Westmoreland Asays

Aaron successfully reached his 12th birthday. He choose to have a party at the game room in the basement of the student center at Portland State so he could invite the world. When your birthday falls during Thanksgiving, your friends aren't always available. But he still had a strong crew of 15-20 boys (he didn't want to invite any girls, despite Meg telling me that what he really wanted to do was have a boy-girl karaoke party--not). On his actual birthday, Aaron and I went to Red Robin for dinner (he choose to order from the kids' meal one more time--unlimited refills on pasta is still a huge draw for him) and then attended that night's Trail Blazers game vs. Minnesota. Enough of words and let's get to what most of you want to see: Aaron's birthday interview!

We had yet another rain-free night of trick-or-treating in Portland--that's five years in a row, for those counting. Aaron went with his friends, while one of Ian's friends (and his parents) came with us. Edward was a bit too fast, Ian was a bit too slow, so we ended up a very disjointed group. And like what seems every year, the kids wanted to go home early. I think they are just so anxious to see what they got and to start gorging themselves on their loot. Patience is still a growing virtue in these young boys.

For the first time as a complete family unit, we participated in the 15th annual Monster March. The local business association sponsors the walk--which includes police escort--that travels from Llewellyn Elementary, through, downtown Westmoreland, and back to the school. People and businesses line the street to watch and hand out candy to the costumed participants. Ian wore his ninja costume from last halloween, Edward dressed as a hippie, Aaron wore his Thomas the Tank Engine costume ironically (he was a little embarrased at first, but his friends really liked his choice), Meg dressed as Black Widow (one of the Avengers from Marvel Comics), and I was Hawkeye (also from the Avengers, and one of the love interests of Black Widow).

Sports have been an important part of my life since I can remember. I played any sport I could, whether it was wiffleball with the Stone Hedge posse growing up or running on the cross country team in college. I make a conscious effort not to re-live my life through my children, so I haven't tried to push any of them to do play sports like I did. So I was mildly surprised and really excited when Aaron expressed his interest in playing football this past summer. Unfortunately, his fifth-sixth grade team could not recruit enough players so they did not field a team, but that didn't stop him from conditioning and practicing every night--sometimes in 100 degrees of heat, and once or twice in rain storms. Fortunately, there was another team in the neighborhood that agreed to scrimmage with Aaron's team for five or six practice games in the fall. The season went through mid-October, and by the end Aaron was ready to be done; but after a week or so he was already hankering to tac...

I took an afternoon away from the office to drive with the family to our second-annual visit to Sauvie Island to guzzle autumn beverages, scout for pumpkins to harvest, wander through a corn maze, and breath in some of the last warm air of the year.

We departed early on Friday--I took a half-day vacation, and we rescued Aaron from his last class of the day at middle school--hoping to beat rush-hour traffic, and were able to get out of town without incident. We left a partially sunny Portland only to run into rain falling through the coast range. Driving through rain usually isn't a problem, but when your van can no longer stay in gear, it just adds fuel to the frustration fire. Meg had been complaining about the slow-driving cars in front of us, but we soon became even slower than them all--karma unveiled its ugly head. She pulled over to the side of the road, and I exited the vehicle carefully and ensured that all four tires were properly inflated and had traction. Unfortunately, the problem wasn't something that simple and observable. Meg asked that I try driving--perhaps the Michael-effect would magically fix the problem. I was able to pull back on the highway, but after accelerating to second gear, the transmission c...

Somehow Meg found a way to offload our children--on a holiday weekend even--to two different families for about 30 hours so the two of us could get away for some alone time before the stressful start of school. Although Meg had secured a room at The Resort at the Mountain with the idea that our family of five would stay there, it worked out plenty fine for just the two of us. After dropping the children off at their friends' houses, we drove the scenic route (read: through the more repressed areas of the city before making it out to the country) to Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. I had visited the lodge a couple of times--and I think watching The Shining a few times counts for something, too--but a visit was on Meg's virtual bucket list, and she had a gift certificate for the lodge, so she wanted to have lunch there with our friends, Susan and Chris. We drove through some rain, though not the downpours we experienced the day before, but it was dry-and-foggy-and-windy at the l...

We adopted a pet turtle, Shelly, last spring . She's lived in a large, plastic tub in the corner of Aaron's room ever since. The children take her outside for short stints (if she's lucky), but mostly she eats, breathes, and sleeps in the tub. I have long felt sorry that Shelly has to live in such an unnatural setting, and I finally got around to doing something for her that I thought she would enjoy. I spent a bit of time studying where an outdoor pen would be best situated; unfortunately, the best places--those with early or nearly all-day sunshine--would not work on our property. We have a small garden area in the back, next to the garage, that houses three rose bushes--one of which I've been eager to get rid of--and which receives a decent amount of sun in the afternoon and isn't so public facing to the many animals that wander in front of our house during the day. I had a fair amount of leftover cedar planks from earlier projects, so I needed one long board a...

Last year for Independence Day we camped at Lost Creek and hiked nearly to Ramona Falls (which Meg recently lamented not making to the falls and wants to return--hooray!). I liked that a lot, but this year Meg reserved a yurt for us at Nehalem Bay after the holiday. On Independence Day we took a family hike through Westmoreland and Sellwood, stopping at wild places like gluten-free bakeries for a treat (although I've yet to meet a gluten-free baked good that I really liked) and the Boys and Girls Club for the younger ones to play on the playground (we left Aaron at home, as he was still sleeping). That afternoon we went as a family to one of Aaron's friend's house for food and badminton. And we concluded the evening watching fireworks from the Sellwood bluff. We left early Sunday morning to drive to the coast so we could spend most of the day at the beach before checking in to our Yurt at the campground. I took the boys to Nehalem Bay last year , which proved to be f...

Every two years Meg's family gathers for a few days to reunite in force. Each reunion has grown in number, and even though a few people couldn't make it due to work or mission or school, we numbered about 40 souls. Two years ago we traveled to Virginia and sweat out 20 pounds. This year we got to stay home and also spent five days and five nights on the other side of the Cascades in Sunriver. This visit marked my third trip of significance to Sunriver. My family traveled there in the summer of 1992 for a few days (thanks Grandma!); I recall playing indoor tennis; visiting lava lands, skeleton cave, and the lava river tube; and one of my sisters getting sick in the car. Meg and I spent a brief morning in Sunriver in 2010 where we spent the best ten bucks ever by learning that we should never ride on a tandem bicycle together. But this time was the big visit, the visit to end all visits. Our house, which we shared with Meg's parents (thus it was almost always super-quiet...

I chose to begin Father's Day with a run through the city. But before I could begin, Meg presented me with a new FitBit so I could track how many more steps I take in a day than does she. Many of my friends at work have FitBits, so I wanted to be able to compete with them and give them a goal (i.e., my perfect fitness routines) to aspire to. When I returned after an hour plus run, I was surprised with coffee cake and fruit and other gifts from the kids, namely two five-pound bags of Runts. Whenever Meg makes a Coscto run, she asks me if I want anything. My long-standing is reply is a five-pound bag of Runts, which they stopped carrying many, many years ago. So she finally came through and ordered some from Amazon. The next stage of our day began with a drive to the Washington-side of the Gorge. We have completed many hikes in the Gorge, but never in Washington. Cape Horn, in the western-most reaches of the Gorge, was our destination. Our hike lasted but a few miles, but we ha...

The end of the school year marks another chance to attend one of the year's most anticipated events: The Llewellyn Carnival. Meg volunteers as one of the head carnies, spending hours each month throughout the year planning, and then devoting most of the day to running the actual event. That leaves me to herd the boys to and from the show and shadowing Ian around the event. Even though Ian could not wait for this day to arrive, he still showed much apprehension and caution about which activities to participate in. Perhaps not being part of the Llewellyn student body drives some of those feelings. Aaron spent much of his last carnival chasing after trebuchet-thrown water balloons, while Edward hung with his best friend Oskar. Edward threw a fit after the carnival had ended, for he thought he had missed out on getting a prize for getting stamps on each square in his passport (in reality, the prize was the carnival t-shirt that he had already procured). He threw his passport on the g...

Aaron played his final band concert of the year at Oaks Amusement Park. They played in the dance pavilion, but the building was so overflowing with people, who were all sitting at ground level, I couldn't see Aaron playing. I'll take his word that he played his parts well and that he enjoyed the experience. He's really looking forward to having band class every day at Sellwood Middle School beginning in the fall. We spent the rest of the day amusing ourselves among the rides and games and the carnies.

Memorial Day weekend 2014 found us engaged in a variety of activities: we watched the new X-Men film at the local cinema, Meg and I ate sushi at Saburo's, Meg hosted a party at the neighborhood painting place (just a few doors down on our street, actually) and we partook of a short, urban hike in Forest Park with all the boys and two of their friends. Our hike was cut short, however, as part of the trail we were hiking was closed for some undisclosed reason. The end.

While partaking my first snack on the first afternoon of chaperone duty on my three-day, two-night stay at Camp Namanu--home of Llewellyn's fifth-grave outdoor school--I felt my excitement rise when learning of the complex food and waste disposal processes we were to follow. The rules are pretty simple, I think, but to outsiders it probably feels frustrating. With all the thought they put in to how to remove waste from the camp, surely an equal or greater thought went into the rest of the camp processes. But I think both Aaron and I left a little disappointed. Camp Namanu lies about 30 miles east of the central city. The forecast for was the 90's in the valley, but fortunately our location was about 10 degrees cooler, plus we were adventuring under cover of the forest most of the time.The science aspect of the camp was pretty light: they talked about stuff, stopped and analyzed things they came upon, but there wasn't any experimenting and not much hands-on. Considerin...

Meg wanted to celebrate being the mother of many children by taking a trip to near-by Mt. Tabor--Portland's very own volcano-in-the-middle-of-the-city. Apparently a lot of other people thought the same thing, as the mountain was swarming with people. The previous week had been cold and rainy, so I think a lot of people were itching to just get out of the house. We drove to a parking lot near the summit and let the kids run around the playground and play catch with the football. We then hiked around the mountain in search of a nice view for Meg's second request of the day: a family portrait . We walked around the top of the mountain for a while before retreating back to the car and then into town for a treat. One of Meg's gifts was a Fitbit One , which functions as a pedometer on steroids. It doesn't just track how many steps she takes, but the total mileage, calories burned, and hours of sleep. The idea is to motivate the wearer to remain active throughout the day; th...

In March Edward worked on a multi-week project on an important historical figure of his choosing. His selection: Captain James Cook. His two biggest assignments were a poster detailing Captain Cook--which he struggled to find the motivation to complete--and giving a two-minute speech in front of his classmates. His teacher recorded his performance (unfortunately her recording cut-off his dramatic last line: "And from now on I will sail the ghost ship . . .") and provided us with a copy. I captioned the recording and present it here for your enjoyment. Edward loathes writing, but I think he loves performing for an audience.  

My sweet boy Ian has aged another year on this planet. He continues to grow rapidly, especially when you look at where he was one year ago , and adds new elements to his new personality, like when he wipes off any kisses that you plant on his body. I wanted to film Ian's yearly interview at the Seattle Convention Center, since we were in such an exotic spot right on his birthday , but he melted down and refused to answer any questions. A week later he granted me access into his world and he spoke at ease and revealed much into his five-year old view of the world.

Since Aaron and Edward had already displayed their dominance of all things Pokemon in Oregon, the next logical step was to take their act on the road and see how they perform in Pokemon's own backyard: Seattle, Washington. Meg also positioned the trip as a gift for the April birthday boys, Edward and Ian. We drove up late Friday evening, hoping to avoid rush-hour traffic, and made good time to our hotel a few blocks away from the Washington State Convention Center. We retired to bed as soon as we could. The alarms went off just as early as a school morning so we could eat breakfast and so the family could watch how many push-ups I do with my studly body, but mostly because the boys needed to register for the card game tournament. All three boys wanted to play (and they didn't have to pay a cent to play--they charge only those 16 and older (I really hope we're not still doing this when Aaron is 16)). Aaron is pretty good and likes the game and puts lots of thoughts into ...

The man in the middle has added another notch in his belt. Edward didn't get the celebration of his dreams (that will never happen when his birthday falls during the week), but we still tried to make him feel special--I even baked him a cake, which he protected vehemently (I still snuck some pieces through my eating hole). Meg was on the wrong coast attending her sister's wedding for the boy's actual day of birth, but she made it up to him by spoiling him the rest of the week. I sat down with Edward a few days after his birthday to ask him a few questions and listen to his animated responses.

It's the middle of spring break and my bed-mate's alarm goes off. Daylight Savings time began a few weeks ago, but it's never light out at 4:30 a.m. I help Meg load her bags into the van and drive her to the airport for her day-long flight across the country. Final destination: Philadelphia, where her older sister would pick her up and eventually they would travel south to Virginia/Maryland for their oldest sister's wedding. As is tradition when Meg leaves me alone with the children, I stop at VooDoo Donuts on the Eastside for a sugary treat. I return to my bed by 6:00 a.m., but I fail to fall back asleep. And thus began my week as a single parent. It's never too early for pajamas! I honestly would have preferred to have had the kids while they were in school--especially since it rained every single day that Meg was gone (sometimes all day). We tried to play outside when we could, and I wanted to go on a hike but it never worked out. We watched lots of movie...

The fifth-grade students at Llewellyn Elementary perform a play every year in the spring. Aaron's teacher wrote the script many moons prior and has expanded on it over the years. It mashes together various historical events (surrounding the American Revolution) with some contemporary humor, told in a Christmas Carol fashion. Aaron drew the role of George Washington and was excited to perform. He memorized all of his lines and delivered them with gusto. He seemed to be on cloud 9 after performing and had trouble calming down--he was that excited. Most of the kids did a great job (Edward and I snagged front-row seats, so we had unobstructed views and could hear the kids better), and a few performed marvelously. I'm biased, but I think I would add Aaron to that latter category. Our kids have been attending this school for five school years now, but it never amazes me how much parent participation I see--the venue was packed 15 minutes before the curtain rose. I find this encou...

Returning home always comforts my soul I traveled to Chicago for a week of business meetings. Even though it was the week before St. Patrick's Day, there was still snow on the ground, and six more inches fell during my stay. I traveled with three other co-workers who were also attending the same meetings--and two of the guys have made several trips to the ADP office there--so having company experienced with the area made the traveling aspect easy. Although this was the second time in nine months I've had to travel, these are the only two trips I've made in the nearly ten years working for ADP. My hotel in Hoffman Estates Our office sits in the suburbs (Hoffman Estates) about an hour west of downtown Chicago, and our meetings were long and intense, so we didn't have an opportunity to get out much and explore--the snow and below-freezing temperatures failed to encourage as little outdoor activity as possible, too. The Hoffman building has been recently remodeled...

Aaron played his trombone at the Jesuit-Aloha varsity boys basketball game tonight; his honor band, comprised of elementary and middle school students, played together with the Jesuit pep band. Aaron had to arrive about 90 minutes before tip-off to eat and practice and bond with his band-mates, so after eating my to-go burrito (thanks Meg!) in the courtyard at sunset, I got to walk around the campus and the surrounding neighborhood (i.e., strip malls) and catch the second half of the JV boys game. Even though the kids are only one or two years apart, I was amazed at the separation of skills and athleticism between the two divisions. The varsity game was pretty boring and demonstrated why all other upper divisions have a shot clock: Jesuit held the ball and played keep-away for the last five minutes because they couldn't score and held a slim lead. The game did come down to the final play, but still . . . The video is perhaps kind of boring and might make you sick if you don't...

I'm not sure if this has ever happened before, and I am definitely too lazy to do any research, but 2014 saw me celebrating Valentine's Day, Oregon's birthday, my birthday, and President's day all in the same weekend. Similar to last year, though for different reasons, I was able to take a vacation day and make it an extended stay from work. I committed to attending school functions for both Aaron and Edward; some people might not value taking a day off just to see their kids in school, but it really does refresh me. After riding with the older boys to school, I rode back home to eat a quick breakfast before walking back to the school to accompany Aaron's class on a field trip to the Portland Rock Gym . The day before the teacher had said he had commitments from two parents, so I was surprised that I was one of 10 parents there for the adventure. After a rowdy ride on a Tri-Met bus, the fifth graders spent 90 minutes climbing the 40-foot walls. All of the stud...