Labor Day Vacation: Idaho

With Theo and Vivian attending the same school now (and their first day coming on Wednesday 9/6) I took three days off around Labor Day and we headed East to check out Boise and Craters of the Moon. You can view the entire album on Google Photos, or check out this play-by-play:

Day 1: Thursday, Sep 1

We rolled out of Seattle around 9am with a scheduled stop at Mt. View RV Park in Baker City, Oregon, a roughly six hour, 368-mile drive. We stopped in Kennewick, WA to eat some fast food (complete with indoor playground) then hit a highway closure in Oregon due to an accident; we found a way around to the next exit which involved off-roading on a barely maintained dirt road only to find that the highway was still closed, so we went back over the dirt road and on to the next exit where we found an open road.



Arriving at the campsite we found it to be ideal: it had a pool, paved roads (so the kids could ride their bikes) and our site was right next to the playground. We did all of the above.



We didn't know it yet, but this would be the best campground we'd stay at on the trip. It even had awesome signs at the pool:





There was even a fly-over by two fire-fighting helicopters! (We saw lots of evidence of wildfires later on in the trip).

Day 2: Friday, Sep 2

We woke up, packed up, and went three miles to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City -- something we hadn't planned on doing but we found the sign when we arrived and decided to check it out. It was amazing -- really well done, and Theo in particular got a lot out of it -- we think perhaps because his school had studied immigrants last year. First we hopped into a wagon outside:



Then we went inside and saw the diorama of life on the Oregon Trail:



We sat down for a bit to watch a brief portion of a brief film on the trail, before going through a simulated journey on the trail complete with five stops where the kids rubbed a crayon on a brass plate to color in a personalized pamphlet of their journey:



After the Oregon trail, we hit the road in earnest to make Arco, Idaho -- just past Craters of the Moon national monument, a 4-hour, 47-minute drive over 313 miles. We stopped in Craters of the Moon itself (about 15 minutes before Arco) to take in the visitor center and an initial drive around the 7-mile loop; we stopped to do the 1/3rd mile loop at North Crater (Theo's choice). It was an incredibly windy day.



We learned about two types of lava, ah-ah (rough) and pahoehoe (smooth). We learned about cinder cones.



We also stopped at Snow Cone (Vivian's choice) and Spatter Cones and got to go inside one!



The entire landscape is incredibly surreal.



After the two stops (plus the visitor center) at Craters of the Moon we went to the KOA in Arco and made camp and a quick dinner. The campground was so-so: there was a pool but it was tiny and cold (and the weather was cold, like the rest of the trip), the roads unpaved (making for tougher biking) and the playground was teeny tiny and distant from our site. The kids did take the dog to the off-leash area. This is what our camp looked like at night after everyone was in bed:

Day 3: Saturday, Sep 3

The saving grace of the KOA was the free breakfast waffles starting at 9am. After a scrumptious meal we headed back to Craters of the Moon. Everyone got to choose one activity again today. First up was Xavier's "choice" (meaning we picked something we thought he would like, and boy were we right): a sculpture you could walk through that was a model of a lava tube, but Xavier called a "tunnel".



Then we went to Theo's choice, the Tree Molds where imprints of 2,000-year-old trees were visible in the lava. This of course involved a 2-mile round trip hike.



For our final activity, Vivian's choice (but really also mine, and not to mention that Theo was also totally into this): "Bat Hunting" or looking for bats in the lava tubes. Of course as soon as we got inside an actual dark tube, the kids pretty much flipped out and wanted to get out so we went to Indian Tunnel, a tube with a lot of collapsed ceiling (it's safe! really!) so it was pretty light inside.



The last thing we did on our way out of Craters of the Moon was to stop and get the kids "sworn in" as Junior [Moon] Rangers. Vivian wasn't sure which hand was her right hand so she just raised both.



Then we drove to Boise, staying at a primitive camp site (no electricity, no running water) at Macks Creek Park -- a 3:16-hour, 199-mile drive. But first we had to deal with the cattle. Some ranchers decided to use the US highway to move their cows, while our kids were sleeping in the car -- super stressful since we weren't going anywhere fast which tends to wake them up.



We later discovered this was the result of driving through the cattle:



Anyway, this was the primary goal of the entire trip: the Sandy Point State Park beach at Lucky Peak Reservoir in Boise. Sarah and I went on a pre-kids tour of the western US and we were coming into Boise in 99 F heat and happened across this sandy lake, and found it wonderful; it was a little bit less wonderful in 73 degree weather but the kids loved the sand anyway (and are willing to get slightly wet in cold).



The campground at Macks Creek was pretty bad, no facilities, loud neighbors, dust everywhere. But the views were great, and the sunset wonderful.

Day 4: Sunday, Sep 4

Although our planned called for spending two nights at Macks Creek, with the weather forecast getting worse (it rained in the morning in fact, but only enough to get the trailer wet and not enough to get rid of any of the dust) we decided to bail out of Boise. Macks Creek had no cell phone coverage so we figured we'd pack up and go into town and try and re-schedule our Monday night reservation. We did so successfully after a brief visit to the water, and we gave the kids the choice of visiting either the aquarium or the zoo and although they picked the aquarium, once we were done (it was tiny!) they wanted to go to the zoo. We drove by but didn't feel inspired to pay another $10/person for another one-hour attraction so we left.



We stopped for lunch in Baker City (the same town we camped the very first night), then found an ice cream parlor, then an awesome oregon trail-themed playground, and two hours later kept going to Hat Rock campground.

This was the only campfire we had on the entire trip!



Ever wondered what taking down our trailer looks like? Here's a timelapse that shows the entire ~30 minute process in 26 seconds:

Monday, Sep 5

After leaving Hat Rock Campground we drove 40 minutes to the Playground of Dreams in the tri-cities (Washington). It's really called that, and it's pretty awesome but there's another one like it in Shelton, WA so it's not the only place in the world you can find it. Then all-you-can-eat pizza lunch buffet, and then a drive to the KOA in Ellensburg, WA. The KOA was awesome, because it had a kiddie pool! Alas it was too cold and windy, and although it was sunny when we arrived, it was quickly overcast with forecast of heavy rain in the morning. We set up camp at 3pm, swam, walked around, cooked dinner, then around 7pm bailed out: packed up and drove home.

Vivian Tries Hockey

The Seattle Junior Hockey Association had a free try hockey day today. Vivian loves hockey, because it's the favorite sport of the main character in Inside Out (her favorite movie). She had a blast, taking only two breaks in the 90 minute session. The improvement is remarkable over the course of the photos and videos (I took tons). Check them out.

Vivian's Graduation

Vivian is finishing her two years at Nanny Boo's Preschool and today was her graduation. Teacher Boo gave an endearing speech about Vivian.





Check out all the photos.

Camping at Offut Lake

We spent last weekend camping with one of our neighbors whose son is one of Theo's best friends. This was a new campground for us that we'd never visited before. Largely dedicated to fishing, there was a playground, campfire, and face painting. The kids had a blast. See all the photos.

Seattle to Portland Bike Ride (STP 2016)

Every five years I ride the STP (here's the blog post about the 2011 ride, and here are the photos from 2006 which predate this blog!), which put this year as the year to do it. There's nothing new to say about the ride itself that wasn't said in 2011. The biggest differences are in the technology (you can see in the 2011 blog post that EveryTrail is pretty much kaput) and in the approach to training. This year I rode three training rides, pulling Vivian behind me on a trailer bike.

On June 19, I rode 40 miles of the Burke-Gilman trail with her, took her home on the light rail from the UW when her hands were getting blisters.



After I took Vivian home, I rode the light rail back to finish 15 more miles along the "missing link" and the terminal 91 bike trail through downtown to SODO.



On June 26, I rode the Green River trail with Vivian on the trailer bike behind me:



Finally on July 3rd I took Vivian on the Chief Sealth Trail. This ride was a disaster; not only did it rain a tiny bit but I also fell over, which means Vivian fell over. Fortunately she was fine; I suffered a nasty gash to the back of my leg.



Training for the STP isn't my forte apparently; I hoped that removing Vivian and the trailer bike would save me lots of weight and make the STP itself doable; Vivian weighs around 30 pounds which is roughly how much the trailer bike weighs. Fortunately this theory proved largely correct; between the ability to join pacelines and draft and the reduced weight, I did quite fine on the STP. Notably this was the first year I did the STP on a road bike; previously I had done it on my mountain bike but two bike shops refused to work on it on account of a bent fork and I decided it was time to switch bikes.

As in years past, I overnighted in Winlock, 122 miles into the ride; this means I only have to do about 80 miles on the second day. It's also just before the start of the hilliest section of the entire ride. On the first day I rode 125.4 miles, climbing 1,997 feet with an average speed of 14.7mph. On day two I rode 85.6 miles over 2,412 feet with an average speed of 16.0mph. (This is slower than the 2011 average of 16.7mph combined, but I also trained much more in 2011.)





Here are some select photos from the trip, or check out all the photos on Google Photos.

The journey starts in the UW parking lot, loading bags onto trucks. You have to commit to your destination at this point, as you need to put your bags on the truck that goes to your overnight spot.



There are official photographers along the route, and this year they happened to get 34 images of me, so for the first time ever I splurged on photos like this one:



Here's a photo of me at Centralia, where a majority of folks stop (but 22-ish miles short of Winlock):



After Centralia the crowds thin out significantly; this is a problem as it's harder to find someone to draft.



Once at Winlock you pick up your bags:



And then set up a tent, although I went with a hammock + tarp strategy:



Day 2 is a bit harder than the first day. Not only is it hillier, but there are fewer riders making it harder to join a paceline: a few thousand people finished in one day, so they're not on the road on day 2. Also where on day 1 everyone started from the UW in a matter of three hours, now there are fewer people spread out all along the route from Centralia to Longview, and they're starting whenever they feel like it; I woke up at 5am and was rolling by 6am.





This is what a typical meal looks like at an STP food stop:



Day 2 is also less pleasant, because a lot of it is on US-30, a four lane highway with a 55 mph speed limit. It looks like this:



This is me crossing the St. John's Bridge into Portland proper:



And at long last, the finish line. I arrived at 12:30pm, well ahead of the pack (largely since I biked further and started earlier than most):





I'm putting my phone away from taking the earlier finish line photo in this one:



I had 5 hours to kill until my Amtrak back to Seattle, so I went to Powell's and to Lan Su Chinese Garden. On the way back I took a bus whose route took me on the same street that led to the STP finish:



Finally, adding a fourth finisher medal to the collection:



See all the photos.

Theo at 5 1/2!

Theo loves school. He is officially in a kindergarten spot nearby in a classroom that is mixed between pre-K and kindergarten. He absolutely adores his teacher and the feeling seems to be mutual. He's made loads of friends there and most mornings, he waits outside on the porch while we finish getting ready to. He likes to be the first to arrive and quite often asks to stay for an extra three hours after the official six hour school day ends. The school studies based on units and he's been very interested in the subjects as they are presented. He also very much enjoys the field trips which range from skiing to theater productions and releasing the salmon the school has raised from eggs.

At five and a half, Theo has finally dropped his nap for good. He will still occasionally pass out unexpectedly in the car or maybe once a month in the afternoons, but overall he's going all the time for the full day and doesn't like to slow down. He goes to bed around 7:30 or 8 and wakes up around 6:15 most days. He's been sleeping overnight in the nook in his sleeping bag since March when we got back from our long weekend trip. He still sleeps with jez every night in addition to other lovies.

At home, Theo is most interested in building things. His number one request is to build a new wooden train track. He will start the new layout by lining up his stations with straight track on either side and splitters to make multiple sidings or a yard. Then it's my job to connect them all somehow with various other attributes included, like crossings or tunnels. He likes building houses with Legos and magnetic tiles as well and will often accessorize his wooden track with structures made from other materials.

Outside the house he's totally still obsessed with trains. He loves seeing them, crossing train tracks, riding on any kind from a trolley or streetcar to a full-blooded passenger train, and reading in depth books on the subject. He wants to be an Union Pacific driver when he grows up.

His favorite meal is cheese tortellini and peas in pesto sauce. He asks for it regularly, though he also loves cereal, and yogurt and bananas. Lately at restaurants he's been asking for hot dogs over macaroni and cheese or chicken nuggets but I never know. He won't eat a cheese quesadilla but loves tortilla and cheese served separately. He likes mayo and cheese sandwiches best for his packed lunches. And fruit bunnies. Fruit bunnies never go out of style it would seem.

Theo loves to tell knock knock jokes though he hasn't quite perfected the humor portion. The best one yet has been like so:
Knock knock. Who's there? Horned goat. Horned goat who? Honk honk coming through. But it's a vast leap from his previous jokes, for which the answer to who's there was always "ketchup."

Theo is reluctantly learning to read and ride a bike, mostly because those have been major focuses at school this spring. He has little interest in reading to himself when we can read to him. And he loves the trailer bike where he's attached behind one of the adult bikes but doesn't have to do any of the work.

He still has massive meltdowns. Most often the cause is not getting his way, and when he's upset or injured it's impossible to tell the difference between a slight injury and say, falling out of a tree. He's definitely got a future in drama if he so chooses, but lately he's gotten really good at naming more obscure feelings like shy and left out.

Theo is still mesmerized by anything electronic, particularly kindle. He watches a lot of train based documentaries along with a smattering of cartoon shows. Nemo is a popular movie as well as shorter shows like Postman Pat. He also loves the game crossy road, and several games like dots and bejeweled on my phone.

In the case of art, Theo's most interested in things like mazes and dot to dot activities. He does like to draw or stamp or color on occasional but those activities are not a huge draw for him.

He finished two sessions of ski lessons and can now ski down green (and blue?) runs unaided. But he's also declared he's done with ski lessons, which is true since the season is over, though he means that he won't take any next year either. He's decent enough in the water that I don't worry about him drowning but I doubt he could swim across a pool that was over his head, and like most things, including dressing himself, that require independence, he shows zero interest in gaining that ability.

He's very charismatic and interacts well wth both kids and adults. He appears to be very popular at school and the kids flock to him when he arrives and ask him to join their games and activities. We love our special Thursday afternoons where I walk down to school to pick him up and just the two of us take the bus and the train home. We usually stop on the way for a smoothie and macaroons and often pick up old friends at the co-op preschool to bring home for a play date. Imaginary games like pretending to be chickens and chase oriented things like hide and seek are popular when the kids are at our house.

What the heck is one of his favorite sayings now and it's super fun to hear how his mind works. "Ireland is in Georgia because it's in the Atlanta Ocean." He and his brain are going places at paces I can't begin to fathom and it's a complete joy to watch him grow and develop his own personality and interests.

Xavier at 18 Months

Xavier is a year and a half old! He's such a charmer.

Xavier is obsessed with balls, footballs in particular, but any kind will do. He will throw them and chase them, and if there's no one else around he will do those things all by himself and laugh and laugh. It's super entertaining to watch.

He loves vehicles and things that go. The little chuck the truck fire truck (wee ooo wee ooo) is his second favorite toy. The first is his taggie lovie, which he absolutely can't live without. He will fiddle the tags, rubbing them between his fingers endlessly. He's clearly identified the actual tag because it's already in tatters.

He likes to drive wooden trains down the hills and watch them roll and push them through tunnels. If we ever had a circular track, he would sit in the middle of it and push the train around and around for hours.

Xavier eats four to five times a day. He starts off with breakfast between 7:30 and 8. The start time depends largely on how long he lays in bed with me nursing after he wakes up in the morning. That's usually at least half an hour and often more. He will ask to nurse before nap or bed but those are much more flexible, and I'm not certain he will ask each time. Because our afternoons are crunched trying to get home to get to nap, I often skip the afternoon nursing sessions because it draws out the nap time routine a lot.

For breakfast he mostly wants to eat what the other kids are having, but he does enjoy frozen waffles, honey, blueberries and strawberries, and feeding himself yogurt - which is down to only a moderate mess but definitely still requires a bib or outfit change.

He takes a soft spout sippy cup of milk before nap, typically the full six ounces. His next meal is lunch after he gets up. It's usually cheese quesadilla or macaroni and cheese. Cheese quesadilla used to be the favorite by far but now macaroni and cheese has pulled ahead. He often a eats leftovers too, especially as I've increased my efforts to get more protein into him. (I never cook meat at breakfast or lunch. Heck who are we kidding? I never cook for either meal unless you count heating water, which I do not.)

We pick up his sister at 2 three days a week, and his brother at 3 five days a week, so afternoon snack usually happens in the car. It's almost always goldfish or baby food pouches (which all three kids eat) because I can stash them in the car and not worrying about them going bad or getting smelly. I throw food at them for the seven minute drive home, and they are all tired and cranky so they gobble it up, usually before we are halfway home.

There's more milk to be had before afternoon nap, which ideally starts before 3:30 but depending on how the day is going could be later. He typically sleeps an hour and ten minutes at nap, with an hour and five minutes on the short side and an hour and a half being a long nap. :-)

Dinner is around six and except for nuts, Xavier eats whatever we are having. He is most interested at any meal in eating off someone else's plate, even if the exact same food is in front of him.

He's still sitting in his booster seat with tray, though we just moved him from the end of the table to the side. So now we are much less likely to put the tray on and he eats for the table often, which he loves because that's what everyone else does.

Xavier is most likely to use his signs at mealtimes (or during meal prep when he is often in the kitchen underfoot begging for scraps). He can sign for milk, drink, eat, water, fish (as in goldfish), cheese, more and all done. Outside of the dining room he can sign for book, ball, and hi and bye. Of course he can actually say all those things too, so that helps a lot. Otherwise his communication is limited to pointing and grunting, unless he's playing with trains or cars. Then he makes super cute vrooming type noises and can also say "car" and "truck" though even I am hard pressed to tell the difference between those two words. He will also "read" to himself, babbling and flipping pages.

His favorite book is a picture book called Farm. There's one page with three chickens on it and he's obsessed with that page of "boc bocs." He can pretty much say anything that starts with a b, like box and ball and bird and book and boc boc. The only books that can compete are the Thomas the Train look and find book (which has Thomas and chickens!) and any book with a ball which he can find and name incessantly.

Xavier sleeps ten to eleven hours at night, which is awesome given his obstructive sleep apnea. To get that amount, his bed needs to be propped up at an angle and have a humidifier running. He's still napping in our room in his crib but since Vivian vacated her toddler bed more than a month ago, we put the crib side back on that and moved him into the kids' room overnight. So far everyone is still thrilled with that arrangement.

Xavier is also still on nasal steroids to reduce size of adenoids, but the good news is that so far we've managed to avoid surgery. He stays on the meds for another month. After that, we wean him off and see what happens.

Xavier started walking at fifteen months and a week old, just in time for the new year. We were visiting friends and their son, who's a few months older, was walking. So Xavier set off across their kitchen like a pro. Now he's running around in circles without pause. He loves to grab some random toy from his siblings and run screaming back to me to rescue him as they chase after him yelling. He can go up stairs on his own on all fours, or with a hand or handrail, and down as well. I wouldn't be out of reach near stairs yet though. He can climb with the best of them. He can do almost any steps at the playground and loves to go down the slide. Until very recently he's been good about going down feet first on his belly. But in the last ten days he's started going down sitting up. That's not a problem unless he's on the big kid equipment where the slides can be more than ten feet up at the top and I can't reach him. And he can fly up the stairs on all fours so it's hard to catch him on his way up.

He still loves swinging at the playground and riding just about anything. He's equally happy going for an hour long walk in the stroller as he is to get out and explore. He absolutely loves to pick flowers, and he cannot resist any rock. He has a pile of rocks at every door in our house where I make him park them when we come inside, and now there's a pile in the car too.

He moves the little green stool around the house, particularly in the kitchen, and climbs up to reach pretty much whatever he wants. He loves to climb up in the bathroom to the sink and has been doing that for months. He is addicted to brushing his teeth, even without toothpaste, and will do it five times a day given the opportunity.

He has a mouth full of teeth - sixteen at last count since all his canines have come in.

He wants to do whatever his siblings are doing, and what's more, he can usually do it surprisingly well. His sister rode a three wheel scooter at the tot gym the other day. So as soon as she got off, he hopped on and had a go at pushing himself along. It wasn't a huge success so he just walked straddling it and called it good. He also loves doing art, whether it's markers or stickers or stamps - whatever the other kids are doing.

By far one of his favorite things to do is to ride in a toddler car. Anything will do but his favorite are the kind with a roof and a door that opens and closes. He will get in and out and go back and forth between them if more than one is available. He cries when we leave his sister's school, where they have four of those cars and I am known for going to pick up early so he has time to ride.

He loves his ball pajamas, so much so that we took his eighteen month giraffe photos in them. They have footballs, baseballs, soccer balls, and basketballs all over the pants. He's so pleased every morning when I take off his sleep sack to see all those balls. And in the evenings he asks for them by signing and saying "ball" when I change him into pajamas.

Xavier was very very into hunting and gathering Easter eggs or filling any container. He would hunt and find eggs long after the other two quit and sat down to eat the candy. He likes the candy too, for sure, but for him it was all about hunting and collecting. He often raids the dresser drawers and puts clean clothes in the dirty laundry bin. Luckily I can tell which socks are clean because they are still rolled together.

Overall Xavier is such a fun character with an infectious laugh and irresistible cuddles. His sister can't get enough of him, and loves to hug and kiss him as well as help him with his shoes or anything else. He loves her baby doll so much that I finally got him one of his own, and he is so sweet with it. He's fascinated with the magnetic pacifier but also cuddles his baby frequently and loves to push it around in the baby stroller.

I can't believe how big our baby is!

Tulip Festival

On Thursday I took a half day off work, Theo was on Spring Break (and Vivian doesn't have school on Tuesdays nor Thursdays) so we went up to Mt. Vernon to look at tulips. While the weather has been quite warm this year and the tulips were reported to be past their peak, it felt perfect to us. Check out all of Michal's Photos on Google Photos, or Sarah's Photos.