Father of Daughters

Elizabeth and I (with an assist from Suzanne) worked on a fun project this evening: converting her old flats to high heels.

That's my hand in the foreground holding the clamp while the glue adheres the block to the bottom of the shoe.

It was Elizabeth's ideas, of course. She has been wanting a pair of heels. Since she recently got new shoes (practical moccasins), she decided to attach a couple of wooden blocks to her old shoes to convert them to fashionable high heels. This will be the ultimate test of Gorilla Glue.

posted from Bloggeroid

Elizabeth in Double Digits

If this isn't a milestone, I don't know what is. Elizabeth turned ten on Thursday. Barb and I both took a moment to reflect on the fact that we've been parents for a decade.

The birthday itself was nice, but we all had school and work. So Elizabeth opened a present from Uncle Scott and Melissa during breakfast, and then in the evening we went to dinner at the restaurant of her choice.

Friday was Cake Day. Barb and Elizabeth made and decorated a birthday cake after school.

Saturday was PARTY DAY! Elizabeth had a bunch of friends over, played a lot of games, ate a lot of snacks and cake, and generally had a good time. It was a rare nice-weather March day, so the kids even got to play outside. Except for the one unfortunate incident of a child wiping out and falling into some cat poop, it was all positive stuff.

Happy birthday, Elizabeth!

Opening the present from the Scott Larrison family.

Elizabeth decorating the cake.

Elizabeth decorates the cake while Suzanne snatches a taste.

Fun times!

Suzanne dined with one of her gerbils.

The kids decided to see who could eat their cake most effectively without using hands. For a brief time our house resembled a hog farm, with the children rooting around their pieces of cake as if looking for truffles.

 

The Winner: Suzanne!

Elizabeth and Suzanne's elementary school has a Mandarin (one of China's two main languages) immersion program. So Chinese culture is celebrated at Woodstock. This year, there was a contest to see who could produce the best poster to promote the Dumpling Festival. Suzanne decided to give it a go, and spent a lot of time and effort designing, drawing and coloring her poster. It features a dog (because Suzanne loves dogs) eating a dumpling with chopsticks. The color around the dog is red because she knows that's a lucky color in Chinese culture. Barb's only contribution to the poster was printing out the boilerplate stuff -- when, where, etc. on the computer and helping Suzanne paste that onto the poster. That was necessary because Suzanne's initial lettering was so large that it left little space for the fine print.

In any event, the poster turned out awesome and Suzanne won the contest for her grade level! Unfortunately, when the winners were announced at the weekly all-school meeting, Suzanne's class was out for a field trip. So she missed her moment of glory (where, reportedly, her name was announced as "Suzanna Larson").

But tonight, during the dumpling festival itself, there was recognition of the poster contest winners. Suzanne not only had her name called (again as "Suzanna Larson"), but got a gift bag containing a gift card to a local pizzeria, some candy, a couple of Chinese-themed calendars, and a laminated copy of her poster.

Great job, Suzanne!

Don't forget you can always click on the picture for a larger version!

Solo Parenting, Day Two

Well, we didn't go to the arcade as planned, but had a great day nevertheless. Pat came over late morning so we could go for a run. We did a short one (2.8 miles) because we didn't want to leave the girls alone for too long. And it was cold! In fact, we got a little snow in the morning. That riled up the girls, who are crazy for the stuff.

Then we went out for a late breakfast. Our preferred restaurant had a huge wait list (that's Portland for you), so we went to Diane's, a reliable old school diner that always has a booth available. Karen met us there and we enjoyed a nice meal.

Then Pat and Karen hung out with us until almost dinnner-time! Having not seen much of either of them in a while, it was really nice to get so much time. Pat, of course, brought books. He allowed Elizabeth to borrow his book about the making of Hamilton, which Elizabeth immediately began to devour. Elilzabeth, in turn, brought out Atlas Obscura, and the girls and Pat and Karen spent a lot of time leafing through that. Pat also loaned me a biography of the author Philip K. Dick. Good stuff.

At night it began to snow in earnest. The girls thought it would be cozy to sleep in my bed, which was okay by me. Elizabeth wanted me to lie with them until they were asleep, but I had dishes to do and video games to play, so I declined. She settled for having her dreamcatcher moved from above her bed to above mine.

Suzanne watching the snow fall onto her hands. You can't see it, but it was actually snow.

Exploring Atlas Obscura.

I love that Suzanne is now reading on her own. So great to see the two sisters cozy in bed reading together.

The snow came that night.

Solo Parenting, Day One

Barb flew back to New York to visit her Dad, so the girls and I have a rare opportunity to create our own experience this weekend. Here's what we did.

Suzanne woke up at 6:30. I woke up at 6:31, thanks to Suzanne. Elizabeth was awake a few minutes later. The girls went downstairs to watch TV while I caught a few extra Zs.

After breakfast and chores we played Ponyville for a good long time. We had a late lunch, then went to our neighbor's to feed their cats, clean out the litter box, and pet their bearded dragon. They are out of town.

Then we went to Grandma's for an ice cream social. While the girls hung out with Grandma and her iPad, I went shopping for some much-needed pants. After that, the girls (mainly Elizabeth) cleaned up the pony-stuff and the Lego stuff. We got in the car and made it just in time for a 5:05 showing of Paddington 2. The plan was to eat dinner at the theater, but Suzanne didn't like any of the food on offer. I had pizza, Elizabeth had a hot dog, and Suzanne had... a green apple.

The movie was good, and when we got home the girls ate more: Suzanne had two servings of cereal; Elizabeth had a piece of toast. I'm emphasizing the food so much in this post because Barb implored me before leaving not to forget to feed the girls. Something I've been known to do.

All in all a good day. Tomorrow, we go to the arcade!

In Ponyville, there was a grand wedding, complete with ice sculpture (foreground).

Elizabeth read to Suzanne in the morning while I did dishes and laundry. Elizabeth really stepped up today and helped me out.

Elizabeth dressed up for the theater.

The theater was packed. We were lucky to get three seats together, but they were second row and all the way stage left.

Kingfisher: Eclipse 2017

Dang, I must have really been slacking to not have posted about the ABSOLUTELY EPIC Kingfisher trip last year. Holy Moley! No bigs, I guess: it was only the year of the TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE. Oh yeah, and our campsite happened to be in the IDEAL PLACE TO VIEW IT.

Okay. Sorry about that. Enough with the all caps shouting. But it was SUPER EXCITING. Plus, regular Kingfisher camping goodness.

Breakfast being prepared.

Sophie and Suzanne rafting on the river.

The new best friends prepare to dunk in the icy waters.

Drying off after an ice-cold plunge.

Elizabeth and Max (the blonde in this picture) played an awful lot of the board game Settlers of Catan. In fact, one day the two of them played the game for six hours straight. They ended up using forest detritus as playing pieces to keep the game going.

Daddy cooking one of the only things he knows how to cook: bacon.

Chillin' with (L-R) Shelly, Noah, Teresa, me, Charlie.

The whole big group gathered, waiting for the eclipse.

Suzanne's mind has been BLOWN!

This legitimately had me questioning my sanity. The shadows changed. I didn't think they would, or could. But they did. When the sun was in eclipse, the shadows became crescent-shaped. It was very freaky. It was the kind of thing that a good science-fiction writer would describe, consequently blowing my mind. This is probably straight-up physics or optics or some class you could take as an undergraduate at a half-decent school. Yet, its description would mark you a wizard in my mind. It was really striking to go into the woods and see how different they looked with these shadows.

Elizabeth and Barb checking out the natural phenomenon.

The Kingfisher Crew preparing to witness the event.

Sophie and Suzanne. Not sure why Suzanne is looking so grumpy, except maybe she didn't want Dad hanging around. I came down when it was almost pitch black because I was afraid she'd fall of the log. Which was dumb. As her face suggests.

After the eclipse, things went back to normal. Normal is awesome.

Elizabeth took this picture. She ran wild with the camera, as kids are wont to do, and took a lot of bad pictures.But I think she knocked it out of the park with this one. Barb looks as she is: capable and beautiful.

Tree Planting AKA Barb is Amazing

I don't mean to brag about my amazing wife, but she's pretty amazing. When Elizabeth first started at Woodstock School, Barb noticed that the big field on the south side of the school was nothing but a rectangle of grass: no trees, no hillocks, nothing to differentiate it from a soccer pitch except the lack of goalposts. 

She developed a vision.

And recently, after much work with the PTA and the city and (maybe?) Friends of Trees, the first stage of her vision was fulfilled, as ten trees were planted in that big grassy lawn. Some day they will shade the non-air-conditioned school from brutal sunlight and cast shadows on gamboling children yet unborn.

I'm really proud of Barb for seeing a way to improve our community and figuring out a way to make it reality.

She's amazing.

Suzanne is the third kid from the left. You might notice that the school used to be blue. Most students (and lots of parents) are sad that it is now taupe. But apparently the taupe is historical.

And I can't wait to see Stage 2 of her vision.