35/52 - Last Week of Summer Vacation
I can't believe we did this much stuff in a single week. It was the last full week before Anders starts his full-day kindergarten at the Trout Lake School! Corinne took the whole week off to spend with her "little boy" before he grows up.
Discovery Center
One outing they took together was to the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center. The main draw was the raptor program; we met several of their raptors from this program back in April. On this particular trip, the raptors didn't perform their regular show, but that didn't stop Corinne and Anders from having a great time in the rest of the museum.
Anders, fitting in with the scene of an Oregon Trail river crossing
Hanging out in a replica of The Dalles in the early days
One of the museum exhibits featured maps of the ice sheets during the ice ages. After returning home, Anders drew this map of the ice sheets in Candyland.
Ice Sheets of Candyland
Goop
At a recent preschool library story time, Anders made goop. We had no idea what he was talking about, so we looked it up and decided to make it with him at home. What is goop? It's cornstarch and water. Oh, and food coloring "to make it more colorful". That's it. Sounds pretty uninteresting until you actually make it and see how it behaves. Sometimes it's a liquid, then suddenly a solid, then back again.
Why didn't anyone tell us about this sooner? And why didn't either of us make this when we were kids?
Anders quote of the week, while in a public restroom:
I like automatic faucets, automatic towels, and driver-less cars.
Seems like one of those things is a little harder to make than the others.
Anders's Art
One of Anders's summer activities was Kids' Creations Art Camp. They made some pretty impressive art pieces. At the end of the summer, some of the artwork was displayed at Ground, a local coffee shop in Hood River. We thought it would be fun to see his art hanging in a public place, so we stopped in. But apparently, Anders has done so much artwork recently that he doesn't recognize his own work.
Concert in the Park
Hood River hosts a Families In The Park every August with live music. We managed to catch the last one, featuring Hit Machine. They never disappoint. It was a fun evening of dancing (mostly by Anders), a picnic procured from the Farmers' Market, and happy music.
And to top it all off, we also purchased the winning 50/50 raffle ticket. Not a bad way to spend a Thursday night!
Fishing the White Salmon
Living along a river, you would think that we would have tried fishing it. But you would have been wrong. Until now.
Andrea and Shane stayed with us for the long weekend, and Shane brought his fishing gear with him, ready to teach Anders how to fish. (Okay, we admit it. He had to teach us how to fish, too.) The first morning they were here, Shane hit the river early and caught a decent sized rainbow trout. So now we had confirmation that fish actually did live in the river. Now it was just a matter of getting more of them onto our lines.
That afternoon, Anders and I joined Shane at the beach. Anders had a kids pole, and we actually had two poles and a reel that were left with the house.
We spent about three hours on the river, learning how to cast and finding the hot spots where the fish were hungry. We had some tugs and nibbles, but nothing stayed on.
The following morning, we head back out again and had even less luck. No bites, no activity at all. We tried jigs, different flies, and some bait worms, but to no avail. Until next time, fishies.
Thanks for the lessons and motivation, Shane!
Rummage Sale Finds
Each year, the Trout Lake Community Foundation holds a three-day rummage sale over Labor Day weekend. They collect donations from the community throughout the year and assemble an impressive spread of random stuff. You never know quite what you'll find. We have made some good finds in previous years, and this year was no exception.
Anders, of course, went straight for the toy section. He managed to score a couple construction vehicles. He even bought them with his own money: $1.50. He doesn't know what a bargain he got.
Our big finds were in the puzzle section and were decidedly more retro than his.
Lite Brite! There were actually three sets at the sale: one from the 70's, one from the 80's, and one from the 90's. We had almost bought Anders a new Lite Brite, but after reading the online reviews we changed our mind. As with many products, the manufacturers have tried to reduce their cost and have compromised quality as a result. And here, right before our eyes, it was easy to see the changes. The pegs of the 90's version were significantly shorter than those of the earlier models. Anyone with a basic understanding of physics can figure out what happens: the pegs fall out. We ended up buying the two older sets.
Who can forget the smell of warm construction paper? Anders was as excited as we were. After he put down his construction vehicles - which took a while - he wanted to play with the Lite Brite.
We picked up another even older retro toy find neither of us had seen before: Astrolite. It's older than we are. It looks just like a space age toy should.
A stack of old books also came home with us, including a Golden Books on Space Travel from 1958. Yes, that's right: it's a book about traveling in space written before humans traveled in space. Awesome.
And Corinne grabbed a few late 60's sewing patterns.
All told, we spent around $32 at the sale. And believe it or not, somehow our small purchase combines with all of the others to produce $20,000 from the rummage sale, all of which is used for scholarships to local students.
Unofficial Massman Family Reunion
On top of all of the above, several of Corinne's aunts/uncles were in town for the long weekend. We hosted several brunch events at our house, spent all of our dinners at local restaurants, oohed and awed over each other's rummage sale treasures, and just generally relaxed and enjoyed the late summer weather together.
And... I guess that's about as much as we could pack into the last week of summer vacation.
- Mike, Corinne, and Anders
