Cousin Fun

Alton's cousin *P came over to play today, and with their matching hats that were gifts from the grandparents, how can you not take pictures? We enjoyed some morning outdoor fun in the sandbox and running around before it got too hot.
But it was impossible to get them both to look at the camera and smile at the same time! One would say, "cheeeeeeeeeese," and the other one would look to see what all the cheese was about!

"What did you say, Alton?"

Then they both looked away and started a little giggle session.

Looking at each other, of course.

Then they were off and running!

A spirited game of chase.

Taking a breather on the patio.

This became the new game: run around the play structure once or twice...

...return to the chair to grasp the arms and look across at each other.

And sometimes at me.

Repeat.

And don't forget the sandbox time, with shovels and a steamroller and buckets galore!

YUCK!

Retro Alton

A great shot of Alton that Andy snapped with his iPhone, at a diner while we were on vacation. I scaled the color back to give it that retro vibe, which goes great with the jukebox and Heinz 57 behind him. Dreamy!

Lions and Tractors and Bears, Oh My!

It is starting to get HOT here in Oregon. We are expecting temps in the 100s. Friday, our only day this week with no swim class, we decided to make a trip to the Zoo with some friends--glad we squeezed that in before the scorching heat!
It was actually a quick morning trip. One of our first stops was the polar bear, who was only too happy to spend his time swimming in the pool instead of sunning himself on rocks.

We checked out the baby elephant, Samudra, who is about to turn two this month! Alton and his friends pose on a planter near the elephant overlook.

We also went over to see the lions. Two females were lounging on rocks, occasionally flicking their ears at flies, but Alton insisted on pulling me over to the entrance of the enclosure, where he had seen...tractors. Only Altie goes to the zoo to check out their maintenance equipment.

Mini

We got a new car! And yes, it's a Mini. A Mini "Clubman," to be exact. We'd been toying with the idea of a new vehicle for awhile and started by doing some auto research online about different types of cars before we went around to dealerships for test drives. Although initially we'd been thinking about something larger (not hard to find cars larger than the Mini!), they turned out to be a bit more than what we needed.

And to dispel any naysaying right off the bat...it's not that small! This model is actually a three-door car with more passenger space, legroom, and cargo space than the original Mini Cooper. There is a roof rack on top to put a cargo box for bigger trips. And we compared it measurement for measurement with our previous car, my Mazda hatchback, and they are surprisingly almost the same size! The Mini reduces a lot of its length by having a shorter front end where the hood and engine are.

Plenty of room, and we love the barn doors!

Alton has plenty of wiggle room, too.

So we're not losing too much in the space department (and if we ever need to transport a basketball team somewhere, Andy's truck has seatbelts for six), and we're loving our fun, sporty little drive. And while this might seem like a surprise out of nowhere, I have actually been in love with the Mini from afar for years. A friend of a friend bought one when they were first released and coming into popularity awhile back, and I asked to explore the car all over, marveling at how much room and cargo space could be packed into such a deceptively small package, but mournfully assuring myself that I couldn't get a car that small. Then five years ago my cousin Louise bought one, and again I inspected it, rode in it, walked around it...and knew that it was just that smidgen too small, in addition to the fact that my current car didn't need replacing. But I admired their ads, their zippy cuteness as they "motored" around, their ability to fit into any parking space, their gas mileage, safety ratings, and fine craftsmanship. I was envious of anyone who said that they might buy one--I lurrrved them!

And we really thought Mini was just too miniature for us...until we started exploring the Clubman. Someone at Andy's work owns one and we started stalking it in the parking lot, with its roof rack, rear barn doors, and passenger-side third door. This is, as I said, just that bit bigger than the original Coopers we are used to seeing on the roads, and the third door makes it easy to access the car seat in 'n out routine. After some test-driving and decision-making, we bought a Mini Clubman (silver, with a black top) and today was pickup day! Andy rode his bike to work so that we did not have three cars on hand. Then after Alton's swim lesson, Andy biked to our gym to park his bike in the back of the truck and the three of us walked across the street with Alton's car seat to the Max light rail line. We rode a dozen stops east to a station across the street from the Mini dealership (how convenient!), and took care of our paperwork before installing the car seat and driving off in our new car for a celebratory dinner. Happy family in the Mini parking lot!

Movie!

Today Alton and I went to see his first movie in the theater. In the summertime, many Regal Cinemas show free family movies on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. There is a roster of a couple dozen movies (usually a little bit older, not new releases) that are shown at 10a.m., with one G and one PG movie on offer every week. I checked the schedule at the beginning of the summer, and thought that The Muppets Take Manhattan sounded like a good G-rated pick for Alton's first movie. It has puppets, it has people, it has singing...and hey, if he didn't like it or got scared, we can just get up and leave because it's free, after all!

This morning was our date with Kermit and Alton had a great time! He gazed up at the screen through most of the movie, holding our small, unbuttered bag of popcorn firmly between his little knees and absently scolding me when I reached over to grab some (even though I think he ate about three kernels of corn the entire movie--he can't eat and watch at the same time!). He was quiet through most of the feature, occasionally piping up when something REALLY caught his attention. Each time that we saw a body of water, like the Hudson River or some lake, he would point at it and let me know that that was the water where the boats go! At one point Fozzie Bear is in a cave with other bears, and Alton excitedly proclaimed that "there's the polar bears!" (They were grizzlies, but that's okay.) Whenever someone in the movie would clap, so would Alton. He didn't even fidget very much! About 15 minutes into the movie, he inexplicably asked to take his shoes and socks off, but aside from the time at the end of the movie when he turned around in his chair to look at the faces of the kids behind us, he was content to either sit in his chair or lean on me for the whole thing. I asked him afterward if he had fun, and he said yes, and when I asked him what he liked about the movie, he said, "Animals."

Milestone in Swimming

Today was a milestone in swimming for Alton: his first swimming lesson without Mommy or Daddy in the pool! He has lessons in the afternoon Monday through Thursday for the next two weeks. His teacher, a jovial guy named Flip, led four kids through some skill-building activities that get them in a good position to learn real swimming techniques later on. Alton also has a friend in class! A little girl from his playgroup, only two weeks younger than he, sat beside him on the steps throughout today's lesson.

In this "Intro to Swimming" class, the kids sit on the steps of the bathwater-warm therapy pool while their parents hang out on the sidelines with cameras and camcorders in hand (at least in the case of myself and Alton's little friend's mommy). As they first sat down to listen to Flip's instructions about the first maneuver they'd walk (swim?) through, they put on very serious faces and paid close attention.

One by one, Flip would lift up a child and hold him (or her) close and steady above the water level to kick-kick-kick down the lane, while the other three kids waited patiently on the steps for their turns.

Alton and I have done this together in the pool many times, but he was a bit bashful about performing for Flip, so his typical wildly splashing doggy paddle was replaced by a more tentative foot wiggle.

After some time spent benchwarming, Alton came out of his shell and was ready to show off a bit for his little (girl)friend. He threw me some mischievous, charming grins as he giggled, kicked his feet on the steps, and splashed her with water while the teacher was busy with another child's turn. His moment of cutting up for the other kids definitely had a back of the bus, "parents aren't around" kind of feel to it. I tried hard not to hover as I reminded him that "if the other kids tell you not to splash them, you need to stop." Oh, Mom.

But Mr. Showy Off clammed up all over each time it was his turn with Flip. First they were each asked to blow bubbles in the water in turn, then it was time for an "airplane" float, where Flip was only gingerly supporting each child's head, with ears below the waterline, while the kid held arms and legs out relaxed and straight. Below you can see how reluctant Alton was at first to let go of Flip's hand!

It only took him a second, though, to listen well and follow the instructions to put his arms out and let his legs relax straight. Great job, Alton!

Finally, before they all lined up at the edge of the pool to jump in by turns, Flip held a pool ring toy underwater for each child to grab. The idea was that by holding the ring low enough, the child would reach for the ring and dip his or her chin briefly in the water, to get used to submerging parts of their faces. When Alton's turn came, he grabbed for that ring and dunked his whole face and head! He came up spluttering, but didn't miss a beat (although his hair was quite wet after that).

One down, seven to go!

Biker Dude

What have we been doing in the past week since we've been home from vacation? Well, while giving you lots and lots of time to catch up on reading all about our trip, we've been settling back in to our normal routine.
Fixing trucks...




washing cars...


and riding the bike! This is the little balance bike that Grammy and Grandpa Rhyne got Alton for Christmas last year.

Andy and I had specifically liked this bike for how short the seat could be sized, and we hoped that he'd be able to ride the bike this summer. Well, he might not be breaking any speed records, but he can sit on the bike with his feet on the ground and slowly creep around and around. He tested out this new skill in the backyard.



He's still practicing, but getting better!

San Diego Trip, Day 15 (and 16)

Since Alton's mysterious illness (food poisoning? overexcitement?) yesterday had delayed our family plans to go to the San Diego Zoo, we were left with one day remaining in our vacation and this one big attraction to hit! We waited to see how he was feeling, then gave ourselves the go ahead for a Thursday morning visit to this legendary facility. My Aunt Coleen is a season ticket holder, so she was able to give us some free entry passes. Yay! Except that as soon as we arrived in San Diego two weeks ago, we realized that we'd left the passes at home in Oregon. And that we were not allowed to have mail delivered to our beach cottage rental. Whoops. Luckily, Andy's brother Zach had a key to our house, I sent him a crazily-detailed email about where exactly near our computer desk to find the tickets, and he sent them to my sister's house before she and her husband drove down for their visit with us at the Wild Animal Park. Whew!
With so many hands helping the tickets along to ours, we couldn't not see the San Diego Zoo, especially after my cousin Louise described it as "the best zoo I've ever been to." Intrigued but skeptical, since the Portland Zoo is no slouch and boasts one of the most long-standing successful elephant breeding programs in the country (although I'll bet that the SD Wild Animal Park is pretty close to THE best...they had four baby elephants roaming around!), but I was game to try it.
Wowza. The SD Zoo is huge! The size of Disneyland! It might be bigger. I was glued to my map so much while we were walking that I gave myself motion sickness by the end of the day. With this being our last full day in San Diego and needing to pack two large suitcases back at our little house, we could only spend the morning at the Zoo, so we tried to be as efficient as possible in selecting which animal enclosures to visit. We asked Alton as we arrived what he wanted to see at the zoo, and he said (randomly, because it's not like he's ever emphasized them before) turtles. Well, my son, if you want turtles, we'll give you turtles. We headed to the reptile section to gaze down upon the biggest freaking "turtles" you've ever seen: the Galapagos Tortoise.

Then it was on to another mammal that the Portland Zoo does not have: the koalas! (Or as Alton calls them: Ko-wawas.) Although I know they have a reputation for being somewhat scratchy when they are protecting their areas (who of us isn't, really?), they were so, so adorable to watch devouring their eucalyptus leaves, or sleeping incredibly soundly in a tree. A nearby placard said that they sleep so much of the day because eucalyptus are really hard for their stomachs to digest and basically require a lot of "downtime" from the koala to do so. As it was pretty early in the morning when we arrived, we saw a zoo employee lashing big loose branches of eucalyptus to the koala roosting trees, where the leaves of the branches would stick up to the level where the koalas were chilling and eating. One snoozing koala had rustling leaves just inches from his face...he blearily opened his eyes and regarded the blur of green in front of him, blinking sleepily in the overcast glare. The zoo employee finished her brisk branch knot-tying endeavor, and the next time I looked back at that koala, he had returned to his nap.

No trip to the zoo would be complete without seeing the rhino! Ridiculously huge and powerful. I can't remember what kind this guy is, but he looked like a triceratops, that's how armored and endowed of horn he was.

The giraffes also made for a fun gazing experience. I was really surprised to see that the SD Zoo animal enclosures often didn't have a lot of high-stakes fencing around them. Like, it would have taken very little for an overeager kid (or agile adult) to scale their wimpy wire fencing and be offering $14 churros to the zebras. I feel like with the Portland Zoo I am more used to seeing some distance between the people and the animals. It was nice to have the views of the animals here, and surprising that there was so much trust that the Zoo had in their patrons from all nations not to disturb their tenants.

Altie spies a big 'ol camel!

Heading toward the new-ish elephant exhibit, the Zoo has made a whole theme around fossils and prehistoric life on the West Coast, where they talk about what kinds of animals inhabited these areas, how the climate and environment have changed, etc. There was a faux wheel loader/bulldozer as part of this piece, which of course was the thing to which Alton immediately gravitated.

Funny little two-dimensional "people," where you could take your picture peeping through their faces! Andy tries a bespectacled archaeologist on for size...

...and of course once he sees Papa Bear do it, Baby Bear has to try, too.

I am a little embarrassed to say that, not knowing much about the San Diego Zoo ahead of time except to say that it was a nice and big zoo, I didn't know they had pandas! We all know how endangered this species is, and once I spotted them on the map I knew that seeing the pandas had to be part of our day's adventure. But we made the mistake of trying to walk "efficiently" through the park, hitting all of the exhibits that were on the way to the pandas as we made our path toward their station at the center of the zoo. We saw that there was a great big panda "research" exhibit, where we could hear a guide talking to a group and a huuuuge line snaking out of the doorway. We thought we were sunk, unable to stomach a long wait in the hot midday sun to see this snazzy research exhibit...when we noticed that there was a smaller panda viewing area off to the right behind it. Eureka! We walked over there and in a smaller, tree-filled enclosure there was a little panda bear all by herself, munching on leaves. Signs cautioned the viewers not to make abrupt or loud noises, because the pandas are easily startled, and the nearby zoo guide sidled over to us and began whispering to Alton and me about the little female bear, called Jin-Jin. She let us know that Jin-Jin was two years old (just like Alton!) and about to have her third birthday, where they would give her a "cake" that was actually a huge ice block with chunks of leaves and carrot and such frozen into it--a very desirable panda treat, apparently. We got to watch Jin-Jin climb her trees, take little mini-jogs around her enclosure, and scarf down those leaves that take forever to digest. Alton was totally stoked to hear about her "cupcake," and when we passed by the Panda-looza of a gift store that was nearby, he called allll of the stuffed pandas inside "Jin-Jin." Even now that we are home, he tells me about Jin-Jin's cupcake and the carrots that will be inside. Aww.

After our solid three-plus hours of zoo exploration, it was time to grab an inordinately-expensive lunch and head out of the exit to the Balboa Park steam train! The steam train, zoo entrance, and 100-year-old Balboa Park carousel are happily all in the same area near the zoo parking lot, making it very easy for tired families like us to stumble over to the train and hop aboard to catch a welcome breeze on our loop around the track. I turned around in my seat to take a picture of the guys: Daddy Andy looking tan and happy, and Alton completely mesmerized by his ride.

We had a blast on the carousel, too, and once again were able to hop on an animal that remained stationary for the ride so that Alton could absorb everything without the up 'n down motion.

Home and nap, because Andy and I had to pack suitcases while the little guy was asleep, and we had big plans for evening. For our last night in town, we had decided to introduce Alton to a restaurant that is a particular favorite of Andy's and mine: the Melting Pot! This is a fondue chain whose locations we have frequented the whole time we've been together. There is nothing like sharing a night out over an hours-long dinner of four courses that you get to dip, cook, and savor. We had hesitated on taking Alton in the past because this is not exactly a kid-friendly place: no children's menu, an electric burner taking up the center of the table, bubbling pots of broth and cheese on top of that, and sharp pointy fondue forks everywhere. We decided that he would be able to handle it, and since we were on vacation with no babysitters, he'd have to! He is not an especially grabby kid, listens well to direction, and garners us slightly astounded compliments on how surprisingly behaved in restaurants he is for a two-year-old. He was ready for the big guns.

We did, however, bring along one surefire joyful distraction for him: a can of apple juice. He never gets juice to just drink, only water, so juice is like a dessert for him and he'll choose it over anything: cupcakes, pizza, cash.... We had the juice and asked the waiter for a straw (another fun dining item to send him over the moon), and as we waited for that, he excitedly informed us that his dinner would go "here" (patting the cool granite surface of the table for emphasis), and his apple juice would go "HERE."

The first course arrived, which was a cheddar cheese fondue, and Alton surprised us by not being very interested in it! He happily ate the cubes of bread, chunks of apple and bits of carrot that served as dipping items for the cheese, but he wasn't terribly focused on scraping up the cooled cheese fondue that we'd drizzled on his plate, and we had no problems with him reaching for the hot pot, either. Great news on the safety front and hey, more cheese for us grown-ups!

We also realized later that we'd selected a great time for our inaugural fondue dinner with the little guy. With an early flight to catch in the morning, we wanted to make sure we got home at a decent hour, so we made reservations for their 5p.m. dinner seating, and it also happened to be a Thursday, which meant that it was a much quieter day and time for the Melting Pot than the Friday/Saturday 8p.m. slot that Andy and I head for when we have a babysitter at home. Good note for next time! Alton did great eating little bits from all the courses, then on our way out (after receiving compliments from other diners about what a good little boy he is) one of the hostesses offered to blow him up a helium balloon! It was his best friend until we arrived home and it revealed itself to have a slow leak. Ah, well.

The Last Day!
Our "last day" in San Diego consisted of getting up at 4:45a.m. to get dressed, wake Alton, collapse the crib, drive to the rental car return, ride the shuttle to the airport, check in, fly to Sacramento, get on another plane, fly to Portland, get on the Max light rail, ride to Hillsboro, get picked up by Uncle Zach and his big truck (thanks, Zach!), drive home, then breathe a sigh of relief that we'd arrived. Happily, this was a Friday, so we had Saturday and Sunday at home to detox and come down from our vacation high before joining the real world on Monday morning. We had a really wonderful time on our trip, surprised ourselves with all of the friends and sights we were able to see in our two weeks there, and were extremely pleased with all of the plans we made. Minerva was glad to be home, we collected our plants from Matt and Di (thanks for watering them, guys!), and pizza was had by all. The End.
Alton on the Max train on our way home.