Thursday

We just got back from Esther Short Park, where we saw a rather entertaining concert by Pepe and the Bottle Blondes. For a free concert in a beautiful park in beautiful weather, it was a great time. I highly encourage anyone to check them out if they come around and play a free concert in your neighborhood! Drew did quite well, and he enjoyed dancing much like he did yesterday for crappy violin guy.

Earlier this morning, we took Drew to his first gymnastics class at Naydenov Gymnastics. It was a lot of fun, and he had a great time. He wasn't a huge fan of warming up in a large circle with the other kids, but he enjoyed the long trampoline, the obstacle course and his first experience with the vault! Hopefully he will continue to enjoy this new activity and we can keep it up!

This Saturday is the Red Bull Flugtag. I am going, and I am still trying to find out if I'm going solo or with family and/or friends. Anyone care to help me out with my decision?!? I went a few years ago and had a great time.

Sorry no pics tonight.. that's all for now.

Drew Dances

We went to Esther Short park today to see the free Noon concert. It was some horrible music (as you can hear) but it was not enough to stop Drew from dancing!!!

Where, Oh Where Did My Baby Boy Go....

Ever since returning home form the Washington Aerospace Scholars (pictures coming when I get them) I have been amazed at how old Drew seems to me.

First off... he has been potty trained. He is not yet three, but he is already waking up in the middle of the night calling for us to bring him to the potty, where he actually uses it and goes right back to sleep. Last week Drew was playing outside while I was watering the front yard. He went inside on his own and pooped on the potty. Holy Crap! Potty training was way easier than we expected. (knock on wood) He is even getting really good about staying dry overnight. We are being realists, but for the most part he's all done with diapers.

Drew is also talk, talk, talk, talk. This is no surprise to anyone ho knows him, but the amount of chatter and the subjects and words he uses continue to amaze me. He continues to mention an incident from the park the other day when a kid in an orange shirt was a little bossy and aggressive. When we left we told Drew that next time he should say "Stop it!" Now he is always mentioning the kid in the orange shirt and "Step Off!" We can't wait for him to use that line on some kid... awesome.

It's really hard to put into words, but Drew is no longer a little boy in my mind. He seems more and more a kid every day. It was amazing to see how much he changed in only one week. If you haven't seen him in a few months or a year, you won't even recognize him anymore!

I will attempt to upload a video of Drew dancing to some awful violin concert that we went to today at Esther Short Park... keep checking back.

Oregon Zoo

The weather was predicted to be less than 80 degrees yesterday, so we decided it was the perfect chance to hit up the Oregon Zoo. We go about twice a year and have a great time each visit. There was so much construction that a lot of the animals were not visible, but it is apparent that the zoo will be much better next year!

Drew's first snow cone! It was cherry-lime flavored.

It took him a long time to eat. He ate it like an ice cream cone. He refused to use his teeth. Later, he elected to drink the juice and eat the cup. Messy, but oh so tasty!

Meerkat!

Got your nose! (In line for the zoo train to Washington Park)

Mom and Drew watch as another train speeds by.

Suh-weet tattoo on a young mom seated a few rows ahead of us on the train. We especially liked the deer coming out of the top of the antlers. There are so many mysteries surrounding the tattoo. Who is Kasey? Am I supposed to marvel in the grandeur of the animal, or should I want to pull out my rifle and shoot it? If I was able to zoom in closer to the deer's head, would I be able to see yet a smaller deer coming out of its antlers? (that would be sweet)

The Willies

So I am sleeping tonight (it is currently 3:38AM) when I awake to a decent amount of noise coming from the garage. My first thought: Jill has left the light on and the cats are having a grand old time living it up. I hop up, head to the garage and rip open the garage door in hopes of catching Scooby and Cecil in the middle of their games, hoping that my breaking them up would encourage them to knock it off and get the hell to sleep already. So I rip open the door, flip on the light (there went my original theory) and look in the general direction of the source of the noise. I see a 1 1/2 foot long bald tail jump from our storage racks and hide in the corner. I figure "Oh crap, we have sewer rats". I head back to bed and inform Jill that our worst nightmare was hanging out in the garage and what should we do about it. Rats are NOT good. They eat through anything and can cause a huge amount of damage. Besides, the size of this one makes me think there is an incredibly healthy population to support one of his size.

So Jill and I decide that if it is so big, it must be the same thing that she saw out of the corner of her eye last night as she was shutting the garage door and which she assumed was a neighborhood cat. There are about 50 of 'em, so this is a very valid possibility. That DOESN'T explain the rat tail though, so she must have seen the rat. SO we decide to flush it out of the garage so that we can get some sleep.

First, we make some noise and shake the storage racks. This is 100% ineffective, so we move on to plan 2: remove Jill's car. I back it out and leave the headlights on. Still nothing. At least I have room to maneuver now, so I start removing things from the corner 1 at a time, using a long handled rake whenever possible. After a few minutes of this, Scooby walks up and decides to find this thing and meet it face to face. I finally see it when Scoob is about 6 inches from its face. I breathe a huge sigh of relief. No rat. We have an opossum. It is about the size of Scooby, maybe a tad smaller. It is scared shitless. I tried poking at it with the rake handle, but all it did was open its mouth in annoyance and slink farther back into the corner. We have decided to leave it alone, crack the garage door and hope that this traumatic experience will encourage it to leave an its own very soon. At least its not a rat waiting to chew giant holes in our wall while we sleep.

SO here are some pics of the little racsal. He is actually pretty cute, at least cuter than the pictures show.

Here he is in his original hiding setup. How the hell did I not see him sooner?

Here is a close-up of the opossum. This was after I tried poking him and shoving that paint can in the corner to "encourage" him to leave.


Status update: 25 minutes after starting to type this, as I prepare to go to bed, the opossum is still hanging out in the same spot, but he looks much less freaked out and quite a bit cuter. Hopefully he'll leave soon, and hopefully I'll actually be able to sleep tonight. He really gave me the willies!

Butter Sandwich

Another day another post. Summer is great for having lots of time to take and post pictures.

Drew now likes to help make his peanut butter and honey sandwiches ("butter sandwiches")

Here is the real reason I believe he likes to help

Drew remembers the lesson Grandpa Steve taught him. Here he practices on his clubhouse.

Not the most clear picture, but here you can clearly see how much Drew loves spraying the water.

summer

Today was another fun day in the sun. It was also one of those "he did so well on the potty yesterday, what happened today?" kind of days.

Drew... eating sugar snap peas right outta the garden, looking cool.

Drew ate so may peas he gained 13 pounds. Here he tries to work some of the extra weight off.

Coolest kid in Vancouver, WA. "I look like a movie star" he tells us.

Here is a video of today's method for using the Slip 'N Slide. It was a lot like shuffleboard for Dad.

Baptism and Baby Frogs

Drew finally got a job. W took a picture of him right before he left for the office for his first day of work. He mentioned something about how he didn't get that his parents have both seemed to have lost their jobs, and neither of them appear to be trying to get new ones.

OK, maybe not... but Drew got to wear a tie today! He was so excited. The occasion was the baptism of our friends' daughter Leisl this morning in downtown Portland. Afterwards, Drew had a great time playing with some of the other kids at the reception. He has been waiting for his chance to wear his new white shirt and tie for 2 weeks. He was pretty well behaved, especially for a kid that can't sit still for 20 seconds.

Later on, the weather heated up and the sprinkler was calling Drew's name. For a kid that was so apprehensive at the Salmon Street Springs yesterday, he sure had a great time getting blasted by the sprinkler!

Run!

When we put the pond in a barrel on our front porch, Jill was able to secure about 2 dozen tadpoles from the pond shop. As you can clearly see, some of them are about done turning into little frogs. This one was standing outside on the edge of the barrel. He is fully using his new arms/legs and not his tail. He was quite the little hopper. At the same time, another little frog is sitting at the edge of the pond waiting to make his dry land debut. Go little froggies!!!!

Salmon Street Springs

Yesterday we bought a new bike rack for the Honda and a new bike seat for Drew. We spent the day in Portland riding around the river downtown. Drew loves his new bike seat! We started in Sellwood park, rode along the east bank of the Willamette river north to the Steel Bridge. We then crossed the bridge, went south to the Salmon Street Springs fountain. Here you see a picture taken with my cell phone of Drew running around the fountain. He was having a ton of fun until his shoes became slippery. You'd stop having fun too after a few falls while running.

After the short stop we headed back home via the Hawthorne Bridge. We ended the evening at Chevy's (Drew's favorite restaurant).

In the midst of all of this, we are potty training Drew. He was frustrated at some of the toilets today, but he had no accidents on our trip AND he pooped in his potty when we got home... Yay!!!

Slip N Slide

Drew and I went to Big 5 today and spent 10 bucks on a Slip N Slide today! The weather was nice and water was oh so cool. Here are the pics.

Drew started off using the slide as a watery runway

Late, dad got to practice his bowling skillz in the offseason with a willing Drew

Doesn't this look refreshing?

Dads can have fun too!

4th of July Weekend

This weekend the three of us decided to head into Bend for the holiday. We figured that if we were going to have to breathe in the smoke (thanks Northern California!) we should do it in the desert. The third was quite smoky, but on for the fourth on through the weekend, the weather cleared up nicely!

We put up a Drew sized tire swing. (the "Tire-Rope") He loved it, but not in the way we had envisioned.

Ahhh... that's more like it.

At the Fourth of July festival in Drake park, Drew got to sit in the cockpit of the Air Life helicopter. He informed Jill when he was getting out that it was "full of a lot of dangerous stuff"

Pilot Drew preparing for takeoff!

We had pretty good seats for the fireworks shot off of the top of Pilot Butte.

Oooohhhh.... Aaaahhh...

The 5th of July, 5 minutes before heading over to Nana and Grandpa Steve's.
Noni and john were there, too.

The highlight of the evening. Grandpa Steve taught Drew how to shoot people with the hose.

Here Drew uses his new skill. Run, Mom, Run!

How quickly he turns on his ally. Here, Nana attempts to hide behind Grandpa Steve.

BAM!!!

Drew LOVED that game. Here, he soaks the grandparents, and their house!

The next day Drew's Uncle Rob, Aunt Nikki and his three cousins came to town. Drew loves his cousins and they spent all day playing on the tire swing.

Here, CJ swings. I think it was as painful as it looks.

Gillie was the swing master.

Drew, mastering the run technique.

Haley takes a turn