Beach Trip

Our anniversary was earlier in the week, and as a simple means of celebrating we decided to take a day trip to the coast. After putting in a half-day's work at home first (shipping products, sawing firewood, and stacking hay), it was finally time to load up and go.

It started off pretty well, with two lovely (read: sleeping) children in the car, and Mom and Dad getting a little quiet talking time.

We strolled along the waterfront for a spell...

Aleaha and Dad checking out the fishing boats.


Mommy and Miri watching the sea lions.


There were a few basking in the sun on the dock below the pier. Aleaha exclaimed, "Them don't mell very good, Mom." (She smelled the fishery nearby and attributed the smell to the sea lions.) When a word starts with s and then another consonant, such as smell, she drops the s.... smell is "mell," stop is "dop," splinter is "plinter," stinky is "tinky", etc. And then there's the misuse of pronouns -- "them are", "him is", etc. She's our little Hick from the Sticks.


Miri wore her sunglasses for a little while, and they were darn cute! (functional, too -- she's so practical in that way. hehehe) But it didn't last long; she found ways to get them off.

Then we stopped at our ritual coffee spot, Kudalini Espresso, for lattes and a creamsicle soda, then and headed to the beach. Aleaha has been fixated on sharks lately, and wonders with every body of water if there are sharks in there and if they will eat people.


She got in lots of sand-climbing time....


...and was always on the move, running way ahead of us.


The wind was really strong, blowing sand all over. Poor Miri had to be bundled up tight. And she still had sand in her ears. Baths were required for all that night!


Cool sand formations from the wind.


Aleaha had been so interested in getting in the water (wanted to wear her swimsuit), until we were actually there, naturally. And of course there was the issue of sharks.


She was on the go the whole time, running-running-running.


A darling photo with natural smiles. Notice the angle of the her braid -- there was a bit of wind.

After the beach visit, we stopped for dinner. We have lamented the fact that we no longer get to eat at nice places (Mommy really wanted to go to The Whale's Tail), and instead we opt for family-friendly places. We ate the the Chalet, which is one of those places that serves more type of pie than anything else. And when they say they are family friendly, they really mean that they cater more to the 80-and-up crowd, but not so much to parents traversing with small children. There was a kids' menu, but no changing table in the bathroom for babies. Mommy has learned to make do, of course, but it's frustrating.

Speaking of frustrating, that's a good description for dinner with the three-year-old. It's a total cajole to get her to eat. I know lots of parents have dealt with this, but it's relatively new for us. Aleaha's always been a good eater, up til now. After Mommy took Miri out to the car for her dinner (thought about feeding her right there at the table, but that would have really tested the family-friendly moniker of the Chalet, haha), Daddy was left to manage Aleaha. Short story: It was not good. Tears, fits, and a quick exit.

As The Fates would have it, the ride home was the opposite of the peace we enjoyed on the way over. Miri must have had some sort of gas pains or sand in her eye or something, because she screamed almost the whole way home.

Nicknames

Aleaha has gone through a few nicknames. Before she arrived, we referred to her as Buttercup and Junebug. After she was born, she became Poober Lou, aka Poobers. That stuck. As for her formal name, she first called herself Ay-ya, and now it's Ah-Wee-Ah. But if you ask her for her nickname, she says Poober Yoo.

As for Miri, before she was born, she was known as Noodle. Now, having met her, we have a nice selection of nicknames for her....Miri Mae, Miri P. Rumblebutt, and Mirigold K. Thunderbritches. You can guess how she's earned those.

Here are a couple of shots from an outing today:

Round-Up Review

We had the good fortune to attend the 99th Pendleton Round-Up this year and visit with family. As usual, "a good time was had by all." We are getting geared up and looking forward to next year, for the Hundredth Anniversary! Got your tickets??

Gramma Bon took lots of photos, so perhaps we'll be able to post a few of those. In the meantime, here are a few.


We watched the Westward Ho! Parade on Friday morning, and Aleaha keenly spotted that directly across the street from where we were sitting was Whitey's Candy and Ice Cream Shop. (No, she can't read yet, but she knows how to interpret important things, like signs that have pictures of ice cream cones on them.) She really wanted a treat, and as soon as the parade was past us, we shimmied across to beat the crowd and get ourselves a couple of what she calls "Hunkleberry" cones. Yum.


Post-parade on Friday, Nanny Shelby took care of a passel of kids at the daycare center in Aunt Jodi's basement, while many of the parents got to go to the rodeo. Gramma Bon had been wondering who the Patron Saint of Round-Up would be, and now we know -- it's Nanny Shelby!! :)


Gramma Bon and Mommy and Miri sat in the "Sun Bowl" section of the grandstands, and although the action was great to watch, it was just too danged hot and sunny for us. We lasted through the first event, and then it was time to go look at the Fine Jewelry of the Indian Village and check out the hard work Gramma Bon put in for years over at the Round-Up and Happy Canyon Hall of Fame.


Here's Miri exclaiming just how awesome it is to watch Round-Up. She loved it.


On Saturday, while Gramma Bon and Aleaha took in the action from the South Grandstands, Daddy and Mommy and Miri got to watch from the highly-coveted seats we occasionally get from our good friends Bob & Janet Miller (no relation, dangit). These seats are RIGHT ABOVE the buckin' chutes. Not a better seat can be had. Daddy is spoiled now, as the two times he's seen the rodeo, he's had the privilege of those seats.

Miri loved the rodeo. Lots of animals and athletes and action. That, and Mommy wore her in the Baby Bjorn for 2 days. Made for a very happy baby!

Round-Up Ready

It's the second full week in September, which, for those of us with ties to Eastern Oregon, means Round-Up!

We will be going to visit later in the week. Aleaha can hardly wait -- keeps asking if it's time to go yet. In anticipation, we did a little Western Photoshoot. Couldn't manage to get both girls in one photo together, so had to do them separately (Miri just can't sit up straight in the saddle yet, but it won't be long!)









For grins, here is a similar shot of Aleaha from three years ago. Hey, we're gettin' lots of mileage out of those outfits!

Just a couple of pics

Aleaha has discovered "Spice and Ice", a fun little restaurant in North Albany. After a preview trip with Mom, we returned a few days later with Daddy. Yummy - great rice and noodles and meat and veggies -- her faves. (Just order it without sauce, she cautions.) She's intrigued by chopsticks, but of course can't use them properly yet. Oh well. Her mother was 26 before she could use chopsticks.


Our cat Carly is just about all used up. She's going on 19 years old, and she's lost a lot of weight in the last year. She's been OK this summer, but she no longer grooms herself and thus is banned to the outdoors most of the time. She still likes to eat -- although, like her predecessor Oscar, she seems to forget when she's already eaten, asking again for food 15 minutes later. Here she is sleeping in the cat food box, obviously telling us it's time to eat again.

Shed Work, Amusements, and Gramma Patty's Visit

Let's see... Miri is almost 2 months old now, and that means the new sheds that Grandpa and Daddy built the week she was born have been sitting, largely untouched, for that amount of time. (We've just been danged busy!) So Daddy set aside some time to get the roofs on - right before we had 2 days of rain. Whew!


Here he is putting the metal on the big shed.


Nailing the last nail in the Chicken Shack, which will keep the chicken food out of the weather. We reused the pine that was removed from the family room. Nice, eh?


The countertop is a tad high, but Daddy demonstrates that if we ever needed an outhouse, we got it made.


Here's the Shack in it's intended location, just outside the chicken pen. It was quite a process to put it in the bucket of the tractor and move it into place. (Love that Kubota!)

Moving on to other topics...


Miri loves to be on her changing table. We get the biggest smiles there. Here's what we see...


...and here's what Miri sees! She has a thing for the dragonfly with the blue wings. Totally fixates on it every time.


Miri's other favorite captivation lately is to look at herself in the mirror. Her swing has a bubble-shaped mirror above her head, and although Aleaha never seemed to pay attention to it, Miri caught sight of that other baby and was mesmorized.

We took the opportunity that self-employment affords to hit the Oregon State Fair on a weekday last week, thinking there'd be fewer people. That wasn't the case. Apparently, school was still out in many areas, because for a Wednesday, there were waaaayyy too many adolescents running amok. It was pretty warm, but we had a good time. A few rides, some eats, and we were ready to come home. But our first stop was the Forestry Building, because we are all about Smokey Bear.


Here is the one shot I got to prove our patronage of the Fair. We love Smokey Bear (and you do know it's "Smokey Bear", not "Smokey the Bear", right??).


Gramma Bon mentioned that the Pendleton Woolen Mills would have a nice display of blankets, so I wanted to get a pic of it for her. Obviously I'm no photojournalist, but it was a neat showing of blankets. There was even a brochure for the city of Pilot Rock!


Aleaha is getting to be a Big Girl, but she still needs (and takes, fortunately) her afternoon nap. She really wanted to go to Trader Joe's the other day (OK, so did Mommy), but the deal was that if we went, she had to sleep in the car on the way. She complied, telling me she'd be asleep by the time we got down our driveway. At first, I wondered if she was trying to fool me by not really sleeping behind those sunglasses, but she was definitely asleep.


Gramma Patty came out for dinner and a visit with the girls. Here she is with Miri.


After several crying shots, we got a smiley one. Evenings are a very cranky time for Miri.


Gramma Patty reads to Aleaha. THANK YOU, Gramma Patty!! You are very patient. :)

Visiting Fam in EO

First, a few shots from late in August...



Cutie-Poo, giving smiles on her changing table. (You know, sometimes a girl just wants to feel fresh.)



Aleaha loves to cook. Here she is making "Hot Licks Chicken". She mixed the spice rub and sprinkled it on the chicken breasts. She didn't want to actually touch the chicken to do the rubbing, because "I don't want to get my hands all that icky, Mom." (Just as well, because then she'd be sliming everything else with chicken goo.)

On Friday, Mommy got brave and took the girls to visit family in Eastern Oregon over the weekend. Daddy was very sad that he didn't get to go. It sucks to have to work so hard.


The trip over was really good. Miri slept nearly the whole time. Car vibration and the white noise of the road helped a lot. Aleaha and Chocolate (the horse) got in a nap too.


There was a really bad forest fire near Mosier. I learned later that I nearly got caught in a closure of I-5. Yikes! That would have been terrible. Seems like each trip with a tiny baby I have to deal with some major catastrophe. Fortunately, we came through this trip OK.


Aleaha enjoys breakfast on Saturday....


... while Miri enjoys swinging.


Grandpa knows how to rock a little one to sleep.


Cousin Ella was so good to Miri -- she loves to hold her.


Aunt Jodi on Baby Bouncy duty. She volunteered to take Miri a lot, and Mommy really appreciated the break!!


The Project De Weekend was to build a brick enclosure/woodbox around the cookstove and behind the woodstove in the big house. Here are Mel and Dad laying out out more brick. (I didn't get any shots of Chris B. and Mike and Jodi and Kelly, but they all put in a lot of work on it too.) It's gonna be something when it's done. It's one of those things that takes so much effort, and each time you look at it over the years, you remember the process of building it.


I love this shot. On Saturday night in the mountains, after a very full day of running around (and trying to stay out of the guys' way), Tyler, Ella, Hank, Aleaha, and Sylvie enjoyed a special treat of s'mores and then got to watch a movie in Aunt Jodi's car (she has a DVD player in there). You gotta love modern technology for giving them a great end to the day -- and giving us parents a respite from watching them!!


OK, perhaps you have to be a member of the family to appreciate the, uh, irony of this. What we have here is a torn-out magazine piece on "Safe Food Storage Recommendations", which I found taped to the inside of one of the cupboards at the house in PR. The nature of the irony? Well, if you knew just how much food -- and its occasional condition-- there is stored between the house and the mountains, you'd get it. (Truth be told, I have a bit of this affliction myself. And I know I come by it honestly!) Oh, and the other interesting thing here is that it's covered up by a recipe for Cheese Broccoli Bake, for which most ingredients (first listing: Cheez Whiz) have a shelf life of about 12 years.


The Microwave Fire near Mosier was still burning on Sunday as we went home.

All in all, Miri was a great traveler. At 7 weeks old, it's amazing how alert she is. She didn't want to miss anything when we were there. She must have known it was a special place to be. She didn't sleep as long or as deeply as she usually does at home. But the night we returned home, she slept for 6 hours straight. Woohoo for Mommy!! :)