Beach Surprise

We had a last minute really great invitation to go with our friends to their beach house this weekend.  We almost didn’t get to go because Alyosha had the freakiest illness Thursday evening that led me to calling missing persons and the pediatrician on call in the emergency room.  Well, it turns out that Roma was out ‘socializing’ with his professor and Alyosha hallucinates when his fever gets over 101. 

Friday morning everyone wakes up like they are fresh picked roses and my mind was still spinning from the drama of motherhood.  We had to keep Alyosha home because of the swine flu rules—24 hours no fever—and turned down our invitation to the beach.  But, by next morning, we realized that the illness was only a Thursday night one to make me crazy and was totally gone so we packed up in an hour and headed to Lincoln City to spend the evening with friends.

We stayed at Sky and Itzel’s house which is on a little bay in Lincoln City.  The bay is shallow enough to almost wade across and is littered with huge tree trunks each with a great maze of roots showing off their complexity. 

The cool thing about the view and the landscape is that from the windows of their house, there is always a new view to observe.  Either just the tides coming in and out, or with each storm bringing in 100 mile an hour winds that move around the huge trees—every venture is a new discovery.

 For the girls this was a mermaid castle and for the boys it was a pirate ship with 3 captains—neither boy or girl had any qualms about climbing to the top.  I think this makes a better jungle gym than the artificial ones on the playgrounds in the city.  I say we do an experiment and place a huge tree like this next to the playground at Chapman and see which one gets used more.

Kids get to eat first-shell pasta macaroni and cheese with peas and broccoli.  The adults had the real thing; Peter made clams with linguini.   I can’t personally say that it was delicious because I have a mental block towards most slimy things that come from the sea, but looking at the stacks of emptied shells around me, I can assume that Peter did another amazing job in his capacity of chef.

Here you can see the view from the picture windows.  In this picture, the tide has come in and the beach we were playing on earlier disappeared.  Niki assumed his new position on my back.  I think he likes it in the front better because he can see more, but he'd better get used to my back because I think he will be spending the next year or so there! Family portrait with a bit of the Pacific in the background. You can’t see it here, but the waves were huge and our brave Luka was afraid for anyone who was more than 2 steps away from him.Kelp tug-of-war.  The kelp won, it is one tough plant!

Literally

Literally two minutes after arriving to Grandma and Grandpa's house the clothes just fell off the two boys and they jumped in the water. That is how we are going to spend the next 4 weeks, mostly naked and wet! With this knowledge, Roma bought his tickets today and he will join us next Wednesday!! Yeah!!!

Nikolai Talking to Granny

Вернулись!

Мои вернулись из Техаса сегодня, все четверо, все в целости и сохранности. Накормил, обласкал, наслушался историй про индейцев, буффало, новых и старых друзей, раскопки. Посмотрел и поцокал языком на найденный "лично Алёшей" наконечник стрелы племени каманчи.

Как приятно видеть их дома, слышать возню парней, наблюдать за расползающим по всем комнатам беспорядком.

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Weekend at Government Camp

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What an amazing weekend we had at Government Camp on Mt. Hood! Kirsten (tubing down the tube hill that we build ourselves in the front yard) invited us up to her mom's home in Government Camp. The little ski village is right at the base of Ski Bowl (downhill skiing) and next to some beautiful cross country ski trails-- if you are brave enough to forge the trails yourself.


Here is Kirsten's Mom--Grandma Jeanne. She is such an open and inviting person and shared her entire home with us and another family who also have 2 kids--a 5 year old and 10 month old. It is pretty brave to let into your home a 3 and 5 year old AND two curious 1 year olds who explore pretty much every nook and cranny. On top of all that--she didn't even know us until we drove up with our pillows and pajamas! She (and her family) is a rare altruist.


It snowed and snowed and snowed the entire time we were there, from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon. The branches were hanging so low, almost vertical, from the heavy snow. And the snow was piled on, defying gravity.

Alyosha is "cleaning the snow" off of the fence.

The snow plow comes twice a day to clear the roads and at least once a day to clean up as much of the driveway as it can get to. So, the front yard has a 20 foot (at least) snow mountain--a perfect mountain to make into a tubing hill! Going down on one tube is good, but if you get two, you fly (and bounce). Jen's fun is bouncing down the hill.

Roma and Luka are sitting in their snow cave. On the second morning, the snow plow completely covered our wonderful tubing hill. So we decided to turn it into our igloo apartment building.

Luka LOVES the snow. He was warm and dry sitting on his little sled wrapped up by the sheep skin. He just sat and enjoyed the snow falling down on his face, the perfect little snowflakes hitting every millimeter of his little face. He watched the two older boys jump and play on the sledding hill and shovel the snow...next time he will be right beside them.

Alyosha was like a camel in the desert eating the snow. (to understand you have to see the Planet Earth series and the wild Bactrian camels--who eat snow little by little to survive) He kept saying that he wouldn't eat too much, only a little at a time like the camels do.

Jen cross country skiing. You have to really know where you are going--I went when the tracks were already made by a local. The danger is that this field isn't actually a field; it is a swamp. A swamp with little creeks and deep holes that you could fall into unaware because it looks like a beautiful flat meadow. Roma decided he would go early in the morning--and Kirsten offered to guide him through the meadows full of pot holes. (8 ft. deep pot holes) They made it back from the 2 mile trip just fine.

Alyosha got caught by Papa, eating snow. He tried to explain about the camels in the desert, but Papa hasn't seen that Planet Earth yet.

Luka is going to be our downhill skiier--he practiced all weekend on the stairs. He is already an expert at 'down stair' skiing.

Here is Luka in his little waterproof pouch we made for him from old waders filled with sheep skin.

Romka grilling the shashlik that we made for dinner on Saturday night. It was delicious!

Here is Rachel and Kirsten--all getting ready for dinner.

Notice the snow? It literally snowed the entire time we were on the mountain. Nice puffy white snow--

Here is a pic of the house we stayed in--it is almost necessary to have a warm place to go when you are playing in the snow with little kids! This was ideal--just down the street are literally hundreds of people clamoring for parking spaces and looking for the best sledding spot. We are so grateful!

Here is the downhill ski slopes--Grandma Jeanne's backyard.

The car ride home. I think that this is the face of someone who really loves the mountains.

Luka got his passport!

Everything came in the mail the same day. Luka is an official citizen--he has his first passport and his first international-multi layover-tickets to visit Estonia. We are leaving the 19th of July and will spend our summer relaxing on the Baltic~ it is all official and government approved.

Can you believe they didn't let this beautiful picture be in his passport? You aren't allowed to smile! Click on the picture for a little video