35/52 - Last Week Before School

This was the last full week before Anders starts school again. Summer can't be over already, can it?

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Corinne and Anders took the Amtrak train to Portland for a visit to OMSI. Bingen has an Amtrak station, but it's not intended as a commuter train. There's only one train per day in each direction. Going east, you can actually take the Empire Builder line from Bingen all the way to Chicago!

After I dropped the two of them off at the train station first thing in the morning, I received periodic updates on their travels.

Observation car!

At Union Station in Portland, the two transferred to a bus. Their combined cuteness - and out-of-town status - earned them free day passes from the driver.

Once at OMSI, the IMAX movie Walking With Dinosaurs was on the agenda.

When we visited the American Museum of Natural History in NYC earlier this summer, the Hayden planetarium was closed for renovations. So the OMSI Planetarium would have to do this summer.

There was only about a 5 hour window before they had to get back on the bus to catch the train heading West again.

But I think it was just enough time.

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Back in the Gorge, the 3 best friends had one last hurrah at the Hood River pool.

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For the last week it has been quite a bit colder, with one morning reaching down to 36°. We've even had several days of real rain! It feels like fall is already here. One of the upsides is that the Cascade Creek fire is now 80% contained, and all of that rain was actually snow at the higher elevations on Mt Adams. Such a pretty sight and a beautiful way to end the week.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

18/52 - Weekend in Boston

Every few years, Corinne changes up her hairstyle a bit. But this time, she did it with a 5 year old in the house.

Anders: Mom, did you get a haircut?
Corinne: Yes. What do you think?
Anders: Well... I think it looks pretty terrible to me.

Then, later that evening:

Mom, you should get a wig that looks like your old hair and wear it forever.

Now, tell us what you really think, Anders?

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May brought our quarterly "Seeq Week" business trip. As an entirely virtual company with employees scattered around North America, we have found it useful get together in the same place every three months or so. This time around, the travel destination was Portsmouth, NH, close to our old stomping grounds in Boston. We could extend our trip on either side to visit with friends. And, we would be bringing Anders and Donna with us! Anders would be with us during the long weekends on either side of the business portion, and Donna would spend time with him while we worked during the week. Great!

Flight to Boston
Our flight to Boston wasn't on Anders's favorite airline, Southwest, but I think Alaska may become his second favorite. Why? Because Alaska also serves snacks.

The east/west airline corridor from PDX typically goes down the Gorge between Mount Adams and Mount Hood, and shortly after we departed we noticed that we were fairly close to Mt Adams. To Anders, I said (jokingly): "Hey Anders, there's Mount Adams! See if you can see our house from here." And you know what? We DID see our house. By the time Corinne got the camera out, it was hard to find again, particularly when zoomed-in. But somehow, she pulled it off. (She couldn't actually find it through the lens, but we got lucky and captured it in the frame anyway.)

Anders enjoys a rare treat on these non-stop cross-country flights: blocks of time with his favorite iPad games.

Weekend in Boston
When we landed in Boston, we only had about 2.5 days there before we had to head north to New Hampshire for our meetings. Of course that's not nearly enough time to see all of the people we wanted to!

Saturday morning, we met with Dennis and (most of) his family in the park and spent a few hours catching up and eating Union Square Donuts.

Our hosts, Becky and Gordon (and Lily and Quinn) made us feel right at home in their place in Somerville, which was actually only a few blocks from our last apartment before moving west. Quinn is roughly Anders's age, and Lily a bit older, and they all fell right in together when we arrived.

As it happened, Corinne, Anders, Becky and Lily were able to see a Red Sox game in Fenway while we were there.

Anders's T-ball experience made him a bit more connected to the game, and Corinne spent some time doing a play-by-play for him. But in the end, it may have been the MBTA subway and bus rides that were the most fun for this country boy.

Saturday night after dinner, the three kids decided to put on a show outside. Quinn and Anders alternated singing songs from Frozen (what else?) while Lily directed the spotlight and gave stage direction from atop the jungle gym.

Gordon became a sort of jungle gym himself during another moment of downtime.

We did manage to sneak in a few other short visits with folks, but pretty soon our weekend was over. Thanks for being great hosts!

MIT
Before heading north on Monday, we took a walking tour through MIT. Unsurprisingly, it mostly looked the same. Some of the staff from our time are even still here! And that was... well, it was a few years ago. We'll leave it at that.

The last time all three of us were on campus was back in 2011.

Flashback

With this year's graduation just around the corner, of course the 'Tute was in the process of putting on its best face. (Hence, the yellow tape around the newly seeded - or possibly painted - grass in Killian Court.) Of course we couldn't leave without a picture of Anders in front of the Great Dome.

Anders has a long time before he will really have any idea of what a place like MIT is. But from the looks of this photo, he's starting to feel the pressure already.

He's actually just shielding his eyes from the sun, but that isn't nearly as interesting.

And with that, we were off to Portsmouth, NH.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

13/52 - Spring Break

When Spring Break arrived at Anders's preschool, we took some time off to make it a break for the whole family.

Our first Spring Break activity was a hike on Mt Adams. We worked the morning (from home) and then took the afternoon off to enjoy spring's first spell of warm weather. We picked an easy route with only a small elevation change, from the Mt Adams Horse Camp to the Big Tree (which we have visited before), only a couple of miles roundtrip.

We didn't see a lot of wildlife, but there were signs everywhere.

Something lived here

While the snow had melted at our place, there were still significant patches in the woods at this higher elevation. In fact, we had to start our hike at a slightly different spot because the access road still had a downed tree across the road.

Anders has entered the "joke" phase, with joke intentionally in quotes. However, on this hike he made up a fairly decent (for a 5 year old) joke:

A: Knock knock
B: Who's there?
A: Moss
B: Moss who?
A: Hey, wait for moss! (wait for us)

At least it makes sense, so that's progress.

Hooray for spring (and summer) in the Gorge!

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The more significant part of our Spring break celebration was a long weekend trip to McMinnville, OR. We rented a small house downtown with some friends; with two 5-year olds, one 2-year old, and three adults on the trip, there was never a dull - or quiet - moment in the house.

Our two planned destinations on this trip were the Enchanted Forest and the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. Since the warm and clear weather did not follow us to McMinnville, we chose the day forecast to be less rainy for our visit to the Enchanted Forest.

The kids had a great time exploring the rides and exhibits.

The weather held out for us all day! But not everything went so smoothly.

When we passed the Haunted House, Anders decided that he really wanted to go in. We tried to convince him that it was pretty scary, but he was undeterred. Yes, this is the same kid that only recently made it all the way through his first movie. We didn't want to be too protective, so we made a deal with him. In another part of the park, there was a small, dark (admittedly creepy) Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole that went through a tree stump, down into the ground, under the walkway, and out the other side. When we first passed it Anders wouldn't go in. If he wanted to go into the Haunted House, he would first have to go down the rabbit hole.

"Okay, no problem!"

We walked back to the rabbit hole, and Anders went straight into the rabbit hole and out the other side. His friend Bridger, who also wanted to go into the Haunted House (though less enthusiastically), still wanted no part of the rabbit hole, so he was eliminated. But Anders had passed the test and was ready. Or so he thought.

Before...

Anders and I walked slowly through the house. When we were about halfway through, Anders turned to me and said "I know that this isn't real." But his bravery only lasted for another minute or so until a louder-than-average sound from down a dark hallway pushed him over the edge. We walked more briskly to the exit.

...and After.

When Corinne praised him for being so brave he burst into tears and responded: "No, I was only brave for half of it." Still, we are pretty proud of how he handled himself.

Overall, a successful day of fun!

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Our other destination has been on our "to visit" list for quite some time: Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. We picked the right day to be indoors; the sky dumped rain all day. We had two giant buildings to explore!

The big draw for most people is the Spruce Goose, which is enormous and impressive. It's so large that the museum building in which it is housed was designed and built around that plane.

Here's the model...

...and now the real thing, or at least as much as we could fit in the lens at one time.

If you look closely, you can see the two kids at the bottom center.

For us, perhaps the most exciting aspect was seeing one our our own creations on display in the museum: the Insight (aka ScanEagle) Unmanned Aircraft. Here Anders and Bridger, both children of former Insitu employees, do their best impression of a ScanEagle in front of the real thing.

We skipped the Evergreen Water Park. If we wanted to get wet, we could have stood outside for a minute. I did get to ride in one of the vehicles before we left. (Needs more horsepower.)

Fun vacation!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

A Night in Eugene

Earlier this year, Corinne heard an interview on NPR with musician Trombone Shorty and has been infatuated ever since. His music is a unique fusion of jazz, funk, and rock with a lot of horn. Upon checking out his website, she discovered that he was going to be in Eugene, OR on the Thursday before the 4th of July weekend. We managed to twist Grandma's arm and convinced her to spend an extended holiday weekend with us so we could get away overnight for the concert. Our first overnight together without Anders! So we rounded up a few friends and off we went.

Our friends Kris and Amy both have their pilot's license and decided to fly from Hood River to Eugene rather than drive, so Corinne hitched a ride.

Hood River Bridge, Columbia River

Meanwhile, Rat and I drove down I-5 with the riffraff. In the end it took about the same time by both means, and possibly even with equivalent danger. (Man, I hate I-5.) Trombone Shorty was great in concert. The concert hall was a converted church, complete with pews! The acoustics at the venue could have been a bit better, but we specifically chose it over Portland (where he was also performing) because of the smaller, more intimate setting.

Our last trip through Eugene was back in 2004 and we were only there for a few hours on that trip. Since we were staying in a local hotel downtown, this time we had more of an opportunity to explore. Eugene has the feel of a small town while being the second largest city in Oregon - UofO probably helps with that. I think we did walk through the same district a few times since it looked like the most interesting thing in the downtown. I'm sure if we spent more time or asked some "locals" we could have found some really good spots, but that will have to wait until next time.

On Friday we headed back home to see what had become of Anders during our absence.

As it turns out, he survived just fine. He didn't take any naps for Grandma, which I can't say is a big surprise to us. But he also decided on Friday that he wasn't going to wear any clothes. And for some reason, Grandma decided that would be fine. So when we got home, he was walking around the house wearing only his diaper.

Thanks, Grandma!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

July 5, 2010