Andrew's birthday

Andrew appeared to like his second birthday present from me: The Game of Real Life. He opened it in the car on the way to breakfast at Tom's Pancake House. I watched him very much enjoy his happy birthday song phone call from his grandparents while also enjoying his chocolate-chip pancakes.

We picked up the other Andrew on our way home and I dropped them at the house.
Later: Andrew was surprised with a party at Kyle's house Saturday night. I think his birthday was a great success.

Andrew's Birthday! ~ ~ ~~ ><((((°>

I woke up early so I could work this morning, but I had trouble thinking past the excitement of Andrew's birthday. So I ran drove (no time for exercise this morning) to Safeway to buy all the types of sugar-free gum I could find that he might like (as he and I did for Mali), this time in a Costco box of Goldfish (crackers) his mom picked up for him yesterday. (He has already received his main gift: a new cell phone! Also his auxiliary gift: a digital camera.)
He needed his present this morning because we won't all be together until he gets home late from watching the Varsity track meet. I also retrieved his traditional birthday donut and even some chocolate and blueberry muffins as they were still hot from the oven. Susy was up early when I returned, making home-made chocolate muffins for the boy, so now there are many muffins for celebrating his birthday. He may even share. Andrew stumbled downstairs in his usual morning fog to a joyful, non-singing birthday greeting, and was happy.

I'm guessing there will be kids here this afternoon who will help him eat the muffins before I drive them to the track meet. Yesterday Andrew's friends Rian and Kyle were here until 8:00, since I let them talk me into playing a game of hearts after work. (Hey Mom: Guess who won!)
Mali had her friend Hannah over, helping her sort through her clothes - a Susy-decreed project. Hannah took payment of a couple of outfits, since she is slightly smaller than Mali.

Poker Saturday

Rian and her mom, Terri, threw a Texas Hold'em poker party Saturday night. Andrew and Mali were very excited - for entirely different reasons. Andrew is quite keen on poker, and Mali thinks Rian is her wonderful new big sister. There were four adults: Terri, Joan (Eric's mom), and Susy and I; and 7 kids: Rian, D, Tiana, Eric, Aaron, Andrew, Mali. Kyle was supposedly coming late, but never showed up. Food was an assortment of chips, candy, and pop until the pizza showed up.
We played on two tables and mixed them up a couple of times. I only got to play with Andrew and Susy once. We all made money except Mali, who, after losing her $2 initial stake and buying in twice more at $2 apiece, ended up coming back strong to only lose 90 cents of her $6. I was the big winner, ending with $5.31. This was difficult as I lost a lot early playing next to Joan, who'd never played before, so of course was ridiculously lucky.
All in all it was a great time, though a bit noisy with all the kids. It was very nice to get to know Terri a little bit. We will probably try to have a similar party here soon.

Happy New Year!!!!

We spent the evening at Pablo's with Rocio, Tsulan, and Tom. Pablo and Rocio threw together a delicious sweet potato soup, and so we barely touched the pizza we ordered.
Andrew threw a big bash at our house with Rian, Tiana, Eric, and Kyle. Mali made them cookies, and they cooked pizza's from Papa Murphy's. Matias and the twins crashed it early. We made them all come over to Pablo's at midnight for the New Year's toast, then the kids moved into the garage to play ping pong on Rocio's new table. They challenged me to a game since I'd been drinking, but I still managed to demolish Andrew and Matias with little difficulty.

Home from Redmond

I had a quick two day trip to Redmond for work, and now I'm home.
Andrew has his friends Rian, William, and Kyle over, and now they're playing hide-and-seek with Mali.

UPDATE: They left the house to continue playing up at the school in the dark.

Elk Cove Fall Dinner

Here's Susy and I at the Elk Cove Winery last night. We went with Paul and Alana for the Fall Roosevelt's Club Dinner. The food was good, the wine was great, and the setting is spectacular.


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Andrew went out for dinner with Rian and her family to PF Chang's. Mali stayed home and hopefully slept - she was really wiped out after the sleepover at Tesia's house.
Before all that, there was another poker game at our house:

Halloween!

Mali did her trick-or-treating with Hannah and Rachel - they left around 7:00, somehow returned to trick-or-treat our house around 8:00 with Andrew's friends Maddie and Joe, and then ended up at Alana's around 8:30, where Susy and I joined them and the full-scale party going on. There were over a dozen adults and what seemed like a hundred kids at Alana's - All the adult usual suspects and then some, plus scores of Olivia's friends. Alana had her usual gargantuan pot of chili, Jennifer brought an amazing apple tart, and of course Deborah brought more cookies and brownies then even the hordes could get through.

Andrew had Rian and Kyle over after school, then around 5:00 they headed over Kyle's party. Andrew, Tiana, Ethan, and Rian ended up at Tiana's house when the rest of the party went trick-or-treating, and Andrew finally got home around 10:30.

Supergirl Hannah, Waitress Mali, and Pirate Rachel.

Veronica Mars

We Netflixed Veronica Mars disk1/season2, so had a cozy evening last night with the first two episodes. We love this show.
Today is the start of the Halloween festivities. We're providing pizzas and punch for the Mali/Rachel bash at Rachel's house, then taking off to Robert and Jennifer's Wandering Pirate Party.

Mali has changed her costume AGAIN!!! Now she is planning a scientist costume, with not much time for implementation. Rachel apparently changed hers too, from a Federal Agent to a pirate.

Andrew will probably go to the final Southridge football game - his friends are all going and he's nothing else to do. His party is Wednesday - Kyle's family has a big bash at the club house.

Andrew's last soccer game!

Southridge JV2 beat Aloha 3-0 for their last game of the season. Andrew played good. He took one shot and slipped and wiped out a defender who had to leave the game. Kyle scored a goal, which Andrew said he'd predicted at school.
Andrew is now done with sports until November 5th when swimming starts. There's a meeting for the swimmers at school today, so we'll know more tonight.

Mali FINALLY has a Halloween costume. The Little Red Riding Hood one was too small and went back to the store yesterday. Now she is a gangster, which is a nice compliment to Rachel's Federal agent. Mali now has four parties in three days, but the two on Saturday are at the same time, so we're not sure how that will work out.

Here's a photo from last month - Susy and I at the '20s costume murder mystery party at WineStyles.

Here's Andrew, pre-soccer BBQ. He didn't play in the scrimmage - he still can't sprint, but happily he kicked the ball around after dinner and his leg felt okay. Susy offered to iron the shorts.

Before that he had Rian and Kyle over for many games of Haunted Mansion, then several of Hillbilly/Bolo Golf.

Quiet House

Our house is soooo quiet with Mali away at camp. I find it eerie. Andrew finds it peaceful. Susy just finds it quiet. Moose finds it boorrrrrrriiinnnnnggg. He's even started paying attention to Andrew. And he's bringing me things to throw for him to fetch. Nancy says Schnauzers aren't keen on fetching.

Andrew is doing great at the high school soccer camp. The coaches are running them a lot, but he, Eric, and Kyle have been preparing most of the summer for it, so are doing fine. The expectation is that the coach will run them ragged the first day of tryouts (Monday) to serve as a reminder that they need to start the season in very good shape. Andrew is probably in the best shape of his life right now, so he's not having much trouble.

I'm heading up to Redmond tomorrow for a day of work and then our company golf tournament at Legion Memorial G.C. I'm looking forward to seeing the Redmond Lubashes - I haven't been up there in over a month.
Saturday Mali's soccer team is working the jamboree - her team is in charge of bottled water.

Swimming Results, etc.

Monday night Susy and I were kid free: Andrew went to the Transformers movie again, this time with Rian, Calee, and Kyle. Mali spent the night at Zoe's. Susy and I went to Lamps Plus and bought two fans for the playroom. I will attempt to install them where the can lights were, but my expectations are not high, and we will probably find someone else to do it.

The kids just returned from swim practice. Mali is proud of her ribbons: a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in IM relay, backstroke, and freestyle. She's cleaning the kitchen now - it's her week and a disaster, since she was gone most of yesterday and last night. Afterwards, I'm making eggcakes, by request.

High School Soccer

Andrew had fun at his first Southridge soccer practice, at least at the ending scrimmage. Moose and I stayed and watched, and Andrew looked good. The entire team, freshman - varsity, is together at these practices. There were about 25 kids there last night. It's nice that his friends Kyle and Eric are also playing. We can carpool with them, as well as Kyle's neighbor Harrison (a Sophomore.) The coach is young and energetic, and I've heard good things about the whole program. I hope Andrew likes it. Thursday will be fun, they are scrimmaging Westview.
We're also looking into Southridge swimming - apparently there is a summer swim program for the Southridge Swim team. Andrew is very interested in that.

Mali's Soccer Saturday

Mali had a practice for two hours first thing in the morning to help out a coaches clinic, then had two hours in the pouring rain for a warm-up and game in the afternoon. At least they won 2-0. Yay!
Andrew and Austin worked on their candyland ecosystem project most of the day.
Susy and I went with the usual suspects to an auction for Matias's school's band. I bought a pair of pretty pretty pink lamps, and Susy bought a couple of nights at a beach house near Lincoln City. We're still sorting out how we're going to use them - the lamps and the beach house.

Birthday Beginning

For my (first) birthday dinner I let my parents take us all to my favorite restaurant - Swagats. It is a very low-key Indian restaurant. The kids weren't thrilled but they found chicken pakora and tandoori edible, at least. They also brought me a delicious apple cake, and brownies for the kids. And zuccini bread for breakfast. All wonderful, and all but a few slices of bread are already gone.

Saturday was busy:
Mali had a great soccer game, her team winning 5 - 2. It was wet, but didn't rain. Erin scored the first goal, and Heather got one and almost two others. Mariah scored on a pass from Chandler. Amazing how these former wallflowers have come alive to play good soccer. That is my favorite part of coaching. Very similar to track - teaching the littlest, most timid kids how to long jump. It is hard to go wrong there. Mali was a force for good, playing great defense as usual.

Andrew and I left soccer immediately to get him to his cross-country meet. After sitting in traffic on I-84 until the actual start of his meet, we sadly decided there was no way we were going to make it, and so exited the first chance we got. I asked Andrew if there was anything we should do downtown, since we were already there. He asked me if there was a bookstore.

SO: I took my boy to THE bookstore, Powell's, for the first time. He liked it, and was properly impressed. We had a good time. We bought a dozen half-priced books, then went across the street for some gelato. He wasn't too broken up about missing his meet.

For dinner Saturday we joined the A's and S's at Alana's house for dinner. Paul was missing, because he's down South trying to help hurricane victims. Alana made tortilla soup, and I picked up a pizza for the kids. Rocio had picked up a pizza too, so there was an over-abundance of food, as usual. I was stuffed for the second night in a row. I didn't eat much today. I think I'm on rabbit food for awhile.

Sunday was lazy. We watched Gilmore Girls, then Kyle came over. I played one game of Settlers of Catan with the boys after I put some purple paint on bedroom walls. Then William came over too, along with Larry. Larry and I had a beer while Susy napped and Mali played Apples to Apples with the boys.

Vacation

Aaaahhhhh! Today FINALLY felt like a vacation day. This morning I found the loose wire on my sprinkler system that was causing me to spend wayyyy too much time manually watering my lawn. Then I delt with the ever-renewing mole holes in the backyard, mowed the lawn, fixed the backwards sprinkler head in the new garden, rearranged Mali's bedroom furniture, AND THEN took Mali to meet up with Andrew and his new pal Kyle at the pool, where I took a nice little nap in the sun.

Andrew spent last night at Kyle's house, then rode his bike down to A&W for lunch with Kyle's family before spending the hottest part of the day inside on the computer playing Runescape. They then went to the pool, and Mali and I joined them a little later.

A wonderful day. Hopefully tomorrow will be as productive and relaxing. Wednesday I am taking the kids to David and Susan's for a visit while Susy works like crazy so she can take next week off for the camping trip. We'll come home Friday so the kids can sleep before Saturday's swim meet, and I can prepare for another long drive on Sunday.