Westmoreland Asays

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.