Around Town

One thing everyone said to us before we moved was, "There is sooo much to do in Portland." Absolutely right. In some ways, the choices are daunting.  I am a self admitted "information-aholic" and I loved being able to keep track of things going on around Bend. In Portland, there's just too many things to try and track... what a problem, right?  Thankfully, before we moved, we made a list of the things we wanted to do in Portland - urban outings and everyday adventures.  Even in the midst of the wettest spring on record (awesome, awesome), we managed to cross quite a few things off our list including two visits to both the Children's Museum and Oregon Zoo, three visits to Tryon Creek State Park, and FINALLY made good on our promise to take the boys on the Aerial Tram (with a pre-visit breakfast at Pine State Biscuts - an easy new favorite.) Scott also scored a big winner and convinced me to check out a little brew house in Tigard. Max's Fanno Creek Pub turns out to have great beer, a wide fresh food selection, and two (yes TWO) areas for the kids to play. Yep, three check marks on that one, too!

My picture taking skills are seriously lacking, but I wanted to drop in a few from our spring in-ings and outings.

Josh helping Scott survey the land.

Happy Birthday to Me! Our lack of oven at the time "forced" Scott to pick up an ice cream cake.

I still have no idea how both boys ended up inside that dishwasher box, but new appliance boxes make awesome building materials.

 Yes folks, "A Fort for Everyone!... but closed at night."

 Who wants to watch TV on the couch when you have perfectly good camping chairs on hand?

First of three visits to Tryon Creek Park.

Um, yes, Josh dresses himself.  This is a sweatshirt, swim shorts, tennis shoes (with no socks), and on this particular day, the sun was finally showing up. Josh looked at all of us in our sunglasses, declared, "I need a hat!" and returned outside 3 minutes later wearing this...

Our first visit to the Children's Museum coincided with "Super Hero Day." All staff dressed in costumes, cape making workshops for kids, and other hero activities. Somehow, Star Wars characters got roped in with super heroes. Puzzling? Yes. Awesome? Absolutely. What's better than a giant Chewbacca trying to maneuver through several hundred star struck gradeschoolers and their terrified younger siblings?  Owen was in awe. Josh, not so much.

 We again braved the crowds to hit the Easter Egg hunt at the Zoo. Actually, a very well organized and crowd deterring event. They run hunts every 20 minutes all day long with the lawn roped off for all the age categories. Plus, lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

 Grandma saved us with mailed Easter baskets for the kids.

We also pulled our act together and got ourselves to a church on Easter Sunday.  I was dreading having to drag the kids through service after service trying to find a "church home." Thankfully the internet provides ample opportunity to dig through basic theology and get an idea of the life of various churches before walking in the front door.  We feel like we've found a fit on our first visit!  Thriving, growing congregation with a solid teaching team and tons of activities.  Owen loves his pre-K room and Josh is now comfortable (after 4 visits) in the 2's room.

Amid all the work on the house and trying to manage enough outings and activities to keep us all excited about Portland, it's nice to be find some rhythm to our days and weeks and church on Sunday is a critical piece of the puzzle.

Now, if only we could stop setting rain records...

Known

We had a wonderfully perfect Mothers Day this year: We spent the weekend back in Bend, breathing in fresh mountain air. More importantly, we soaked in the comfort of knowing and being KNOWN. Our weekend started at the High Dessert Museum, at the opening reception for a new hands on exhibit on forestry and fire safety. From there, we headed to my parents place and settled in... Then snuck back out to grab a beer with Luke and Tara. Ah! The warm embrace of friends. A chance to catch up and hash through life decisions. Yes please!

Our Friday included lots of time with Nana and Papa and an awesome playgroup at the park. The kids rode bikes and raced around the playground while I got to catch up with my gals. Jen even made an appearance with week old baby Silas. Owen did a major endo over his bike handlebars ... All I saw was feet flying through the air. Dave and Michelle were there in an instant, checking for broken bones, but the "Super Skin" came through yet again and Owen was free to hop back on his wheels. Even Josh spent about a half hour diligently guiding his strider around the quarter mile loop. I kept expecting to have to rescue him from the far side of the trail, but he eventually came back around with a big grin of accomplishment.

After Josh spent a full thirty minutes of our drive over screaming, "I want go Jackshonsh Cor-er!!" what else could we do? We met the Wiaters for a favorite dinner with our favorite people. Turned out that 3-4 other families from the boys prior school were sitting outside for dinner, too. Perfect? Not just yet. Follow dinner with gelato downtown where Owen, Lily, Josh, and Miles generously shared spoons and laughter. Now, that's perfect.

Saturday, Scott got to head out on his mountain bike with the guys, while the kids and I headed to Julie's to meet Baby Soren. Shawndi also brought over her kids, and it was heartwarming to see "the Owens" fall into their easy, started before birth, friendship at the Lego table. I got lots of time with Soren and hopefully encouraged Julie a bit that there is a light at the end of the colic tunnel. Owen then snuck in a playdate with his "school brother" while Nana managed a miserable (teething) Josh. Scott also let me savor several hours with my favorite ladies, accompanied by wine and chocolate.

We had Mothers' Day brunch at McKay Cottage, which has become a tradition. The whole weekend was about reconnecting with the places and people that nourish our spirits. I saw that in my kids playing with their friends and felt my own spirit filled by friends that have known me in high times and low. Never enough time, but soooo great to step back into that place where we are comfortable and KNOWN to the core. It was a deep breath of clear mountain air to refill our sails and motivate us to push to find the people and places that are going to nourish our spirits here in Portland.

Schpeech

(I'm testing out a mobile blogging app, so the posts might be picture limited, but hopefully more frequent.)

Josh has been talking up a storm these days. I don't think we are anywhere close to the two year old milestone of having half his words understandable to strangers. We often joke that he just has an early retainer because he talks like he has marbles in his mouth. At least now he knows he CAN communicate and is more willing to repeat his ideas several times to get the point across. I know this jumbled speech is something we are going to miss when he gets older.

Shzat yo's? = is that yours, repeated 976 times each day
Yesh peesche = yes please
Hey-ya-cha-sher = helicopter
Wah-cher = water
Sche-all = cereal
Wash a show = watch a show
Bass-sh time = bath time
Treess-sh = trees
Jas-kanssss-sh core-er = Jackson's Corner, our favorite dinner spot in Bend, which Josh yelled repeatedly for 30 minutes on our drive over the mountains.

Basically, he struggles with the "ch" and "th" sounds and turns most ch, th, sh, and ending "s" sounds into a three syllable extravaganza. All of us (including Owen) are getting pretty good at translating, but most people can't even tell that josh saying real words. (add in the fact that he still looks too young to be talking, and people that don't really know him just aren't inclined to try and decipher his speech. For the sake of communication, I hope the word clarity keeps getting better, but for pure entertainment, we'll keep the lisping, retainer wearing two year old a bit longer!

I thought of some other ones I wanted to record for the future:
I see-ee yo wap = I sit in your lap?
Was-ch = watch, wash, or Lunch!
Bes-sches = breakfast
Shees peesche = cheese please
Yo-yur = yogurt
She-shaw = sing a song
Nee sup = need some, need soap, or need syrup
Can-cakes = pancakes (one of those pronunciations that we have even started to use)

A Season of Change

Understatement: We've had an eventful transition to Portland.

We knew the transition would be interesting with the work to do on the house, and I think we've been taking it all in stride, but I realized just how crazy things have been when I found myself texting Sara:

"Sorry we didn't call you back last night. The new furnace broke, Scott was puking, and the kids were asking to hug the repair man goodnight." Just another run of the mill evening in the Maxwell House!

I have been feeling overwhelmed by the thought of trying to get up to date on our recent activities, so a string of random updates will have to do.

THE HOUSE

The good news is that we have new carpet, new appliances, and fresh paint on most of our walls.  Also, next year we won't have to buy a new furnace.  Odd happenings with the house have included:

- Pondering why the prior owners stripped the house of various light fixtures, all toilet paper holders, and the oven racks (?!?!) and yet left all 12 attachments for the central vac system.

- The HVAC tech inspecting our heat pump system only to proclaim, "I figured out your problem. You have a heat pump thermostat, but you don't have a heat pump." An hour later he also notified me our 25 year old furnace was cracked and had to be shut down.

- Realizing that most of our walls were a near match to the "color" of primer.  Not anymore!

- Wondering why people so opposed to color in 90% of the house would paint the TV room two shades of bright pink/orange to match navy/turquoise window coverings.

- Spending our first month without use of the oven or microwave.  Certainly a first world problem, but it really stymied me when we couldn't even take n' bake pizza.

- Marveling at the loveliness of hexagon shaped sinks.

- Having an extra fridge rotating around various rooms of our house. Our garage fridge from Bend was a lifesaver our first month here before we got our appliances. It was slated to slide perfectly into a space in the garage. A space that quickly got consumed by the new, wider, furnace. Plan B?

While it sounds like a never ending project, which will be true for a while, we are loving other aspects of the house - the giant playroom, the big backyard, good storage spaces, and a layout that seems to be fitting nicely with our daily rhythm.  In the end, those are the things that matter. Paint and ugly fixtures can all be changed over time.

THE WEATHER

We were lucky enough to move to Portland just in time to experience the wettest March on record.  As a stormwater engineer, this is wonderful for my career, but pretty brutal on our high dessert psyche.  We spent a good deal of time marveling at the lake that consumed much of our backyard for our first weeks in the house. Thankfully these few dry days have helped us avoid being a headline: "Drainage Engineer Buys Flooding House." We did lose two cedar trees in a late march snow and I've worn my raincoat more in the last month than I did in the last 5 years, but six years in the high desert didn't completely override our Seattle webbed feet.  

Our kids are another story.  Owen hates his raincoat, refuses to wear rain boots, and is really frustrated that he can't spend his days outside.  We keep telling him spring and summer are coming, but I knew we were going a little stir crazy when we got a brief hour of midday sun and my kids whipped out the deck chairs, stripped down, and played in the SNOW STILL MELTING ON OUR DECK.

THE TRANSITION

Needless to say, we have resorted to some unusual tactics to manage the behavior challenges that come with this time of transition and limited opportunities for outside/big muscle play.  After several weeks of what felt like an endless battle trying to keep Owen in line, avoid scenes from WWF/Fight Club, and dealing with meltdowns right and left, we sat down one morning and wrote down some basic "Behavior Rules."  I decided to just pick a few behaviors to focus on, and believe me, for several days, it felt like every other sentence out of my mouth was, "remember our behavior rules."

Owen's list: Give People Space, Use Polite Words, Stay at the Table While Eating, Listen to Mom and Dad, Happy Attitude!

Josh's list: Use your Words, Say Please and Thank You, Listen to Mom and Dad, Stay in your Seat When Eating, Hapy Attitude!

Mom's list - yes, I needed one too: No Yelling, Say Please and Thank You, Do What is On the List, Happy Attitude!

Notice how I sneak in  a rule for me that really focuses on getting the kids in line?  "Do what is on the list" refers to sticking to my to do list or the daily plan, which the kids and I talk about every morning.  By having that be one of my rules, it seems to have helped to combat the constant protests whining I was encountering whenever we needed to run an errand or tackle a project around the house.  

Actually, those lists went up about a month ago, and I'm happy to report that they didn't make the transition to the new fridge when it was installed. Seems like things are looking up!

OTHER NEWS

I'm also pleased to report that the speech progress that Josh was making before we moved seems to have continued through the transition. In fact, they hired a new teacher for their daycare a few weeks ago, and the FIRST comment she made to me when I picked up the kids on her first day was, "Man, that Josh, he certainly has a lot to say, doesn't he?"  Not bad for a kid who was barely saying single words 6 months ago!

Funniest quote of the day from Owen: "A manatee? I know about manatees. They turn into mermaids." ??what??  "Yes, see their life cycle goes from baby manatee to adult manatee to mermaid!  Or merman... or mer-girl... or mer-boy."