Thursday, May 31, 2012

Daddy's home!

Julia was not at all down with the idea that she should go to bed, and I should go get Daddy. "No! Ja-da-Daddy" she said very firmly. So I bundled her into the car at bedtime, and we dove the hour or so to Medford. Julia tried so hard to stay awake. Every 30 seconds, she'd ask "Daddy? Aiwpane?" But with 20 minutes to go, she fell asleep, and thus at the airport, she wanted nothing to do with waking up to go meet Daddy. The next morning she was pretty thrilled though. "Daddy. Home." she states often.

(Incidentally, when driving with a toddler through remote mountain passes at night, don't dress them in footie pajamas, because when they cry to go potty, you have to pull over, and strip them pretty well naked in the chilly night air, hold them over the edge of the road and watch as they refuse to go, while sure that a car is going to approach any second and call the police and CPS on you. Then you have to bundle the child back up, and repeat the show at 10 minute intervals since you failed to bring a back up set of clothing and are worried about the impending "accident" that will inevitably soak the child and car seat.)
waking up to find Daddy!
"right here"
she even shared her crackers with him. 
all day she was on high show-off energy. 
and he was definitely the one to read stories with that night. 
And we eventually settled down into a more steady pace. But only for a week! Today Dave drove up to Hood River to do a week of orientation work and to check out rental houses and property. We won't be able to get our financial ducks in a row before we are needing to move, so we are resigned to the idea of renting for a couple months to a year. It is a good idea for us to take our time in house hunting, and to really explore the communities we could live in before making a decision. I hate the idea of moving twice, but nothing can be done about that, so we'll do it! Julia was pretty much ok with Dave leaving again. I told her that he'd be going on a short trip, then coming back. She wanted to go too, but was fine when I told her that soon, we'd all be going on a trip. Involving an airplane, no less. She's excited about that. I'm not too excited about that part. We've had some impressively hassle-filled flights in the past. Dave is being sent to a conference on charter schools in Minneapolis, just days before we were planning on going anyway! He'll go ahead and Julia and I will meet him there a few days later like we planned. The week before we fly to Minnesota will be spent with Dave's folks, so Julia will get to hang out with the Grandparents and I'll get to make sure stuff is ready to go on the moving truck. 
So here's the grand plan. 
Dave drives to Hood River. Dave drives back to Klamath Falls. All 3 drive to Mt Vernon. Dave flies to MN. Mary and Julia fly to MN. All 3 drive u-haul back to Klamath Falls, then to Hood River, then to Mt Vernon then back to Hood River. The next day, Dave begins work. 
If Dave and I are still speaking after this epic month, we deserve an award!

Julia and her purse
Memorial Day feasting
With Granny, my sister Caroline and her boyfriend, Matt. 
Dave cooked an impressive quantity of food on our little firebowl grill. 

I'm winding down my classes, writing papers, doing projects and eagerly anticipating being done with it all for awhile. Our pile of packed goods grows steadily.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Playing and Packing and Blogging!

My computer is back! good as new! This is a great thing, since I had not yet figured out how to blog with photos on the ipad, I had avoided posting anything. Now, I'm back! My big news is that tomorrow, Dave comes! I'll go pick him up at a semi-local airport tomorrow night. I told Julia that he would come after she was asleep, and she said "No, Ja-da wake!" which either means she wants to be woken up when he comes or she doesn't want to go to sleep at all. We'll see how that one goes. It was a little amazing to look at the photos needing to be uploaded since the last blog entry. It has really warmed up a lot in two weeks. The garden has taken off, and our winter clothes have been packed away. I've been packing in general, getting ready for moving. We're working on getting our financial paperwork figured out for purchasing a home, but figure that we'll probably end up renting for a couple months at least while we decide what to buy and where. Dave will go up there for a week or so in early June, to get a little oriented to the job, and he'll get to check out real estate and rentals, but I've got to stay here and finish up my classes! I'm also busy working on the details of a trip to Minnesota. We're thinking we'll fly in to MN, visit friends and family, then rent a u haul, load it up with all my stored stuff, drive across Nebraska to pick up a table that my dad made, and then swing up through Klamath falls to get the stuff that is here. There's also stuff in Seattle, at Dave's folk's, so we'll need to work a visit there and moving that stuff into the big moving picture too. It will be a ton of work, but I'm so glad that we'll be finally heading into a long-term living situation. We have unopened wedding presents to re-discover! It has been really good to spend the time we have here in Klamath Falls, but I am excited for the next chapter to begin.

We've been playing with friends, here we are at the lake shore with Cruz and his mom, Annette 
Julia loves to swing, and wants to try out every one.  

My sweet husband surprised me with an I Pad! Julia has quickly learned all that it can do!
we celebrated mother's day with a picnic by the lake shore. it was a beautiful day!
Julia is a big fan of her "baby car-cart", and pushes everything from dolls to cereal around. 
We've been playing with her friend Celia too. We've started a little weekly get together with Annette and Cruz, and the kids get along pretty darn well! Julia gets very excited when I tell her that Cruz and Celia are coming to play. 
Julia's learned to work the spray nozzle on the hose, and is diligent about watering the plants. She takes special interest in the strawberries and is very excited that some green berries can be seen. We have to go look at them a lot. 
you can see our garden starting to take off. we've harvested baby lettuce and spinach and radishes already, and there's been a few little peas on the trellis vines. Nothing is better than the first homegrown salad of spring!


Julia and Olaf having fun in the tent. 

Julia is torn between her fear of engines and her desire to play with her remote control truck. As long as she doesn't  accidentally drive it towards herself, she's pretty good about the noise. 
I came across a free fish tank, and got Julia two 30 cent goldfish. She takes her job of feeding them very seriously, and so far, they have survived. We'll see if they survive moving.   
I tried a new recipe for jello-playdough, to good success. it smells lovely, though while it is cooking, everyone thinks you are baking marvelous things and tend to be disappointed to learn that it is not for eating. 
We turned the tent frame sideways to make a little house one day. Julia took her babies in and out in a basket. 
She likes the hammock. 
And is pretty pleased to be able to "watch street" (sesame street) again 
She and Olaf remain such good buddies, it makes me sad to go. She loves everyone here a lot, and I'm really grateful for the quirks of life that have led us to spend so much time here this year. 



Friday, May 4, 2012

GOOD NEWS!

WE ARE MOVING TO HOOD RIVER, OREGON!!!!!!!!

Dave got offered his dream job as the principal of Mosier Community School a K-8 charter school 7 miles east of Hood River, 1 hour east of Portland, 5 hours south of Seattle, 6 hours north of Klamath Falls.We'll be right in between both our families, which is the next best thing to living next door!

We are SO excited. He was very impressed with the school during his interview, and said it would be one that he would love to have Julia attend someday. Dave has longed to live in the Hood River area as long as I've known him, and now we will be! I am so proud of Dave for persevering through the interview bog, for getting his Admin credentials while teaching full time, and for continually supporting us through several years of uncertainty.

Mosier's Motto: Gem of the Gorge

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

No Computer....

Last week I inadvertently got my laptop wet and now it is fried. BIG whoops. So no blog photos until repairs are made and bank accounts emptied to pay for repairs. 
Dave and I are anxiously awaiting results of his interview in Mosier, Oregon, near Hood River. It's an excellent little charter school in a great area and we are really hopeful that this could be a great place for us. Dave thought the interview went really well, so we are just waiting and waiting and waiting for the phone call. He's got another interview lined up this week for a school near Bellingham, Wa. It's a skype interview, so he doesn't have to travel for it. That's a relief, as the cost of flying down for an interview is hard to swallow, not to mention the difficulties of keeping his current responsibilities covered while he's gone. The ice has started to move up there, and there's reports of some minor flooding in our last village of Sleetmute. It's an exciting time as everyone exchanges news of what the ice is doing where, and after a long winter, it's a sure sign of spring. It also means that river travel will be possible again soon which is really good. While the ice is breaking up and in the dangerous zone when it could go any day there's pretty much no way to get to another village except by flying. Everyone is on high alert for flooding though, especially if the ice upriver is breaking up before the ice downriver. A bottleneck can easily form and the water can flood low-lying villages quickly.
There's no flooding here, just full time spring. Our little garden has sprouted with speed, and things are growing well. We still have some freezing nights, so it's a bit of a dance to keep things covered at night and uncovered in the day.
Julia and I have a little playgroup going now, with my friends Annette and her son Cruz, and Clarinda and her daughter Celia. They all come over on Tuesday mornings, and the kids play in the yard (sunny weather so far!) and we drink coffee and talk. It's pretty great to feel settled enough to have a playgroup, and at the same time, all 3 of us are on the job hunt, so we have lots of common ground to relate from. Julia really gets excited when I tell her that it's the day for Celia and Cruz to come play.
Julia's doing great. I love this age (2 years)! She's getting verbal enough to express herself pretty easily, she's starting to develop some imagination and plays more on her own, and as long as we get regular time out and about, outside or at activities or running errands, her behavior is really good. She's fine when I leave to go to class and thrilled when I come home. She follows simple directions, to do things like get a book, or to carry a cup to the kitchen, and she loves to do "helping" things. Lately I've been actively working on cutting back on the night nursing, hoping to get her to sleep in longer stretches instead of the wake-and-snack mode that she's been in for two years. I do this by telling her "no more nunnies till morning." Simple, eh? At first, she was none too pleased, and threw some huge fits several times a night, but it has decreased to mild fits and I am hopeful that someday soon, I'll wake up and realize that we went the whole night without a fit or waking of any sort. I was offering her a cracker or apple instead of a nurse, to satisfy hunger, but the crumbs in the bed got old quickly, and luckily she's not asking for one often now. I do keep a sippy cup of water in bed, so she can drink that if she's thirsty. I also offer her back rubs and songs if she needs help falling asleep again, and a back rub gets her to sleep pretty quickly.
Classes are going well too, and I'm already almost to midterm time. Just 22 more days till Dave comes down!