last day of school and a few other details....

Amy says goodbye to 7th grade today. Just a 1/2 day with 10 minutes in each class and and hour for yearbook signing. No need for a bookbag or a lunch - she'll be free for the summer! I think she would say she has had a good year - middle school is not an easy time...
From a parents perspective, she has had a terrific year - excellent grades, good work ethic and attitude, happy & productive - can't ask for much more from a 13 year old. She is a terrific kid, if I do say so myself. :)


We leave on Friday, the 18th, for our 'Eastward, Ho' expedition. We'll drive to Minnesota, visit with Dan's family, then fly to NY, visit with my family, fly back to MN and drive (at a somewhat more leisurely pace) home with stops in South Dakota & Yellowstone. We're hoping to be back by the 4th of July so that Amy & Bella can participate in Bend's annual Pet Parade on the 4th. If it sounds like alot to accomplish in 2 weeks ... you're not the only one!






Our backyard is blooming with all sorts of beautiful plants (our luck - the strawberries will ripen when we are away, I'm sure!). These 2 Iris were planted last year but did not produce flowers so we were unsure of their colors. They are like night and day - one so gloriously light peach and the other almost black-purple. Just beautiful!




Dan spent last Saturday morning with our friend, Dave. I'll let him write about it...

Dave is a guy in our Home Group, and he asked if I wanted to come and watch him and other members of his club fly the model airplanes that they have built. They lease a plot of land between Bend and Sisters, which has a panoramic view of the Cascades (you can only see a few mountains in the picture). All the guys in his club are pretty impressive with their knowledge of airplanes, airplane history, aerodynamics, electronics, and materials. Besides that, it was just plain fun watching them fly their planes.




Amy's last band concert was last week and she has enjoyed playing the flute alongside her friend, Miriam, all year. They have nicknames as you can see - Amy's is a variation on amyo and I'm not sure where Mirma came from??




In early May we changed up our daily walk along the river trail near our house and hopped in the car. Drove into downtown Bend and walked another section of the same trail along the Deschutes River. Many beautiful homes and a different perspective on our river - it was a nice change of pace - but we still enjoy being able to access the river within a few blocks of our front door. We are so spoiled. ;)



And whooda thunk we'd be skiing on May 6th?? This was our last day on the mountain till next winter and we are both anxious to strap those skis back on come November.

Till then we will certainly enjoy some warmth and sunshine this summer.

Bring it on!

I Love You, Mom!

Tomorrow is Mother's Day and I want to wish my Mom a very Happy Mother's Day!

California Dreamin'

Our week of Spring Break was spent in California. We hit 3 CA hotspots - San Francisco, Disneyland & Palm Springs.

1st stop - San Francisco

It's an 8 hour drive to SF and Amy amused herself with some self portraits.

Dan's good friend, Jim Cella was receiving an award from the American Chemical Society, in San Francisco, and would be there with his wife, Cheryl, on that 1st weekend of Spring Break. Jim & Dan met at Ohio State, sharing a lab and playing basketball & softball together, and then Dan was instrumental in getting Jim to come work at GE. So they have know each other & worked together for almost 40 years We made plans to meet them for dinner and as an added surprise another Ohio State friend was also in SF - Xavier Creary. Here are the 3 chemists - Xavier, a prof. @ Notre Dame, Dan & Jim, both retired from GE.


2nd stop - Disneyland

A trip to Southern California would not be complete without a stop at Disneyland! It isn't quite as WOW as Disney World but it still has that Disney charm AND rollercoasters! Dan is not a fan and our last trip to Disney in FL, Amy was still a bit scared to try the 'big' rides, but not this time... We did them all - our favs being Space Mountain in Disneyland & California Screamin' in California Adventure. Dan was very patient while Amy & I rode Cal. Screamin' 3 times in a row. Dan took a video of the beginning of the ride. So fun...



Can't go to Disney without getting a picture with everyone's favorite - Minnie Mouse!




3rd stop - Palm Springs

We arrived in La Quinta after a 2 hr drive from Anaheim. Daniel lives in his Mom's vacation home while searching for a job and we spent the rest of our week with him. He lives in a bit of paradise...his Mom's house being quite luxurious and well appointed. A gated golf course community with a lovely pool in the back yard - it was all you could ask for.
We visited The Living Desert and Joshua Tree National Park


As well as shopping, eating out and enjoying the pool. You can imagine who enjoyed the pool most!! ;o)


Hummingbirds were everywhere - I guess they like 'paradise', too...



We really had a great time - the 2 Dan's got some job applications submitted and an interview in - so there was some business as well as pleasure, for sure.

Our drive to and from could have been arduous but there was no whining from the back seat passenger and the scenery was lovely - citrus groves, grape vines, mountains & greenery - all made it a very pleasurable trip.

We'll have to do it again sometime!

Mastering Marshmallow - Part 2

My 5 ski lessons are complete and yesterday (day 3 of my 12 day pass) Dan & I enjoyed a beautiful day on the mountain. Dan has been 'mentoring' me on the finer points of Intermediate (blue square) slopes and has given me a grand tour of Mt. Bachelor. We considered going to the summit yesterday but decided to save that for next time.
Dan has been great about challenging me to tackle steeper & steeper runs so that when I get back to the easier stuff - like Marshmallow - my confidence and abilities are noticeably improved. Yesterday I kept saying to myself - this is sooo much fun! It didn't hurt that the weather & conditions were near perfect. We hope to get up there again this week as we leave for spring break in CA on Saturday - San Francisco, Disneyland, and La Quinta/Palm Springs.

Dan got some "new" boots from the local resale shops - now I can pick him out more easily as there are lots of red jackets on the slopes.


Here's a video that Dan took - it's just sooo much FUN! Why didn't I do this sooner??
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It is mid-February, and here in the high desert it has been quite mild but spring has not shown up yet. At the suggestion/invitation from neighbor friends, we headed off to the Oregon Coast to do some yurt camping at Sunset Bay State Park .... to find a little bit of spring on the President's Holiday long weekend. So what the heck is a yurt? Well, it is a little round structure with heat, lights, a table, two chairs, a bunk bed, and a futon. Oh, and Nancy is guarding the porch.

Amy and her friend Alanna, whose family was staying in the adjacent yurt, are in the picture below taken inside our yurt.
One of the first things that we did was visit Game Park Safari near Bandon. Amy had fun

holding and petting some of the critters, such as the opossum in the picture above. She did not cuddle with the lions, leopards, or the guy in the photo below.

One of the baboons was particularly entertaining in his ability to demand treats and then to find kernels of corn thrown his way.

After a brief sojourn on the beach, where it happened to be quite windy, we got together with
our neighbors, the Vanderhoevens, for a pot luck camping dinner followed by smores around the campfire. The video below is bad, but the pictures we took were even worse. Anyway, we had a good time telling scary stories. It rained rather hard at night and the campsite was in a perfect

location for a tsunami to do something bad, but when morning dawned it was a beautiful day. (It is probably more than 100 years since a tsunami hit the Oregon coast, but somebody has to worry about it!)

Nancy and I did some exploring of an adjacent state park called Shore Acres and found some wonderful places to enjoy the ocean. We asked someone to take our picture, shown below. I took

a video shot of the wild ocean near this spot and posted it on Facebook so I won't duplicate it here. The photo below shows typical wave action we were seeing.



A little further down the road there was another scenic spot with a lighthouse in the background.

That afternoon, we came back to the Park along with Amy and the Vanderhoevens. Here is a photo of Rosie V at the top of one of the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

A little further down the path there was a spot to get closer to where big waves were smashing against the rocks. I couldn't resist getting a little closer; the spot I am standing on is perhaps 50 feet above the beach, but some of the waves "exploded" up to that height. Amy and I were

tempted to get closer but thought better of it. The video below captures the action a little

better than a photo. The fenced in area above Nancy's head has a view point. By estimating that one of the people standing there was 6 feet tall, I calculated that the viewpoint was 75 feet above the ocean. Some of the waves splashed considerably higher than the viewpoint so my best guess




is that some waves were at least 100 feet tall. In a less rambunctious place, Amy and Alanna along with Alanna's brother Isaac found a good place to give me the creeps by standing on an overhang. Fortunately, they did not fall in.



In the beginning of this post I mentioned spring. Shore Acres State Park, where all these pictures are from, had an estate built near the edge of these cliffs maybe a hundred years ago. While the original house on the site burned down, the gardens remain. The daffodils were blooming!


While there was lots of green grass, most of the other flowers were not yet blooming. However, Nancy and Rosie found a magnolia that was beginning to get some flowers.


It turns out that there are lots of rhododendrons growing wild along the coast, but we only saw one in bloom as we began to drive home the next day. I suspect that in a few weeks there

will be lots of flowers blooming on the coast. The reputation of the coast is that it rains all the time, but maybe we were fortunate in that we had no rain during the days we were there other than the one night. Also, the temperatures each day were around 60 degrees so it was a nice departure from winter.

Mastering Marshmallow

As noted in the post below, Nancy had a really good time and showed rapid progress after one ski lesson at Mt Bachelor. It turns out that the first lesson was on a nice day and, of course, we forgot the camera so no pictures.

On Monday the forecast was for a nice day, a little break from all the cloudy stuff blowing up from California. With a good forecast, we headed off for Round 2 of skiing. But there was one little disquieting thing as we headed off that morning - we couldn't see the mountains. Twenty miles later, when we pulled into the parking lot at Mt Bachelor it was snowing.

Our original plan was to ski together on the bunny hill before Nancy's lesson, but the bunny hill lift was not running. Nancy encouraged me to get in some runs myself so I took off. By the time I returned, which was after her lesson, I learned that Miz Nancy had blown past the bunny hill and had now mastered "Marshmallow" after her second lesson.

Camera in hand, we decided to take a few runs together. I took this shot of Nancy at the top of Marshmallow, which starts off just below the lift to the summit. It is a little hard to read the sign on the summit lift, but it lists an elevation of a little over 7000 feet.


A little further down the slope, I shot a video of her zooming down Marshmallow. A disclaimer: I was holding my poles and gloves in one hand and the camera in my other hand so as usual my photography was pretty "shaky".


In spite of the snow, we had a really good time and are looking forward to Round 3, probably on Friday (weather permitting).

So, I conquered my fear of skiing today!

Ever since moving here to Bend, which boasts a major ski resort just 20 miles from our doorstep, I have felt the nudge to join Dan on the slopes. Amy learned to snowboard our 1st winter here with the local homeschool coop and so now I was the lone holdout. Dan, being retired, with all sorts of free time on his hands (HA!) would go up during the week - smaller lift lines - and I would sit in the lodge - warm & cozy - and read. Perfect! Only one problem - I would look up from my book & out the windows at the glorious vista with smiling happy people (ages 5-80) enjoying themselves immensely. What was holding me back??

There were a few 'good' reasons to procrastinate:

-fear of falling and breaking a leg, arm, head etc.
-fear of humiliation (falling/causing others to fall because of my fall)
-$$$$$$$
-I don't like to be cold & wet

(just to name a few)

At the beginning of this year Mt. Bachelor came out with a ski package that I just could not say no to - 5 lessons with rentals included, a 12 day pass after completing the 5th lesson and 50% off a pass for the 2010/11 season - all for $199.
The bargain shopper in me could not resist!

After some crummy weather earlier this month and illness which took 8 days to clear up, we finally got to my 1st lesson this morning. I had a private lesson with Ben from Wisconsin and he said I did really well. The first hour was grueling learning the basics - hardest part being getting back up the very slight slope after 10 seconds of sliding down. What a workout! But then the second hour I graduated to the chair lift and that was where it got really FUN! I even skied with Dan when the lesson was over.

It was a glorious day up there and I'm so glad I finally 'gave in'.

What took me so long??


Going again on Monday - we'll try to take some pictures(for proof) ;o)