spring break in Bend

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day one day early, with corned beef, potatoes, and cabbage, and Irish soda bread. 

And then on Wednesday, after school and work, we left town for a week's vacation in Bend. We've rented a lovely house and have no grand plans -- just enjoying a different place, with different trails and parks, and fun restaurants close by. Today and tomorrow we will do some work and some play, and order takeout from our favorite restaurants, and play outside together when we can.

Tic tac toe with pine cones and tree cuts! For some reason, it was really hard, and we kept winning and losing to each other instead of drawing. It cracked us up to be so incompetent.

Our house has a foosball table in the sunroom! So fun!

 

Liesl and I walked down to the river and she found some rocks to climb, and then we played catch with her softball in the alleyway behind the house.

At 4 we all went over to Columbia Park, which has a flat, grassy field and is a few blocks away. Perfect for afternoon soccer, acrobatics, and frisbee throwing. Seb and I also went for a bike ride around the river trails, looping across the Deschutes as it criss-crosses downtown Bend.

 

And then there was Spork for dinner! Yum!

 

Pi day

I decided to make chicken pot pies for dinner, mostly so that I could introduce Liesl to the concept of pi through Pi Day. (She loved the idea of a math joke, combined with a pun, and will probably remember the concept of pi, so that was a success!) 

I made four individual pies, entirely from scratch, and it took much longer than I expected and was extraordinarily heavy (half a stick of butter per serving?!). I can understand why these are not in the regular cooking rotation. That said, pot pie for dinner was delicious and fun!

In other news, Liesl and I cut each other's hair this morning.

In less exciting, but still good news, Liesl and I had a lovely Sunday together. We took Jasper for a walk, went grocery shopping, did some house cleaning, and sorted through her clothes to make room for new spring and summer clothes that fit. And I went running with Anja, as is our regular Sunday morning routine. The Wildwood is a bit muddy but the forest is starting to turn spring green.

riding lessons

Liesl and I have continued our weekly riding lessons at Anamchara - we are learning to guide the horses and turn them, walk slowly and quickly, and post the trot. And also how to curry and groom the horses and tack them up, with bridles, saddles, etc., and then take care of them after the ride. It's a lot of new information and a lot of physical multi-tasking, and we're definitely still beginners. But it's really fun; Liesl loves it, and I love sharing an activity with her.

I've ridden Sierra and Tic-tac, and Liesl has ridden Billy and Sierra. These first photos are of Liesl on Billy, and me holding Sierra.

This is Liesl on Sierra, learning (briefly) to canter (terrifying).

After the lesson is over, leading Sierra back to her pasture.

This is Tictac, eating his dinner. He's an old man, and at a certain point in our lesson this week had simply had enough. Tossed his head, refused to listen, started getting prancy. It was apparently past his usual dinnertime and he didn't want to wait. Lesson learned! We'll pick an earlier lesson slot next time.

bouldering

Denise and Arianna took Liesl climbing (with autobelays) and bouldering this morning, at a different gym. The girls had a lot of fun and apparently climbed nonstop for nearly two hours.

In unrelated news, we had pizza for lunch and the afternoon sunlight streamed into the living room, and everyone collapsed into naps.

Also unrelated: came down to my desk to find that I had a sweet little visitor, Bunny Foofoo, who still accompanies Liesl in the dawn hours when she comes downstairs (and occasionally works or draws at my desk). I wonder when she'll outgrow the automatic reflex that has her grabbing Foofoo as she gets out of bed every morning. I'll miss her (the bunny) when she no longer appears.

Sebastian at 13

Sebastian had his annual checkup today - all good, very healthy, no problems, yay! - and came in at 5 feet tall and 80 lbs. Woo-hoo! He points out to me that some friends are already 5'7 and 130 lbs, and I point out that his father and uncle were late-growers. :)

Jasper likes to curl up on Seb's bed during the days, to sleep, to hope for snacks --

swimming

We tried out something new yesterday, in the afternoon -- a swimming pool reservation through a website called Swimply. It's like AirBnB for pools, meaning that there are privately owned pools that you can reserve for an hour or two, all transaction details handled by the website. Perfect Covid adventure! The pool we found is a couple of miles away, westward into the Cedar Mill area, and it was just gorgeous. Warm water, huge windows with trees all around, and a private pool for us! 

We took Arianna, because Sebastian declined to join us. We swam some lengths, did flips and handstands and jumps and somersaults, whacked each other with pool noodles and dived for rings, and then it was time to go. It was great - such a different and fun thing to do with an hour!