Archive for July, 2011

That New Car Smell

Monday, July 11th, 2011

So after almost 9 years driving our little 2001 Chevy Metro, we have upgraded to a new car. It only took 5 months of discussion, which is GREAT for us. Took us twice that long to pick a new sofa for the house. Before we left for our trip to Hawaii we had our eyes on a Ford Explorer or Honda CRV, but after driving 3 different Dodge Calibers on the islands, we started to rethink our plan.

We first started looking in Portland, but ended up in Vancouver. We drove to our local our Dodge dealer (well local as in Gresham), but they didn’t want to work with us over the phone and via E-mail and we got that slick car salesman vibe from the dealership. So we contacted Dick Hannah Dodge in Vancouver Washington. They were able to work with us and answer all our questions over the phone and via E-Mail.

Our one big demand was it had to fit our budget and it HAD to come with as many the bells and whistles we could afford. After driving our no frills Metro for all these years, we needed gadgets. Anthony wanted the uber hard to find blueberry/black color, Joshua wanted iPhone attachments.

After a bit of searching the dealership found a Uptown version of the 2011 Caliber in Idaho for us, it has power everything, Navigation, Iphone compatibility, steering wheel controls, cruise control and more! Once we signed some “fun” paperwork and had an agreed on price, it only took 4 days before we had the car in hand.

Our car salesman was and is a pretty incredible young man. A Iraqi veteran, we had a very frank conversation with him about our respect for his service and how he feels about the current and that past POTUS. No icky car salesman vibe from this guy. (If anyone needs a Dodge we have his card!)

Jayme loved the new car, he told Anthony that we should throw the old car away. He kinda got mad that we told him we would be keeping the old one as our second car. He made sure that his pink car seat was only kept in the Dodge. Clearly he had made his mind up, until he found out that the car has remote auto start. He thinks the car is broken because it keeps starting everytime he gets in the car 🙂

The biggest issue now is who gets to drive it to work each day… So far Anthony is winning, but Joshua is known to be super sneaky. The battle lines started at the dealership when Anthony moved the car seat over behind Joshua’s back and ran out the door with Jayme, only to castle in the new car with a cheezy grin on his face.

We feel we did really well getting the car on our terms, still we only plan to keep it for 3 years as we know we will need to upgrade to a bigger soccer-dad car later as Jayme grows, but for now we are pretty happy and we have new gadgets!

 

 

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Independence Day 2011

Monday, July 11th, 2011

Our first 4th of July together as a family was a BLAST!

The night before the big day, Jayme and Anthony headed into the kitchen and mixed up 2 batches of ice cream base. Jayme loves to cook and loves to be apart of cooking for the family. Once the ice cream base was in the fridge chilling Joshua took Jayme out to the fireworks store and picked up a little over $50.00 in fireworks. For our holiday weekend, Joshua was our pyrotechnics master and Anthony was cook master.

When the big day came we started cooking our 4th of July feast we had homemade hamburgers (which Jayme helped with), we also had a big batch of hot sweet buttered corn on the cob. YUMMY!

The hardest part of the day was Jayme having to wait. His normal bedtime starts at 7:00pm, but we all decided that he should and would stay up late to see the fireworks at night. We tried unsuccessfully to get him to take a nap. He agreed to the nap and headed to his room, pulled the covers over his head…. and watched a movie on his iPod. This did not go over very well with the Dad’s. We had a hard time not taking away fireworks from him and us.

When the sun was setting we started the fireworks setup. We found a extra floor tile in the garage and wrapped it in tin foil, this served our as flat base for our fireworks. Sam and Anthony gathered up the deck chairs and moved them out to the driveway. Joshua got a bucket of water and ran the hose out to the curb and attached our hand held garden sprayer. Anthony & Joshua then sprayed down all the plants and the roadway that was downwind of our launch area. Yes, we were the over protective parents…

We started out with sparklers, the sales lady told Joshua that they were the old fashion type, the type we “had as kids”. So we were expecting metal rods of hot white Magnesium death, what we got was paper and wood sticks that kinda fizzed… a bit for 10 secs. A big let down for the grown ups, but UBER cool for Jayme and the neighbor kids.

Guess we should explain that last statement, as we started with our sparklers, two kids from down the road came over and started to watch us. First from across the street, then from our driveway. Jayme offered them a sparkler and then they asked us if they could have a sparkler and we made them first go get permission from their parents. They came running back within minutes with the ok, so they joined our family celebration. They quickly took Anthony and Jayme’s seat an Jayme crawled into Uncle Sam’s lap. It wasn’t until about 30 minutes into the show that their dad came over to meet us and see if his kids were safe. (see how fast it took for us to become judgmental parents LOL)

For $50.00 worth of fireworks, we sure had a long show. Joshua lined up the fireworks (small to large) and we set them off  one at a time. Between acts we would hand out the wimpy sparklers to the kids who had a blast with them.

After the last firework was launched and we cleaned up our mess, we said goodbye to our two new friends and headed inside to eat our homemade ice cream. It must have been good as Jayme got in trouble for licking the bowl clean.

 

 

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3 Month Update

Monday, July 11th, 2011

So it has now been a little over 3 months since Jayme moved in. WOW, what an amazing and busy time it has been.The 3 month mark brings some new security for each of us as we get use to each other and some new transition challenges.

First our current adoption clinician from Boy’s and Girls Aid, who was our replacement Clinician, is leaving. She is going back to school to become a therapist. This was a HUGE shock to us. She will be missed terribly! The silver lining in this storm cloud is our original adoption clinician was being reassigned back to us to see us through to the end (and we love HER!), so this is a real super bittersweet moment for us.

Jayme is still in year round half day school. At this school, his therapist who has worked with him for over 4 years is leaving. This transition was expected but in a different way, as we hope to have Jayme enrolled in mainstream school this fall. But she will be leaving before that transition. This is going to be harder on Jayme then on us, but it’s still a bit of a blow to our new family.

Additionally, the mental health provider from Washington county, who has been on Jayme’s team for years is now leaving as as our case has been transferred to Clackamas county. So out of the original team only a few remain, it made for a kinda emotional team meeting at our July meeting last week. Of course the long term goal is for everyone to fade away and for only the family to be left, but it’s still hard.

Our second big news is Anthony has gone part time at work, so he can be home with Jayme in the afternoons. This means our income is taking a bit of a hit, but so far it has worked out great. Anthony’s boss was very accommodating. Now we have a lot less daycare stress and more Dad time with Jayme. This had allowed Anthony to spend an hour a day with Jayme working on his reading, writing and arithmetic skills.

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USS Arizona and Home (Day 12)

Monday, July 11th, 2011

We woke early on our last morning aboard. Having put our bags out in the hallway the night before, we showered and dressed in the clothes we had kept out the night before.

We ate our last breakfast at the Aloha Buffet then headed back to our room gathered our carry on bags and headed to the ships theater. We had early bird tickets for the Arizona/Pearl harbor. After arriving we met our group and were exited off the ship and down to our waiting bags, then onto a waiting coach.

The driver/tour guide had pre purchased tickets for the Arizona so all we had to do was kill sometime. So the driver took us on a short Honolulu tour. We visited the Iolani Palace, Aliʻiolani Hale and the King Kamehameha Statue. We had a chance to jump out of the coach and get up close and take some photos, but didn’t get to go into any of the venues.

Next we drove around the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Then our coach headed to battleship row/Pearl harbor. We didn’t know how Jayme would handle visiting the USS Arizona memorial. We knew that years from now when he is studying WWII we would be able to draw from his visit. We did a little prep with him, told him were we where going was like a church and we had to be quiet and respectful.

Once we arrived we had about 20 mins before our tour time started. We walked slowly over to theater and did a stop at the restroom and gift shop. At 9:45am we walked into the theater and watched a 20 min movie about the Pearl Harbor attack. Jayme was pretty quiet for most of the movie. He had a few questions about why things were happening and if this movie was real. Because he is 6 he really liked the explosions…

Once the movie was over we exited the theater and boarded the navy boat which took us out to the memorial. Jayme liked the boat ride and had lots of questions about how the boat worked. It took only a few minutes to reach the memorial. Once we docked we had 15 mins to view the site. Jayme did really good and was very respectful and quiet. We both were very proud of him.

When our 15 mins were up we re-boarded our boat back to the shore. We had a lot of time before our coach took us to the airport so we had time to explore the museums a bit. This proved to be a bit too much for Jayme as there was lots of buttons to push. He must push all buttons at all times or somehow the world will come to an end. So we had to have a little time out to calm our little body.

Back on the bus and right to the airport. Once at the airport, check in was fairly easy. While Anthony checked in Jayme, Joshua rebalanced the weights on our bags, getting us both at 49.99 pounds each (meaning no extra fee). The biggest surprise of the trip happened as we headed into the security check point, Jayme announced in a slightly panicked tone that one of his teeth is falling out.

We had a 2 hour wait for our plane, but that gave us time to buy some food for the long flight home and to pick up some lunch at Burger King. A favorite item was the bottle of Hawaiian water ( Yes folks, for $5 measly dollars you too can have a bottle of Hawaiian Water), which is still in our fridge.The flight home was very easy. Jayme even slept for a bit. We landed on time and Sammet us at the baggage carousel at 11:30 PST.

This was an amazing trip for our new family. The trip was to be all about Joshua and his birthday, but it really turned into an amazing bonding trip for our new family.

If you would like to see some of the 4000 photos from our trip, shoot us an email and will add you to our new family shutterfly account.


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Nawiliwili (Day 11)

Monday, July 11th, 2011

Friday Morning, our last real day of our cruise and no rental car. After having a nice breakfast we packed out beach bag with Jayme’s $1.00 target sand shovel set, grabbed our beach towels and walked from the ship to the Kalapaki beach in front of the Kauai Marriott. As we walked we noticed the clouds rolling in from the sea into the bay.

We walked through a little shopping area and then down onto the beach. Jayme began digging to china and the Dad’s laid back and started tracking the storm rolling in above us. We were only on the sand for about 15 mins when the first drops started. It was a just a light sea mist to start, none of the other sun bathers seemed to care. But we could tell it was about to open up, must be a Portlander thing.

Dragging Jayme away from his “sandbox” was heart breaking, but it only took a few hard drops to motivate him. We ran some shelter, one of the resorts empty  massage tents. From there, we worked our way back along the boardwalk. But then the heavens opened up. I would call it rain, if rain drops were equal to gallon drops. It took all of 1 second for each of us to be soaked. We dived into a little tourist t-shirt shop and did a little shopping as Noah’s flood fell on Kauai.

We had hoped the rain would let up  a bit, but after 15 mins we decided to make a dash for the larger shopping mall across the street. From there we could get the free shuttle back to the ship. We used our beach towels as make shift umbrellas and worked our way from door way to door way.

Once at the mall we did a little shopping and had a snack. Then we boarded the free bus/trolley back to the ship for lunch.. Of course, though we had been waiting there the longest, we were of course pushed back by other tourists.. Wet cold seats for the three of us..

The rest of the day was dry but much cooler then the past 10 days had been, but it didn’t ruin our day. We spent the rest of the day relaxing in our room and playing onboard. Jayme did swam in the onboard pool and came out like a little ice cube, but he was still all smiles. Today also was his longest visit to the kids club.

The ship pulled out a little after 1:00pm and did a slow drive by the Na’pali coast. It was beautiful, we took WAY too many photos. As the coastline sailed by we packed up the room.

We had a last family dinner together in the skyline and then got Jayme into his pajamas for the kid’s club pajama last night party. We we came back to pick him up he was donned in a huge white kids club t-shirt all covered in autographs from the club councilors and kids, it was too precious.

 

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Kauai (Day 10)

Monday, July 11th, 2011

We woke as the ship slowly pulled into the Nawiliwili port on our last island Kauai. Kauai is called the garden island, and it is very clear why. Everything is so green. With no rush we we had breakfast topside at the on desk buffet. We then exited the ship and jumped on our last Thrifty shuttle. The airport was a bit further aways, but no issues this time with our rental. We very quickly where jumping into our third Dodge Caliber rental and heading down the road towards a pretty amazing day for Jayme.

First stop was at the Kauai Plantation. We drove in and both Joshua and Anthony played distract the Jayme, we wanted this to be a big surprise (turns out we got the bigger one). So as we drove into the plantaion we told Jayme to look right or left, anything for him not to see the railroad tracks or the train.

The plan was to explore the grounds a bit and take the 10:30 am train, well Anthony blew it. The train departed at 10:00am not 10:30am, so we had to run to get our tickets and by the time we got there all of the good seats in the 2nd open train car were taken. All that was left was seats in the hot enclosed train car. So we decided to make the best of it and sit as close as we could to the train engine, because Jayme is train insane. So boarded and walked all the way up and took the first row seats so Jayme could watch the train driver.

A few moments before the train ride began the tour guide,whose seat was next to ours, boarded the train and looked at Jayme and asked him how old he was. The then asked Jayme if he would like to drive the train today. No need to comment on what Jayme’s response was. Once he had our ok, our son was whisked off the train car and onto the train engine. For 45 mins Jayme rode up front with the train engineer. At one point, the engineer (Bruce) stepped outside of the cab and leaned in the window and put Jayme in the drivers seat and taught him how to run the train. He then took Jayme’s seat and let Jayme drive the train alone.  This was the singular highlight for Jayme for the WHOLE TRIP. Of course the best part for Anthony was Joshua asking him in amazement “How did you arrange this?”

Once the train trip was over and the “Can I drive the train again?” mantra was taken care of, we explored the Plantation. Stopping by the Rum house and buying a few bottles.

Our next destination was Waimea canyon, the Grand canyon of Hawaii. But along the way we had to visit a friend of our, experiment 626. When the Disney artists came to Kauai to do their research they spent a lot of time in Hanapepe. Much of the town an the roads  and hills around Hanapepe ended up being truthfully redrawn into te home town of Lilo and Stitch in the movie Lilo and Stitch. It was pretty cool to see the town and so inspired the artists, in fact while driving we swear we say the road to Nani and Lilo’s house.

Once had our fill of Disney Magic, we headed out for the canyon.

Waimea Canyon: also known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, is a large canyon, approximately ten miles (16 km) long and up to 3,000 feet (900 m) deep, located on the western side of Kauaʻi in the Hawaiian Islands. Waimea is Hawaiian for “reddish water,” a reference to the erosion of the canyon’s red soil. The canyon was formed by a deep incision of the Waimea River arising from the extreme rainfall on the island’s central peak,Mount Waiʻaleʻale, among the wettest places on earth. (source wikipedia)

Simply put, it was amazing. We drove along the canyons edge, stopping for pictures and eventually ended up in Kokee state park. There was a nice little resturant that served us a great lunch and a huge green lawn for Jayme to run around and explore. Jayme also had the chance to feed a large flock of wild chicken’s.

We took our time driving back and even stopped at a local coffee plantation. There was a nice little self guided tour on the plantation and it was another chance for Joshua to buy more coffee. We drove back to the airport and dropped off our last rental car with no issues. We had planned to mail a big box of stuff back home, but could not find an open airport. This worried us a bit as we had at least 40 pounds of Rum, T-shirts, sea shells, ect. In the end we decided the overwieght costs for Hawaian airline would be cheaper then trying to Fed EX our stuff.

One back on the ship, we found out that NCL didn’t want us to bring 2 bottles of run on board…. But once we got them checked there was no issue. We headed back to our room for a rest and Jayme headed off to kids club. We loved Kid’s club, perhaps a bit more then Jayme did. For it let the Dad’s to have a nice dinner for 2 alone!

 

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