First Day, First Grade; First Day, Third Grade

August 31, 2011: Maggie started the first grade with silver shoes and a colorful new outfit. (And that's our doorbell that looks like a bun coming out of the side of her head.  Sorry.)

She actually did have a fancy new hairdo--two braids crossing and then joining into one pony tail.  Major stuff for the first grade, here, folks.

Also on August 31, 2011: Adah began the third grade wearing spiffy white tennis shoes, new blue jeans, and a cute plaid tunic.

Her hairdo was a little less fancy, but if Maggie was getting a picture of the back of her head, Adah had to have one, too.

McGruff the Crime Dog and some White Salmon Police Officers were out front greeting the kids.  Does anyone else remember "McGruff Houses"?  We were one.  We had a sign in our front window that meant it was a safe place for kids to come if they needed help or were in danger.  It was a picture of McGruff inside a yellow house, as I recall.

 

Adah was eager for the first view of her classroom.  We had visited the school the day before because some of the teachers had their rooms open for a few hours to help alleviate actual first-day jitters, but Adah's teacher wasn't there.

Her teacher this year is Ms. Mosnot.  Adah buttered her up right from the get go by giving her a gift.  This was all Adah's idea.  At the end of the summer Adah saw a beaded necklace with a little schoolhouse and apple  (or similar teacher-y stuff) on it at the local thrift store and wanted to buy it for her teacher.  I wasn't sure how it would go over, but Ms. Mosnot graciously put it on and wore it the whole first day.  Ms. Mosnot is a knitter, which is something Adah is pursuing right now, so that's a fun thing for them to share.  Adah loves having her own desk in third grade--a first.

 

Maggie has TWO homeroom teachers this year.  Mrs. Petrick is on the left and Mrs. Dennis is on the right.  Mrs. Petrick is there in the morning, eats lunch with the kids and takes them out to recess, and then Mrs. Dennis brings them in from lunch recess and is there for the afternoon.  Since Maggie spends much of the morning in her reading class with Mrs. Hope and then in gym, music, enrichment class, or the library, she doesn't see Mrs. Petrick a whole lot.  I still accidentally call Mrs. Dennis "Mrs. Denny" since that was Maggie's kindergarten teacher.  Fortunately Maggie is not getting confused with all these different teachers.

Maggie is loving first grade.

Day of Service

I've been trying to decide how to write up a post on the church Day of Service in White Salmon in August.  I'm the Assistant Director of Public Affairs in my region of congregations and the Public Affairs Committee was in charge of planning our Day of Service this year.  My responsibility on the committee is with the media, so I submitted a write-up of the event which was printed in the White Salmon newspaper a few days following the service project.  The whole event took months to plan--I was not the project manager, though, since the Day of Service was the week after girls camp, for which I was Assistant Director (another story)--but I was heavily involved at the inception and the execution.  It was a proud day for our school and our church.  We did some amazing work and made some good friends in the community.

Read below for a better explanation of the entire thing.  I've included some before-and-after photos throughout, although I don't think they do justice to the great makeover on the exterior of the school.  It just looks so much better than it has in years. (Oh, and I've eliminated the name of the local schools and also changed all the people's names to just be initials, for privacy's sake.  They knew they'd be in the paper, but not on my blog.)

"One hundred fifty volunteers gave XXXXX Elementary a Back-to-School Facelift on Day of Service"

Above, 2 views from opposite ends of the front of the school, show before and during of the project.

On Saturday, August 20 approximately 150 volunteers converged on the elementary school to give it a massive facelift before the start of the new school year. Organized by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in partnership with the school PTO and principal V.P., the event was part of the Church’s worldwide Day of Service. Latter-day Saint volunteers from congregations in White Salmon, Hood River, and Stevenson worked alongside Whitson parents, staff members, students, and their families as well as high school students and other community members who just came to serve.

As volunteers arrived at the school early Saturday morning, they were put to work sanding the metal railings under windows; painting followed on those rails and play structures on the south playground. Inside, painters worked to give new colors to seven classrooms, the staff room, and several offices. Another crew worked to weed and clean up gardens and landscaping around the school building. Benches pre-built by volunteers were installed on the north playground. The sandbox was sifted of debris and a new cover installed to protect it when not in use. Outdoor picnic tables were stained and stenciled with colorful images. Markers for a measured walking path were embedded in the grass and stenciled with distances. A section of the parking lot was cleared of weeds and terraced with timbers and new gravel. Most visibly, the formerly pink panels above classroom windows were painted a dark red to match the building’s trim.

The "formerly pink panels" had been faded and in need of repainting for more than a decade.

Volunteer Y.L., a third-grader at the school, was “happy” to see so many people coming to help at her school. “I painted the railings around the vegetable gardens.” She thinks that “the other kids will be excited about the different colors on the playground.” D.G., a new fifth-grader at the middle school, said, "It felt good to know that that many people care about our school all around the community and other communities that are around us."

Doesn't that dark red look so much better? (This is on the back of the school.)

T.H. of Hood River, one of the project coordinators from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said "It was an amazingly rewarding day! To see people come from Stevenson, Hood River, and White Salmon from various churches, organizations and communities for one combined day of service for the school was very touching. Our oldest participant was 90 and the youngest was 5. The school looks beautiful, and I was thrilled to be a part of it and work side by side with so many people willing to give so much!" T.H. and J.W., also of Hood River, headed the project coordination and devoted many hours over several months to making sure the equipment, materials, and volunteers were ready and in place Saturday morning. Owing to successful fundraising over the last few years, particularly the annual Silent Auction, the PTO pledged $10,000 for supplies.

A.M.'s reason for participating was “twofold.” As an elementary school parent and member of the LDS congregation in White Salmon, A.M. said, “I wanted an opportunity to give back to my school. It’s not just my children’s school, it was my elementary school. It was a meaningful way to be able to give back to our school as a family, to have our children help us and work together. Working side-by-side with our children is a great way to grow as a family.”

September 2011 marks the second year that thousands of Latter-day Saint volunteers in Washington, Oregon, Alaska, British Columbia and northern Idaho will participate in such a Day of Service. The project at the school was completed in August so the school could be ready to greet students on the first day of classes on August 31.

Latter-day Saints in the Columbia Gorge have been holding their own area-wide service projects for three years now. In 2009 they moved furniture and removed old carpeting at Chenowith Elementary School in The Dalles in preparation for new flooring to be installed and helped install the Frisbee golf course at Sorosis Park. In 2010 they provided security and parking assistance at WAAAM’s annual fly-in event in Hood River. For 2011’s Day of Service, T.K., regional Church president, wanted to select a project in Washington. Jillaire McMillan, a PTO mother and Latter-day Saint helped bring the two groups together.

T.K. was pleased with the success of Saturday’s project. “When my family and I arrived at the elementary school, we were surprised at the size and scope of the work that needed to be done. People were painting, weeding, staining, digging, planting, sanding, and cleaning. It was great to see so many people involved. The enthusiasm for this project was so high even though there was much to be done. We are grateful that the White Salmon school district, PTO, local churches, volunteers and other organizations allowed us to be a part of a great day! We were happy to be involved and look forward to a future when we will have the opportunity to serve again.”

  

Old drab metal playground equipment

 

New bright and happy yellow swing set and red monkey bars

Adah and Maggie helped Damon remove turf to lay pavers for the measured walking path.  They used those wire brushes to clean the pavers before stenciling the distances on them.

Our stake (regional group of congregations) had a second Day of Service on October 22.  (The membership was geographically divided between the two projects.)  It was originally scheduled for September 17 but had to be postponed in the wake of a nearby wildfire.  This second project was in the city of Goldendale, about an hour northeast of White Salmon, and involved another 150+ volunteers.  This time they were building walking, hiking, and biking trails on a hill that houses an observatory.  This project was a big partnership between the Church, the city, the Kiwanis, and some groups that promote exercise and healthy living.  It was another great success.  However, because it was Adah's birthday that day, I got excused from attendance and don't have photos to show.  I was less involved with that project, although I also submitted press releases for it.  I won't make you-all read that one.  The elementary school project was, obviously, more significant to our family and to me, so I wanted to share that one.  It continues to be noticed and appreciated in our community.  It's a great example of different groups working together to effect some great change that they couldn't have done alone and I was proud to be a part of it.

Looking Back, Spinning 'Round

Because Holly is usually wearing hand-me-downs, I am often reminded of her sisters when they were her age.  I particularly remember certain photographs and always love to compare them, whether they happen serendipitously as in here, or are created by me, as happened one Sunday afternoon (below).

Holly was wearing a cute little dress that Adah and Maggie both wore.  It's navy blue with little white and red hearts on it.  I've always loved this dress.  I'm not usually into hearts, but this dress is just adorable.  I think I like the colors.  I love red, and so much of what you find for little girls, especially in dresses, is pink, that I just love finding anything feminine with red.

So, as we were outside in the front yard after church one Sunday this August, I was reminded of this photo taken in our front yard in Chandler, Arizona.  Adah was just about 16 months old.  (And it was February, just sayin'.)  

So, on this August 2011 Sunday, with Holly wearing the same dress and being about the same size (she was just 14 1/2 months old--she's tall), I told Damon that he had to take a picture of me spinning Holly.



 

 

This was more for me and my sense of nostalgia than anybody, but Holly, of course, loved the spinning.

Now, just for a bit of comparison, a face shot of Adah on February 15, 2004:

And Holly, August 7, 2011:

Cool Treats, Summer Sweets

Isn't summertime great?  I love seeing all my kiddos out in the green, shady yard playing together and enjoying popsicles . . .

. . . and sharing . . .

. . . and smiling and just generally being cute.

In early August I went to girls camp as assistant camp director over about 60 teenage girls.  While I was gone for a week, Damon's parents came to take care of the kids during the day so Damon could go to work.  (You can see Grandma & Grandpa in the mirror in the photo below.)  Apparently one evening before bed they cut watermelon for Maggie, Adah, and Gunnar, and they ate a ton.  The adults were all amazed at how much watermelon those kids could consume.

 

The next two photos are just gratuitous cuteness that I had to squeeze in somewhere.

 

 

Raspberries (and other edibles)

Earlier in my blog catch-up, I showed some photos of our garden, promising a post devoted to our raspberries.  This is it.

We had a virtual bumper crop of raspberries this year.  We got the starts when our neighbors thinned their plants about 3-4 years ago.  This was by far our largest harvest.  I LOVE raspberries, so I was in heaven.

We picked bowls and bowls of raspberries.  We ate them by the handful, practically. We could just step outside and eat as many as we wanted at any time.  For the first time since we got the plants there were more than we could consume fresh.  I've got gallons of frozen raspberries in my freezer.  I made at least 3 batches of raspberry freezer jam (and that was after 2 batches of strawberry freezer jam with just one afternoon of culling my neighbor's strawberry patch).  I haven't purchased jam in a store for more than three years. I love living in berry country.

 

In other berry news: the blueberries were not quite ready and Maggie knew it.  I think she restrained herself from plucking that day.

 

Two and a half weeks later, the berries were fair game for Holly (and the rest of us).  Not that we could really stop her from picking green berries of any variety.  Actually, she learned how to identify ripe raspberries.  I think she loves them as much as I do.

And, for good measure, here's Gunnar in front of our corn.  We got a few decently edible cobs.  I think we grow corn for looks more than for any actual anticipation of a good harvest.  I discourage it--let's try a new crop!--because we can get cheap corn grown at a farm just a couple miles away, but Damon loves to grow it.

 

I love having a garden. : )

Lucky 7

Before summer vacation had even begun, we decided that we wanted to give our backyard a little makeover during the summer.  We got rid of our old metal swing set for a new-to-us larger one (seen in the right background below), and Damon began work on "the play structure."  A new platform was built atop existing monkey bars and we ordered a cargo net for climbing up to it.  Before that arrived, the neighbors offered us a climbing wall and that was temporarily installed and the kids could easily scamper up and down in their play.

When we returned from our family vacation, a large package was waiting for us.  Inside was the cargo net, custom made to our specifications, and Damon eagerly hung it up at the first opportunity.  While it was not yet secured at the bottom, the kids could still climb up and down, although not quite as easily as they could with the climbing wall, or as expected once the bottom would be secured to the ground.  That didn't stop them from playing on it.

Just before 5:00 on Monday July 25, all the kids were outside playing and I took Holly inside to change her diaper.  When I realized her feet were dirty from wearing sandals in the bark chips, I took her to the sink to wash her feet.  Just then I heard a loud yell and crying and the girls screaming, "Mommy!! He's bleeding! He's bleeding!"  I hurriedly dried Holly, pulled a giant length of paper towels from the roll, and went running out to the patio.  Gunnar and the girls had already traveled the length of the house from the play structure to the patio to meet me.  Gunnar was crying and was, indeed, bleeding.

I pressed my wad of paper towels to his head, but then pulled it away to get a better look.  I could tell that his injury wasn't severe, but that he would definitely need stitches.  (Aside: Gunnar has had a few other bloody splits--his eye, his lip--that have certainly given us pause to wonder if the ER was necessary, but this time I knew he needed medical attention.)

Apparently, Gunnar had been coming down the cargo net and lost his grip.  He fell back and hit his head on the corner of the discarded climbing wall which had more-or-less been cast aside when the cargo net was initially installed.  It really should have been pulled away to lean against the fence somewhere, but in everyone's excitement and haste over the cargo net, it hadn't been properly stored.  If Gunnar had landed on bark chips, he probably would have been a bit hurt and stunned, but no more.  As it was, you can now see the bloody evidence of his accident on the bottom rung of the climbing wall.

Back to the action:

Luckily (if you can call it that) our neighbor across the street (Lisa) was outside when she heard the screaming and came running around to the back of the house.  Even though Holly is a mama's girl and Gunnar was quite clingy, it was still a great help to have another adult in the house to help handle everything.  She poured Gunnar a cup of milk and helped the girls with Holly.  I had Adah call Damon at work to tell him, that Gunnar was hurt and going to be okay, but would need stitches, and I needed Damon to come home to be with the other kids.  I called the doctor's office and, thanks to their new extended walk-in hours, found out I could take him there and save the ER fees.  Lisa needed to be somewhere, so my girls ran to the other neighbor's house to see if their teenage daughter could stay at the house until Damon made it home.  It was fairly hectic, but I got Gunnar into the car and to the doctor's office probably within 10 minutes of his fall.

Gunnar had calmed down to just a whimper by the time we reached the clinic and the bleeding had pretty much stopped.  He still continued to hold a (fresher) wad of paper towels to his head, albeit in the wrong spot, almost the whole time we were in the waiting room.  I think it was a comfort to him.  We ended up waiting for probably 45 minutes.  A dog bite was ahead of us.

After a bit of trauma with the first attempts to give him the anesthetic lidocaine shots in his scalp on both sides of the laceration, he finally sat bravely on my lap taking deep breaths and playing with my watch while they got the shots in.  That was the hardest part of the whole thing for me: watching him cringe and cry in pain as they tried to inject him.  They nearly had to send us to the ER so Gunnar could be sedated.  Fortunately, he made it through the shots.  That's the hard part.  Then they got to work on the stitches, seven in all.  He fell asleep on the fifth one and stayed out through check-out and buckling him in and out of the car.  He was spent, poor guy.

 

The very next day he was feeling fine and willing to return to the scene of the accident.  (That's his finger pointing to the blood in the photo above.)

He also showed me where he'd dripped blood on our little trampoline.

 

The wound was healing nicely when we got a pretty good scare the following Saturday night.  Damon took the kids to a park to play and one of the local fire trucks was there spraying water for the kids to play in.  Gunnar was running (I guess) across a wet cement basketball court when he slipped, hitting his head directly on his stitches! He got a goose egg and the wound began bleeding again.  I don't think Damon even told me when they got home; I just noticed blood on his shirt.  I was pretty worried.  Fortunately a nurse friend looked at it the next day at church and it was okay.

On Monday night, one week after the first accident, Damon removed the stitches with some fine scissors and tweezers and the ordeal was finally behind us. 

With all the glass that kid has broken in his short time on earth, it's pretty amazing that was our first experience with stitches.  Somehow I just can't convince myself that it will be our last.

Post Script:

A fun little detail that I did not mention: The Friday afternoon before Gunnar's accident, Adah saw the same physician's assistant for a different play-structure-related head injury!  On Thursday afternoon Gunnar had dropped a small metal bar (left over from our metal swing set) from the platform after saying, "Catch!"  Adah "caught" it with her head.  She screamed. I came running.  There was no blood, but a good bump.  The next morning she complained of a headache, which is actually not too uncommon, and I eventually sent her back to bed.  At breakfast time (before the nap), she had been confused when requesting soup, and asked for some soap instead.  I thought she was just tired and hungry and being grouchy, and I didn't think a lot about it until I mentioned it to a friend who suggested it was a concussion!  The head bump the day before had seemed so minor that I hadn't even connected it to her headache at first.  Well, with a phone call to that aforementioned nurse friend, she assured me that such an accident could cause a concussion and recommended that I take her to the doctor.  Our doc wasn't in the office that day, so we saw a PA who had Adah draw some pictures (to see if her brain would communicate to her hand) and do some other basic neurological physical tests (think DUI walking-the-line type tests).  She was cleared from any real concern, but advised to take it easy and avoid running for a day or two.

When I told my Dad about our exciting 4 days, he said, "Who's idea was this play structure?!" and "You better keep Maggie off that thing."  Damon pointed out that it wasn't really a play structure issue.  It was all debris-related.  Believe me, there was a thorough cleaning up of all construction paraphernalia after that and since.

I'm happy to report that we've been accident-free in the backyard since July. Knock on wood.

Family Summer Vacation, Part 5 (final): River & Ocean

While the six of us went to church in Crescent City on Sunday, Jotham, Dana, Cassie, Joanna, & Justin went on a jetboat tour of the Klamath River while Damon's dad, Craig stayed home with Braden (too little).  They raved so much about the trip that we decided to go on Tuesday.  (Jotham and Dana had to head back to work and left Tuesday morning, and the rest of us stayed until Wednesday.)  Craig came with us on the tour while Joanna & Justin stayed home with Holly.

The tour was on a 36-passenger boat, although we probably only had about 20 people on our tour.  Adah was our main photographer.

The boat tour took us long the Klamath River . . .

 

. . . to its mouth at the Pacific Ocean.  We saw seals popping their heads out of the water here.  You can just barely see one at the bottom right corner of this photo.  Our guide told us that Great White Sharks sometimes come up the river here.  Damon's not so sure he would have kayaked by our rental house--which we passed on the tour, where we waved at Joanna, Justin, and Holly--if he had known that.

After viewing the ocean, we turned around and headed back up the river.  The boat captain and his partner had an amazing ability to spot wildlife on the shores and in the tree tops.  Here you see the first of two black bears we spotted on the tour.  We saw these across the river from the house, but this view was much closer.  He eyed us for awhile before going back into the forest.  The guides also spotted lots of birds, such as blue herons, bald eagles, osprey, ducks, and other kinds we don't even remember.

By far, the coolest wildlife we saw--and just about my favorite part of our whole vacation--was the mother gray whale and her baby!  They had swum several miles up the river a few weeks earlier and we had actually watched them from the shore our first full day in Klamath.  But on the jetboat tour we got an up close and personal view.

See the spout?  I took these photos since they were on my side of the boat.  There was no zooming.

Now you can see the mother behind us.  This was just moments before she swam right under our boat.  Seriously.  We lingered in this area of the river with engine basically idling while we gawked at the whales swimming around us and coming up for air occasionally, before moving on.  As we moved out under the Hwy 101 bridge, our guide told us that moments before he had looked behind him (his spot was on a sort of platform at the rear [stern] of the boat) and seen the the mother's tale--wider than our boat--just behind him.  That meant her body was going directly under it.  Whoa.

 

After whale watching, we moved on up the river at a fairly steady pace, stopping occasionally for wildlife spottings and stories about the local history.  Once we reached our turn-around point, which I think was about 45 miles upriver, the speed picked up considerably for the return trip.  We got to do some fun spins and rapid, splash-making stops, but mostly we just sped back to the dock.  We'd been enjoying warm sunny weather for much of the tour, but hit clouds as we went further up the river.  The ride back was super windy and chilly.  I had to keep adjusting my barrettes to keep my hair under my hood and out of my face.  We were grateful for the heavy blankets provided.  Overall, it was a pretty amazing tour.

That afternoon we caravanned with Damon's parents and brother on a scenic drive to an amazing coastal view.  It was a gorgeous day and an excellent way to end our vacation.  The next morning we headed for home.