyt Arborarium and on the Wildwood Trail.

We were fortunate in that the rain held out today too.

I just thought this tree was neat.  It had more pine cones than I have ever seen on a tree.

This is up above the Vietnam Veterans memorial.  Picture sponsored by The Gap.

While it was dry and reasonably warm, it was still too cloudy to see the city in the background.  We tried though.

A lady with her family was nice enough to offer to take a picture of the 3 of us. 

Luis has kept busy this week working, taking in the Timbers first ever MLS game in Portland, and pursuing new business opportunities.  Much like the Icahn situation, we don't know yet what will come of it but we'll keep you posted.

The kids are nicely playing I Spy right now. I'm wondering how long the harmony will last.  For now though, it's so darn cute. Time for me to go watch my new favorite show, Who Do You Think You Are.  I'm a nerd.

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.