No Rules Pinewood Derby and Couches

Our church ward in Ashland had a No Rules Pinewood Derby. Family entries.

We got our piece of wood and wheels the week before we were moving, nor did we have a wood cutter, so we decided to go with the Jeremy Jarman inspired idea of a school bus.

Here is Adele painting her "Race Bus."


This was the funniest Pinewood Derby I had ever been to. I didn't realize there were no rules until I got there and found someone pulling out the measuring tape they had attached from their car to the end of the track. That one won alot of races. Another favorite was the guy who stuck a dowel out of the side of his car so that no car could get in front of his. The ultimate winner was a guy who attached rubber medical tubing from the car to an old recliner couch at the end of the track. The tubing was only the length of half the track, so by the time he pulled it taut, it was one of those moments that I knew we need to get FAR away. Sure enough, the car made it down in a blink of an eye (literally, you couldn't see it) and the Boom! scared everyone as it hit the couch.

Our bus was made with little time, so we didn't even file the axles, as our cousin Alan says is a sure fire way to win. In fact, our little bus only made it down half the track before it just stopped! But guess what - we still won the first race. The car we raced fell off the track. Even in a rematch. We lost our second race (which we would have to ANYONE else since everyone else's car got to the end of the track) to a guy who attached some kind of motor and had a remote control to speed up his car.

Then we moved.

Can you see the ottoman the bus is on? I better mention it because I was so excited. See, we haven't owned our own sofa in 6 years. And many of the places we have lived these last few years, we haven't had one. In fact, the one we had 6 years ago, we only had for 3 months out of the year we lived there. So being in our own new place, I was so excited to get a couch. No more sitting on the floor! YEAH! With an ottoman, because I really like to put my legs up. So I was on the USED couch/ottoman search. Something small, like a loveseat, so we could still have alot of floor space for the kids to play. Well, furniture stores were too expensive. I mean, what if we end up moving soon and the couches we buy don't work with the new place? I had to cheap. I tried Craigslist. For several weeks. Most good deals disappear fast, and I had a hard time finding ottomans, they usually just came with a chair, not a loveseat. Or with a big set. Or a big ugly set, dirty, or just very... old fashioned patterns. Oh, and a loveseat would be easier to transport. Who could fit a couch in their minivan?

Well finally, I came across this ad on craigslist. Loveseat and a chair with an ottoman. Perfect! The best part? They were so nice, they said that since they were coming to town later and owned a pickup, they would just bring it over if we liked it. They delivered for free!



I switched the dark green chair pillows and put them on the checkered couch, to make them come together more. Then I added the throw pillows I had made (with the free fabric I collected back in the bay area + IKEA $1.39 pillows). The couch($100) and chair with ottoman ($50) are in great condition, no sagging, nice and firm and comfy! Boy are we excited to relax in the family/living room (what do you call it if there is only one?). With reading two chapters a day from Chronicles of Narnia (not to mention all the other books) it got pretty sore on my rear end, sitting on the floor.
Total cost of living room set: $154.20

+ one free bookshelf + one free shelving unit for toys + free old big screen TV from parents). The shelves came from a leftover yard sale and another from the sidewalk that someone had left out. Yea for Aaron picking up free stuff.

We watched a movie last night and we felt like we had our own home theater room!

Total ease of hard floor on my bum: $priceless

Adele was talking on the telephone to her 3 year old cousin Dawna:

"Dawna, we're moving into a house with stairs. But this house is unfurnished."

I asked Adele if she knew what "unfurnished" meant. At first she kept saying she didn't know. I told her just to take her best guess. Maybe she thought she didn't know because I asked, it was so simple to her. "Does it mean it there is no furniture?"

She is a 4 year old with a 10 year old vocabulary. At least. We've been reading C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia for the past few weeks, and we're already on the 4th book. (Not typical 4 year old reading). She is loving it and always begs me to read more than 2 chapters a day. Which I only give in to at the end of the book because it gets so exciting that I want to read more too!

I'm procrastinating. Better get back to packing. You know, this is our 7th move since Samuel was born. Maybe that's why he's so easy to travel with. He doesn't seem to care where he is sleeping, as long as he is still in his little peapod tent, with the corner of his blue blanket shoved up his nostrils. Well, he sort of tickles his nose, but I have seen it go up further than it should.

I didn't realize Samuel knew what hot cocoa was, he saw the cocoa canister and started begging,
"gogo! gogo!" Which means "cocoa!" When he calls for us, he yells, "Mommy, Mommeeeeee!" with the accent on the "-meeeeeeeeeee!" Always doubled up like that. Sometimes "Daddy Daddeeeeeeee!" His vocabulary has increased like Crazy these last couple weeks. Of course, it is no where NEAR Adele's was at this age. She was already talking in full sentences. But it certainly is SUPER CUTE. He gets REALLY excited when we drive by the south Medford freeway underpass, because they redid it with fish engraved on the walls. So when you drive by, you can see these shadow catfish. He gets super excited and yelling "fi! fi!" He can't quite say the "sh" sound.

Oh wait, I am supposed to be packing.

Frog Baby Shoe Models

"Hey you, check out my shoes!"

Cute shoes, huh? My kids are modeling these specially imported shoes from Taiwan. (My Dad brought them back as gifts for them) They are kind of like those Croc shoes material, but a bit stiffer. Adele wears hers all the time.

I get moms stopping me often, telling me how cute these shoes are, or asking where I got them.

You like them? You want a pair? You can't get them in the United States... unless you know ME. (Or my sister, so for any of my family and friends in UTAH who are interested, I can hook you up with her).

They come in Pink, Green, Blue, and Yellow. Christmas is right around the corner. I have very limited supplies. Let me know if you are interested...

Halloween

Adele is a Princess. Samuel is an unwilling superhero.
Didn't want the boots or the cape.
Finally I distracted him with some Baby Einstein. See how it's a wonder pets cape? (It's actually Adele's cape that she got from a birthday party).


Adele was very specific about how she wanted her pumpkin carved this year. Last year, we carved these fancy pumpkins, where Danielle made Cinderella, and I did Prince Phillip.

All year long, she was saying how last Halloween, she wished she could have a pumpkin with two eyes and a nose and a mouth. All that work, and really, all she'd wanted was a traditional jack-o-lantern! So this year, we were sure to get it right. Specifically, she wanted triangle eyes, a circle nose, and a curved mouth with teeth. Thank goodness she wanted these more simple designs. All we had to carve with was a butter knife.

Then she wanted Samuel's to have triangle eyes, a triangle nose, and a curved mouth with NO teeth.

Aaron took the kids to a science museum on Saturday (Halloween).
He and Adele entered a pumpkin weighing contest. She wanted to put down 40 lbs., but he encouraged her to write 5 lbs. They came in at 2nd place. She won a prize, she picked coke bottle glasses. She was excited that they would match her doctor set glasses, and that she and Samuel could be able to wear them at the same time.


Me: "I will get the camera if you will get your toothbrush and start brushing your teeth." Hence, the picture of the glasses while she is brushing her teeth. Wasn't hard to get Samuel in the picture, he climbs right up on the stool with Adele when she brushes her teeth. He loves to be involved. She is good at sharing (with him) and never pushes him off the stool or complains about him being there (like she does with Dawna).

Elsewhere and Portland

The kids got to pick out a pumpkin from Grandma and Grandpa's patch. They'd cut the pumpkins and put them in the barn, under some straw, to keep them warm. So they said to just go find some under the straw in the barn. It was fun, like a game. The barn was dark, and we didn't know which stall to look in. When we did find it, we still didn't know if there were pumpkins under all that straw, and where exactly to look. So rather than picking pumpkins this year, we also had to find them!

We enjoyed Jason and Courtney's wedding. Jason is Aaron's cousin. Jason fainted during the vows, which was fun, because his brother Jacob caught him, and Jason popped right back up - he actually "feinted." He was telling Courtney, during the vows, that that was the way he felt when they met. He really got us all, big gasps from everyone. I guess those boys were always big jokers.

Samuel in his prayer pose. Folding his arms, bowing his head (well, his whole body) and closing his eyes.

Astoria

Ecola State Park near Cannon Beach
Aaron had to hold Samuel back, so he wouldn't touch the catipillar.

They love to wrestle

Astoria Column.
We climbed it, 166 steps.
(According to a guy coming down while we climbed up)

We could see the valley from up high.

Oh Health Me

Help me with Health.

I waited to schedule my kids' well examinations because I wanted to change our health insurance to an Oregon plan. After all, the last time I took one of them in (when we lived in Oregon back in Jan-Mar), the visit (which involved looking at my son for 10 seconds and never touching him, all done by the nurse practitioner "oh he has a rash? It's no big deal. It's just __") cost us over $200. And, since we just don't live in CA anymore, we obviously need to switch.

Well, the underwriting for this new health plan has taken over 2 months. It's ridiculous. We ALMOST have it... just waiting on one more medical record. Never get sick if you plan on changing insurance, it is such a headache to get on a different plan. I mean, insurances don't want to offer health insurance to anyone but the SUPER healthy. Anyway, with all this attention to swine flu, and knowing tons of people living around us who already have had it, and with stories of hospitalizations, I figured I better get the kids vaccinated. After all, if they get sick enough with the flu to go to the doctor, that one visit could cost us over $200. (We pay everything to a very high deductible, except for their yearly exams and shots). Not worth it, if we can prevent it, right? It seems like a common thing to go in to see your doctor when you are sick with the flu. And I have heard plenty of stories of kids being dehydrated and needed to go to the hospital to rehydrate with IV fluids. Can't imagine how much THAT would cost...

Well, I have called 2 doctors offices (that have several doctors). Pediatricians, family practices, etc. No one is accepting new patients. I called another and they said maybe, they will get back to me. Okay, any day now. AND they are out of swine flu vacc AND seasonal flu vacc. I called the local pharmacies. They don't offer them to kids. I called the county. They won't give kids under 3 the swine flu vacc (which rules out my son) and won't give kids over 3 the seasonal vacc (which rules out my daughter). So they can each have one of each vaccine. So I was running out of options... no place to get my kids their flu vaccines, their immunizations. CAN'T let them get sick. I finally just hung a bottle of hand sanitizer on my belt loop and went crazy with it when we dropped Aaron at the mall today (the kids wanted to play on the germ happy indoor play structures). I'm not always a germ-a-phobe. Mostly when I know there's flu going around, schools are closing because of it, and we can't afford to get sick with more than a cold.

So finally, I just called my kids' primary care pediatrician back in CA. They set up me with an appointment to see them, nice and easy. They have both vaccines available. So the kids get to see the doctor and have lots of shots (due for immunizations too) when we come home for the holidays.