2008: The Kids' Schedule

The parents left the kids home when we went on vacation and Susan documented the kids schedule. I thought it was worth posting for fun.

Abby’s Schedule

6:15-6:30 Wake, Eat breakfast
7:00 Get dressed, Brush Teeth, backpack ready with water, lunch
7:35 Out Door to walk to school (just less than 1 mile) it’s very important that she is on time!

8:00 Arrive at School, put backpack in Locker; enter Classroom (no parents in classroom)
2:15 Pick up outside under the covered area, check her out with the teacher.

Monday: Take blanket to school (No toys), Wear Tennis shoes for Gym class
Tuesday/Thursday: Rides bus home, pick up at SE 9th/Spokane (Tina will also be there to get Katie.)
Wednesday: Wear tennis shoes for gym class
Thursday: Sharing day at school, she may take a small toy (must fit in backpack, remind her that she may have it during rest and sharing times ONLY!) Also, must return school library book by today.
Friday: Will bring home a new library book and her blanket

She has been pushing the limits with obeying lately; she gets 2 chances, then a time out. Please be firm with this so she doesn’t make backward progress.

After school every day, check her backpack for homework, she is to use pencil with the name practice, and not color in her name, but practice writing.

She can have a snack after school if she ate all of her lunch. Please check her lunchbox before giving her a snack. She can finish her lunch instead of a snack.

Pack her lunch everyday. She likes a half of a cheese and mayo sandwich, some fruit, carrots or cucumber or tomato, and a yogurt tube. May also pack a small container of nuts/raisins, and her water bottle. She can get milk at school.

Thursday: Soccer practice at 4:45 at Berkley Park (SE 39th and Bybee—S of Woodstock) (Her soccer gear and a map are in the Whole Foods bag in the toy room.)
Saturday: Soccer game, Berkley Park, 8:30 am, be there 10 minutes early.
**For practice and game, she must take her ball, shin guards, soccer shoes, and water. She should wear shorts and a t-shirt, with layers over if it’s cold. No uniform, they provide a penny for the game.

Please make sure she takes care of herself and her things: after school she is to put her lunchbox in the kitchen, put her shoes, coat, and pack away, etc. Same in the am, she needs to eat, brush teeth, hair, and get dressed. She needs to be ready when it is time to go, or she goes as she is (within reason!) If she wears her pj’s to school once, she will be more motivated to get moving in the am!

We only do a bath every other night, and they need to be in bed no later than 8:00pm. No stories if they aren’t ready for bed on time. Please limit stories to the time you have before 8 pm. We have been reading less at night and more during the day.


Amelia’s Schedule

**Make sure she goes potty before leaving the house, every time! She doesn’t like to use public toilets.
Monday 10 am: Story Time at the library. This is just a drop in time, it fills up, so is best to be there a few minutes early. Library opens at 10, usually lots of Mom’s/kids waiting outside!) This is optional, if you need something to occupy her.
Tuesday Sept. 30th 11:45-12:15:: First day of Ballet class, at the community center (SE 15th/Spokane) Ask in the office which room to go to. Take Robeez or ballet slippers, have her wear one of her leotards. (On the desk in their room)
Wednesdays 9:30 : Messy Art Class, (Tina will take her this week!)
Friday 10 am: Story Time at the library. This is just a drop in time, it fills up, so is best to be there a few minutes early. Library opens at 10, usually lots of Mom’s/kids waiting outside!) This is optional, if you need something to occupy her.

Weather permitting, she loves to play at the park, it’s a great way to spend a morning.

**She wakes up when we get Abby up, even when she ought to sleep later. Nap time is tricky, she would go down at 1:30, but needs to stay up until we pick Abby up. Abby likes to play with Katie after school, which is ok, but makes Amelia’s nap really late. It’s best if you get home by 3:30 and put Amelia down for a nap right away (potty first). Don’t let her sleep later than about 5 pm, or she won’t go to bed on time.

Remember that this will be the longest she has been away from us, but don’t let her get away with inappropriate behavior. She likes to do everything herself. One routine we have is that she closes the front door every time we come in. Encourage her to use words when she gets upset. She is also cutting 3 molars; there are teething tablets in the white cabinet in their bathroom. She can have 3 at a time. She knows where they are.

Abby's First Days of School

 

Abby started at Llewellyn School (http://www.llewellynelementary.com/) in September and was lucky to get Ms. Eunice Tursi as her teacher. She has been a classroom teacher for 25 years and it shows, in a good way! We chose Llewellyn because the school is well supported by the community and it is a public school that we are excited about supporting. Our neighbors encouraged us to request her as a teacher and we're glad we did.

 

We're having Abby go full days from 8 to 3 PM and we're paying for half of the day. Abby has made the transition into Llewellyn very easily.

 

Susan takes Abby to school by riding the Bakfiets which is fun for Amelia and Abby both. The only downside is that it doesn't give Abby exercise in the first part of the day to get her ready for school.

 

At the end of the day the kids all line up so their parents can come pick them up. It's a great way to end the day.

080827 A Day at the Beach

 
We spent most of our third day at the beach playing near the campground. It was a nice beach complete with tidepools and we explored those for an hour looking at crabs of all sorts, mussels, sean anenomes, and small fish. We were very fortunate with the weather as it was sunny and breezy, but very nice throughout the day. The water was cold of course, but that didn't bother us much as we spent most of the time in the sand just enjoying the play time and not being in the car.

080804 Snow White

 

Abby went off to a birthday party (at Grant pool) and I am home with Snow White. We're excited about the Sundae in the Park at Sellwood Park, which will include clowns, face painting, a rock wall, and music. It should be a blast. Hopefully, it warms up, it is only 55 degrees out there today. It is supposed to be mid 90s by the middle of the week, but it sure has been colder these past few days.

Bakfietsen in USe

  I was noticing that while we had bought the bakfietsen, I hadn't taken many photos of Susan using it. She takes it everywhere in the hood, to the yarn shop, the grocery store, to pick up the girls from the Community Center... it's seeing a lot of use. The only place she doesn't take it is the pool becuase that is too close. In this particular case, Susan was heading to the Yarn Store for a birthday party, taking Amelia along while Abby was at a summer Preschool program at the Community Center.
 

In these pictures, Susan even had the rain cover on it because it was raining on August 1st. Of course, typical weather for Portland in August.

Cycling Races in Oregon

Having just watched the finish of the Tour de France a week ago, the thought of watching a bike race is interesting to me, so as I was surfing this morning I found a few of the races that I want to go watch in Oregon. The first is the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic and the second is the Elkhorn Classic in Baker City.

The Mt. Hood Cycling Classic http://www.mthoodcyclingclassic.com/ is during the third week in May and seems like a fun one. They had their first stage in Portland this year and I did not go, but next year ;)

The Elk Horn Classic http://elkhornclassicstagerace.com/ is in the third week of June. I have wanted to visit Baker City and stay in the Geyser Grand hotel (we almost did that last year), so this is on the list for things to do in the near future.

Finally, the Criterium Race on the Park Blocks is one we did visit last year, which was fun to see. It is in August and I am thinking about going to this again.

36 Hours in Portland by the NYT

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/travel/15hours.html?em&ex=1176609600&en=7b6ed8f1b6a2260f&ei=5087%0A

  We did it. We splurged and bought a bakfiet. This particular vehicle showed up on Craigslist and it was a heck of a deal so we went after it. More text later...
 
 
 

Visiting Ann Arbor, Michigan

Hail to the Victors! I was in Livonia, Michigan (suburb of Detroit) for a meeting of the Transportation Research Board Signal Systems Committee and decided to make a visit to the University of Michigan campus. Tom and Cindy Urbanik played host, as they had lived there from 1971 to 1976 when Tom served as the City Traffic Engineer, among other things that he did while a municipal employee.  
The campus was beautiful, at least the original campus, in how it integrates into the City's downtown. You can't tell where the City begins and the campus ends. The architecture looks a bit odd because they had a bit of growth during the 70s but beside that primary complaint, I was impressed with the City and the main campus. Of course, the Research Center is off a ways surrounded by a parking lot.  
The weather was beautiful and we ate outside on the main street adjacent to campus.
 
 

Going By Bike

4th of July Fireworks

 
 
 
 

The Kids are Getting Along Great

 
Abby seems to be maturing at a really fast pace. Okay, she's not always perfect, but there are times when you'd just like to bottle up her character and how she treats Amelia and save it for a later. This may be one of the best examples we have caught on camera. This was the day after the 4th of July and the girls were eating and some days sharing would be the start of World War III, but this wasn't one of those days. Ah, parenthood, what a piece of cake.

080622 Sunday Parkways

  Portland shut down six miles of streets in North Portland including the Overlook neighborhood for cycling, walking, rollerblading, anything but cars.
  It was quite an ending to the Carfree conference which was held in Portland that week. What a great way to start a Sunday.
  Susan took Amelia and I had Abby on the trail-a-bike. The kids had a lot of fun and enjoyed the stops at the parks. We started a little late and they ended the Parkways a little early, we could have played for a lot longer with Patrick and Sadie. Patrick was visiting from Baltimore.
 

Asian Food suggestions in Portland

I got this from my intern, who got it from someone else. I always think the Chinese food is just okay in Portland, so here's some thoughts on where to go next time.

Pho restaurants:
Pho Oregon- 2518 NE 82nd Ave
Pho Saigon- 2850 SE 82nd Ave (their pork chops plate is good too!)
Pho Hung- 3120 SE 82nd Ave
Good Taste (known for their yellow egg noodle soup & roasted pork. They do NOT serve Pho)- 8220 SE Harrison Street

Vietnamese food:
Zien Hong- 5314 NE Sandy Blvd
Thien Hong- 6749 NE Sandy Blvd
My Canh- 1801 NE 39th Ave

Chinese food:
Gold Garden (next to Gold Coin Lounge)- 3016 SE 82nd Ave
Lam Yuen (very good for dim sum too!)- Old Town China Town (first building on right block as you pass the two huge lion statues)
Wong’s King (also good for dim sum!)- 8733 SE Division St
Legin (ok for dim sum.)- 8001 SE Division St

080524 A Discussion with Mia and Abby

These photos are from the Childswork parent's night, but they were the most recent that would work with this posting.   On Abby's birthday Abby told us that she wants the Urbaniks to move next door to us.
She wanted this so she could go over and take them a piece of her dragon cake.
 
Mia said: I am going to drink it all gone and then have some of that too (milk and then
juice which Abby had).
 

Breakfast in Westmoreland with Selman

We biked over to Fat Albert's (about a mile) away to have breakfast with Selman. It is one of the restaurants that made us want to live in our neighborhood. It is always packed, although it seems they just recently raised the price and that was keeping the line down a bit.  
We enjoyed Selman's company during breakfast and the girls behaved themselves marginally well. Selman took these pictures of us, I rode the kid pusher and puller bike which includes the Bobike seat and the trail-a-bike. It is a pretty good setup, but not quite as good as a bakfietsen.  

Abby Turns 5!

What a great birthday cake. Nana made the dragon from  

Abby at the Zoo

 

Rainy Day at the Zoo

Once upon a time when I went to the zoo the first thing I wanted to see was the dinosaurs. I saw a hammerhead asaurus and a T Rex and I saw some little raptors. It was a little rainy at the zoo, but we didn't mind getting wet because I had a rain coat and my hood was on my head.  
My favorite was the brachiosaurus. We also saw some dinosaur eggs and we also saw a dinosaur eating another dinosaur, which was kind of sad. We knew that it wasn't really eating it, it was just pretend eating it. It was a heenyasaurus.   After the dinosaurs, saw the bats and the giraffe.

My name is Abby.

The End!

Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and Staten, from the Battery to the top of Manhattan!   The ride festival wasn't the official end, but it how would you have a party for 30,000 in Manhattan? The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was the last connection into Staten Island and we were happy to get to the finish line!
  A bike has the price of gas as a placard. Is this an advertisement or a statement?
 
Susan at the Festival with the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in the background.

 

Kevin and Heather taking photos!