I recently took the opportunity to “getaway” with my good friend Maren. After booking it, I felt a pang of guilt. I didn’t want this trip to be for the purpose of getting away from my kids. I love my kids, I love to be with them, and I don’t need to leave town or have other activities purposely scheduled so that I don’t have to be with them. That being said, our trip was fantastic. I had a great time hanging out with Maren, seeing Wicked, getting a facial, staying in the heart of San Francisco, shopping, and visiting old friends. I appreciated it for the time I had with a friend and consider it time well spent. So, I prefer not to call it a getaway, since I wasn’t trying to get away from anything, instead I call it a get together and I’d definitely like to do it again someday. It was relaxing and relatively worry free.
(Stack’s fruit crepe!)
Russell, recently, had the opportunity to “get together” also, but he chose to do it with his family. He’s been working long and hard lately and wanted some time to relax. He decided camping was the perfect remedy for a long work week. So, we packed up the car and the kids and found a fantastic site in Tillamook State Forest. We had a small secluded site with trails that led down to a shallow creek. The kids played in the creek for hours, catching millions of tad poles, throwing rocks, throwing sticks and rocks to Terry, and honing marshmallow roasting skills. We told stories in front of the fire and played in lots of dirt. Russell jumped off cliffs into the water and spent a lot of time reading amidst his family. I appreciate that he chose to relax with us–a great man, in my mind, is one whose greatest moments are with his family.
A fellow I work with, Kaigin, has organized a cross-country training event just for fun. It’s a family friendly event, primarily focused on families with kids who are running cross country at school, so it’s only a 3k race. It happens every Wednesday in August. We went the first time and were surprised to have Dathan Ritzenheim there. He’s the current American record holder for the 5k, running it in 12:56. That’s 12 MINUTES, in case there was any question, as in 4-ish minutes per mile. I talked with him for a couple of minutes, asking what he thought of the bare-foot running movement, and whether it was something he thought had validity and he tactfully said, “Well, I don’t do it.” He’s a pretty skinny guy, but apparently compared to some of the other runners, he’s a stocky fellow.
We made Porter and Reid run from the starting line, but we let Afton ride in the stroller. After about half a lap, Reid was dying and we let him get in but Porter ran the whole first lap, 750 m before he broke down and we let him into the stroller. It took us about 17minutes to run our 3k, and we had a great time. We skipped a week but we’ll go back this week for the team effort. We like that things like this are a fairly normal part of Nike work environment. It’s fun and makes us want to stay athletic.
For Portland Appreciation, we drove downtown to the Portland Saturday Market. It’s apparently one of the best around. To be honest, it wasn’t that great. It has tons of booths selling “local” t-shirts, hippie-wear, home-made soap, and gobs of jewelry and figurines made from wire and rocks. Meh.
There was, however, a cool guy playing an accordion, kick-drum, and harmonica who let Porter and Reid play a couple of rattles with him, so we got a picture of that. Also, there was one part of the market that was built around a fountain on a cobblestone plaza that reminded me a lot of Europe. Betsy smelled something that reminded her of Ukraine, but I didn’t notice it.
From there we went to the farmers’ market that is also supposed to be one of the best around, but we didn’t find it so. Perhaps they meant that it was the best around for the farmers, because it certainly wasn’t the best for us. The prices were significantly higher than they are at the store, and we weren’t terribly impressed with the few samples we tried. Also, I keep going to these farmers’ markets thinking that at one of them I’ll find somebody selling honey who has an idea of what they’re talking about, and hopefully has a selection of honeys broader than clover and crystallized clover. We did find two stalls with honey, but one of them was stirring in flavors of jam after the fact, which is not what I want at all, and the other had just clover, buckwheat, and raspberry.
All in all, we’re glad we’ve been to both, so that we don’t have to wonder if there’s something we’re missing, and we can give an honest opinion when people ask us about them.
We also took the boat out on Hagg Lake and had a great time. The water was beautiful and warm enough to swim in without worrying about freezing to death.
Just when you think you can’t possibly take your kids to the grocery store one more time for fear they will, once again, cry or scream or fight or spit or sample each apple on the mound of fuji’s–just when you think your neighbors are about to call child protective services because they hear you yelling at your kids constantly because that seems to be the only way they actually hear what you’re saying–just when you’re on the verge of tears because the house is a mess, your family is eating cereal for dinner because cooking has lost all it’s glory, and you had 2 doughnuts and 3 cookies to make yourself feel better and then immediately worse–the clouds part.
I DECLARE THAT AS OF TODAY, REID IS OFFICIALLY POTTY TRAINED!
PORTER AND REID NO LONGER STAY UP 2 HOURS PAST BEDTIME TALKING/PLAYING/GETTING YELLED AT INSTEAD OF GOING TO SLEEP!
AFTON JUST ENTERED HER 12-18 MONTH CLOTHES BOX (SAMPLE SIZE) WHICH MEANS A PLETHORA OF ADORABLE OUTFITS!
AND, PORTER LEARNED HOW TO SCRUB THE TOILET AND ASKS TO DO IT EVERYDAY!
My kids are so good and I love them like crazy.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
I did it–I cut Afton’s mullet–I didn’t even wait for one of Russell’s sisters to come around and do it for me.
