boring old' Kindergarten

Found hanging on a clipboard in their classroom...

To: Mom

From: Chris

K is too easy.

You should move me up to 6th grade.

another round of Florida visitors

We played Oregon Tourist Guide to Dan's college buddy Mick, and his mom Gail this weekend. They came all the way from Florida to see the sights of Oregon and of course, visit with us.

Mick, Gail, and Christopher sitting in Timberline Lodge having lunch. We were busy, busy. It's fun to visit the beautiful places in this state!

cute

These planet drawings were found in Nate's backpack today after school. I love kid art.

at the risk of sounding like a cat lady....

I think that it will be o.k. to go ahead and switch Harry's food from the Iams to Purina. He discovered the bag and tore into it. Crazy cat.

playing tourist

Auntie Leann and Uncle Frank were here for the week and we had lots of fun!

Since the boys were in school all day, and Dan was at work, the 3 of us did lots of fun Portland stuff. We spent 2 full days roaming the streets of Portland. We went on an Epicurean tour, where we walked the town and tasted a variety of great foods at different restaurants. It was really a fun to be a tourist in my home town!

We also saw a performance of Portland Taiko. Part of their performance was getting people from the audience involved with playing their awesome drums, and Leann and myself were brought up front to drum in front of everyone, thanks to my friend Dane who performs with Taiko. Oh yah, superstar.

We cruised the Portland Farmer's Market on the Park Blocks, shared different meals (Greek, German, Mexican) from the food trailers.

*Editor's Note: Upon Leann's return home she did a blog post about their trip out here...it puts mine to shame, so here's a link to her blog which describes the activities much better.

house history, part 2

Janet as a little girl in right inside by the front door. Notice the same beautiful wood?

I exchanged emails today with Jim, who was the son of the original owners of our house. He so graciously attached several pictures that show their family in action in the 1940's and 50's. He said that he even has more pictures that he will be happy to share with us. I can hardly wait to see them all! Here are a few of them.

Here is our home during construction in 1941. This style of home was popular in the 40's in the Concordia neighborhood, and probably looked very 'modern' to the neighbors.


Here is Jim and Janet's mom in front of our fireplace, taken during the war. It looks like she was much more stylish than I as a housewife. Agree?

house history

Their black SUV pulled up very slowly past our house, and I could see the driver and passenger pointing towards our driveway. The car stopped, and they stared. Then they pulled over and got out with a camera taking pictures. Why all the interest in my house? I went outside to ask. What I found was the highlight of my day.
These people lived in our house during their early childhood, and their parents were the ones who had this house built in 1941. She was visiting from California, and they had come back to drive past and remember. I went out front and I asked what was up, met them, and had a bit of idle chit-chat. I could tell that they were nice people who truly had a history with and connection to this home. I asked them if they would like to see the inside. I could tell that this made their day. It made mine, too.
Imagine the thrill of walking back in time to the place that holds so many of your earliest memories. They especially remembered the back bedroom that they shared (Chris and Nate's room now), the pull-down table in the kitchen (which we removed when we remodeled), and playing in the backyard and garage. The basement was finished in wood paneling and they had a bar set up down there.
A highlight was showing them the black outlined shapes of hammers on the peg-board....outlines that their handy father had done back in the 50's, as well as his workbench...still a part of our garage.
They told me that they have pictures of the two of them standing on our front porch, just as the picture above. They were students at Vernon Elementary, too.
Their mom loved dogwood trees, and she planted the one in our front yard which is now losing it's Fall leaves.
Many of our neighbor's houses were where they played with friends after school, especially the house that has 2 jeeps...those jeeps have been there since they were here.
During WWII, their dad went to war, and he would give haircuts on the side in order to send money back to their mom so that she could pay off their $4500.00 mortgage...they didn't like debt. When they finally sold the house, they got a whopping $10,000 for it.
I hope that 60 years from now this house is still standing and that Chris and Nate will do a drive-by to spark so many memories of their own. And I hope that whoever lives here will let them in to take a few steps back in time.

and so it begins...

First day of Kindergarten.

soccer!

The boys are trying their hand (well, their feet) at the game of soccer. KinderKicks started today. Of course, blue and orange soccer balls. Would you expect anything different?
Of course, they loved it! Nate at the goal.

Chris with the ball.

now I get it.

Yep, that's me on the my first day as a first grade teacher back in 1997.

Today is the first day of school for most kids in Oregon, and even though I have not been in the classroom for 5 years, I still get that 'first day of school' feeling on the day after Labor Day.

It also reminds me of each year as the new kindergarten kiddos and their parents would walk past my classroom to get down to the kindergarten classrooms at Aloha Park Elementary.

New backpacks, shiny shoes, and a tight grip on mom's hand. Then, after about 15 minutes those same moms would walk right back past my classroom by themselves, wiping away the tears from their faces.

I could never totally empathize with those moms. I knew their kids would love school. They'll be fine. It was a good thing. Their children were in the best hands.

But now I get it. My turn will be this Friday.

the first leaf

This big, crunchy, brown leaf drifted down right in front of me as I was leaning on the railing at the Enchanted Forest last week. It was the first of the season for me, and it made me smile. Now, 5 days later, my front lawn is speckled with leaves from our tree. There are even enough that the boys were able to rake them into a pile today. I love Fall.

some things never change (and that's good!)

Maybe it's a growing-up-in-Salem thing, but we just couldn't let the summer come to an end without a trip to the Enchanted Forest--the kitschiest amusement park in the country. Grandma met us there (along with Claudine, Will, and Catie) and treated us all to a fun filled day.

Dan Lapour is right...the Enchanted Forest is better than Disneyland.