Trip to Portland

We made our annual trip to Portland to see Bill's sisters (Heidi and Holly) and their families. They are technically in Vancouver WA, just across the river from Portland. It was an easy trip from Denver for several reasons:

- Both Bill and I, and Bill's sister (who work in education) have MLK off. It is not a busy holiday weekend like others.

- Southwest flies direct to Portland from Denver, and tickets are usually only $150-180 per person with free bags!

- It is a short 2 1/2 hour flight and Portland is an easy and efficient airport, which are considerations when travelling with 2 little ones.

- They live only 15 minutes from the airport. We normally rent a car ($85 for a weekend on Avis and my discounts), but this time Greg picked us up and dropped off their car for us to use.

- There are a number of lodging choices in Vancouver, close to their house. This time we stayed at a 1-bedroom at Homewood Suites (so we could talk and watch TV after the kids went to bed) only 5 minutes from their homes.

Note: By "their homes" I mean Heidi and their twin sister Holly live in what we call the "Rhodes-Bolte compound". Their houses' backyards back to each other. They have a door on the fence that allows them to walk through. :-)

Mason and Audrey enjoyed playing with their younger cousins: Ben (16), Tommy (16), Haylie (13), and Candler (10). We didn't get to see Nikki, as she is in college at Carleton (MN). We enjoyed having the older cousins play with Mason and Audrey, and giving us time to visit with the adutls. We even left them to babysit as we went to Tommy's soccer game (in the rain) and to a movie (The King's Speech is a must see!).

Mason's new love is Legos! He just couldn't have enough of Tommy and Candler's Legos. Each night, Mason and Audrey were fully worn out, falling asleep on the short drive to the hotel.

We spent most of the time indoors (it rained most of our time there). I think I saw the sun for the first time in 3 days at the airport on our way back. We thought of going out on Saturday, but Bill was fixing Holly's iPhone, which turned out to be an iPhone upgrade, which led to a iTunes upgrade that couldn't work without a Mac OS upgrade, which couldn't be done on their 4-year old Mac Mini!! Bill searched online for an answer and finally gave up and called tech support. After talking to two different Mac support people, he realized that the iPhone couldn't be downgraded (which is stupid, but part of Steve Job's plan to dominate the world) and the Mac Mini couldn't be upgraded without more memory. Luckly, our friend Cristy, who works for Apple and her husband Alan, who is a Mac geek, live in Portland. We had plans to meet them for dinner on Sunday while in town. After explaning the situation, Alan jumped to the rescue, went to Best Buy to get more memory for the machine, drove over for a house-call to upgrade the hardward and Mac OS. (We offer to go to their house, but they insisted in coming over) The computer is now much faster and it ended up costing only $67! But it was dinner by the time it was done. The kids didn't mind, as they just carried on playing all day.

Here are the pictures John, Bill and I took. Heidi has more that we will need to gather and post.

We had so much fun that we not only plan to do it again next year, but offered to fly the cousins to Colorado for a week this year.

Single Mom Day 3

The morning after we returned from Portland (we will do a separate post on that trip after we gather the few pictures we took - the trip was great by the way), Bill left for Boston for work. It is my first time taking care of the both kids alone over a long period. So far, I am alive and well. Oh yeah, and so are the kids. :-)

It hasn't been bad, here are my observations:
- Mason is pretty much self-sufficient, although he wants me more when he sees me with Audrey;
- Audrey is also ok as long as I have an eye on her, allowing me short trips to the kitchen and around the house to get things done (although she is fast and a climber!)
- Mornings take coordination (getting 2 kids and yourself dressed can be a challenge), thankfully I woke up before the kids on both mornings so far (7 am) and got myself ready first.
- There is not much time to prepared dinner after they get back from school, so Chick-fil-a or simply baking a pizza is the easiest answer.
- Both kids sleep well. Audrey goes down first around 8 and Mason 30 minutes later after a few books and he usually wants me to "sleep with him for 2 minutes" (which is more like 10 minutes).
- The tiring part is the full time job and all the other stuff to get done (laundry, cleaning up, buying groceries, cooking, and like yesterday clearing out snow from our drive way). Good thing I can work from home and that they go to daycare/pre-school from 9-5.

Looking forward to Bill's return tomorrow (Friday). Next week, he gets to be a single Dad during my trip to San Diego.

_____
UPDATE (1/21):
The last day with the kids was great, and Bill is back - Yay! Here is a picture of the kids having fun during their bath last night.

Starting 2011 sick

After the 10-day break at home, as we got ready to go back to busy work period, Mason came down with a fever Monday night and a nasty cough. Taking a sick day last week was difficult, so Bill and I worked from home and kept an eye on him. He was pretty content to be home in front of the TV, with something to drink and some snacks. The fever finally broke Wednesday night (Thursday morning), but Mason "milked" an additional day at home.

Mommy: "Mason, I think you are better and ready to go back to school"
Mason: "No, I am still sick" as he cough to prove his point

Inevatibly, he passed the bug to Audrey, who started to cough on Thursday and followed by fever Friday night. On Friday night, Audrey got up around midnight because of her congestion and went back to sleep at 1 AM. At 1:30 AM, Mason woke up complaining his ear hurt. After trying everything from ear drops, warm olive oil, Tylenol and Ibuprofen, he finally went back to sleep at 3:30 AM. Needless to say that Saturday was a recovery day for all of us (with a trip to urgent care to confirm that Mason had an ear infection). Bill got it too. I've so far have escaped it somehow! The kids are both feeling better and the last two nights have been back to normal (8:30-7). Also thankful that both kids are great when it comes to taking their meds and using the nose splay.

Potty

Some way, some how, Audrey is very interested in the potty. Maybe as a result of watching Mason and wanting to do what he does. School has started exposing her to the potty, but they don't do it consistenly until they turn 2. She did go peepee once at school many weeks ago. This past week, being at home, she has called "potty" and gone several times (both number 1 and 2). Could this be?? Could we be diaper free before she turns 2 in April? Fingers crossed!

Christmas Break

Both Bill and I had the week between Christmas and New Years off work. We decided to take the kids out of school for this week also. Ten days at home from Christmas eve to the Jan 3rd. I wouldn't exactly describe it as a "break", since watching the kids full time is as hard as working full time, but there's been great moments. We are thankful that both kids slept very well during the break and were not sick.

Bill's mom (Helen, Nai Nai) and Jack (Grandpa Jack) were here for Christmas. They stayed with us the first half of their trip, and with Bill's sister Heather in Highlands Ranch (45 minutes South from us) for the second half. We all had Christmas eve dinner at our house, went to Heather's Christmas afternoon, and made trips back and forth for the family to be together.

This is Mason's first year asking for a gift from Santa, being watched by our elf Ian, getting his Santa gift (Transformer costume), and getting in the spirit of the season. Audrey went along with Mason's excitment, but she was as happy with tearing the wrapping paper as the gifts inside. Santa brought her a tea set. Santa also brought pillow pets for both kids in their respective Chinese signs (pig for Mason and cow for Audrey).

Enjoyed the fact that the kids slept pass 7 AM. Audrey got up first around 7:15, and we decided to wake Mason up at 7:30, so we could get the gift opening started. But we know the late Christmas mornings are numbered.

The kids got everything they could have asked for and more.

Mason got a talking trash truck from Gong Gong and Bubu (he loves trash trucks, maybe there is a future in the sanitation field); a music box that plays "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and millions of stickers from Nai Nai and GrandPa Jack (who also sent us the elf on the shelf); a Leapster Explorer with games (Wolverine is his favorite) from Yaya and Mimi; Star Wars potato heads from Mommy and Daddy (We got Spud Trooper and Artoo-Potatoo, but Darth Tater is in high demand and going for $50+ on Amazon, too much $ for a potato head, even if it has the best name ever!); new books, legos; monkey hat/gloves from the Forsbergs; and lastely a battery operated motorcycle from aunt Heather and Jamie!!! He loves his motorcycle and can go around and around in the basement forever.

Audrey is not to be outdone by Mason - she got a shopping buggy and a set of grocery goodies for the cart from Mommy and Daddy (she tries to get in it, although she always fights me when I try to put her in the real shopping cart at grocery store); a set of veggies and fruit from Gong Gong and Bubu (hoping to inspire some vegetable eating, I think some of these veggies these kids have never seen before); a Leapster Jr and books, and a stroller from Yaya and Mimi; a music box that plays "You are my sunshine" and a doll (perfect for the stroller and buggy) from Nai Nai and Grandpa Jack; new books, pull toys; strawberry hat/gloves from the Forsbergs; and also lastly a battery operated 4-wheeler from aunt Heather and Jamie!!! It is the cutest thing, but as always, she prefers whatever Mason is playing with and tries to get onto his motorcycle instead.

Jeez, I wish I got that many gifts when I was their age! It was a good thing that Christmas was at the beginning of our break, giving plenty of time for the kids to enjoy their gifts this past week. Thanks to everyone for the wonderful gifts!!

To truly celebrate the season of giving, Bill and I stepped up our donations and tips this year. We feel very fortunate to be able to do so. We wanted to especially tip generously to Audrey and Mason's teachers. They are wonderful, some of them babysit for us on the side, and we know they don't make that much. Mason's teachers (Ms. Anna and Ms. Shauna) actually cried when they saw their tips. We are happy to contribute to their Christmas, but we were not expecting tears. I actually tried to avoid drop off and pick up because they kept tearing up every time they saw me.

And it always seems to be the case that the more we give, the more we get in return. I don't mean that only as a cheesy statement, but factually. The week after we gave thousands to various causes, I got an unexpected bonus from work that covered all we had given away; the week after we gave out the tips, we got checks in the mail that almost covered all the tips we had given out).

The break is almost over. It is back to work and back to school for the kids on Monday.

January will be a crazy month with a family trip to Portland, 2 work trips for Bill, 1 work trip for me, and trip to LA with my friends in the beginning of Feb. Gong Gong and Bubu are due back in mid Feb. You may not hear from us much until then.