Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

This past Saturday our family went to the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma!

We were with John & Jill and the boys, plus we met up with Brian's brother Peter, Sarah and their daughter Odette, PLUS a friend of my from my online group's whole family came to do the zoo with us too!

We got a picture here of the six kids, from Erik (holding Nora), The littler ones in the middle are Curtis, Jenea & little Amelia (in the stroller) and up top is Odette!

Christa and I got our little ones together for the first time in about 14 months -- Amelia was born the week I was visiting Jill last spring, so I got to go to the hospital and meet her when she was just days old.

It's so amazing to see a little one walking around when the last you saw them they were in the NICU!

Odette & her folks joined us too. She even got a camel ride in!

John Michael came with us too (he wasn't in the kid's picture because he's a very legal adult age of 18), and he was the Carrier of the Kettle Corn. YUM...

Curtis the Cutie was so sweet. The first time Nora fell in front of the zoo into a puddle, he was very concerned and even asked her a few times "Are you ok?" Christa says he's always on the playground watching other kids and if someone falls, he checks to see if they're ok so if they're not he can help get the on-duty recess adult! How sweet is that?

Brian snapped this picture of Nora in the super-cool Children's Play Area -- I couldn't get over how many neat features they had that were RIGHT up Nora's alley. She played on this "spider web" for quite some time...

But once she discovered the slide, you couldn't get her to quit!
This last picture is my favorite...Brian or Christa shot this one and they let me have it from Facebook. It's a FABULOUS picture.

We had so much fun, and did great walking through the zoo and keeping track of THAT many people/kids. At one point Odette was carrying Amelia, and Amelia's sister Jenea was a little concerned about who was carrying off her little sister! :)

The zoo is a VERY nice one. We were disappointed the beluga whales are gone. One died, and the other one went to a breeding program in San Antionio's Sea World? That's what they said anyway.

The aquarium was fabulous, with a big shark tank and lots of neat exhibits!

Game Day

I had a lot of fun at my sister's this weekend!

We got to their house around dinnertime Thursday, which gave Nora some time with her cousins before she went to sleep. Then Friday we went to their church and she spent a few hours with cousin Erik who works in the church nursery now and then for things like "Mom's Day Out" where you can drop off your kid and go shopping or whatever...and Jill and I went to Costco for some church stuff and then we took all the kids out to lunch.

Saturday morning we went to the zoo (more on that above), and that evening we went to a Mariner's game in Seattle where we beat the Diamondbacks 7-4!

It was a thrill to go back to my home city (Seattle will always be home to me I think!) and see a game and enjoy a beer and a hotdog and a little time with family.

Thanks to John and Jill for getting us tickets and everything. We had a blast! Like Brian said "it made it feel like we were on vacation" and if you can get that feeling out of a short 2-day weekend, that's a good thing!

Cute Pictures of The Day

We had a wonderful weekend -- Brian had to work up in Tacoma so we packed up Nora and headed up to my sister's on Thursday and spent some time with them!

We went to the zoo at Point Defiance in Tacoma, where we met up with some friends and more family (more on that later), and went to a baseball game in Seattle with Jill and John Saturday night. It was WONDERFUL to go out in Seattle to a Mariner's game.

While we were at the game, cousin Erik watched Nora and put her down for the night. Most of the weekend both her cousins played a lot with her, but he had her all on his own and even learned to change a diaper, which for pretty much any 13-year-old (ok, ANY of us! LOL) is not that much fun...

Anyway, this morning, he got up as we were packing the car, and watched Nora play out in the yard as Brian and I reattached the carseat.

He asked for a hug, and it didn't take long for Nora to run to her cousin and give him one last hug until next time!

Thank you Erik! Nora loves you guys, but I know she had a really special time with you with all the time you spent with her!

How To Explain...

I'm sure most new parents feel like I do as they watch their little ones grow, that feeling of wonderment mixed with trepidation as they watch their children begin to interact with the outside world.

Being a cute, friendly little girl, Nora will say hi to anyone and anything. She "gives love" to inanimate objects like this mouse sculpture at the zoo by hugging it and saying "Oh...", and will hug nearly any 4 or 5-year-old boy (much to his horror). But even the 4-year-old boys will just look at me as if I'm supposed to stop it, and only a very few will push her away.

When I simply say "She's doing that because she thinks you're COOL!" Most boys will just respond with "OH!" or "OK!", but if nothing else, most of the time they just react with some level of civility that even a pre-kindergartener can muster.

I was talking to a friend the other day and saying how hard it is knowing that the world will get harder for her, instead of easier. That at some point when she understands more words and more about humankind, that I will have to explain to her that not everyone will be good to her, and not everyone will like her, even if she is her sweet affable self.


The fact is, mean people exist. I experience them on a rare basis, thankfully, because I have a loving family, great friends, nice neighbors and by and large have a great experience on the Internet. The good FAR outweighs the bad, and always will.

I hope in time, I will be able to explain to Nora how to be careful, but not too careful. How to embrace life with gusto and without fear, but to use her judgement well and listen to that voice that says "be careful" when it speaks up.

But really? If nothing else, we have to walk around truly liking all of mankind, not just the ones who look or sound like us...or we're just part of the problem. I hope if nothing else, I pass that on to my girl.

Peace to all, especially those who are running away from it.

Dolly

My friend Jenn brought this toy for Nora the other day...and it's become a fast favorite!

This morning I went to get her, and she had it in her crib with her -- apparently Brian gave it to her last night before she laid down. She didn't put it down for several minutes this morning, and gave it a big kiss (that's what she's doing in the photo) while she played with it on our bed.

I just love watching her play with a little baby doll. This is her first "real" doll and she loves it.

Thank you Aunt Jenn! :)

The Expensive Zoo Trip!

Yesterday morning, Brian had the day off and we decided to head to the zoo again!

Well, we were on the way up to Portland (we live about 45 minutes away), and we talked about the clutch and how it needed replacing. I even had called the local dealership to see what it would cost (about $1200).

Brian mentioned doing it himself over a long weekend to save us the money...and then we hit Portland, and our Subaru just blew the clutch out on Highway 26 just a few feet from the exit to the zoo!
In a cloud of smoke, our plans for the day were changed!

I sent a text message to my sister-in-law Julia who lives and works nearby, and she offered to come get us. She looked up a Subaru dealership for us and as we turned the car around (we were dead in the zoo fire lane), we limped it back near the highway entrance and stopped.

I had barely turned on the emergency flashers and parked the car, when a Portland police officer stopped and asked if we were ok. I told him we thought the clutch was dead and that we needed a tow truck. He said he'd call for me, since it would be faster if it came from PPD, and he set out a flare for us!


I had just been to the zoo with Nora on Friday by myself, so I told Brian to go ahead and go on into the zoo with Nora, and I'd deal with the tow and the dealership. I called Julia, who gave me the address, and then she reminded us that my Mom's car was parked at her house since she went to New York to visit my brother, so we could borrow her car!

Within a couple of hours with Julia's help with picking me up at the dealership, I was back at the zoo with Mom's car, and we were able to enjoy the zoo a bit together, before we had our lunch in our regular spot.

We decided to wait for the car to be done, since they said they could be done by 4 p.m. We drove Nora around town til she fell asleep, then just kept going a bit so she'd have a short nap in the car before going to Julias to wait for the car. We got it at 4:30, then went to dinner with Julia at Red Robin, where Nora tried her hand at the driving video game (the beauty of toddler entertainment is that it is free...) and THEN we headed home!

We were really grateful we didn't break down in the middle of nowhere on the way to Portland, where there are several spots with MILES of open space, or on I-5 in the left lane or something during rush hour downtown. Now THAT could have been expensive or even dangerous with Miss Nora in the car!

All in all, it was about $1100 ($950 for the repairs and $150 for the tow). But like he said "It needed to be done."

The car drives totally differently and better now. It's truly amazing. I had no idea it was in such bad shape until it was fixed.

I know we should probably be more upset about it, but really with some of the things my friends are going through, like a loss of a friend to cancer and another friend who's struggling through a messy divorce, it's really just not that big a deal to me. I miss the money out of our dwindling savings account, but it's not the end of the world.

Moving on...with a new clutch!

QUILT!

It was hard to chose a picture to embody today's adventures...so I made a quick collage.

Click on the picture itself and you'll get a bigger view of what I sewed today.

Brian, darling husband and father that he is, doesn't let me go out the door easily by myself.

So yesterday, he thought it would be GREAT if he and Nora hung out in the fabric store while I picked out a quick few buttons to replace some that were lost from a pair of capris I own and wanted to fix.

It turns out it's harder to find an easy beige button set that would go with my pants, so I spent some time at Hancock Fabrics checking out their selection.

At some point, as Brian and Nora perused the store, I heard "MINE!" come out of my daughter from across the store. (Thanks Mom, for teaching her THAT word!).

It was the FIRST time I heard her say it and mean it with that adamant tone that can only come from someone who's 2 or approaching 2...

Brian said "Let's ask Mommy, and over comes my 6'3 husband and 2'11" daughter, carrying some fabric from Sesame Street on it.

I said "sure, we can get something..." thinking that it would be a nice easy buy of a yard or two of fleece.

But a few minutes later, Nora had apparently decided that ALL fabric that had Elmo/Sesame Street on it was "MINE!" and then some choices needed to be made.

Ultimately, we decided on a couple of Elmo-related fabrics, and a trim color that would match.

And this morning as Brian and Nora played at Minto Brown Park (see below)...I quickly quilted and edged it, and it was ready for her to enjoy when she got home.

She is so thrilled with her quilt. It's a source of joy to play "Where's Nora?" and she loves it when I ask her what Cookie says, and she growls like Cookie Monster!

Super Cute Picture of The Day!

Any silly ideas I get about crediting/blaming Brian's family for her looks/expressions dies with this photo.

This kid, this imp, this little sapeca, as my mom used to call me (it's a Portuguese word for, um....a little girl who's trouble "in a good way")...well, we can all look at this picture and say the apple didn't fall far from the tree, now did it?

That's MY girl!

Daddy's Adventure

We live not far from Minto Brown Park, a park on the Willamette River near the state capitol of Oregon...

The nice thing about this park is its sheer acreage. You go there and there are MILES of park trails, lots of fun things to do, and a rugged feel that makes you pack up the heavy duty jogger stroller (thank you Aunt Judy!) instead of the more urban zoo stroller (thank you Aunt Jenny!)
Today while I sewed this morning on a quilt for Nora (that's another post to come), Brian took her to the park, and snagged ALL these gorgeous pictures of our girl.

He was so proud of his pictures taken with our rather hated Nikon Coolpix camera (its slowness to snap pictures is a major disappointment to us, considering the speed with which our kid moves)...

So their adventure started with Lucy and Nora holding court at the Dog Park section of Minto Brown, where Nora and Brian and Lucy hung out for some time, and other dog enthusiasts brought their dogs by.

Brian said so many were so very impressed with Nora's lack of fear of dogs, and of course how dang cute she is. :)


One of the neat things of watching Nora grow and change so fast is the incredible interest she takes in the little toys and things attached to the various playground equipment...it's like you can see the same wheels just starting to turn in her own head that you see as she turns them on the play stuff!


I think this picture pretty much deserves a moment of silence...

Anybody who's ever had a toddler knows the chances of getting one of them that isn't blurry, isn't the back or top of their head, and has them looking at the camera, with a pleasant expression, no less...equals a wonderful picture!!

Pictures!!!!

If this series of photos doesn't show the variety of things Nora is learning to say and do...nothing will.

As each week (every day really) ticks by, our girl learns to do new things, from riding bikes, to talking on the phone! And sometimes it's just a new fresh facial expression!
She's even learned to search for strawberries in the strawberry patch in the back yard...

She LOVES strawberries and raspberries, and we have a bumper crop of strawberries in the yard this year.

She will often want out first thing in the morning, and I try to get her to wait til the afternoon so the strawberries have a chance to ripen with the day before she goes back out after them again!!
We took her to the toy store the yesterday -- there's a really nice little educational toy store (rather nicely situated between a fabric store and Targe), and she ran up and down the aisles, just randomly stopping at whatever caught her eye. It's amazing to me how different she is once she's been somewhere before...this time she got SO much more excited as she recognized where she was, and started squealing and running around.

What cracks me up is that she runs with the expectation (presumably) that she can outrun me. I may be an older mom, but I'm still faster than a 1 3/4 year child. LOL

Nora's been investigating, rather gleefully, the joys of playgrounds.

She is SO much like her cousin Hannah (who's now 17.5 years old) in that she RUNS everywhere...Hannah was notorious for breaking into a run around 18 months and I don't think she stopped until kindergarten.

Nora sees a playground, and I have to break into a run to catch up with her these days...and we LOVE spending time on all the slides, and her discovery of every kid thing that's fun at the park!

She LOVES slides. She hates swings. But she's learning...to ride bikes and her tiger rocking horse toy that her Oma gave her.
The thing that really amazes me as I watch Nora grow, is how unique EVERY child is. My daughter is special (because she's mine), but really, when you go to The Kids Club in town or somewhere else where you get a lot of little ones in one place, it's amazing to see the range of skills and abilities of children of ALL ages!

But this one stole my heart last week, as Brian was out of town for work for the second week in a row...

Nora finally figured out that she could talk to Daddy on the phone, and that she could talk to him, so as I had him on speakerphone, she GRABBED the phone out of my hands and started saying "HI! HI! HI!" and "DADDY!!!" into the phone.

After staring at it on the floor for some time and wondering how so big a man got into so small a phone...

1000

It's been 1000 posts since I first started this blog 4 years ago...A lot has changed since 2005, besides the big obvious one of us having a kid...

Here's the very first blog entry of mine in 2005.

When I look back, I think about politics, where I was living, what I was doing, and what I was wishing for. It really amazes me how in four years the road our lives can take can be so different, personally, professionally, and for us as a collective, both in the community we live in and as a nation.

Technologically, things have changed as well. As you know I don't spend as much time blogging these days. I usually post pictures and continue to blog here just as a more permanent record than the daily repartee of Facebook.

But just in the past couple of years, so much has changed in our lives:

We moved to Oregon to be near family after we learned of Nora's arrival...

We lived with Jeff & Judy for 6 or 7 months until our house in Denver sold...during which time I was hospitalized for 5 weeks (and Nora for nearly 2 weeks since she was 6 weeks early)...

Our move into our house in Salem, as Brian works for a company that keeps him on his toes. As he describes to me what he did today (he's down in Southern Oregon working on Rice Hill and other remote areas), he tells me about this part or that part, and how he fixed or figured something out, and I realize how much HE has learned/changed in the past couple of years since we came out here...

And our daughter has grown and changed, and with each new day, looks at me with increasingly intelligent, knowing eyes. She brings me clothes she wants to wear, can find the letter E and A on the refrigerator magnets, and thinks the dog running by her is a hoot.

I have always loved newspapers...I loved working as a journalist, but I also have to recognize the end of the era, and unfortunately for many of my friends and me, there isn't as much room for writers as there are writers anymore. Sadly, for me, that means moving on. I'm in school at the local college to finish studying the prerequisites of Anatomy, Physicology & other subjects...and I expect to be in nursing school next year. I can't wait to have a new and meaningful career -- one that I hope will not only help support my family, but give me the chance to travel and use my skills to help people.

Since my first post, Brian and I went with our parents and my Aunt to Paris, France...I can't believe it's been 3 1/2 years since that trip...I ache to go back to Europe and MANY other places.

If nothing else, the past four years have taught me that life is short, and the opportunity for travel is even shorter. Oh how I wish I could take Nora everywhere and let her see everything.

It's late, which is pretty much the story of my life these days...I spend lots of time on the computer between online classes and my social life. I love it all.

So here's to #1000 posts to my blog. Thanks to all who have read, who continue to read, and if nothing else, look at pictures of our girl!

---- Jules

Big Girl Bed

Nora is a tall girl, and of course that means escape from the crib will just happen that much sooner.

Brian was putting her down this weekend and noticed that she was trying to escape the crib by lifting her leg, and she's getting close!

So this weekend I looked on Craigslist and found a toddler bed with a mattress, and it happened to be just a mile down the road from Jeff & Judy's house.
So yesterday, I took my $40 and headed over, and we brought the bed home last night.

Well of COURSE she loves it. ESPECIALLY now that it has her favorite zoo crib sheets on it. I put her PALP quilt on it (a special quilt friends of mine from my online group made for her when she was born), and for a good part of today, Nora spent it getting in and out of bed, and covering herself with her blanket.

She wants to sleep in it, but of course she wouldn't possibly stay IN bed, so the crib it is -- until she escapes, OR we can explain that she can sleep in the big girl bed when she STAYS in the big girl bed.

Whichever comes first.

And yes, I'm taking any additional tips on how to get a kid to stay in their bed!

Fountainstic Day

We've been BUSY this weekend! Zoo trip Friday, housework and a trip to the park with Nora this morning for Brian, I did errands, homework, and then we all got back together this afternoon and headed to the fountain for a couple of hours, just to cool off.

It hit 90 degrees or so today! NUTS!

It didn't take Nora long to figure out the water is FUN!

She did wonder at first, but all the other kids there screaming and having a good time finally convinced her she was enjoying it! Daddy took his first turn at it, then...
It was my turn! We got SOAKED to the bone. So glad I brought a ton of towels, just in case. Turns out we needed them because...

Nora would come back, cuddle in a towel with Daddy, then go back for more!

I love watching her try to interact with older kids. She can't say anything, and the kids aren't always sure what to do with her, but these kids shared their balloon with her briefly, and they all stood around her for some time. It was very cute!

Cute Picture of The Day

Nora and I go to Riverfront Park on a pretty infrequent basis, but recently she's gone a few times, and has recently broken into a run when she sees the playground.

It amazes me how quickly she's learned to climb stairs, ramps, and how to throw herself down slides so willingly and gleefully.

She even learned that she can't climb UP the slide (she has to go around) AND that if she lifts her feet up, she goes down FASTER.

And to her, FASTER is BETTER.

Cute Picture of The Day

Nora had her Uncle John, Aunt Jill, and cousins John and Erik here for a nice long holiday weekend, and she couldn't have been spoiled more rotten by all the wonderful attention!

Saturday we had a day at the park with the kids, and Sunday afternoon Jeff, Judy, Mom and the girls all came over for a barbecue and to hang out in the fabulous weather. Some friends of John & Jill's also came over, since they live in town, and they brought a little girl who was beyond adorable! (I promise to blog some bbq pictures too later!)

This morning before JJJ&E left for home, we all went to breakfast at "Word of Mouth" bistro & cafe in central Salem, and it was WONDERFUL!

Nora thoroughly enjoyed sitting with John and Jill most of the time...after she wanted down we all took turns following her around too!

I just love this picture of all three of them. Like Pastor Mark and others have said "Wow, it's hard to see all the LOVE for that kid, huh?!"

Yeah...right!

Learning All About "Poppy" (aka Potty)

Nora's learning to talk, and along with that comes some sign language (showing me by grabbing her diaper in front that she's gone potty) and also outright telling me she's gone "poppy".
After reading in my Parenting For Dummies book (I love that book for straightforward questions like "when is my kid ready to start potty training?") it said to get one and start showing the kid around it, and talking about going potty, and what we do.

This week, we got a new potty in the house, and Nora mostly uses it as a step stool to get up onto our bed, but I did finally show her, with no diapers on, how to sit on the thing with the lid up, which she did, and was so very proud of herself when I cheered her on.

We're a long ways from peeing in there as far as I know, but it's begun!

The Enchanted Day!

Zoo Doo

We went to the zoo this morning! Brian left for the whole week in Bandon, out on the coast, and in the morning we got up, loaded up the girl and off we went.

Being that it is a holiday weekend, and being that it's the first day to crack nearly 70 degrees on a weekend, it was CARAZY at the zoo today!

We had to wait in line for tickets, and even to have our tickets checked! There is an advantage to going in February when it's 40 degrees!

We walked down through Northwest Trek -- it's a long slow decline through a NW forest, which has bears, bald eagles, cougars, and salmon...Nora had a ball walking and crawling through this hollowed-out log play feature thingamajob. She liked it SO much she kept running back up to it and going through it long after we thought we were past it!


When we finally got to the bottom where the petting zoo was, we took her in, and Nora went up to each goat and said "HI!" When Brian asked her what goats say, she changed her tune. She went up to the next goat and said "Baaaaaaaaaaaa!"

After that it was time to check out the monkeys and the Amazon area, which had lots of big fish, some orangatans, and of course...ROCKS?

Nora, aka "Magellan" as I call her, spent most of her time today not necessarily looking or talking to the animals, but checking out the texture of nearly every inanimate object as well.

We had lunch down in our Africafe, and then Nora ran wild and free all over the Great Lawn/Ampitheater they have near the elephants. It's amazing how within just a week or two, she's more agile, faster, and more able to run and stop to go down the concrete stairs without falling.


Here's a picture with Daddy after we tried our very first "Elephant Ear" at the zoo. Dough, sugar, cinnamon...usually she doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, but that was delicious!


And here's one with Mommy! Miss Nora is such a funster...it's hard to get everyone looking at the camera, but even when she doesn't she's cute!