Thursday, August 29, 2013

The times they are a changin'

Today is Lucy's last day at Lowell Day Nursery.

She had a slight meltdown this morning before we took her there.  I may have a slight meltdown myself.  It's very strange to be leaving this place we've been going three days a week for more than three years.  Lucy started at Lowell Day Nursery in the summer of 2010, as documented here

I can't believe how the time has flown by.  As I drove her there this morning, I realized that the route I take to drive to work is entirely based around being able to drop her off and pick her up.  Also, the school's proximity to the Lowell Beer Works meant that I scheduled a lot of late afternoon "meetings" with colleagues there, because I could usually hang out and have a drink, then go get Lucy and bring her back to join us (as I did yesterday, much to Lucy's delight; she loves their fries & lemonade).

Jake's off picking her up now. She asked if we could have a special dinner with a special dessert -- specifically chocolate pudding.  We will comply with these requests, of course.

More updates later, assuming I don't meltdown in a soggy pile of nostalgia and start singing "Sunrise, Sunset."

FYI, we honored her request:

Also, bonus image:  Here is a picture she brought home from school that had been on the bulletin board.  She announced to us, delightedly: "It's a bunny, faaahting!"


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Summer's End is Near

Today we went to Lucy's Kindergarten Orientation.  We're very excited about her lovely new school, and so is she.

We, of course, traversed to school via bike.  We were on the tandem w/ tagalong, and Mary took her kids in the box bike.  We were the awesome bike parade.  When we got back to our place, Jake and Lucy wanted to see if the new mod to the cargo bike meant that all three kids could ride on it.  The answer:





Yes! So they took it for a spin:



Then the kids played for a bit and celebrated the last rush of summer with some popsicles:

So all is well, if crazy, here at the end of August-almost-beginning-of-September-where-did-the-summer-go???

Also, here she is with her new UKELELE!




She's so excited!

As always, I hope to write more again soon.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Portland, Part Deux

So we spent a week at Manzanita (and I know, I owe you a post entirely about that, but for now you will have to settle for the Manzanita Trip Flickr Photo set), then we returned to glorious Portland.  Only, we were not so happy about the drive to Portland.  We were less than 10 minutes from our destination, when traffic ground to a halt, and we encountered this:








Yes, that says ALL LANES CLOSED.  We spent the next THREE HOURS (really!) driving those final two miles.  UGH!  While we were sitting there, not moving on the highway, the Emergency Broadcast System announced that we needed to take cover due to impending severe thunderstorms and hail.  The severe weather never really materialized, and instead, we got this:
Yup, what you're seeing there is a super-violent, really threatening rainbow.  Because that's how Portland rocks severe weather.
Also, we spent a lot of our three hours sitting under this:

This looks to me like an amusement park ride, but it's actually the Aeriel Tram, which is just one of the many methods of public transit in Portland.  So, some people actually commute to work on this thing!  Fun fact here, among the various slogans that Portland claims, one (since 1995) is "The City that Works."  I would like to add, it is "The City that gets to work via particularly awesome means of transit, including SkyTrams, cargo bikes, roller blades, and pogo sticks*."
*I don't actually know that anyone actually commute via pogo stick, but I am pretty secure in my guess that if anyone does this, that person lives in Portland. 

So I've now spent a ridiculous amount of this post talking about just getting to Portland.  But there's so much more to cover and I am so very tired.  I'm going to try to get the highlights down, just so we can remember things and hopefully expand a bit later.

In Portland, we continued our visit with Susan, Sone, Leone, and Evelyn, and the kids kept up the super-hero and imaginative play time like crazy:

Yup, that's Harry Potter Lucy and Astronaut Leone, jumping.  They had a great time. So great, in fact, that when it was sadly time for us to leave, Leone informed us "I can't bear it."  He actually said that.  I wanted to cry.

We also continued to stuff our faces with pastry and baked goods from Grand Central and pizza from Pizzicato Pizza.  And we spent a lot of time just generally enjoying the charming environs of Multnomah Village. It's adorable and delicious and charming we would like to go there now.

We spent a bit of time at Oaks Park amusement park, one of those sort of old-time throw-back parks with old clickety-clackety-kinda roller coasters.  It was, as our good friend Leone would say, very "old school."  They also had a lot of these things:

I'm a fan.  You'll see, though, that Lucy doesn't exactly look like she's having fun.  This is because she has recently discovered the cruel, cruel truth about carnival games: you're not going to win that stuffed animal you see.  We've been to FunLand in Rehoboth in years past, where it seemed that Uncle Ernie was always able to secure a stuffed toy from some kind of game of chance.  But here in Oaks Park, there's no such mercy prize for the crying child.  Life lesson learned.  But not accepted.  She still wanted to roll the bowling ball down the thing and try to make it stop in the right place (of course, this did not work, and of course, we left again in tears).  Way to go, Oaks Park!  Nonetheless, Lucy did enjoy the carousel and the bumper cars, and we got to catch up with old friends:

We continued on our Very Portland Weekend (TM) by meeting up with friends in the Mississippi Avenue Neighborhood and hitting some of the favorites there.  We got great ice cream at Ruby Jewel.  Lucy stuck with the simple double chocolate, but Jake got some kind of concoction, and it was delicious.

Walking down Mississippi, we passed a family with a child carrying a bag with a sea cucumber in it.  Oh sure, that's totally normal, right?  Well, the last time you saw a kid with a bag full of sea cucumber, did you ALSO see a chicken running around on the sidewalk and then walk over to see someone's Lego display in the window of a lighting supply shop?  I didn't think so.  (FYI, the kid had just bought his sea cucumber not for eating, but for displaying in an aquarium.  He was right outside Cuttlefish and Coral, a salt water aquarium supply shop.  Also, here's a link to someone else's Flickr stream with photos of the Lego display in the Sunlan Lighting shop window.)

And then there was Pistils, a place where they have live chickens hanging about. Just, you know, downtown, in a city.  Chickens.  Walking the street, inviting you into the store.  Did I not make that clear?  Here's some photo evidence, and mind you, this is in the city of Portland, in a business that sells garden things and, well, chickens:



Lucy was delighted and didn't want to leave the chicken store.


The chickens, on the other hand, did.

We did a bit more strolling along Mississippi, and I got an awesome falafel at Wolf & Bear's.  Delicious.

We also had a grown-up night out at our friends' bar, The Foggy Notion, where you should absolutely go if you're in Portland.  We regret that we didn't get to go to The Playground Gym with Lucy, but we definitely plan to do that next time!

I also had a lot of luck with shopping, and really enjoyed the fashion fun of Portland and the shoppes in Manzanita.  Here are the spiffy hats Lucy and I acquired in our attempt to fit in in Portland:


Do we look like we could be in a Portlandia sketch yet?  Well, let me just say, the hats are local.  I didn't put a bird on it, but I could have.

There's more to write, but there's also a definite need for sleep that my eyes are about to enforce.

Portland, we hardly knew ye.  We hope to be back again soon.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

There's so absurdly much to love about Portland, Oregon

[Note: I wrote this on August 3rd  but didn't have a chance to finalize & post.  We're home from the Oregon trip, and I have several other posts in process.  Stay tuned.]

We're having a fabulous time in Oregon.  So fabulous that I wanted to take a few minutes to jot down some notes here.

For instance, we are in a city where there is Trek in the Park, which involves live reenactments of classic Star Trek episodes.  We didn't get to go, but loved seeing it in the headlines of the local paper.

We stayed with our lovely friends Susan and Sone and their awesome kids, Leone and Evelyn.  Leone especially is really into super-heroes (particularly Batman) so he and Lucy got along famously.  Here they are in the middle-row seats of our car:


Yeah, they're crazy about each other.  Oh, and about that middle-row thing: we ended up, by total luck, to get a 7-passenger car (Dollar Car Rental's "Lock Low" deal!).  It was awesome -- Dads up front, kids in the middle, Moms in the back.  Good times.  Here are a couple of the heroes in action (yes, Lucy arrived with her own cape -- she is Wind Girl).


For now, here's a quick run down/review of the places we've been (and loved):

Favorite Bakeries:
Grand Central: This is a great place within walking distance of where we were staying.  Lovely and tasty and nice and close!
Things we ate: ciabatta bread,  donut muffin, chicken salad sandwich


Pearl: This place is spectacular, and located near some of our other downtown destinations (see below, "bookstore").  Here is Lucy, very pleased with her selection (notice the "eat bread." sign behind her).
(BTW, I am trying to figure out how to rotate this photo but it's just not working right now.)

Things we ate: cinnamon crown, roast beef sandwich w/ arugula & horseradish aioli, apple hazlenut bear claw, and finally, The Greatest Cookie Ever, also known as the Valrhona White Chocolate Sandwich Cookie.  It is amazing.  It really is the greatest cookie I have ever had the priviledge to eat.  There's a review/images here.

Favorite Bookstore, Ever:
Powells (obviously)
This place was just amazing.  You need a map to find your way around.  Susan kindly offered to read to the kids so Jake and I could explore a bit.  It was so lovely.  Our bags are much, much heavier for the return trip.  Also, I have a couple book reviews to write for an upcoming post!


Favorite Distilleries:

Clear Creek Distillery:
We've known about this place for a while and have always wanted to visit.  Awesome tasting room and all sorts of goodness.  Cheers!


Bull Run Distillery:
This was a new discovery for us.  The tasting room lady at Clear Creek actually recommended it and we're glad we went.  Terrific gin, rum, and bourbon.  Woo hoo!  Party in Manzanita!


Portland Farmers Market might be the best place I have ever been, ever.  We got amazing produce and ate delicious tamales and saw so many, many people and foods and such awesomeness.  And it happens every week!  It is King Awesome.

So from Portland, we're off to Manzanita for the week, and then returning for another weekend in Portland.  More on all that later.  But for now, Three Cheers for Portland!