Get the latest photos and ramblings from Corinne, Mike, and Anders living in the Columbia River Gorge.
Anders recently found the instruction manual to our (or really his) electronic thermometer and started reading it. He wasn't reading it as you would expect - flipping pages and looking at pictures - but rather it seemed like he was trying to imitate how an adult would read it. It's pretty hilarious.
It's been three months since we visited my parents at Christmas, so it must be time for them to visit Anders.
We drove in to Portland and met my parents for dinner at Screen Door, which is currently one of our favorite restaurants in the city. Corinne decided that we should split a slice of their ban-offee (banana creme) pie. But about a quarter of the way through the piece, she decided that I needed to get my own piece; she didn't want to share.
My parents had never been to the Oregon coast, so after dinner we continued west to spend a few days in Cannon Beach. I had rented a small cottage for us that was within walking distance of both the downtown and the beach. The cottage was small, but it was just the right size to act as our "home base" while we explored.
The biggest attraction in Cannon Beach is, well, the beach. So that was the place to start. Despite it being March, the weather was actually sunny and warm. We walked from the cottage to the beach for a great view of Haystack Rock, the signature feature of Cannon Beach.
Kids are such sponges for information. It doesn't take too long for Anders to pick up on things. While we were in NJ visiting my family around Christmas, my mom had a "tea party" with Anders and inadvertently taught him to make an "aah" expression of refreshment after drinking his tea. He hasn't been "aah"-ing after drinking from his sippy cups but now that he is drinking from regular cups, he has remembered his Christmas "lesson". (We didn't remind him!)
Granny is the mother of my uncle by marriage, so not my grandmother but my cousin's grandmother. But I grew to know Granny when I lived with my Aunt and Uncle during my senior year of high school and then spent time with her at many of our family holiday gatherings over the years. She knit a hat for Anders when she was 98 and just a few months before she passed away.
Anders is not a fan of hats and usually won't keep them on for even 5 seconds. We are working on that so that we can shade his fair skin in summer and keep him warm in winter. But he must have known that this hat was special because he wore it for 15 minutes. I guess it was his tribute to Granny!
Anders has a book that he received as part of a Kindermusik class that he and I took for some good father and son time. One night I was reading the book to him before bed, and I came to the lines: "Sometimes I go Do-Si, sometimes I go Do". Naturally, the authors were referring to do-si-do, but I took it in the direction that seemed obvious to me - The Simpsons direction, i.e. "doh." Anders thought it was hilarious. We must have repeated that page 20 times that night.
During a recent trip weekend trip to Seattle, we decided to spend a day exploring the flower fields in the Skagit Valley. Rather than driving our own cars, we decided to rent a mini-van for the day so that all of us could fit in one vehicle for the trip: Mike, Corinne, Anders, Donna, Leif, Carol and Mark. Family roadtrip!
We started off at the Calico Cupboard in La Conner for some breakfast, including cinnamon rolls, coffee, conversation, and coloring.
