15 Months - Tour in Review

Well, we're finally made it back. The girls and I, after traveling another 600 miles, arrived home to a house full of dead houseplants, 4-week old moldy dishes in the dishwasher (how is it that men just don't have an awareness about these things?), and that looked like this on the outside:


Progr-mess?

Construction started 3 weeks ago and the foundation is being poured today after the inspector gave everything the "A-OK" yesterday. The side of the house and part of the roof is already removed in anticipation of the coming 3rd story. However hard it was to be on the road with 2 one-year olds and a 14-year old dog, it would have been nothing compared to trying to live around this mess. However, mess is progress and we are oh-so-thankful for that!

We muse over lessons learned on the road, creativity we didn't know we had, and friends we're really glad we got a chance to visit: my Aunt Carolyn hosted us for 3 nights in Seattle - they have 7 acres of lush garden and "wild" greenage where the girls loved to play; aging Grandma Dent (or G.G. for Great-Grandma) hosted us for 3 days in Salem, Oregon and we enjoyed hearing her stories as we perused over old heirloom photographs - I'm eager to learn as much as I can while her wealth of knowledge and history is sharp and around; my crazy friend Kathy and brother Jim hosted us for 3 days in Ashland, Oregon. Jim and his wife have 4-year old fraternal twin boys - it was fun to see what the future looks like with older twins and to see the 2 sets play together; my cousin Holly also hosted us for 2 nights in Sacramento where we got to ride a "real" train as well as visit the local zoo full of rescued animals.

All the while we kept in touch with home where we heard of progress with the house and I reported new ways of coping with a van full of dependents. I didn't realize how amusing some of these skills were until I relayed to my mother, after her questioning, how I refined the "art" of our bathroom stops along the road. Since most restaurants don't take dogs, the many rest areas along the way are a great alternative. Being by oneself, it's really a more complex process than having another person along to be with either the kids and/or the dog:

Steps to Stop (to eat/pee/etc) on the Road with 2 Kids and a Dog:
1. Pull into a nice rest area - in Washington and Oregon, there are nice ones every 40 miles or so.
2. Find a parking space in the shade and close to the "pet area."
3. Lay out large picnic blanket under the shade of a tree
4. Get out Superyard (6 panels) and open into a circle
5. Take kids out of carseats and plop them into Superyard center with a bucket full of toys (so much easier than running 2 different directions dragging an old dog!)
6. Get dog's leash and let doggie "take care of business" while keeping kids in sight so that onlookers don't think they are abandoned
7. Tie doggie to Superyard and get ice chest, dog's water bowl, and diaper bag out of car
8. Get lunch out of ice chest and feed girls as they teeter around the play yard
9. Get bottles out of ice chest and change diapers while they lay on their backs drinking
10. Return cooler and diaper bag to car and come back with double stroller
11. Put kids in stroller so you can take them with you to go to the bathroom (gotta let the mommies go as well!)
12. Tie dog to tree or car bumper in case a cat (or something "chasable") comes along and dog drags the Superyard across the parking lot ruining the paint job on 10 cars.
13. Let Mommy pee and wash her hands
14. Pack kids back into the car
15. Pack up the Superyard and blanket
16. Pack dog back into the car
17. Do a head-count to make sure you've got the same number of kids and that you're not pulling "Rover" around like National Lampoon's "Vacation"

As a re-cap, I created a montage of the highlights of the whole 4-week+ trip. Ava and Tina learned all kinds of vocabulary and also figured out safe ways of climbing and descending stairs (whew!). Nine-minute recap below:

Edit video online at onetruemedia.com

14 Months 4 Weeks - The Island Tour by Car

Aunt Ainsley, a tag along pseudo-nanny for 3 weeks, with me and the girls
Roche Harbor, San Juan Island, WA

We just pulled in from dropping off the Grandma and the Aunt at the SEA-TAC airport after a week of touring San Juan and Orcas Islands by car. Not without a couple good stories to tell:

First of all, we didn't even make it off the ferry dock in Anacortes before our first *disaster.* My sister and I were to meet my mom, just recently dropped off by the airporter shuttle, in the ferry line at Anacortes. Although we saw her shuttle fly by us, we contacted each other via cell phone (what did we ever do before these?!) and met up at the ticket shop. Grandma, who hadn't seen her grandkids in 2 weeks, was eager to hold one while walking back to the car, already in line for the 3:10pm ferry. I carried the other kid and my sister wheeled Grandma's luggage. I was second in the single-file line walking in between the columns of cars when I suddenly saw 19 different car doors open and people starting to run behind me. I hear, "My baby! My baby!" being yelled. Curious about what happened to someone's baby, I turn to see my mother on the ground and Ava screaming at the top of her lungs. Grandma's maternal instincts seems to have skipped her back a generation. Grandma has tripped and unintentionally used Ava as an air-bag. I hand Tina to Ainsley and run down to stop my baby's cries. There's some blood, but not as bad as I think...I'm trying to recreate what happened to her little head so I can figure out what to do.

Well, if something horrible is going to happen to you, you might as well pick the Anacortes Ferry Landing to be the place. So many helpful people! Within seconds I have baby wipes to clean up the mess and figure out what's damaged, gauze (which Ava refuses to have on her head), and infant Tylinol for her pain. A nurse 3 cars back has her EMT suitcase unzipped and is handing me a bit of everything. Another woman has already called the clinic in Friday Harbor to see if they're open and can take me. I look at the wound and I know that she'll need between 2-3 stitches. My sister, a nurse as well, has called my Dad, who lives minutes up the hill, to come be an ambulance to take us to the Anacortes Hospital. I quickly weight the merits between missing the ferry (the next one will be at 8:20pm) and getting care at a hospital rather than a clinic. My husband's presumed concern, the scar, and my sister's stanch lobbying lead me to jump in the passenger seat of my dad's truck and ride toward the Anacortes hospital. His wife, a nurse there, has already been called and will be waiting in the Emergency Room. And, what do I worry about? The fact I have no car seat and have to pull a Brittany Spears riding with her on my lap.

Ava turns out to be a champ and, within 2-hours, she bears 3 stitches and has her hospital souvenir, a 12" Minnie Mouse toy, in tow, and another confirmation of the nickname her Nonna gave her: "Pepper." However, the nurses and doctor at the hospital have upgraded her to "Habanero" status. She does have strong and spicy opinions!

The rest of the trip is flawless: 2 days in the Great Gatsby-seque town of Roche Harbor - a charming harbor basically woven into both our and our mother's childhood memories of summertime boat trips. We visited the lavender farm, the Westcott Bay Reserve outdoor sculpture museum, the chapel where Paul and I were engaged, and my Great-Uncle Warren's cabin on the Straits of Juan de Fuca. It belongs to my Great-Aunt Mary now and her brother was visiting with his family. They were gracious enough to great us warmly, take pictures for us and let us snoop through the rooms to strenghten our memories of this one often-visited family get-away.

We then took the inter-island ferry to Orcas Island, staying in Eastsound where we visited with Ainsley's friends Amy and Jeff who recently moved there from Lake Tahoe. There we enjoyed lots of their homemade cooking and fresh crab caught hours before by Jeff, we lunched at the Rosario Resort, saw bald eagles fishing at the beach, and visited Moran State Park, which boasts of the best views of the islands (at 2,500', it's the highest thing between the Canadian Rockies and the Olympic Mountains).

After dropping off my sister (who's been acting as pseudo-nanny for the last 2-weeks) and mom at the airport, I'm flying solo with two 1-year old kids 16 hours away from home. It is for this reason that I've mapped out all family members between here and there and will be strategically visiting them so that I won't have to drive more than 3 hours without a stop at a friendly house with another set of arms. I plan to stay a couple of days at each place so that I'm not constantly packing and unpacking the car (that takes a lot of energy!).

We talk to Daddy every night before the girls go to bed. We excited that the City has finally given out the permits, the contractor started his work last Wednesday on fortifying the foundations and Paul and his "crew" have replaced the sewer line and moved the washing machines and hot water heater (he hopes to have it turned back on by this weekend). Then he will finally have water and the sewer again. This is why I've fled and created this grand oydessy. I pray that great progress will be made in our absence; that they work 11-hour days and that the place is as livable as it can be when we get home. I was also happy to hear Paul's suggestion that we house-sit my mom's while she's in France for the month of September. It was my plan all along, but the idea coming from his mouth means that he understands the challenge of living in construction especially since the contractor will have to practically live there to get the 3rd story done by October's rain. (A big heavy sigh of relief from me!)

14 Months 3 Weeks - Getting Back Our Land-Legs

Kairos - Our aquafied home

"Dingy on out! - Coming back from exploring the hiking trails of Reid Harbor, Stuart Island, WA
Grandpa, Bettina, Mommy & Ava

Well, although we have some great pictures and some lovely memories, Grandpa's 36' Selene troller isn't the best place for babies. They had a difficult time sleeping aboard the boat and getting enough exercise took a couple of days of trial and error before we finally got a little routine.

Good ideas:

rowing ashore every morning for some beachcombing and general hiking around.

man-to-man coverage; "zone" doesn't work for very long - they just end up fighting over who gets Mommy and they are getting too big for Mommy to hold them both at the same time for very long.

separation with one on the flying bridge and the other down below on the main deck while under-way is best. Aunt Ainsley and I took turns, she up on the flying bridge with one child just watching the sea go by and me doing laps around the first deck with the other one, like a hampster on a wheel, getting in our exercise and waving to other mariners and practicing new vocabulary like "Bye, boat." (BTW, new words this week are "Nonna" - Italian for 'Grandma', "Grandpa," and "boat.")

Bad ideas:

1. crossing the Strait of De Fuca across the tide (very choppy!)
2. spending more than 3 hours on the boat without a stop into a harbor and jaunt along the docks/shore.

We did come across another pair of twins while in Friday Harbor. They were just 10 days younger than our girls and not walking yet. Their parents, a German dad and American mom, were visiting from Indonesia and boating as well. They weren't having the same issues we were simply because their girls didn't insist on walking and climbing everywhere. Out on Spencer Spit on Lopez Island, we met another family with 3 kids: 6 years, 3 years and 14 months (2 weeks younger than ours) who were traveling on a sailboat. I chatted with the dad and exchanged a couple of great ideas for baby-proofing a boat, strapping the kid into a carseat, for example, that may have helped us out. However, trying to figure out where to place 2 sets of carseats seems daunting in its own right.

We survived the 5-day trip and visited some of our childhood favorite harbors: Deer Harbor on Orcas Island the first night, Friday Harbor on San Juan the next 2 nights, Reid Harbor on Stuart Island the 4th night and Spencer Spit on Lopez the last. We are glad the trip is in the past, but will always look back with fondness and nostalgia - the 3rd generation to take on the aquatic tradition.

Tomorrow, we go back to the Islands, but this time to explore on foot. The girls' Grandma is our companion this time. It was her family that started the tradition anyhow sometime in the 1950's. I have brought part of Grandma Betty (my mom's mom and the person for whom Bettina is named) along with me in the vial in which I received part of her after her death. I think we will release her into the San Juan waters since it is such a dear place to us, as it was to her.