Soccer!

This week, Alton is taking a summer soccer camp through our local parks & rec. Here are a few pictures I snapped with my phone; I hope to have some better shots later in the week when I remember to bring our actual camera!
The first day: he's already a pro at putting his foot on the ball to stop it when it's time to kick. Alton is in the center of this photo in the blue sweatshirt and red cap.

A few days later, they are having a hilarious scrimmage with four and five year olds running amok on the soccer field, and Alton acting as goalie for the first couple of minutes.

First Term

It's been a few months since I last posted on this blog, because in the meantime I've been busy with my first term at massage school! I only have two nights of class left, then some weeks off before the summer quarter begins. I've really been enjoying both of the classes that I've been taking, as well as having fun getting to know my instructors and classmates. One of the classes I took was a basic Swedish/Western massage course, so part of my homework for the past couple of months has included giving at least two practice massages per week. I'm happy to report that after all this work with my hands, I still really like both this subject matter and my future career goal. 
After scooting furniture around, I wedged my massage table in our spare bedroom, where I maneuvered and squeezed alongside the queen-sized guest bed and walls, and side-stepped the door when needing to enter and exit the room. A six-foot massage table takes up a good amount of space, not to mention room for me to work around it! Longing for a more spacious and ergonomic solution, I proposed some room swapping to Andy and Alton, who both were fortunately game to honor my request.  Consolidating Alton's bedroom furniture into his playroom upstairs, we freed up one bedroom to use as the "massage room," and still kept another room ready for out of town guests to stay in. Alton refers to his new quarters as his "Play-Bedroom-Room," and loves having more space (the room has no closet in it, so the floor space is larger and his clothes are tucked away in his dresser) and lots of toys in his room, because previously his bedroom was just for sleeping.  With big double doors that open onto our second-floor landing and hallway, he and his little friends have already been happily utilizing all the spreading-out space of the P-B-R.

After moving my massage table into its new digs, I was feeling deflated by the blah-ness of the room. We had never painted the walls in there before (former spare room), and the previous owners' color choice of a yellowy tan seemed to have been driven by its ability to cover the black paint they had in there before listing the house for sale (Maybe a Star Wars-themed room? We have no idea.).  Brownish walls paired with boring brown carpet that we're at least a few years away from replacing, and it felt like I was giving massage in a cardboard box.  Andy to the rescue! He suggested painting, so I sat down and scoured the Internet for color and decor inspiration.  Trying to hit the right notes of warmth, relaxation, and professionalism, I opted for simple clean white walls, a narrow pewter molding trim at picture rail height (about 6" from the ceiling), and the walls and ceiling above the molding a cozy mauve color.  Having that "pop" of color up so high in the room above white walls really gives it height, adds visual interest for my practice clients who will be lying down for much of their time in the room, and keeps the decor warm, but not bold or bright. Paired with the simple white shelves that already occupied that room to hold my supplies, black picture frames on the walls, and a vanity stool re-upholstered in the same mauve fabric that I used for a valance downstairs (it was a match!), and the room is as beautiful as I pictured it, if not more so.

Handy Andy verrrry carefully measured the tape line between white and purple, painted the ceiling for me, and hung all that skinny molding around the room!

The stool with the purple fabric is in the corner--I'll need to slowly acquire more of those basic black picture frames to put on this wall.

Below is a close-up of the white-pewter-purple color combo. I took these pictures in late afternoon when it was starting to get a little dim, and I thought the detail shot best showed the hue of the ceiling.

I'm ready to use it!

First Bike

Look who has his first "real" bike!

 Alton's new bike is courtesy of my cousin Matt and his family; this bike is a hand-me-down from their younger son.

 It's a Giant brand kids' bike with 12" wheels, and currently no training wheels, so Alton needs a supportive hand to keep him steady.

 But he's in love with this beautiful red bike and pedals really well.

 He already owns a balance bike (two-wheeler with no pedals) and a tricycle, so now he just needs to put the two concept of pedaling and balance together!

 Look how much fun it is to learn!

A New Adventure

I'm embarking upon a new adventure: going back to school!  Massage Therapy school, to be exact.  It will take me between one-and-a-half to two years to earn the more than 500 credit hours necessary to get my certification from the school and take a licensing exam to become a Licensed Massage Therapist.  After being out of college for more than ten years, the idea of being back in the classroom is exciting and a little bit daunting: homework?! After all this time?!
Massage is a discipline that I've always enjoyed being the recipient of (there are a few people out there who do not like to be massaged, but I'm not one of them), but never crossed my consciousness as a personal career.  I have had some informal instruction in massage, most notably a sweet infant massage course that I took at our local hospital when Alton was a baby, but I definitely always thought of it as being firmly ensconced in the "hobby" sector of my life.  After all, my college degree is in Liberal Arts / Literature!  My work experience spans University Administration and the corporate world of Communications / Marketing. Surely there's no room for a body-centric subject like massage, even if I had been thinking about going back to school (which I hadn't).
But recently, a good friend of mine, Fabi Zawalski, began her first courses at a local massage school.  She also took a non-credit "basics" course to learn some of the rudiments of massage and get a taste of what being in a massage class would be like.  She offered to practice her learnings on me and a couple other friends (oh, darn), and her enthusiasm for this healing therapy was infectious.  I could hear myself agreeing with her in my head: "Yes, yes it would be nice to know that you are helping people to feel better...flexible job hours--who doesn't want those?...low-stress work environment is a must...wow, all the courses are offered at night, so I wouldn't need to spend money on daycare...."  I quizzed her a bit more on the program, and she encouraged me to attend a student preview night at the school, where more information would be dispensed from school staff, so I did.  And found myself agreeing even more: with the mind-body-spirit focus of the school (I loved the idea that adult education didn't have to make me feel like a big dollar sign in the eyes of the school), with the relaxed approach to program completion (no penalty if I didn't finish "on time"), and with the diverse and seemingly plentiful job opportunities that were available to graduates.  I liked their small classes, the campus that was not too far from my house, and the chance to enroll at approximately the same time as my friend Fabi, providing us each with a built-in supporter, study buddy, and carpooler.
At the info night, I was also invited to take the same Massage Basics course that Fabi had just completed, free of charge.  The four-week course was commencing the following evening, so I signed up and drove back to the school the next day.  I figured that this would give me some good insight into how I felt about massage as a profession; obviously, if I went into the classroom and felt shy or uncomfortable or dismayed by the thought of massaging people I didn't know, this was not the program for me!  But I felt myself really enjoying the course, for the scratch-the-surface knowledge I was acquiring about the body and healing, for the instructor's laid-back style, and for the very meditative qualities that I found massage to impart on the giver (and receiver). I couldn't help but feel a gratifying success when my massage partner claimed to have fallen asleep on the table while I was at work--twice!
After doing some more thinking, discussing with Andy, and budget planning, I have officially enrolled in this massage therapy program as a student.  My classes begin in April and include the homework of two practice massages per week....

Flying Solo

Andy and I were invited to a birthday gathering this weekend for one of our close friends, Chris, a guy who lives in Seattle and was renting a tour bus for an all-day tour of Washington wineries. Heaven! But since I am currently enrolled in a class on Friday nights (more on that here), it made logistics tough for us to drive up there and I had another commitment scheduled for Sunday morning as well. It was looking like we'd have to send our regrets, but then I thought about our folding bike(s). I suggested to Andy that HE go up for the weekend solo, using his folding bike and the light rail system to reach Portland's Union Station, where he could jump on Amtrak all the way to downtown Seattle, just another few miles' ride to our friend's house on the trusty Brompton bike. He could have a guys' weekend, try out the folding bike on a full-size passenger train for the first time, and I could still attend to my commitments back home and hold down the fort with Alton. Sounds like fun!
So the little guy and I are flying solo for the weekend, for the first time in a long time. There have been a few occasions when I have left Alton and Andy together for a weekend, and Andy always springs into action for the father-son time, planning trips to the science museum, the kiddie amusement park, pizza dinners--a nonstop party. Since I am a stay-at-home mom/superhero by day, being alone with Alton for the weekend isn't really very different from our normal weekdays. What should we do to make this special, and distract a bit from missing Daddy?
So far on Friday morning, Alton was adamant on continuing work (pre-breakfast, no less) on his little wooden pirate ship model. He first built and painted a wooden model kit of a space shuttle with his Grammy when Andy and I were out of town for the weekend, and we're now on project #5, which he and Daddy began a couple days ago. Alton loooves the intricate work of gluing wooden pieces together, carefully selecting paint colors, and daubing on the paint with a fine brush. I think I see more model hobbying in our future!

Cycling with Visitors

Okay, so here's the deal: if you come visit us at our house, we're going to ask if you want to ride a bike. We're bike-nuts, we have enough bikes and helmets for everyone to be outfitted, and we remember enough what it's like to be at the beginning stage that we stick to slow speeds and short distances (no professionals here!).
At Christmastime, Andy's parents rode our two folding bikes on a trip around our subdivision to the little neighborhood park.

But there's no pressure: if you aren't interested, we'll save a bike adventure for another time. We just find that most of our houseguests will respond to the bike riding question with a "Hmm, sure!" and that most folks are too shy or worry too much about their two-wheel inexperience to request a test-ride. So let us ask, and feel free to say no.
Our most recent visitor was game for a park trip by bike, even though like my sister, she had not ridden a bike since probably her elementary school years!

Jamie and I have been friends since junior high school, and I was so excited for her to visit with us for the weekend. She came up solo for some "girl time," but when she looked around at Andy's kickass custom-made workbench and beer-brewing setup, she bit her lip and pondered whether she should have encouraged her husband to come on this trip, too! On our sunny Sunday morning, Jamie buckled her helmet and test-rode both of my full-size bikes to see which one felt more comfortable to her. She elected to ride the xtracycle Radish, with its easy upright handlebar positioning and step-through frame, and carefully wove her way up and down our residential street, managing to relax enough to smile for Andy's camera. She set aside her bike-newbie jitters the longer we rode, although at one point on our trip she said, "You guys are crazy: taking pictures and riding with only one hand!" It's okay not to want to pop any wheelies just yet.
Our trip was through residential streets to the big city park that's only one mile away: a good stretch of the legs that takes less than 10 minutes to complete, with no challenging hills for riders with less experience. I rode alongside Jamie on my hybrid bike, the one that Andy upgraded with comfortable new components for my birthday. In addition to all his previous work, this winter he also installed twist-grip shifters on the swept-back handlebars, which make changing gears a quick flick of the wrist, rather than the previous shifters where I had to take time and really push hard to switch gears.

Andy and Alton rode to the park on Andy's Brompton folding bike, with Alton's little balance bike strapped to the front of the frame for fun park time. Once we were at the park, Jamie and I locked up our bikes to walk the trails while Alton zipped ahead of us on his balance bike, and Andy scoped out the terrain on his folding bike (at Alton's request: he wanted to ride bikes with his daddy).

We reveled in the sunny, warm (60s!) day and communed with nature. Alton was so delighted when we spotted this banana slug slowly cruising across the trail.

Farther into the park, the water level in the creeks had risen to cover the rest of the paved trail, so we couldn't walk or ride any farther. That didn't stop Andy and Alton from hopping on the Brompton together to do some doughnuts in the shallow water.

Alton spent some time on the swings before our group split up to multi-task: Andy, Alton and Jamie rode the mile back home, while I rode a mile in the other direction to hit up Subway to get sandwiches for everyone!

And despite a little bit of saddle soreness from being unaccustomed to sitting on a bike, Jamie asserted that the bike ride to and from the park was an adventure for her and her favorite part of the day.
So future visitors: keep it in mind! Which one of our bikes are you dying to try out? Where would you like to go on a ride? If you're too nervous, we can work with you to make you comfortable, or save the bike ride for another time altogether. So far, I'm full of enthusiasm for our varied roster of cycling visitors and the diverse types of bike trips they've logged:
--Julie: My East Coast friend who suggested that we ride to the post office to ship home the 10+ pounds of books she'd acquired on her trip to Portland's Powell's Bookstore.
--Grammy and Grandpa: Andy's parents Jennifer and Charlie hopped upon the nimble little folding bikes (as my cousin Louise said: they can turn on a dime!) for a zip around the block in December.
--Aunt Cici, Uncle Julio, and baby cousin *S: My sister and her husband quizzed us about kid-carrying bike options for their almost-one-year-old, and got to test out one of our bike seats when we all rode to the park. They ended up getting the same baby bike seat for their bike back home!
--Louise: My cousin Louise, reacquainting herself with riding on the preschool dropoff, and happy to burn off calories on a long (more than 13 miles!) ride with me.
--Jamie: Back on a bike for the first time since grade school, proud of her successful trip to and from the local park.

Will you be next?

Indoor Camping

Andy had the adorably awesome idea to have an indoor urban camping trip with Alton. He wanted to set up our small tent in the living room, put their sleeping bags inside, then snuggle down with some M&Ms as a special treat and turn on a Disney movie for a real indoor/outdoor drive-in experience. Alton got all pajama'd up after dinner, and Andy even put our huge TV on the floor since he discovered that you couldn't actually see the TV from inside the tent once it was set up. They are all set for the night!
Getting cozy...

This four-person "backpacker's" tent fits two adults, a child, and a dog just fine.

The tent in the living room...notice the TV on the floor in front of the door! "Roughing it," huh?

To infinity and beyond...camping with Buzz Lightyear.

California Cousin Visit

Back in January, we had a visit early in the new year from my sister Cari (Aunt Cici), her husband Julio, and their baby boy, *S, Alton's first cousin on my side of our family. The trip to Oregon from their home in California would also mark the first time that *S traveled by airplane, cool! He and his daddy look packed and ready for anything.

Among the high points on their itinerary for this visit were to take *S sledding in the snow (would also be his first time seeing the snow!) and eat in at least one of the places from the Portland episode of Food Network's show Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. We Rhynes added some activities to the roster: having brunch with our Pacific Northwest cousins, the Groeners, and taking *S on his very first bike ride. So much fun to pack into a couple of days.
We took things easy for their first day in town, playing with *S while Alton was at preschool, and dining out at Mingo, our favorite local restaurant with delicious Italian food (love that pretty "retrovelo" bike parked outside the restaurant! not one of ours).

Friday then dawned clear, crisp, and sunny, so while Andy was at work the rest of us got prepared for a little bike excursion. Since this was a new activity for the Molinas as a family, we took them on a tour of our mini bicycle shop in the garage to see if a little bike ride was something they'd like to do. They were game, so we borrowed a baby-size helmet for *S from my friend and neighbor Marinda, fitted the baby seat onto one of Andy's bikes for Julio, and let the two dudes do a little practice pedaling up and down the street. I handed Cari her helmet and adjusted the saddle on the xtracycle Radish, my largest bike, which has easy upright handlebar positioning, stability from its "xtra"-long wheelbase, and a simple twist shifter for changing gears. Cari insisted that she'd concentrate on riding and forget about the shifting, and set off on her own test ride on the pavement in front of our house. She started out with a very slight wobble, but soon her pedal strokes evened out and she was cruising smoothly. After our ride, she commented that she couldn't remember the last time she was on a bike. I said, "Oh, maybe college years?" She said, "Nope, never had a bike at college." "High school, then?" "No." "Junior High School?" "Uhmmm...." We finally ascertained that she couldn't even remember the last time she'd owned a bike in the pre-middle school years, let alone ridden one. Wow, pretty impressive that she took so easily to two wheels with only that tiny wobble in the beginning! I guess what they say is true: it's just like riding a bike, you don't forget it. Alton and I rode one of the folding bikes with his little balance bike as cargo, and off we all set for the park, one mile away through the neighborhood. Alton was striding around on his pedal-free bicycle, *S giggled away happily on the swingset, and everyone enjoyed the sunny ride to and from the park!

The next morning, we were super-organized and up early. We had re-mapped directions to a sledding hill on Mount Hood that we visited last winter, and decided that the "slopes" were best tackled on a full stomach from one of those diners that the Molinas had researched. Breakfast at a Portland landmark: Pine State Biscuits! Since Andy and I had joined Weight Watchers on January 1st (along with most of the United States), we wanted to combat our indulgent meal with a calorie-burning bike ride. Cari and Julio very graciously offered to drive our Mini along with their rental car and both little boys to the restaurant and meet us there after our bike ride. Andy and I set off before 6a.m. with our two folding bikes in the dark, still morning. Our first destination was a Max light rail stop a few miles away. Riding the entire way would have been too long to make it to the restaurant by breakfast time, so we took the train from out in the 'burbs to the first stop in downtown Portland. Look how well those little bikes fit on the commuter car! (My bike has a big black bag attached to the front of the frame.)

It was still dark when we got off the train and started riding through the silent streets, but the skies soon lightened up, only dropping a few spots of water on us here and there. With plenty of time, we made it to Pine State Biscuits! To call this restaurant "cozy" would be an understatement: the dining area is about the size of Alton's bedroom! Even parking was at a premium, with sparse street spaces for the cars, and not a bike rack in sight. Luckily, the Brompton folding bicycles dovetail nicely on a street sign. Safe and sound and securely locked!

Andy and I wandered inside and dawdled over biscuits and jelly, trying to stake a claim at a first-come, first-served table. The Molinas arrived and lucked out with great parking spaces for the two cars, so we dove into some delicious pre-sledding food before folding up the bikes, putting them in the trunk, and hitting the highway.

Andy's brother Zach and his family had graciously loaned us their sled for the snow trip in addition to our own, so it was two sleds and no waiting for the little guys! After the first trip or two down the hill, it began to snow, so *S got to see the flakes falling for the first time in addition to checking out the blanket of white already on the ground. Both kiddos were wrapped up well, and we added another scarf to *S's face to protect him from the damp, melty snow bits that were steadily streaming. In the picture below, I am standing with *S in my arms next to Julio, and Cari and Alton are piled into the sled, ready to race downhill to photographer Andy.

We got a bunch of good runs in before the snowfall began in earnest, with the temperature unfortunately high enough to make the precipitation more like half snow, half rain. We were all soaked! We began ambling back to the parking lot, but Alton did not care about the slush and was ready for more; Andy rallied around and took the bigger boy on several more long runs in the snow and cruised around in the sled.

After we'd gotten home and toasted up, the next morning we hosted brunch for our cousins who live in the area. Brothers Matt and Seth and Matt's wife Diana and two boys had not yet met Mr. Sam, so we chatted and caught up over muffins, fruit salad, and Aunt Coleen's egg strata recipe. A light overnight dusting of snow eventually gave way to a real flurry through most of the morning. Thankfully, not as wet as at the sledding hill the day before. Cari bundled little *S up again for a toddle through our backyard.

The three older boys (Alton the youngest, then *O, then *E) made snowballs, dragged mittens through the buildup on the slide, caught snowflakes on their tongues....

Alton almost couldn't be dragged back inside, and Minerva the Snowdog thought that our planter boxes had turned into snow feeding troughs.

Then that night was their last night in town, so we hit another local restaurant for a decadent dinner before their morning flight the next day. We hadn't had much luck with posing Alton and *S together for pictures, so with suitcases ready in the entryway and Alton still in his jammies, we plopped the two cousins together to snap a few shots to send to Nonna and Papa. Such little cuties they are!

It was a fun trip and a great opportunity for the boys to play together. Fast-forward one month, and a few days ago *S celebrated his first birthday! We were not able to attend his party at home, but enjoyed the pictures of him on the push tricycle present we sent down to him. A perfect gift from his bike-crazy family in Oregon. He looks so grown-up. Can't wait until our next visit with *S and his parents!

Yogurt!

A few weeks ago, my sister Cari sent me this link to a recipe she'd found online for homemade yogurt. I'm not sure how she found it originally, but she thought that the tutorial and directions online seemed straightforward and she was interested, and then passed it along to me since she knows that I like making things homemade to reduce waste, save money, and be healthy. I read it thoroughly, agreed that it sounded fairly simple, and put it on my radar to try out.
Last Saturday, I was ready to tackle my first attempt at making yogurt at home. One commenter on the website described it as "easy as heating up a can of soup," which in essence it is, since according to this recipe yogurt is made simply by heating milk to a specific temperature, incorporating live yogurt cultures (from an already-made container of yogurt that you presumably buy at the store), and keeping the yogurt warm while it "sets." And so I began.
Heating the milk...

cooling it in the sink after it heats to the correct amount...

poured into jars...

in its "warm place" (small cooler filled with warm water).

I followed the directions precisely, put my yogurt in the fridge after its time to "set," and came home later that night to check on my handiwork. No! It didn't fully set. I had small blobs of yogurt floating in yogurt-y milk. Good for making smoothies, but not really spoonable.
Discouraged, I scoured the comments and discussions on the recipe to see if I could troubleshoot my half-failed batch. I decided that there were a few things that I could tweak about my method, but since my yogurt seemed to be partially firmed up, I decided that a longer "setting" period would be one of my changes for the next time. The recipe had said "three hours" in the cooler, so I literally set a timer for those 180 minutes and pulled out my quarts exactly on time. It doesn't seem like that was enough, so for Batch #2, I put them in the cooler at the end with the warm water, then left them in there for about 8 hours, until I went to bed that night. When I took the jars out of the cooler, I could still see a little liquid sloshing around at the top of the jar, so I was skeptical, but I put them into the fridge for the night.
This morning, I have yogurt! See for yourself.

Valentine's Day

Alton made adorable cards for everyone in his preschool, and a few extra fun cards with the preschool's watercolors, including one for Daddy.