Finding the better way home not only saved us time, but gave us the opportunity to visit Multnomah Falls, someplace my mom hadn't been in nearly 30 years. Megan can now check it off her list of "places to go" as well.
Friday, June 3, 2005
Lost at Lost Lake
This past Sunday we decided to take a day trip to Lost Lake. The hiking guide directions had us doing lots of extra mileage on backcountry forest service roads from Zigzag instead of taking the straight-shot paved way from Hood River (our return route). For a good while we thought we were only going to get Lost, instead of getting to Lost Lake, but we finally arrived and had a nice hike around the lake. The guidebook promised "expansive views of Mt. Hood," but the cloudy weather didn't cooperate. My mom asked us where Mt. Hood was; Mac and I pointed in opposite directions. When we spotted the massive peak driving home, we both claimed to be right. (Sidenote: on Saturday we took my mom and Mac's aunt to see our new house. Mac took a new road on our way home. "Where are you going??" I queried. "This will take us north back to downtown." "No it won't," I replied, "We are going South." We ended up at the Ankeny Wildlife Refuge, directly south of our new place.)
Finding the better way home not only saved us time, but gave us the opportunity to visit Multnomah Falls, someplace my mom hadn't been in nearly 30 years. Megan can now check it off her list of "places to go" as well.
Finding the better way home not only saved us time, but gave us the opportunity to visit Multnomah Falls, someplace my mom hadn't been in nearly 30 years. Megan can now check it off her list of "places to go" as well.
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
Big headed
"whoa, my head is heavy!"
Megan weighed in this morning at 14 pounds, 10 oz and was 25 inches long. Her head was 16.5 inches around. All of these stats were right around the 75th percentile (up from the 50th percentile for weight at four months - our little girl isn't so little anymore!).
Our jolly jumper
Megan loves the jolly jumper and has gotten quite good at bouncing. In fact, she is so good at it, I can't ever get a good picture.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Couch Potato
Megan can't keep her eyes off the television, despite our best efforts. And now she's even learning to use the remote!
Body in Motion
Megan loves to be moving and certainly fits the bill of bouncing baby. We have been getting lots of laughs bouncing her, lifting her, swinging her, and even throwing her! So yesterday (4 months old!) we got out the Jolly Jumper. The seat was a little big so we had to prop her up with the crib wedges, but it's not like she was actually using them in her crib. Megan had a great time especially we when we helped her bounce. Now maybe our arms will get some rest!
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Belated Mother's Day
The Smith Family headed off to Cannon Beach and the Grey Whale Inn this past weekend for a belated Mother's Day celebration. We were there last Mother's Day and thought the place was quite a deal. We weren't surprised that they had raised the rates, but we were appalled when the original bill for our two night stay came to $1790.00! After Mac's persuasive arguing, we got them down to one-tenth the original charge - then it felt like we were getting a great deal again!
Weather reports were for sun all weekend; turns out weathermen are human too! We did get a good rain-free morning on Saturday and did lots of exploring around Oswald West and Nehalem Bay State Parks. By the afternoon, though it was pouring so we took advantage of the Inn's free movie check-outs. We left pretty early Sunday morning since it was still raining, but the sun came out just in time for our stop to see the largest Sitka Spruce in the U.S. Fortunately, not many others were visiting this exciting landmark, so we figured our parent-of-the-year awards wouldn't be in jeopardy if we left Megan asleep in the car while we went to view this giant; we were back in our car just as fast as we could walk around the trunk's 56 foot diameter and Megan certainly didn't lose any sleep over missing out.
Oswald West
Nehalem
We spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready for the arrival of my mom, who will be taking over daycare duty for the next two weeks. I am not sure "Nana" realized her job would be starting at 6:30 in the morning! But that's better than Mac and I, who have been getting up to entertain our little early bird around 5:30 the last few days.
Weather reports were for sun all weekend; turns out weathermen are human too! We did get a good rain-free morning on Saturday and did lots of exploring around Oswald West and Nehalem Bay State Parks. By the afternoon, though it was pouring so we took advantage of the Inn's free movie check-outs. We left pretty early Sunday morning since it was still raining, but the sun came out just in time for our stop to see the largest Sitka Spruce in the U.S. Fortunately, not many others were visiting this exciting landmark, so we figured our parent-of-the-year awards wouldn't be in jeopardy if we left Megan asleep in the car while we went to view this giant; we were back in our car just as fast as we could walk around the trunk's 56 foot diameter and Megan certainly didn't lose any sleep over missing out.
Oswald West
Nehalem
We spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready for the arrival of my mom, who will be taking over daycare duty for the next two weeks. I am not sure "Nana" realized her job would be starting at 6:30 in the morning! But that's better than Mac and I, who have been getting up to entertain our little early bird around 5:30 the last few days.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Home Inspection
Today we had the home inspection for the house in Salem. We dragged ourselves out of bed way too early (read: before Megan woke up) to meet the inspector in Salem at 7:30. When we got there we were a bit disappointed to find out that the Magoos (not quite their real name) would be sticking around for the home inspection. I kind of wanted to go poke around the nooks and crannies and turn on all the light switches right behind the inspector, but I felt like this was rude and so instead sat in the kitchen chatting with the owners. This was somewhat interesting as they had the house built for them and have been the only owners in the 25 year history of the house. They obviously love the house very much but need to downsize now that the kids are grown and they spend winters in Arizona. Mr. Magoo was a manager for a major lumber company and it was through his position that he procured much of the material for his house. While we were there we learned about this and many other stories about the house:
-"The siding is clear cedar 8" siding that came down from Canada. It is almost impossible to get clear cedar now" (I have no idea what clear cedar is)
-"The beams in the living room and entry come from old growth up on Snowpeak." (he admitted this is now considered bad)
-At one point he and his wife went to the mill to hand select all the 2 by 6's used in the house (they didn't use 2x4's).
- The bottom floor was only supposed to go halfway under the house, but the builder dug the whole thing out when the owners were away in Nebraska. That part of the house remained unfinished until ten years ago.
- The 175+ goldfish in the pond all originated from a Mother's Day gift of four fish.
-There is an alcove in the dining room for a china hutch because the builder refused to hang the light fixture off-center to make space for the hutch in a square room.
The neighbor called after we had been there about half an hour and told the Magoos to go into the street and look into their pasture. So we all headed out. Our reward was 5 elk next door. The Magoos were astounded. "We get deer up here all the time. In fact, many years they give birth in our pasture. And once we had a litte red fox that we saw a lot, but we have never seen elk here in the entire 25 years that we have been here!"
Overall the inspection turned up lots of little things (a toilet that rocks, a dead mouse in the crawl space, a broken window crank), but there was only one real sticking point for us: "The deck is toast," the inspector confided, using very official inspector jargon. At one point Mac watched the guy stick a screwdriver through many of the deck beams. Since it is a two-story deck with two stair cases, this is a big deal and not a cost that we want to incur. We have a meeting to renegotiate tomorrow evening.
Mac and I are still really excited about the house, but when I think of it, it always brings to mind a Kohler commercial - the one where paranormal experts walk through a possessed house and ask the owner if she is sure she wants to stay in the house. After looking at her beautiful Kohler bathroom she replies, "definitely. now get to work." My version goes like this: after walking through rooms and rooms of very tacky 70's decorating we ask ourselves "are we sure we want to do this?" but with one look at the view we reply "yes, now we need to get to work."
This is the view from the (very unsafe) back deck. "Our" property extends to the little red maple (in the picture directly above where the two fences come together). The water in the distance is part of the Ankeny Wildlife refuge.
While we were down for the inspection we also got a list of the community "rules." Mostly they are ridiculous anti-white trash ordinances (no mobile homes, no clothes lines, no corrugated metal sheds, no storage of disfunctional cars) and anti-commercialism ordinances (no businesses run out of the home, no raising livestock for commercial purposes). Then there are a couple of common sense things like don't let your livestock get onto other people's property and don't dump trash in the creek. As you can tell from all this our chickens will be welcome at the new place (as long as they stay on our property). In fact the only animals we can't have are "peacocks, mink, and swine." Dammit - now I have to ditch my Pigs, Pelts and Peafowl Farm idea!
-"The siding is clear cedar 8" siding that came down from Canada. It is almost impossible to get clear cedar now" (I have no idea what clear cedar is)
-"The beams in the living room and entry come from old growth up on Snowpeak." (he admitted this is now considered bad)
-At one point he and his wife went to the mill to hand select all the 2 by 6's used in the house (they didn't use 2x4's).
- The bottom floor was only supposed to go halfway under the house, but the builder dug the whole thing out when the owners were away in Nebraska. That part of the house remained unfinished until ten years ago.
- The 175+ goldfish in the pond all originated from a Mother's Day gift of four fish.
-There is an alcove in the dining room for a china hutch because the builder refused to hang the light fixture off-center to make space for the hutch in a square room.
The neighbor called after we had been there about half an hour and told the Magoos to go into the street and look into their pasture. So we all headed out. Our reward was 5 elk next door. The Magoos were astounded. "We get deer up here all the time. In fact, many years they give birth in our pasture. And once we had a litte red fox that we saw a lot, but we have never seen elk here in the entire 25 years that we have been here!"
Overall the inspection turned up lots of little things (a toilet that rocks, a dead mouse in the crawl space, a broken window crank), but there was only one real sticking point for us: "The deck is toast," the inspector confided, using very official inspector jargon. At one point Mac watched the guy stick a screwdriver through many of the deck beams. Since it is a two-story deck with two stair cases, this is a big deal and not a cost that we want to incur. We have a meeting to renegotiate tomorrow evening.
Mac and I are still really excited about the house, but when I think of it, it always brings to mind a Kohler commercial - the one where paranormal experts walk through a possessed house and ask the owner if she is sure she wants to stay in the house. After looking at her beautiful Kohler bathroom she replies, "definitely. now get to work." My version goes like this: after walking through rooms and rooms of very tacky 70's decorating we ask ourselves "are we sure we want to do this?" but with one look at the view we reply "yes, now we need to get to work."
This is the view from the (very unsafe) back deck. "Our" property extends to the little red maple (in the picture directly above where the two fences come together). The water in the distance is part of the Ankeny Wildlife refuge.
While we were down for the inspection we also got a list of the community "rules." Mostly they are ridiculous anti-white trash ordinances (no mobile homes, no clothes lines, no corrugated metal sheds, no storage of disfunctional cars) and anti-commercialism ordinances (no businesses run out of the home, no raising livestock for commercial purposes). Then there are a couple of common sense things like don't let your livestock get onto other people's property and don't dump trash in the creek. As you can tell from all this our chickens will be welcome at the new place (as long as they stay on our property). In fact the only animals we can't have are "peacocks, mink, and swine." Dammit - now I have to ditch my Pigs, Pelts and Peafowl Farm idea!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)