The 'Dubyas' In My Life

We are having a fairly mundane weekend so far compared to this time last week. We were happy to have the Dovre Wudalis--affectionately referred to as the D-Dubyas (or D-Dubs, for short)--fly all the way out here from the Twin Cities to spend their four-day MEA break with us. My children were thrilled to have their cousins spending four whole nights in the same house and we were glad to have some familiar faces walk through the door.

We took advantage of the first non-rainy day (Thursday) and hit the Gorge/waterfall route again. This time, though, we packed our hiking supplies and did the full Wahkeena Falls Trail from start to finish. If you've been following my blog, you will recall that we attempted this hike once before shortly after we first moved to the area. Unprepared and unknowing, we only made it about the first third of the way and had to abandon our mission. This time, we brought our game faces.

If I seemingly went on and on about how many jaw-dropping photo ops there are on this trail the first time we tried it, I hadn't seen anything yet. Once you get toward the "summit" of your hike along the gorge wall, the environment turns from lush and ferny to fir trees towering above you and their scented needles blanketing the path in front of you. When you're not right next to the rushing rivers and waterfalls, you can hear strange bird calls high above you in the treetops and I was suddenly Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games (if you haven't read these books, start right after you finish reading my blog. Otherwise, sorry for the random literary reference).

The Crest of Multnomah Falls
(That's the parking lot 630-ish feet below)

All along the way, we exchanged inane pleasantries with the people we passed on the trail and we'd get some surprised looks and/or comments when they spotted all the kids we had along with us. On our descent to the other falls, Multnomah, we stopped at a fork in the trail and asked an older gentleman which way we should head to get to the top of Multnomah Falls. He directed us accordingly and then said, "Next time, try starting from Wahkeena. I hear it's a beautiful hike." He was floored to find out that the 4-yr-old boy standing in front of me and the rest of us had just come from there. We parted with high fives (my son and the guy, not all of us...cuz that would be awkward) and FINALLY got to peer down over all 620 feet of Multnomah Falls. Mission accomplished, Dubya style. The only thing missing was a fighter jet and a festooned banner.

So what do you do the day after you hiked for four hours straight? You go to the zoo, of course! We didn't last long that night after dinner.

To top off our tour marathon, we chose the rainiest day to go to the beach. What it lacked in leisurely strolls up and down the sand, it made up for in quality time in the car. We spent a short time on Cannon Beach--just enough to get soaked--and then drove down Hwy 101 to Tillamook, Oregon. Now, normally, I wouldn't have known Tillamook Air Museum existed, much less wanted to spend another 2 hours in the car to get there, but there's some family history in this small town, and I wanted to check it out. 

K-ship Blimps in Tillamook
Copyright Tillamook Air Museum

My mother's parents lived in Tillamook for a short period of time in the early 40s while my grandfather help build the two blimp hangars there. And, yes, they actually housed eight K-ship blimps in them until 1948 and had their own blimp Squadron Z-33. There is still one hangar left, the other destroyed in a huge fire in 1992, and it houses a collection of around 30 privately owned aircraft at any one time, including those from WWI and WWII. The wooden hangar itself is an impressive sight, and I'm proud to say my grandpa was a part of constructing one of the largest wooden structures in the world.

The kids had a good time crawling in and around the various cockpit displays that were there for the public to sit in. The big boys strolled around taking in the various planes, and we all got a chance to dry our pants out for the long ride home again.

I'll briefly mention the 'Balls of Fire' fritter challenge from Salvador Molly's in Portland. Those little suckers live up to their name. My brother-in-law ate all five of them and he lived to tell about it the next morning, even though he didn't have a very restful slumber that night. And I'll just leave it at that. Kids, don't try this at home.

We dropped the D-Dubyas at the airport Sunday afternoon and slept like the dead Sunday evening. I'm sure they did, too. We look forward to our next house guests and promise we won't submit you to the same crazy schedule, unless you ask for it. That includes the Balls of Fire.

~Paula

The Pilgrimage: Part I - Forks

Sorry it's been so long since I posted last. We are in the middle of a visitation wave. My sister-in-law's family flew out and stayed with us over MEA break, tomorrow a friend of mine from PLAY Group in Marshall happens to be in town and is visiting, and then next week, my husband's boss is coming to town and having supper with us. So...I'm preoccupied. I have a few posts I'm working on in order to share the various things that have been going on, but I want to make sure I start where I left off.

F.O.R.K.S.

Yes, that's right. I made it to Twilight Mecca. It was a lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ong day of driving there and back, but I made it (and I'm sure my husband and the kids were enjoying it just as much). The town itself isn't much to look at, but it was fun to drive around and see the setting for the books that I've enjoyed so much. I thought some of the movies had been shot in Forks and Port Angeles, but turns out that most of the filming of 'Twilight' was done in St. Helens, Oregon. And yes, I am already arranging a fieldtrip there this coming weekend. The others were filmed around Vancouver, B.C., and I'm not ready for another long car ride just yet.

The Movie Truck 

We stopped at an information center as we entered Forks, and the lady inside knows exactly why people come to Forks and stop in her shop. Or, maybe it was me giving my best brooding Twilight pose, but she handed us the Twilight Tour map of the town and directed us toward a few other specialty shops to accessorize our mission. The truck used in the movie was parked outside her building, so after an obsessive excessive amount of picture taking of this beat up old red truck, we headed into town and hit the highlights.

And by "highlights" I mean the houses and buildings that the Forks chamber of commerce has designated as the buildings Stefanie Meyer described in her books, not the ones from the movie. Underwhelming would be a good way to describe the Forks tour, but fun nonetheless.

"The Swan House"

Forks High School

"The Cullen House"
(aka Random Area Bed and Breakfast)

Has the town cashed in on the empire? Um, YES. The town has half a dozen shops dedicated to everything Twilight and Quileute. And why not? Instead of being the hometown of a celeb in rehab, they have a best selling author to thank for picking their town off a map on a dartboard to set her blood-sucking, bazillion dollar stories in. I need to write about werecoyotes on a small town farm in the midwest and cash in on this trend, too. Or weresquirrels. The possibilities are endless.

To top our trip off, we swung over to Port Angeles, and another hot spot in the book series: Bella Italia. The restaurant is really there, and we had the mushroom ravioli which was delish. We walked past the movie theater and the bookstores (in the books) afterwards. Port Angeles is actually quite a beautiful city and I'm hoping we can make it back there at some point to do some more exploring.

Look for Part II of my Twilight pilgrimage in the next week(s) to come. In the meantime, if you spot any weresquirrels, be sure to post details in the comment section so I can start writing my cash cow novel.

~Paula

Five Minute Friday: Catch

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here (The Gypsy Mama) and invite others to join in.
3. Most importantly: leave a comment for the person who linked up before you – encouraging them in their writing!

OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes on:

Catch


This time of year is full of things to catch. A scarlet leaf, a worn out football, a cool fall breeze, and my least favorite, a new virus. As with any new school year, a batch of ick is working its way through the local schools. Each morning, I stuff my children full of vitamins and supplements and send them out the door with a quick prayer to keep them in a sanitary bubble while they're away.

Of course, the flip side is that by keeping them secluded from the outside world, they also miss all the things that make being a kid so fun. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I don't remember my mother ever barging in on an intense scene in our superhero role play to squirt us with hand sanitizer. Nor do I remember ever having been dragged to the doctor for a flu shot.

Has the level of ick become uglier, are we products of media hype, or are we just more educated about the ick?

STOP

Here's hoping you're all healthy and happy and able to enjoy the beautiful cool weather this time of year offers without all the snow.

This weekend, we travel to my Mecca....Forks, Washington. Stay tuned.

~Paula

SOAKED!

Off I started this afternoon to pick up my daughter from school in my jacket and jeans with my 4-year-old son and the dog under overcast, but non-threatening skies. Two blocks later, it started to sprinkle. When we reached the school a block later, it started to rain harder and quickly turned into a deluge of Biblical proportions.

Now, school policy dictates that you are not to leave the street level if you have a dog along. Human instinct, however, doesn't give a flying frog what the rules are when you are getting soaked to the bone. I dashed up to the school next to the exit I knew my daughter would be coming out of and waited under the shelter of the school overhang.

When an adult supervisor came out the door and saw the three of us standing there, I immediately began babbling about our precarious situation like I was trying to negotiate our way into the embassy on foreign soil. Not that the shelter we were under was luxurious by any means. The rain was coming down so furiously that the eave began to leak in several random places, so we had to find a circle of dry above us in order to keep from getting wet anyway.

From the bewildered look she was giving me, I assessed that she had no intention of throwing us out into the weather again, and my brain mercifully turned off my mouth. Then I spotted my husband pull up in our ark (aka, the minivan) and my cell phone began ringing, affirming my hopes that we would indeed somehow get out of this purgatory.

The children that began to stream out of the school were, of course, delighted by the sudden change in the weather and gleefully screamed in a chorus of what I can only describe as gym whistles. The dog began a pulsing whine at this, and I suddenly noticed that my son was joyfully standing directly under a steady stream of water that had worked its way through another leak in the roof.

My son's rain-soaked shoes, pants, under-
wear, and socks exactly where he took them
off when we got in the door.

My daughter finally emerged from the school and we waved her down. S-l-o-w-l-y, she put on the light jacket I sent her to school in this morning as we started our sprint-walking to the van down at the street level again. When we reached the bottom of the hill, it was apparent that the only way we were getting across the rushing rapids forming in the gutters was to step directly in the middle of them. My mind quickly did an inventory of how many pairs of dry rain boots are sitting in the coat closet and belittled itself for not thinking to put any of them on in the same thought. Did I mention that we bought a stupid raincoat for the dog for just sort an occasion? Yeah, that was also still hanging in the coat closet.

We finally reached the van, loaded the drenched dog in the back, and piled inside the heated paradise. It wasn't until I was out of the rain that I realized the only part of my outfit that was still dry was the back of my upper leg. A short drive and we were home again, and when we stepped out of the van, the rain stopped as suddenly as it had started.

Ha, ha, God. Very funny. Fool me once, blah, blah, blah.

~Paula

Five Minute Friday: Ordinary

I'm going to give Five Minute Friday another whirl. Mostly because actually remembered to do it this Friday. TGIF!

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here (The Gypsy Mama) and invite others to join in.
3. Go all out encouraging the writer who linked up before you.

OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes:

Ordinary

We've been bombarded for the last month and a half with scenery that makes you stop and stare and absorb every last bit of it. We have been enjoying new foods and activities within a short 20-30 minute drive at the most usually. And we even have a DVR that makes our television viewing easier to enjoy.

But the one thing that we've been craving lately is the familiar, the ordinary. Something as trivial as a Mary Kay party the other night wrapped me up in a warm blanket memories and recognition of things that I've known before. The weather is different here, the landscape is different, and living in town has been a big change, but my Mary Kay party grounded me again in the ordinary life. And it felt nice to be invited to something and belonging somewhere.

I know by this time next year I'll be wondering where the months went. Right now, though, the less extraordinary moments in life are just as welcome.

TIME'S UP!

Hope you are enjoying the warm weather in the Midwest (albeit windy, from what I understand). We are missing the sights and sounds of harvest this year and feeling a little melancholy. May all of our farming friends and family reap a bumper crop.

~Paula