Who's Your Daddy

On this Father's day, I wanted to pay homage to not only my father but grandfather's and great grandfathers.  I'll have to do this next Mother's day too.  Course I never think of these things in time for a nice, succinct theme.

This is my great grandpa Rasmus Torland as a boy in Norway.  This was his confirmation picture and was taken in about 1904.  Rasmus came alone to America in 1906 at age 16.  It took him 18 days to cross the Atlantic.  Rasmus returned to Norway in 1914 were he met Helena.  After courting for a year, they were married.  WWI made up his mind as to whether or not to return to America with his bride.  He was registered for the draft in both Norway and the United States and liked his odds better of avoiding combat in the U.S.  So, they set sail for America on July 4, 1915.  Rasmus is my Grandpa Art's father.

These are Rasmus' parents - my great great grandparents - Berte Marie and Anders Dalen.  Anders was born on the Torlen farm #1 but changed his last name to Dalen upon moving to the Dalen farm.

This is another great grandfather - Herman Swanson.  Herman was born in Sweden and likewise immigrated to the states as a young man.  Herman ultimately ended up with his wife Anna as a coal miner raising his family in Roslyn, Washington. (See other Roslyn posts).  Herman is my Grandma Millie's father.

In the course of looking through pictures, it turns out I only have a few of my mom's father, Fred Kinney.  I don't know if he was camera shy or if other family members may have more.  This is my grandpa Fred as an infant with his twin sister Freda.  The story has it that Freda was supposed to be on the chair and Fred on the stool.  Apparently Fred not only insisted on taking the chair, he also put his feet up on the stool.
Grandpa Fred was born in Iowa in 1898.  His father ran a threshing crew when he was young and as a result, his family moved around a lot, eventually settling in Enterprise, Kansas.  They moved to Portland in 1918.

The only other picture of Fred I could find was from my parents wedding album.  That is Grandpa Fred on the far left.  According to my Grandma Novia (in her book), Fred was quiet and modest, and always a gentleman.  I never knew Grandpa Fred well as he died in 1979 when I was still a toddler.

This is a picture of my Grandpa Art.  He was born in an old farmhouse in Bowdon, North Dakota (see blog posts from June 2010 for more discussion of Bowdon) in 1917.  Upon moving to Oregon as a young adult, he performed a stint as a chauffer for William Emley Walter, a retired editor of The Saturday Evening Post magazine.  His wife was the daughter of Harvey Scott, founder of The Oregonian newspaper. 

Grandpa Art was also a milk man for Alpenrose Dairy starting in 1935.  This is Art in front of his Alpenrose delivery truck.

And he played the accordian!  Note the Model A in the background.

This is Grandpa Art and my Grandma Millie in front of the Portland Sanitarium in 1946, with my dad in the stroller.  The old Portland Sanitarium was on the corner of SE 60th and Belmont, later to become Portland Adventist Medical Center.  Art was a lab tech there utilizing lab skills he learned in the Army.

Art served in the Army during WWII.  He received IA-O status (conscientiousobjector) and served in the Medical Corps rather than being sent into foreign service with his company.  Art later received word that his entire company was wiped out fighting the Japanese on Guadalcanal.

This is Grandpa Art with Ronnie (my papa).

My papa.  Love the curl.

Isn't this a handsome guy?  Course, he looks somewhat similar to someone I know...especially at that age.

Mom and dad married in 1967.  Here's the honeymooners living it up on the beach.

I'm proud of my lineage of good men.  Add to that mix Luis, one of the best daddies ever, and his dad Jose, Mason has some great men to emulate as he grows.

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On to events of the day.  Apologies for failing to post last week.  We had a busy week but I was too darn tired to blog after knocking out our downstairs cabinets on Saturday and exercising a bunch on Sunday.  Our family room is making a nice transformation.  It will be done tomorrow so I'll post pictures next week.

We went to my folks to celebrate Father's day today.  Papa Ron just finished putting in his veggie garden, including these nice raised beds. 

Caption this picture yourselves.

We picked out a vintage-looking shirt for Papa Ron.

We had creme brulee for dinner.  Turns out Siena LOVES creme brulee.  Who can blame her...it's amazing!

Luis was able to work an earlier shift and join us.  Here he is with the envelope Siena decorated for him.

And...a vintage shirt!

The Silver Lining

After a busy holiday weekend last weekend, we were ready for something a little more low key this weekend.  The kids and I didn't even leave the house yesterday.  It was wonderful.

Sunny summer weather finally decided to make an appearance.  We couldn't completely waste that.  I'd been thinking of taking the kids down to Silver Falls for our weekly Sunday walk and this seemed like just the afternoon to do it.

Despite miles of trails included in this park, Siena was more taken with the benches.

Thanks to some erosion and a little worker assistance, you can walk behind several of the falls at this park.  Here's the kids behind the 177 foot tall South Falls.  It's close enough that we could feel the mist.

Taking advantage of a seat on our hike.

Both kids took a break on this seat.  We'll have to cut them a little slack.  We did walk 2-3 miles and they did amazing.  They had way more energy than I did going up the hills.

Behind Lower South Falls. 

Mason displays one of the tree chimneys, where hot lava engulfed and disintegrated trees many years ago.

The kids must have burned some energy because I didn't even have to urge them to eat dinner.  They inhaled their Shari's pancakes, much like the lava did the trees many years ago at Silver Falls.

As promised, here's a picture of Mason's completed room.  His bed arrived Wednesday night.  Luis and I did our parenting duty, staying up late putting it together.  We finished putting pictures up and Mason's stuff away over the weekend.  No longer a baby room, that's for sure.  The only problem, now he likes his room so well that I can no longer send him there time out...

Se7en

It was seven years ago that I was scratching like crazy, a product of pruritic uticarial pupules and placques of pregnancy (PUPPP), a harmless but very itchy byproduct of pregnancy.  At least some pregnancies, such as my pregnancy with Mason.  Luckily my OBGYN said "you can do something about that - deliver this baby".  So that's what I did. 

And seven years later, here's my baby opening up some Monster trucks from his grandparents on his birthday.

Mason's actual birthday was on Tuesday.  Since we weren't having his party until Saturday, we had a little mini-celebration on Tuesday with Yaya and Papa Ron.  The Star Wars Legos were a hit.  Plus, the pieces were scattered across the floor for the rest of the week.

Siena is just old enough to struggle a little bit at the idea of Mason having a birthday but hers being so far off.  To stave off the agony, her Mama got her what she's always wanted...Princess Celestia.

We got a little Baskin Robbins ice cream cake for the mini celebration.  And in case you forgot how old Mason is...

Happy birthday to you...

Zombie husband?

Saturday was Mason's birthday party in the park.  We knew there were a couple x-factors with this plan.  First, it's Memorial day weekend so a lot of his friends were going to be out of town.  Second, it's Oregon in May.  Definitely not a month you can count on for good weather.  Finally, I'm attempting another birthday cake. Yes, there's a number of things that could go wrong.

A few of Mason's friends from school that he invited were out of town and couldn't come but we had a good turnout and a lot of his favorite people were able to make it.

Despite hurricane like torrential rain the afternoon before (and moments of panic on my part), the weather turned out perfect!  We couldn't have asked for a nicer afternoon.  Hell, I even got a sunburn.

The Hams and even Bea were able to join us.  Mason has gotten to know Auntie Lou well after or trips to Roslyn and the Dakotas last summer and really wanted her to come.

No Star Wars party is complete without the Darth Vader pinata.  This was a special pull the string at the bottom variety as opposed to the beating the crap out of it with a stick type. 

Some of the vertically challenged party guests needed a boost.

And the grandma and auntie look on, trying to analyze with the pinata will break. Yaya had some doubts.

Oh yeah.  It broke, followed by the scrum...

Darth Luis.

I must confess.  This is not the cake I left the house to go to the party with.  I attempted to make a Star Wars cake.  My best guess is that I didn't let the cake cool enough before attempting to frost it because it disintegrated in the car on the way there.  I got mad and frustrated and made a beeline with Siena to Safeway to buy a respectible cake.  You won't see a picture of the failed cake.  It went straight to the garbage at the park before anyone other than Siena could get a look (or a picture) of it.

Mason didn't seem to mind though.  We stuck some Star Wars figures on it and it was still a good cake.

About 20 minutes after we got home for the party, the rain came.  We sure got lucky.  Lately the kids have taken to having "sleepovers" with each other on non-school nights (Mama doesn't allow it on school nights).  The favorite form of sleepover is making big tents and forts in the living room.  This is the tent city they slept in Saturday night.

Sunday Yaya and Papa Ron came over and helped me paint Mason's room.  3 coats of green later, we got it done.  We're going to get his new bed this week so I'm holding off posting pictures until his whole room is completed and set up.  It's coming together good and will definitely not be a baby room anymore.

The kids had a sleepover at Yaya and Papa Ron's last night so Luis and I had a date day today.  For us, tha means we got to see a movie.  2 actually.  We went to Hangover 2 and Bridesmaids.  Both were good but I especially loved Bridesmaids.  Soooo funny.

Time for 3 mintues of tv before it's time for me to go to bed now...

Ginger Rogers, Eat Your Heart Out!

The week began with the most classic Siena meltdown to date.  It all started Monday night when she didn't eat enough dinner to earn dessert (that's the deal - yes, we resort to bribery).  After uttering inaudibles for several minutes, she came out with "I'm Siena and I'm a POOPY head".  Luis and I looked at each other, laughed, and figured she's on step 1.

On Tuesday, Mason had his annual Jog-a-thon at school.  He surprised me yet again this year by banging out 9 laps.  He said he would have done 12 but ran out of time.  As it is, he ran over 2 miles. 

The Mason studliness continued on Saturday. He's been playing soccer off and on for 3 years now and, up until Saturday, had yet to score a goal.  He was due.  Well, he delivered.  Not only did he net one goal but a little while later, got his second!  2 in one game!  He was so happy and we were so proud.

After soccer, the kids set up a toy store in our front yard.  Unfortunately they had no customers.  That's probably good because I'm not sure what they would have done if someone had actually wanted to buy their stores.

This morning I ran a 5K titled "Hill Heaven".  By heaven, the organizer misspelled "hell".  Okay, it wasn't that bad but there were a lot of hills.  All in all, good run.

As if that wasn't enough for one Sunday, Siena had her spring dance recital.  This time, she danced 2 songs!  One was ballet, the other hip hop.  Here's the Me, Myself, and I hip hop performance! And for the grandparents that can't recognize their own grandchild, she's third from the right.



After dance, we went to our family's favorite restaurant, Sushiland.  Course, Siena was still in her hip hop clothes.  This is not dissimilar from looks I sported when I was her age.

Siena took this picture of me accosting Mason with a big wet kiss.

I also got to work on some artwork this weekend.  With each one, I'm figuring out what works and what doesn't.  Lots of trial and error.  I'm sure Cousin Craig will have an opinion on this one.

Better Late Than Never

Finally, by Monday morning, the Oaks Park pictures I took from my phone made it to my computer.  Apparently the carrier pigeon got waylaid on the way to my hotmail inbox.

Anyway, the old organ in all it's glory...

Despite playing games, Mason got his roller skating groove on.  Too bad only girls roller derby...

A cartoonized Seina at the practice ring.

The birthday girl Averi with Mason and Siena.  Averi and Mason are in the same class together at school.

Pinata scrum.

At dance class yesterday, Siena and her friend Alyssa wore their matching Costco dresses.

And another little girl wore a very very similar dress.  By the way, this pose is a preview of next weekend's recital.

My plan for today was to not leave the house.  Other than my run that is.  The kids had other plans however, namely the Sunday walk.  Mason has had a walk next to the airport picked out for a few weeks now so we had no choice but to head out.  After all, I can't really use the excuse that we can't go because mama is lazy.  So walk we did and saw some planes take off and land while we were at it.

Less you think I get some good parenting award for taking the kids on a walk today, I have to confess that I fibbed a bit and put them to bed 15 minutes early.  Tired mom's have to do what tired mom's have to do.

Mama's Day

It's been a couple of busy weekends for the Cruzes.  Last weekend we made our first visit to John's Incredible Pizza with Mason's school friend Kiave.  John's is like Pietro's on acid.  There's all kinds of games, rides, and pizza.  At least 20 kinds of pizza, including macaroni and cheese and chicken alfredo pizza.  Needless to say, after this much fun and excitement, we got home late and I was too tired to blog.

Yesterday we went to Oaks Park for a birthday party for one of Mason's friend's from school.  I got some pictures of the kids skating at the park but they were on my phone and for some reason, despite all the techonolgy in the world, I can't get the pictures from the phone to the computer.  Even though the phone is connected to the computer!  Grrrrr...

Anyway, today is Mother's Day!  We started the day off by going to breakfast with the Cruzes.  We got to the restaurant at 10 am.  Apparently this restaurant was completely unprepared to deal with Mother's Day, because we didn't get our food until after 11.  Hence the plethora of pictures...

Mason got his hands on the camera and took a number of pictures too.  And he didn't do too bad!  Here's Tia Mandy, cousin Andre, and cousin Tristyn.

Abuela Gloria and Siena.

Me and my baby!  The necklace I'm wearing is my gift from Siena for Mother's Day.  She picked it our herself and I LOVE it.  Mason got me an awesome clock which I also love.  They are so good at picking out special presents.

A good picture of Daddy being goofy!

Siena with Tio Junior.

Siena took this picture of me with Roberto.

Another Siena special.  This time its Mason.

The boys.

The grandkids.

The grandparents and grandkids.  Except Mason.  He was done with pictures by this time.

After breakfast, I celebrated Mother's day with my own Mother.  Papa Ron watched the kids and mom and I went shopping together.  We found wedding and wedding shower gifts for my cousin Amanda.  Mom picked out a purse, which I got her for Mother's day.  I found myself some shoes too.  We also found some clothes for the kids to wear to Amanda's wedding.  Here's a preview.  Don't they look amazing!

The kids had a great time with Papa Ron.  They got all of their clothes out of their closet and played store.  Mason also set up all of his cars in the kitchen for display.  Beautiful, aren't they...