A Little Trip

A couple of weeks ago, Charlie and I took a little trip over the mountains to visit my family, while Keith stayed home and hunkered down with his studies. (One month to go!) We had a great, relaxing, fun time. The timing was perfect for us as it was spring break for some of my nieces and nephews. Oma (my mom) ended up babysitting four of those rugrats, and so Charlie had some quality time with his cousins. One thing I discovered about Oma is that rules have changed since I was a kid in the house. An option for lunch was chocolate sandwhiches. Yum!

Here's Charlie with cousin Johnny. Surprisingly, Charlie wasn't too fond of his chocolate sandwhich, but peanut butter cookies made up the rest of lunch, so it all worked out.

Chillin' with Uncle Dawit. The way to a toddler's heart? Let him play with your cell phone.

This picture with the bad lighting is of my niece Emma. She's nine and plays a mean game of Monopoly. My brother Dawit had to take over for me. The competition was just too intense! (And Charlie's messy diaper might have had something to do with it...)

The next day, we had a playdate at my brother's house, where three of the same cousins live. Charlie had a great time with their amazing train set!

We took a couple of trips to Opa's farm. Charlie gets very excited about trackers and cows. He kept saying "Hi cows. How are you well?"

Once we spotted Opa, it was all over for me. Charlie wanted to be wherever Opa was and even coerced him into playing in the fabulously big mud puddles on the farm. Charlie also go to sit in one of those amazing trackers he admires so much.

Unfortunately, trackers make loud noises once you turn them on and the charm was a little lost for Charlie after that. Oh well! Maybe when you're bigger, Char Char, you'll have fun riding, and not just sitting, in that good ol' John Deere.

Thanks Oma and Opa for a great visit!

The Sans Day 2

Friday morning, after various tedious errands which are not worth your blog-reading time, we headed to the Redwood Forest. We took a self-guided tour of the most ancient trees in that area and then headed to "Roaring Camp Railroad" for an open-air train trip through the woods. When we got to the camp, Charlie seemed to know that this place was just for kids. He was so comfortable walking around, he even posed himself in this pumpkin, with absolutely no prodding from us. What a poser.Fortuitously, Charlie was already wearing his conductor cap and so was all set for the ride.All through the ride, Keith couldn't help but observe that he would only need to cut down one tree from that forest to keep us warm all winter. And then he started to hypothesize just how we'd get it out of the woods and into our back yard and there we hit a snag.When we got to the top, Charlie chopped down a tree. But there was no time to load it into the train.

After our forest adventure, we hopped back in the car and headed over to Santa Cruz where we caught our first glimpse of their beautiful beaches. That night we had delicious homemade pizza with a wonderfully raucous and rowdy crew, the Farleys and the Atwoods of Santa Cruz, and spent the night with said Atwoods. It was so nice to be with our extended church family so far away from home. We felt most welcome and at ease and grateful. The end of Day 2.

The Sans (Francisco/Jose/Ta Cruz) Days 1 1/2

When we traveled to Florida for Christmas last December, we had a somewhat trying time, ending up with a three-day delay. But in return, we received a voucher flight to anywhere in the US so long as we used it within the year. With time running out, and a strong desire to avoid flying during the holidays again, we decided to make a whirlwind trip to San Francisco and the surrounding area before Keith had to start school again. We just got back and have loads of fun pictures to share with you all.

We flew into San Fran on a Wednesday afternoon, picked up our rental car and immediately got lost. But it turned out all right because Keith has relatives in San Fran and they directed us via a lot of dropped phone calls (cell service in that area is sporadic due to the hills) and we ended up taking Market Street straight (almost) to their house. Market Street, apparently, cuts right through downtown and so we got to see a lot of the city right then and there. Aunt Peggy and Uncle Gil live on a high hill that overlooks a large portion of the city and just a short drive up Twin Peaks ends in some spectacular views.After a lovely evening of wine, cheese, dinner, and homemade pear crisp, Peggy and Gil led us to our hotel. We got to drive down Haight Street and see the ornate, beautiful old houses that cost gargantuin amounts of money to live in. Once we got to our hotel, we were surprised to find that our room was not cleaned. It was twenty minutes to 8 in the evening! The poor hotel clerk was all alone (housekeeping had left long ago) and he quickly gathered up linens and started getting our room ready while we went on a walk to kill time. When we finally got into our room, we noticed that indeed the linens had been changed, but that's all. The bathroom was not cleaned, nothing had been vaccuumed, and we were pretty tired. I was tempted just to let it go, but left-over soap and hair in the shower stall convinced me otherwise. I requested a bottle of cleanser and some rags and cleaned the bathroom myself. Once that was taken care of we actually had a nice night. Charlie, proving our fears futile, slept wonderfully right next to us in a pack/n/play and we drifted off to a better night's sleep than we anticipated.


The next morning, after getting lost some more, we decided to drive down Lombard Street and across the Golden Gate Bridge while Charlie took his morning nap in the car. (A lot of our planning surrounded Charlie's naps. We had to time it just right so we could do something, and then drive around so he could sleep. Fortunately, a lot of places took a while to get to because we'd get mixed up or confused by one-way streets, so Charlie got decent naps. :-) ) We drove over the Bridge in the fog, which bummed out Keith but I liked it, got a coffee on the other side in Saucelito, and drove back over (still in the fog and still with Charlie asleep).
See how the fog makes it look like the bridge is just suspended mid-air? Or as if the cables go up forever? Makes it rather mysterious and eerie. At least, I thought so. Keith still wanted the fog to lift.

We finally stopped at Golden Gate Park, which is huge, and found some fun things there for Charlie (including a carousel which, according to the guy at the hotel, is the second oldest one in the world). We also found a picnic table that gave us a close up of the wild-life: namely a bold blue bird that ate some of our goat cheese and a gopher that fearlessy popped in and out of his hole, hard at work making things difficult for the park groundskeepers.

When we'd had enough of San Francisco nature, we tottled on down Fisherman's Wharf. We'd been warned it was a tourist trap and that was no foolin'. Yikes! (We heard later that American Idol auditions had been held in SF that day, so that might have made things worse than normal.)Crowded beyond belief, we managed to walk down a good portion of the area and ended up in a sweet little arcade with odd games and, well, I don't know what you'd call them really, but we spent a few quarters there. My favorite part of the wharf.

After grabbing some chocolate at Ghiardelli's, we made our way to San Jose to visit some former Moscovites and spend the night. Sadly, we realized we'd taken no pictures of our time there. Perhaps because we weren't wholly impressed with Silicon valley... Still, dinner was delish and the company most welcoming. So ended our first whole day in California.

Flying Feathers

Well, it has happened again. The Dimelers have had another Adventure, charting new territory. About a year ago, we had a big adventure when we had Charlie in the hospital. Strangely, our New Adventure brought us to... another hospital!

But let me back up... On Monday, I found myself sitting in a courtroom among some 30 or so other prospective jurors prepared to accept my fate, give up a week of my life and a small bundle of cash to a babysitter, when our gracious Heavenly Father miraculously freed me from my patriotic duty and I was "excused." The next day, I was able to take Charlie in for his one-year well-child checkup. I'm so glad I was able to do that! Our wise doctor noted that he looked a little pale, too pale, and suggested we do a blood test to see if he was anemic. So, I went straight to Gritman and Charlie got a poke (he didn't even cry!). The next day, our doctor called to tell me that Charlie was definitely anemic, in fact, he needed a blood transfusion and that he was referring me to a pediatric hematologist/oncologist in Spokane. Um... what? I thought anemia just meant low iron? Well, no. In fact, anemia is caused by about 100 factors; 90 of which are no big deal and 10 of which are, well, a big deal. Well, all right then. I packed a bag in a hurry and whisked Charlie up to Spokane, about an hour and a half away. Keith was able to come up the next day, and brought a lot of good cheer (along with some shampoo) and took over chats with the nurses and doctors, much to my relief. He also had fun playing Wii and chasing around other children in the ward. Let us hope they recover (from Keith AND their illness).

So, after a couple very long nights of pokes and prods and countless sleep interruptions, Charlie's levels are back up to normal and we are home again. His cheeks are rosy and his disposition matches. But we still don't know what caused his anemic state, so we are now playing the waiting game. At this point, the hematologist is leaning toward some of the less serious possibilites, and the scary ones (cancer-related) are off the radar screen (for now). Once a week we'll do a blood test (at our local hospital) to keep an eye on his levels as we pray and wait for test results. Praise God for good doctors who follow their hunches, for release from jury duty, for good traffic and weather for driving, for kind and attentive nurses, for coffee, for a son who was able to bounce back from a lot of invasive and uncomfortable procedures, and for being able to come home so quickly. We are grateful for our Father's profound and pervasive care of us and for our sweet Charlie.

Vacation! AKA: A lot of driving and picture taking. :-)

We started off by heading to Cedar Springs, WA to help my grandparents celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. We stayed at a lovely little "retreat" center, complete with swans and very loud bull-frogs. It was wonderful to see my family again and Charlie got to meet several aunts, uncles, cousins and even his great-grandparents!

(this last pic is not Charlie, but his cousin Johnny)

Then we headed south to spend the weekend with my parents on the farm, where we relaxed and, aside from Keith getting the worst allergies of his life, generally had a very pleasant time soaking up the abundant green of western Washington and trying to convince Charlie that sleeping at night, even on vacation, is something we are in favor of. Then we packed up again and drove down a portion of the Oregon coast, starting in Astoria (hooray Goonies!), through Cannon Beach, stopping to see friends staying at "Family Camp" on Rockaway Beach, toured the Tillamook Cheese Factory, and finally ended up at the Dodson's in Portland for the night. Whew!

On Wednesday, we visited a park in Portland that is home to a volcano, stopped by Powell's book store (which should be one of the Seven Wonders and could have sucked us in for hours had we not had the meter running) and finally headed back to Rochester (where my parent's farm is) after catching a glimpse of this enourmous ship called The World which looked like a floating aparment building. Once we got to Rochester, we picked up a brand-new trailer, loaded it with a freezer my parent's gave us, and settled down for one last night of Vacation.

On Thursday, one week after leaving home, we nosed the Pathfinder eastward. Charlie, who really did handle most of the driving quite well, had finally had enough of his carseat by the time we were halfway home, and really let us know his feelings on the situation for the rest of the trip. Poor guy. But I will say, the day after we got home, you never saw a more cheerful baby. Good to be home, eh Charlie boy?