Carter's Birthday

Carter's birthday is at an inopportune time in our household. With school starting, everyone is still settling into the new routines and there isn't much time for birthday planning. Thankfully Carter was able to plan much of his own party this year. It started with a theme. Dinosaurs. Carter is usually quite fickle with picking a theme and sticking to it. (For example he picks at least a half dozen halloween costumes.) However, this year he picked a theme and stuck to it. Kerry had him on Pinterest looking for ideas which included the T-Rex watermelon head.

He also found plenty of ideas for games. One he had his heart set on was a bean bag game involving a T-Rex head. This was more ambitious than I was willing to help with and was only going to be good for one year so I went a slightly different route. I created the typical three hole bean bag game and decorated it in a dinosaur theme. He was very pleased and now we can re-use it for other events. A point scoring system was right up his alley and I had it ready the night before so that he could practice.

Kathy is always great at doing something special for the kids for their birthday and this year she found some great dinosaur options including some rock like eggs that had dinosaurs hidden inside them. She made them quite a ways in advance so they were very hard when it came time to open them. I was glad we were getting a new floor because we needed the old floor to try to break them open.

Other games included a fossil dig in the sandbox and pin the horn on the triceratops.

The party was a complete success but the highlight for Carter started in the morning. We had tickets to the Kratt Brothers. They have several animal themed shows on various channels and were coming to UBC to do a show. I was fully expecting actual animals but it seems they had a similar show in mind. It involved a mix of on stage and animated scenes on the big screen and was based on their most recent show 'The Wild Kratts'. Carter loved it and even wanted to get the super hero costume that the Kratt brother's wear. Luckily it just fit him.

First Day of School

A very short post on the first day of school. Rather uneventful this year. No strike, no big changes for the kids. Carter is still in the Primary grades and Callie is still in the Intermediate grades. We did take our annual trip to Ricky's for pancake breakfast afterwards. The first day of school is still typically only one hour for the kids while the teachers get together to plan the year. This means Kerry is at work and I have the kids for the rest of the day. I originally started the Ricky's tradition so that Callie would be less apprehensive about the first day but now both kids enjoy it and this year had to remind me.

PNE - Super Dogs and Deep Fried Mars Bars

As part of our donut dash entrance fee we got free tickets into the PNE which runs for the last two weeks of the summer every year. It includes rides, animals and lot's and lot's of food. The highlight for me is always the Super Dogs. I don't know the full history of them but they have been at the PNE for many years. Some of the dogs are from the SPCA and they have numerous breeds, all of which have their own special skills. They typically break them into teams and each side of the arena gets their own team of dogs to cheer on. (Our team won quite handily. We chose wisely.)

The food highlight for me was finally trying a deep fried Mars bar. I've known about them since I moved to the lower mainland but had never had one. It was surprisingly good. A light breaded coating and a quick dip in the deep frier and you've got a fun treat. I wouldn't want to make them at home.

We also spent some time on the rides. They definitely aren't cheep and the kids only enjoy a few of them so we bought tickets rather than an all inclusive pass. Carter and Callie had great fun on the mini roller coaster. Unfortunately I dropped about half the tickets when I went to the washroom but I think everyone was pretty tired by that time anyways.

Donut Dash

At the end of August the family signed up for their first race together along with Melissa and Kathy's families. It was actually my first official race as well. The kids participated in some events when Kerry did the Tinker-bell Half Marathon in Disneyland but I have never been in an event where we intended to run. (We've done the walk for the Child Development Centre but that was 2k and we walked.) This particular race was 5k and was located at the PNE. We arrived before it opened and the race took you through the PNE and Playland grounds. It was fun walking past the rides with no one on them.

I should mention that this particular race was called the Donut Dash. The PNE is famous for it's little donuts. They have machines that make them automatically and you typically buy them by the dozen. It seems only fitting that the first official race put on the PNE would be donut themed. I originally thought there would be donuts everywhere however they were a bit more reserved than that. Nothing for the first 3k and then they offered some small bags of cotton candy and donuts at the 3k and 4k marks and you finished off with a chocolate covered donut with sprinkles. Probably a good idea that we didn't get too much. Running and donuts don't really mix.

The race started okay but I think Callie and Carter didn't really enjoy running in the large crowds and were a bit apprehensive about their abilities. Carter was very unhappy that we had to do jumping jacks and various warm up exercises as a group before the race started. I think he felt we were using all of our energy up. We walk/ran as a family for the first 2k but then I decided if this was my first race I wanted to actually run for a portion of it. I ran on ahead and since we had done so much walking, I was able to pass several hundred people who were also walking. My time was 45minutes for 5k which is quite terrible but not so bad when you consider I walked 2k. Me running ahead was apparently a bit of an incentive for the kids who started running more as well. Everyone finished happy and we got our medals. The kids are already starting to show an interest in other races. (Disney themed of course.)

Callie's Birthday - Spa Day

Callie officially became a tween this year when she turned 10. Some of her friends have already stopped having birthday parties but I was happy to hear that Callie still enjoys them. She's never had a party outside the house and this year was no different. The theme this year was going to be 'A Spa Day' and every good spa has freshly cut flowers. (A small detour as I talk about our garden.) This year was great for cut flowers. The roses bloomed at least three times and we had lily's, dahlia's and gladiolas. I have a separate area of the garden where there is no order and the intention is that everything is for cutting. It's working out great.

Back to the party, Callie's spa day included making your own lip balm. She got the containers from Michaels and found a recipe online. The materials were all pretty easy to source and I think they had a lot of fun. The highlight for everyone and unfortunately I missed most of it was probably the face masks. A goopy application of oatmeal, avocado, honey and yogurt, topped off with some cucumber slices for the eyes.  You could tell from the pictures this was the first face mask for several of the girls. They weren't quite sure what to think about it.

We also have a four person hot tub for the spa. Actually it's more like a two person hot tub that fits four adults in a pinch or in this case 8 tweens and a small boy from the side. By the time they were all out I had to add about 50 gallons of water back in.

The day ended with a sleep over in the living room. I think they went to sleep around mid-night and the first early risers were up around 6:00a. Thankfully it was Sunday morning so they had the rest of the day to recover.

Camping in Astoria - Goonie Tour

The Goonies came out 30 years ago as of this year and it remains a fairly timeless movie. We showed it to the kids and they both loved it so they were very excited to be able to tour some of the scenes from the movie. This area has been the scene of quite a few movies from the 80's including Goonies, Kindergarten Cop and Short Circuit.

Today was going to be tour day for us and it started at the Oregon Movie Museum. This was previously a real jail and also was the scene of some key jail scenes from Goonies. The kids got to try out the jail cells and take some pictures with Sloth.

After our tour of the jail we got directions to the Goonie house. As we got close it became obvious that we were not the only people who took this tour. There were signs everywhere direction us where to park and especially where not to park. I imagine the local people don't mind the economic activity that comes with the tourists but they aren't necessarily happy when those tourists show up on their front lawn.

As we walked up to the house I was amazed that even though it was the middle of the week there were four other families walking with us. They must get over 100 people a day walking up to get their picture taken. The house is owned by just a regular family so they ask that you don't trespass though you are welcome to have someone take your picture in front of the house. Not much has changed and even the arbour in the garden is still in the same place as it is in the movie. A fun experience and we stayed pretty quiet so I don't think anyone would be too mad at us.

Our final destination was Haystack rock again. This time the tide was out and we could walk right up to it. The rock is home to thousands of sea birds so the national park people are there with plenty of signage about where you can and can't go. You can walk up to but not onto the island allowing you to see plenty of muscles and sea creatures in the tide pools surrounding the island. I took a stroll as far away from the rock as I could so I could try to use my  treasure coin to line up the rocks. Got to a pretty good place though not the final location since I think that was much further up on the bluff.

Our final destination for the day was a trip to ship wreck beach not far from our camp site. We were the only ones there and I must say that the Oregon beaches make you feel very small. Huge bluffs of blown sand and they head in both directions as far as the eye can see. There was a constant wind that removes foot prints quickly so it's as if no one has ever been there. I spent some time in building a shelter with some drift wood and the kids had a lot of fun playing in the waves. Oregon was beautiful and we will definitely return.

Camping in Astoria - Settling in and Goonie Beach

It takes at least two years for something to be a tradition and this was our second year camping with Melissa and Kathy's families so I guess we can call it a tradition now. Last year we went to a place in Washington at the foot of Mount Baker and this year our destination was Astoria in Northern Oregon. It is typically a six hour drive or so if you go direct but we were able to leave early and take the scenic route via Western Washington. This mean taking a ferry to Port Townsend which was an excellent experience. Only $20 and they had free puzzles!

Melissa and Kathy and crew were already there when we arrived. They had left much later but had gone direct. We settled into our cabin and took a look around. This is definitely one of the larger KOA campgrounds. There were several thousand sites and the amenities were amazing. Two swimming pools, a hot tub, mini-golf and were lucky enough to be there for Karaoke night. Lucky for me since I just got to watch. Unlucky for Kerry because she had to sing "Friends in Low Places" with Melissa and Kathy. Josh and Callie even got a song in. Of course it was something from 'Frozen'. Many of the kids songs were.

After Karaoke was over we went to bed to get ready for the next day. Things started with a pancake breakfast. It's a pretty good meal for free. Pancakes and toast were no charge and if you wanted to add bacon or sausage you could for a low cost. The showers were also good at this site. No issues with the hot water and lot's of individual stalls to choose from.

The best part about Astoria is definitely the beaches. Our campground was only about 15 minutes away from the same beaches that were in the Goonies movie. The first beach we went to was in front of Seaside. A beautiful small town with lot's of small shops and great views of the sea. We found a place to get down to the ocean and were treated to a family making their way on horse. The tide was low so we could walk for miles in either direction.

Our goal of course was not just the beach. It was to get to Haystack Rock. A series of rocks just off shore that were featured in the movie. We walked down, finding sand dollars along the way and took some great shots of the rocks. As we got close though we realized that the tide was coming in and we weren't going to be able to get as close as we wanted. We checked the local tide charts and figured out the ideal time to come and made plans to come back the next day.