Gualala with Friends

For the Veteran's Day weekend, we got to have some friends come up to Gualala with us.  Well, they didn't travel with us but came up a few hours after Eddie and I did.

Eddie and I did our usual Friday-before-we-leave-for-Gualala stuff: breakfast, gymnastics, got the dogs from the house, ran a few errands in the car in town, then hit the highway.  This time we stopped at Costco for some supplies (like a zillion eggs and a giant watermelon I'd promised Eddie), pizza for lunch, and a copy of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.  I intended for Eddie to watch it in the car during our long drive, but our janky headrest DVD player wouldn't recognize the disc as being the correct region.  No matter, Eddie was content to watch the first Ice Age for the zillionth time...he still laughs like crazy at the melon/dodo bird scene, as if he's never seen it before.

Eddie is obsessed with "red melon" right now.  Maybe Ice Age has something to do with it?  Sadly (for him) this is probably the last melon of the season because I'm NOT paying for off-season melons.

The Bower menfolk were still at work when we arrived, so I set to working getting dinner ready.  Tri tip on the grill, sauted greens with bacon, salad, and fresh, cheese-stuffed gnocchi from Costco.  The pasta turned out only "okay"...Dave and I prefer the dense chewiness of the vacuum packed variety at the regular grocery.

Our friends, the Bairs, arrived a couple of hours after dinner and ate some left overs before I showed them the little apartment where they were to stay.  Dave and Eddie had finished installing a new vent hood in the kitchen and started a fire in the stove for them so it was toasty warm when they walked inside.  I'd put a bunch of (really, really old) whole cloves in the humidifier kettle on the stove to try to cover up a stench in the apartment, but sadly it didn't work.  Danny and Anna were good sports, though, and didn't mind the stale smell.  (Dave is working diligently to find and fix the smell.)

We had our regular pancake/bacon/egg breakfast the next morning before heading out for a windy and cold walk on the runway.  Eventually, we made our way downtown to have pizza before loading the very tired children into the van and lulling them to sleep while I drove us around to see some Gualala sights: the river, the redwoods near the campground, our soon-to-be residence, the water company office, etc.  We then decided to let the kids (and their dads...) continue their nap so I drove us up to Point Arena to the pier.  Once everyone had woken up, we got some ice cream at a shop and wandered around on the pier watching the boats, fishermen, and surfers.

Three Bairs on a mission to find some mushrooms!  I had misplaced my phone charger that day so this is the only picture I have of our friends... Danny is my officemate at school, a fellow soil scientist.  His wife, Anna, is a wonderful mama to little Elia and to a soon-to-be baby boy.

When we got back to the house, we all wanted to rest a bit but John convinced us to go outside to search for mushrooms behind the garden.  No luck.  Later on, while I was making dinner, Danny, Dave, and John did find one down at the park...but it was the size of a store-bought mushroom.  I think it'll be a week or two before the King Boletus really start to bloom.

Of course, we had our traditional abalone and "green pasta" dinner that night.  We bathed the kiddos and got them into the their jammies before the Bairs departed back for Sacramento.  Eddie was especially sad to see them go; I know he wanted his "friend Elia" to stay to play.

The next morning, Sunday, we just sort of hung out and did nothing in particular (a rarity for us up there).

Eddie and I cuddled on the green chair to watch some of the new Ice Age movie.

We did take a truck and the backhoe loader up to the north end of the runway to collect the accumulated horse manure from the "neigh" bors (get it?).  I really, REALLY need to practice using the loader bucket on that machine...yikes.  I'm glad only Dave was there to witness my miserable attempt.  I was able to flatten out the existing compost pile from the previous months and mix it a little.  But then I let Dave have the controls and he showed me how to really mix the pile.  We sure lucked out, having 5 horses living so close our future giant garden--the thin coastal ridge soil needs all the organics it can get.

All of us Bowers (I'm in the mirror of the backhoe).  Here you can see Dave and Eddie dumping the load of manure into the pile.

While Eddie took a long nap that afternoon, I got to take a short snooze before Dave and I headed to the little apartment to install a tv.  There's no cable, phone, or internet there but now people can at least watch a movie (if we find a player to connect to it...and maybe some rabbit ears).

Me and my Taters.

Dave and Puppy: she's like a blue belly lizard: crazy and fast until you flip her over and rub her tummy.  Then she's falls asleep.

Peggy treated us to some Thai food take-out that night.  I loooooooooooooove that there's a Thai restaurant in Anchor Bay now!  The proprietors are currently renting the Coast House, which will be our house starting next year sometime.  I hope they can stick around because the coast is that much more perfect for our family them their yummy food there.  Mmmmmmmmmm, I could slurp down Thom Ka Gai soup all day long.

Dave had to work Monday, so I got up early with him so we could have our coffee together before he left.  And so I wouldn't feel guilty about making him load the car for me.  =)

After breakfast and whatnot, Eddie and I drove around on the ATV.  We took a bucket of apples and a knife up to see the horses.

I told him that each horse could have only a few pieces of apple (halves) since apples are full of sugar and are "treats" for them.  Eddie was eating an apple at the time and looked down at it, sorta confused like, and asked, "Apples have sugar in them?"  I said yes, it is natural sugar but it isn't good for anyone's tummy to have too much sugar--it is important for everyone to eat a balanced diet.  For horses that means some grain and sweets like carrots and apples but also lots of hay.  And for people like us that means protein like cheese and meat and green veggies and carbohydrates like pancakes and bread and oatmeal.  Oh boy: this kid is three and he can contemplate things like fruit versus refined sugar?  What a smart cookie!  We've been talking a lot about eating a balanced diet--mostly when we're eating dinner and I have to convince him to eat a particular item.  I used to get away with saying, "Oooh, Uncle LOVES collard greens.  Don't you want to get big and strong like Uncle?  You gotta eat those collards!"  But now I have to actually explain why he should eat collards: "They are full of natural vitamins and minerals and fiber and they taste so yummy.  Eating things like that will help make you big and strong like Uncle and Daddy."

We ate some lunch with Peggy before heading off down the road.  I miss diaper days for road trips like this. Back then, Eddie would just pee or whatever into his diaper.  Now he makes me stop so he can use the potty.  And sometimes he says he needs to use the potty, when really he just wants to get out of the car.  It bugs me so I'll make him wait like 10 minutes while I find a "good place to pull over" in which case he often loses interest or forgets about wanting to get out of the car.  On this trip, however, he was still able to trick me into pulling over for a no-flow pee break.  Of course, I had to make a pit stop for myself in Jenner later on.

I think we rolled into our driveway at about 3:45 pm and walked into our freeeeeeezing cold house.

 The batteries were dead in our thermostat but I had to wait for 30 minutes for the correct temperature to register on it once I replaced the batteries before I could turn the furnace on.  It started at 70 and slowly fell to the correct temperature.  Brrrr.  Eddie was hiding under blankets on the couch watching a show (only his eyes showing).  With him occupied under the blankets, I was able to unload the car, put everything away, and even start dinner (which kept me warm).   

Eddie and the miniature horses enjoyed their apple snacks.

Me and this sweet mini horse.  I spoke to her human owner last time and he said they have the small horses trained to pull carts, which I think is adorable.

Since I'd cut up a whole pineapple last week, we used up the remaining fruit for pineapple fried rice.  It was scrumptious, even though Eddie declared he didn't like the "yellow stuff".

I used a recipe from AllRecipes.com but used spam and added a cup of diced kohlrabi that I needed to use up.  It was more moist than I would have liked, but my wok just wouldn't get hot enough to crisp up the rice.  Maybe I need to fry the rice separately from the other ingredients and combine at the end?

It was goooooooood.

As it was still quite early after dinner, we went to the grocery store to get a few things and then it was bed for everyone.  Whew, these weekends away are pretty tiring.  I can't wait until we're all in one place!

Election 2012 Dinner

Like most people, by the time Tuesday rolled around, I was sooooooooo sick and tired of hearing about the election.

Four years ago I went to an election night party with some friends.  We watched the tallies and projections in real time by watching the news, ate yummy food, chatted, and poured champagne when Obama won.  Almost immediately after, we all set our bubbly down in disgust (and astonishment) when Proposition 8 passed.

This year, I just didn't have the energy to watch the election news in real time.  I was recovering (still am) from a nasty cold and the anticipation would have depleted my energy stores too much.  So I decided to find something else to do after work to distract myself.  I settled on cooking a new meal, which always takes more concentration than whipping up a usual (in which case I often have the news on while I cook).

Just for fun, I decided to make two dishes, one each for the two presidential candidates.  Focusing on their stereotyped/non-political features I decided on a Kenyan stew for Obama and Mormon Funeral Potatoes for Romney.

The perspective is weird in this picture because I rotated it to get the right dishes on the appropriate sides: Mormon funeral potatoes on the right and Kenyan stew on the left.

I'd never cooked with cardamom in a savory dish before (unless it was in a masala), so the Kenyan stew intrigued me.  The potatoes honestly sounded kind of dull, like scalloped potatoes.  But I figured they must be good since they are served to loads of people at so many church social functions (I've read about them on many of my LDS friends' blogs).

The Kenyan stew was scrumptious--the cardamom and coconut milk were fantastic together.  I used fresh shelled beans from my dad's garden that I'd put up in the freezer a couple of months ago along with some green peppers from his garden that my mom brought me last week--emphasizing these "Grandpa" ingredients to Eddie made him immediately decide the stew was his favorite.  And he ate his whole portion!

My favorite was the funeral potato dish.  I was surprised at the tart "kick" it had from the yogurt and sharp cheddar cheese--I love a sourness to my foods.  It was so good I had an extra serving that night for "dessert."  Mmmmmm.

So we were a split household.  But we still love each other.  =)

Here are the recipes in case you'd like to try them.

Kenyan Stew

• 2 cups cooked beans (I used black and fresh shelled pole beans)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 cup kale, chopped
• 1 TBL olive oil
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 1/2 cup diced tomatoes
• 1/2-1 can of  coconut milk
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 24 cardamom seeds, crushed
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• salt and black pepper, to taste

In a pot, fry the onions in olive oil until lightly browned. Add garlic, green pepper and fry for another few minutes. Add the remaining ingredients (EXCEPT KALE), to the pot and simmer until everything is tender and the flavors have come together. Taste for seasoning and adjust salt accordingly. Stir in kale and cook about 2-3 minutes, until kale is slightly wilted. Serve with rice.

Mormon Funeral Potatoes

• 3 cups diced potatoes (that have been baked and cooled)
• 1/2 can (10 3/4 oz.) condensed cream of chicken soup
• 1/4 stick butter, melted
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup sour cream or plain Greek yogurt
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1/8 cup grated onion (optional)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/3 cup crushed cornflakes, Panko flakes, or crushed corn chips

Combine soup, butter, sour cream or yogurt, milk, cheese, onion, salt and pepper in a large mixing bowl. Mix well. Add the diced potatoes and stir gently until combined.

Place potato mixture in a 2-3 quart casserole dish or 9 x 13-inch baking pan. Sprinkle crumb or crushed chips over potato mixture.

Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes or until hot and bubbly.

And what would a political post be without spouting my OWN political views or opinion about the outcome of the presidential election?  

For me, this presidential election was really a single-issue one.  Since the economy is going to suck no matter WHO was elected (Rosanne Barr, Romney, or Obama), I wasn't to concerned with that.  Our taxes are going to increase no matter what.  I'm fine with some increases because we cannot have social services/infrastructure/technological advances/etc. without paying for them.  Why more people don't understand that reality is beyond me.  

I also wasn't concerned with foreign policy because frankly, I just don't know that much about it.  And for things like that, I just have to trust that people who are MUCH more educated on the topic than me will make the right choice for a given time and situation.  Sometimes I just have to accept my ignorance for something and defer to professionals.  

So.  That left the issue of equality.  In this race that encompassed equality of medical care, equality of all genders to decide what's best for their bodies, and equality in marriage/benefits.  Simple.  I feel that unless all of our citizens are treated equally, then we cannot move forward on anything else.  That made my decision for president simple.  

However, I was completely prepared for the "other" side to win the presidential election.  And if that had happened, I would have accepted it and marched forward living my life as the citizen any president would want me to be: a financially/medically/socially/resource responsible one.  That means I will:

• not conceive babies I cannot afford (no federal/state funded family planning for me)
• feed my family sustainably-grown and healthy foods (foods that are good for our bodies and our nation are expensive--if everyone were to pay the "real" cost for their food our population would stabilize and our medical costs would decrease)
• live within my means
• maintain and improve my and my family's health with preventative medical care, good food, exercise, and intellectual stimulation (let's not forget that our brains are part of our bodies, too) so we don't put undue pressure on the country's medical insurance program
• adjust my lifestyle to accommodate resource pressures that will soon affect all of us (fossil fuels, fertilizers, chemical boosters to grow crops, metals used in electronics, potable water).  It's coming, baby.
• make more of an effort to keep up with current foreign events

Congratulations, best wishes, and good luck to our 44th President, Mr. Barack Obama.  Don't let us down, okay?

Childhood

The boys spent Friday together while I was at school.  For two solid hours before nap time, they biked around the neighborhood.  Dave took a bunch of pictures that afternoon, but this is my favorite.  Doesn't it just scream, childhood?

I love that Dave is an active father--participating in every single aspect of Eddie's life.  From breastfeeding and cloth diapering to bathing and clothes shopping, he's fair game for anything.  Eddie sure is a lucky little boy.  

Early to Bed, Early to Rise...

...Makes a girl healthy, wealthy, and wise?  Yeah right.  At least on the "wealthy" bit.

From toddlerhood through my pregnancy, my productivity peaked in the morning hours.  But for the last 3 years I've found that I'm most productive in the afternoon, beginning around 2 pm and ending around 8 pm.  This is problematic since I have to leave work at 5 to pick Eddie up from daycare.  And after 3-3.5 hours of "home" stuff like playing, dinner, cleaning up, bathing and bedding Eddie for the night, I'm exhausted.  When studying for my exam last year I'd push through that exhaustion to study laaaaaaaaaate into the night, finding a second wind of energy/diligence/productivity around 10 pm.  It took me about 2-3 months to break out of that cycle of going to bed around 2 am and getting up around 7 am.

Now that I'm basically out of the lab and need to settle down to analyze data and begin writing the dissertation, I'm having trouble with my schedule.  No matter what I do, I just cannot be very productive until 2 pm.  It sucks.  I can sit at my desk, make a to-do or to-analyze list, open up my stats program...but I just don't get much done.  My mind wanders to all the "home" stuff: what to make for dinner, when we have appointments, what we'll do this weekend, what chores need to be done when I get home (laundry, clean up dog poop outside, collect chicken eggs, change Eddie's bed sheets, etc.).

I realized that I am committed to only about 6 hours each day to hang out with and take care of Eddie.  The other hours he's either sleeping or is at daycare.  So that leaves me with 18 hours during which to work and sleep.

So.

That got me thinking: Can I shift my productivity to an early time?  So I can get more school work done?  There's no way I'll be able to work before Eddie gets up in the morning.  Because let's be honest, I'm not that good.  But I can get up earlier in the day and do "home" stuff like prepping meals, cleaning up, organizing the house, etc. (all that stuff I spend time thinking about in the first hours at school).  And if I'm up 2-3 hours earlier, then my internal clock will start ticking that much earlier, right?  So maybe my productivity will eek more towards 11 am rather than waiting until 2 pm?  Right?

Well, it's worth a shot.

So far, so good.  This week I went to bed between 9:30-10 pm and got up between 5-5:30 am.  I feel so much more productive by the time we leave the house at 9 am because I've been able to cycle through two loads of laundry, empty the dishwasher/rack, and that kind of thing that usually waits until I get home at night.    And at work I have been much more productive.  I can't say for sure that it's a result of my schedule modifications or just that I've hit a groove with my data analysis.  But I'll take it!

Previously, Eddie and I would try to talk to Dave at least once a week using the webcam/laptop set up during bath time (the only time Eddie is in a single spot long enough for Dave to get to see him).  It's a pain to do during summer months because Dave would work until dark (like 8:30 pm).  But lately, we've been able to do it earlier because of the earlier sunset.  Plus I have a new phone (Samsung Galaxy S3) with the front camera so we can "facetime" with it instead of the clunky laptop.  For Eddie, this is great.  But for me and Dave my earlier bedtime stinks because we only talk through bath/books and not again after since I'm soon offline.  Oh well.

Here's hoping the schedule adjustments work out!  (And that my data is as awesome as I hope it is and that I discover I'm a dissertation writing wizard--not likely AT ALL but a girl can dream.)  I see that I have approximately 20 minutes until my new productive period is supposed to begin.......

Halloween 2012

Every year that Eddie's been old enough to participate in Halloween activities, my mom has been in town.  Some years it's because she wants to be up here and other years (like this one) it's because I need reinforcements to help me with all the madness of the sugar coated holiday.  Since it was on a Wednesday and I needed to chaperone the daycare's field trip to downtown, have someone to pass out candy at the house, AND take Eddie around the neighborhood, I needed another adult.

The day started with getting Eddie dressed in his Spider Man costume.  The costume section at Target didn't have any super hero outfits left in his size so I found one in the Spider Man section of the toy department.  (It's weird to me that there are whole dedicated sections like that.)  It's a good thing it fits because I didn't get it out of the package until that morning.

He wore his costume to daycare, where they had a party and ate a Jack-o-lantern pizza.  I went to school and worked on my data (collating and plotting it...ug) and then at 1:30 pm my mom picked me up to go to lunch.  We ate at Konditorei, an Austrian place that has amazing soups, pastries, and tortes.  The beef goulash we had was crazy delicious.  As was the strawberry Danish and coffee I had for dessert...

After eating, my mom dropped me off at Cassie's so I could chaperone the daycare's field trip to the downtown trick-or-treat trail (#1).

The complete costume.

As every year, it was insane with strollers, parents, and sugar-crazed and sugar-dazed kids everywhere.  My mom considered joining us but instead decided to go pick up some cheap pizzas at Little Caesar's and go home to chop up some veggies and melon for us to have as a quick dinner when we got home.  She met us at 4:20 pm at the bank parking lot to take us home.  Eddie didn't have much candy in his bucket because he ate nearly every piece he got in real time.  Sheesh.  I felt like a loser parent for saying, "Okay, no more candy until we get home and you eat some pizza for dinner."  Like that's any better.

I got each of us to eat a few bites of "real food" before our friends, Isaac and Emily and their mom, came over at 5 pm to go trick-or-treating (#2) around our neighborhood.

Eddie and Isaac, AKA Spider Man and Mario.  Whenever we told them to smile for a picture, we'd have them say something like "candy!" instead of the typical "cheese!"  Once I told them to say, "high fructose corn syrup!" and Isaac (who is possibly the sweetest little boy ever) asked me to repeat it because he didn't know what to say.  Hahaha.

The kids had to go to their dad's house that night at 6 so we only went to about 10 houses with them.  We were the first ones out and about since it was still light out.  The rule was that they could only knock on houses with either the porch light on or lit pumpkins on the porch and they could only knock 3 times.  This time I got smart and told Eddie he could have one piece of candy and then 5 houses later he could have another.

Eddie and me in our neighborhood during trick-or-treating #2

My mom got no kids at the house until after we got home.  We ate some more food and Eddie helped pass out candy to the few groups of kids who came to our door.

It started to rain just as it was getting dark.  It felt so late to me with the busy-ness of the day and the darkness outside.  But it was only about 6:30 pm, too early to start Eddie's bath.  So after playing with the dogs for a bit and eating some more candy, Eddie and I went outside in the light rain to move out pumpkins out to the driveway.  I hoped that more people would see them and come to the house.  Years ago I planted a potato bush near the driveway, hoping it'd get big enough to give the front of our house a bit of privacy from the zillions of people who bike and walk past our house all day long (the path to the park is next to our driveway).  Well, it worked and it does block the view to our front porch pretty well.

I asked Eddie if he wanted to go trick-or-treating (#3) one last time, this time in the dark.  Of course he said yes! So we went inside to get his candy bucket, a flashlight, and my witch hat and off we went.  We hit up a few houses we'd missed earlier and walked around the edge of the neighborhood to visit a friend's house (they weren't home).

At many of the houses Eddie was more interested in piles of rocks/soil/sand, sticks, or rocks stuck in the ground.  "But Mama, I just want to dig up one!"

It was lightly raining the whole time and neither of us minded.  Just as we were about the enter the park to walk through it back home, it started to pour.  I asked Eddie if he wanted me to carry him to get home faster and he said no.  Instead he just stood there, contemplating the rain and looking up at it, flinching when big drops landed in his eyes.  Eventually he decided it was time to go home so off we went.  Halfway through the park, as I was holding my sweet boy's hand in the pouring rain the water began to seep through the seam on my hat.  My face became a waterfall.  It wasn't cold or uncomfortable out and I was enjoying being with only Eddie in the dark.  After the madness of the day, I really enjoyed that quiet "us" time, holding his sweet, wet, sticky little hand.

Weird--next year we'll be living on the coast in a relatively rural place.  Dave tells me that parents generally drive their kids from mini-neighborhood to mini-neighborhood.  So I anticipate a much calmer Halloween from here on out.  Whew.  =)

And for reminiscing sake:

2008. Dave and I were a pair of electrons. I was down spin and he was up spin and together we were a perfectly matched pair. Just like in real life. 

2009. Three Bowers at the pumpkin patch.  Eddie was only 2.5 months old and I left for a Soil Science conference the next day.

2010.  Eddie was a (sad) farmer and we only did downtown trick-or-treating because my mom, Eddie, and I left for a conference on the 31st.

2011.  Us Bowers were characters from Peter Pan, Uncle Edward was Sherlock Holmes, and Auntie Jennifer was a lady bug.  This year we did downtown stuff , only a few houses in the neighborhood, and went to a party.

My Favorite Kind of Weekend

This past weekend Dave was home for his full three days.  Logging is finally (mostly) done so he doesn't have to work every other Fridays anymore.  Woo!  We had a great weekend--my favorite kind, in fact--because it was a mix of family stuff, yummy food, helping friends, and festivity preparations.  Oh, and ice cream treats.

Friday morning we took Eddie to gymnastics 15 minutes early so he could play in the toy area before class.  When I walk in there at 8:59 am for a 9 am class, he gets shy and sometimes doesn't want to participate.  It annoys me but I don't want to get upset with him since independent participation is something he needs to learn to do on his own.  So we decided to give him some "warm up" time of his own at the gym.  We've only tried this once, but it worked!

The boys took off after that to get new tires on Dave's car while I got some stuff done at home.  In the afternoon, we chaperoned a field trip to the pumpkin patch for Eddie's daycare.  Our minivan was stuffed with car seats, kiddos, and pumpkins.  The kids played on the haystack, got to pet all manner of baby animals (goats, pigs, kittens, ducks, chickens, donkeys, etc.), and picked out their own small pumpkins.

Eddie and Isaac played with their pumpkins a lot--by picking them up and sitting on them.

Eddie and his buddy Isaac.  Aren't they adorable?

What a strong boy!

Can I put 'miniature goat ' on my Xmas wishlist?

This is Abby.  Doesn't Dave look good holding a baby girl?

Afterward, we went home and I made a yummy dinner of post roast, wild rice with pan gravy, roasted Brussels sprouts, and a sugar free apple pie for dessert (I used honey instead).

Dave and Eddie bought me flowers while running errands that day (so sweet!) and having them on the table prompted me to use our wedding china (Waterford's Ballet Ribbon pattern) for dinner that evening.

Saturday morning we ate breakfast and then scooted out the door to Cassie's for a parent work day at the daycare.  It was a busy and productive 5 hours--the gates were mended, grass and flowers planted in the yards, the school room windows were trimmed out, a fence was removed, and garden beds were made out of recycled pallets.

Work party pizza break.  The kids got to make masks in the school room while the parents worked outside.

Pallet planters--we made two double stacked ones like this and then three single stack ones.  Cute, huh?  We had some pallets at our house and then I found more at my building near the dumpster.

On our way home we stopped at Dairy Queen for Blizzards, yummy.  Eddie needed a poop break and insisted on using his red potty seat instead of the gross restaurant bathroom (I don't blame him).  Of course, he was playing with the leftover potting soil in the trailer while he pooped and flung some of the soil into my Blizzard cup while I took this picture.  I guess I deserved that...

Yeah, that's an action shot of pottying AND throwing dirt into my Blizzard.

That night I made enchiladas using left over pork roast and turned a partial jar of tomato basil sauce into enchilada sauce by adding a bit of this and that.

We always have cooked beans and cooked brown rice in zippy bags in the deep freeze, as well as tortillas and cheese in the fridge so dinners like these are a snap.

We watched Best in Show on Netflix that night while eating some of the pie (with ice cream).  I checked on Eddie that night before we went to bed and found him wearing his mask.

Sunday morning we had IHOP copy-cat cornmeal pancakes for breakfast before I scooted out the door to run some errands.  I had to replace my new phone at Verizon because it kept freezing, return/buy some stuff at Old Navy and Target, and then pop into Costco for a few things (including Polish dogs for each of us for lunch).

Breakfast.

We voted...did YOU?  I sure hope so.

While dinner was marinating (chicken in tandoori sauce), we went on our first family bike ride, where each pushed our own weight.  At least for the ride there...  Eddie did great on the 1.2 mile ride from our house to Slide Hill Park.  Dave led the way with Eddie behind him and I stayed close enough to Eddie to remind him (constantly) to stay away from the white line that separates the bike and car lanes and to watch where he was going.  He doesn't know his "right" and "left" sides very well yet so I was reminding him to stay right behind Daddy the whole time.  Sheesh.  When he got too close to the while line, I'd scoot over into the car lane a little (while signaling) to act as a barrier/warning to any nearby cars.  All the motorists were very considerate and slowed waaaaaaaaaaaaay down for us in those cases.   Gotta love Davis for that!

Biking Bowers

At the park we mostly biked between the giant concrete slide and the play structures, which are on opposite ends of the park.

Going down the biiiiiiiiiiiiiig slide.

"Ride the dolphins, Mama!"

Eddie was most displeased (read: tantrum) when I made him ride back home in the bike trailer.  He didn't understand that the setting sun would make it VERY hard for him (and cars) to see.  Despite the whining and crying the WHOLE 12 minutes home, we did survive our very first family ride.  Woo!

That night I baked the tandoori chicken while I whipped up a batch of an Indian vermecelli dish I found on Pinterest.  I've made it before and it is soooooo good and such a nice alternative to our regular curries with rice and naan.  Eddie liked both dishes so much he had seconds of each. 

Vermicelli upma made with fresh bay leaves and pecans instead of curry leaves and peanuts.

While cooking we also carved our pumpkins.  Not surprising at all, Eddie was most interested in using the knives ("saws") instead of the actual Jack-o-Lantern end products.  In fact, he insisted on keeping a knife plunged into the side of his pumpkin.  Every day he goes out onto the porch and "saws" some more.  That poor pumpkin...

Eddie drew the face on his pumpkin all by himself (plus the "practice" one on the newspaper).  Dave made the rough cuts for him and Eddie did the rest.

I feel sorry for Eddie's pumpkin...

Eddie told EVERYONE who came over before Halloween that Daddy's pumpkin has teeth, Mama's doesn't, and his has no mouth.  

Eddie on Two Wheels

We gave Eddie a green Kazam balance bike for his second birthday.  My hope was for him to learn to balance before learning how to use pedals so we could avoid training wheels all together.  It almost worked--in fact, I gave him the bike a few weeks before his birthday when he figured out how to pedal on the trike at daycare.  It didn't take him long to favor the balance bike at home because he could go around and around in circles on the court with the older neighbor kids who were on regular bikes of their own.

March 2012:


In the spring of this year, though, he went back to favoring our trike.  Our trike, literally: it was my and Edward's trike when we were kids and it was probably from a generation before that, too, since my dad pulled it out of a free trash pickup heap in our neighborhood when I was a baby.  It was old and tired then, so my dad repainted it.  We intended to give it a third paint job before Eddie got a hold of it, but he was faster than we were!  So all we had time for was replacing the rear wheels.

Just over the last couple of months he got interested in the balance bike again.  This time he figured out how to put both feet up on the footrest and cruise around.  You'll see on the Kazam website that the footrest is there specifically so the child's center of gravity will be the same as on a standard bike, letting them learn how to properly balance.  Neat!

Our neighbors saw Eddie doing so well on the balance bike that they pulled out their old pedal bike for him to try.  He was sooooooooooo excited to try using the pedal bike, sans training wheels.  It only took a couple of days before he figured it out and actually pedaled, rather than using it like a balance bike.

Whenever we go to Gualala for the weekend, I always bring a trike or bike of some sort.  This time I only brought the pedal bike, knowing that he'd figure it out if he really wanted to.  And boy howdy, did he!

October 20, 2012:


October 21, 2012:


October 22, 2012:


And now he spends every waking moment at home on the bike with the neighbors.  They have a few traffic cones we set in the court to alert bikers and motorists of the kids and it seems to work well.  Eddie's come inside with owies on his face (crashing into Callen's handlebars), knees and hands (falling down), and toes (not using the pedal brakes while shoeless).  But no broken bones, yet!  And yesterday he figured out how to go REALLY fast and then go up/down the bump on the corner of the driveway.  He calls it his "dirt bike."  I'm pretty sure this is a bad sign of things to come...

Today we took him on his first "real" bike ride, on the street.  We biked from Chestnut Park to Slide Hill Park, which is about 1.2 miles.  He did a pretty good job for his first try.  Given that he doesn't know his right and left perfectly, it was basically him following Dave and me constantly reminding him to stay away from the while line at the edge of the bike lane.  Biking home, however, he had to be in the trailer since we were heading into the sun and I knew it'd be too hard for him to see, not to mention that the cars would have trouble seeing such a small person.  Perhaps he needs a flag on his bike since he's so small?