The Redwood Forest

After Lucas and I flew back from CA (which would have been preferable to the drive back, if not for the flight delay that led Lucas to lay face down in the middle of the airport hallway at about 10:30 pm in sheer exhaustion, as we were still waiting to leave San Jose, and then got us home after 1 am), John and Josh drove back, taking the scenic route this time.

From John's parents home in Menlo Park (just south of San Francisco), they drove through the city, over the Golden Gate bridge, up the coast (on a beautiful, clear day), and into the Redwood Forest. They took the detour onto the Avenue of Giants, and saw the large and amazing trees first hand. Unfortunately, they were not able to find any banana slugs. It had been Josh's great pleasure to tell me how he was going to lick a banana slug on his trip and then try to kiss me when he returned, just to utterly horrify me. But, no luck.

Apparently, they did see a dead mouse in the forest, because upon his return, Josh's teacher told me that whenever anyone asked about his trip (friends, teachers, parents of friends), Josh would exclaim, I saw a dead mouse!! Everyone must think we vacationed in a landfill, or back alley, or something. You'd never know the amazing things he saw from the report of a 4-year-old boy.

No pictures of the mouse corpse. Here are the giant redwoods.

The Drive-Through Tree

There are four drive-through trees in the Redwood Forest. John and Josh drove through one of them. I think this is Chandelier tree.

Approaching the giant tree:



Preparing to drive though. Considering the size of a car, the scale of this tree trunk is just amazing.



The view from inside the tree:



and through the window, a rare view of the inside of a very, very old tree:



Josh gets a closer look:

Hoops at John's elementary school

During our visit to California this weekend, we got out a few times to enjoy the gorgeous weather and play some basketball, which is Josh's latest infatuation. After playing at the local park and watching Josh (not to mention poor Lucas) battle the wind to (try to) reach the regulation-height hoops, we drove by John's elementary school, St. Raymond's, and found lower hoops. These photos are all on the basketball and parking area, but the lawn surrounding the school is beautifully landscaped, and the sky was clear blue. It was really nice. Coming back to rainy Portland was not easy.

Josh sinks one while Lucas cues up:



Posing for mom:



Lucas' dunk (with a small assist from Dad):



John and I loved this, he just started carrying the ball on his hip like such a natural:



Working up a sweat:

Happy St. Patrick's Day

My nieces (and, in the background, my sisters), celebrating St. Patrick's Day in Virginia. This is a screencap from the local news, on which they were featured (and during which my sister's "festive" hat was ridiculed by the anchor, to our great amusement).

I'm glad they were on the ball. I completely forgot about St. Patrick's Day and dropped both my boys off at school dressed in not so much as a single stripe of green, surrounded by all their green-clad friends. I drew shamrocks on their arms so they wouldn't feel left out (and got chastised by one of Josh's 5-year-old classmates for using the dry erase marker). I felt like a bad mom, but you can't win them all. We did have a green dinner though (pesto pasta, Lucas' favorite meal).

Close ups

I think the angle and lighting of this picture make Lucas look so old, like a little boy instead of like the baby we still think he is (possibly because he still only weighs 23 lbs, so tiny!). But he will be two soon, and he just moved into a new classroom at school, which has brought along with it lots of new things. Lucas is drinking from a cup without a lid now; he is trying to use the potty (and successfully peed on it, if not in it, Monday morning at home); he asks for a tissue when he needs to blow his nose (whereas Josh runs the other way when he sees me grab one); and he is starting to use more words too. And he is taller. And runs a lot faster.



Josh, meanwhile, is preparing for kindergarten. Amazing. I can't believe he'll be in real school next year. We've been to two kindergarten round-ups, and we're torn between the two. I can't believe the number of schools some of our friends have toured. I'm torn between thinking I'd be completely overwhelmed if I were considering any more possibilities than the two we are already debating, and feeling like maybe I should have looked around more to know what other options are available. But John reminds me that one of the reasons we chose our house was the school district assignments for our neighborhood, which has one of Portland's best elementary schools. So Josh should be in good hands even with only the two options we have for him come fall.

Learning to build BIG towers

With his own curiosity and some guidance from Josh, Lucas has been building large towers with his blocks (recognize these, Dante? they are a big hit!). In this series I captured this morning, he builds a tower taller than he is.

Here he stopped and waited long enough for me to leave the room, get my camera, return, and take his picture. Amazing, given his competing urges to build taller and/or knock it down in delight. But he waited for me instead. And he is smiling with pride in his accomplishment thus far.



Adding the "l" block, which makes the tower about exactly as tall as Lucas.



And now one more, which requires tippy-toes:



He actually had to turn this one and try again, but I only posted one of these, so the block is a bit turned in the next photo.

The finished tower:



The good news is, as much as he loves building and stacking, he is equally pleased when it all comes crashing down (and sometimes helps speed that process along), so this has been a fun activity for all of us.

Wii tennis

Josh loves to play Wii sports, and Lucas loves to play along too, but doesn't know how to push the right buttons to actually control the Wii. So we've discovered that tennis is the best game for Lucas to play along with. Josh plays the computer, and Lucas is sure he is controlling the movements of the other side. He doesn't even have a Wii controller, he has the TV remote or, in this instance, a drumstick. But he jumps and swings his "racket" and thinks he is playing. At around 0:24 in this video, you can also hear his Seles-like grunt. It is really quite cute.

He also has the Wii racket accessory (sans Wii controller) to further the experience. Maybe he has a future in tennis, he sure seems to love it!

Inauguration Day!

You've probably seen the painting of Barack Obama in red and blue that became iconic and was the cover for Time magazine's Person of the Year issue. Well, I found a website that lets you make your own, so I loaded in photos of Josh and Lucas. It is from Paste Magazine's Obamicon.me. I think they look cool!

Happy, happy day!!

Fun times

Here are the boys (all of them!) playing their guitars together. Not only is it visually cute, but they go around in a circle and make up lyrics, and it is super-cute to hear the things Josh sings about. Lucas still doesn't talk much, so he just strums along. I just love that they each have a different size guitar to fit their needs.



I also brought out our Ladybug tent, which was a gift from my Aunt Mary Lou a few years ago. Josh has been asking about camping, but of course we were buried in snow last month and we're moving into the dead of winter, so I was happy to substitute this nice indoor tent! Now Josh wants to picnic inside it for every meal. The boys are loving it, especially the fun tunnel, and the velcro side door that each of them can open and close by themselves during repetitive rounds of hide-and-so-seek/peek-a-boo, Lucas' very favorite game.

Disney album

I never got around to posting the pictures from our Disney vacation in September (there was just too much going on then, sorry!), but upon my friend Krista's suggestion (via her blog), I made a photobook of the trip at Shutterfly to give as our Christmas present to my family. Thanks for the tip, Krista!

You can view the album, if you want, by clicking on this link. You will not have to join Shutterfly to view the album.

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2AaMmbVu0ZsXHQ

We had more than 1,000 photos between everyone's cameras, so I had a lot to choose from and tried to hit the highlights. I think it turned out well, and it was well-received on Christmas day too!

Christmas Day

Well, with the record snowfall and heretofore unseen 14 straight days of snow for Portland (which rarely gets snow at all, such that we don't even own a snow shovel and heard tell of friends digging out with items such as food trays), it looked like we might have to spend Christmas alone. But alas, John's brother and sister-in-law Curt and Jeni managed both to arrive via plane (after a few days of nothing but cancellations, including John's parent's Monday flight) and to drive the short distance from the airport to our house, but not without getting stuck in the snow and enlisting the help of truckers to chain up their rental car and get them back on their way.

So, having arrived Christmas Eve they decided to spend the night with us and witness Santa's visit to Josh and Lucas Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve, we let the boys open their gifts from Curt and Jeni. Josh received Moon Sand, which he was so excited about and proceeded to quote the tag line to anyone who would listen: "it never dries out!" He made a castle and a treasure chest full of coins, giving the adults lots of time to catch up (but apparently none to take a photo, so you'll have to take my word for it).

Lucas received a marching drum and he loved it, and drummed all around until we made him go to bed. He was the cutest little drummer boy.



Of course Josh snaked most of Lucas's toys at one point or another (see illustration below).

Lucas also received a cool textured book, which Uncle Curt read to him:



After some toy time, it was time to put out Santa's cookies and go to bed. When the boys awoke Christmas morning, and came out to the living room, the first thing Josh noticed was the crumbs on the cookie plate--but no cookies! "Santa came! Santa came!" He was so excited. Then he spotted the presents from Santa, and immediately held up his wrapped gift and yelled, "It's a jet plane!" Guess he was pretty sure Santa deemed him "nice" this year. But indeed it was a jet plane, a large one for Josh and a small one for Lucas, just as requested. Guess who plays with which one, though?! Lucas rides the big one around (sitting on it), and Josh zooms around flying the small one. But hey, they're happy.

The tree, full stockings (or "sockings," per Josh), Santa's gifts, and the tell-tale plate:



Josh fetching his gift:



Lucas was just happy to be there, he had no idea what was going on.

Christmas Day x2

After their Monday flight was cancelled, John's parents spent the rest of the day trying to get rebooked for another flight. It took a good 12 hours. There are few things worse than trying to travel at Christmastime. But thankfully, they did get another flight booked, for the day after Christmas.

They were supposed to arrive Friday evening, but were delayed for several hours, leaving us all to fear the flight would be cancelled again. But it finally took off shortly after midnight, landed after 2, and John drove out in our chained-up Subaru to pick them up and get them here, a little after 3 am. Needless to say, everyone was exhausted! But very glad they made it!

So after gymnastics class Saturday morning (both Josh and Lucas have just started going to our neighborhood gymnastics gym for Saturday morning classes, and they are so cute!), we had Christmas #2. Actually, Gail and Gene came to the class, which was the first time the boys and I had seen them since they arrived (yeah, we didn't wait up for the 3:00 arrival). Josh saw "Gammy" watching him in the gym through the viewing window, and we saw him say to his teacher, "It's my Gammy and Poppa!" We could only see him mouth the words, but he was so plainly excited to see them, which was really nice.

We got back home and awaited Curt and Jeni's return from her dad's house, and then resumed the opening of presents. Josh was all business.



Hey, it's matching guitars, just like Daddy's but sized appropriately to each kid!



Playing jumping up and taking flight with Poppa:



and Legos with Gammy, who felt she may have been more invested in the final product than Josh was:



Grandparents and grandkids, complete with Sammy:

Merry Christmas!

With lots of love!

Lucas dances with baby SpiderMan

Just click on the "Play" button ( > ) on the bottom left corner to play the video.

Snow Day Fun!

We had more snow yesterday, then freezing rain overnight that added a layer of ice on top. So today, we sledded! John blew up our inner tube and we sledded down our driveway. It was more fun than I thought it would be for a relatively small hill, we had a fun time! It is really cold out there though, especially when the wind blows!

A view of our frozen trees:




The boys in their ski bibs before we headed out:



The front yard's snow. The boys are sitting on the retaining wall but you'd never know it from all the snow piled up under them:



Josh starting a trip down the hill!

Snow day fun video!

Turn your head, I couldn't figure out how to rotate this video, sorry!


It took me several tries to just get it uploaded, I've been having a lot of difficulty getting videos up on Blogger since August. Hope this one works!

The Holiday Express

Last year, Josh had two train rides with Santa. First, we took the Polar Express out of Hood River, a two-hour round-trip drive from Portland. The Polar Express followed the story from the book, with servings of hot chocolate, a reading from the book, and then our arrival at the North Pole, where Santa and his elves got on board and came through the train, taking pictures and visiting with each child, and handing out bells as well. Josh loved it. (Lucas was only 6 months old, so he could take it or leave it).

But then, he was also invited on a second train ride in Portland with his buddy Ben, in which Santa also came through and handed out candy canes. It seemed to us that he loved them equally, and really only remembered "Santa" and "train." So this year, we saved ourselves the drive and only booked the local Holiday Express ride. We went last weekend, on a frigid night that seemed much too cold at the time, but it has been snowing ever since (a rarity in Portland, which hardly ever gets snow and never gets 7 days of snow in a row!) so I guess we were lucky.

Here are Josh and Ben after we boarded:



and Mommy and Lukie:



Here comes Santa!! It was very fun seeing him make his way toward us, the boys could barely contain their excitement:



A big hug from Josh:



And nothing but tears from Lukie! (again--he also cried when we saw Santa for their picture earlier in the month)