"Almost Two"

"Almost two" is the correct answer for anyone asking Soren how old he is, and he can say it himself. His birthday is coming right up on Aug. 27, but we threw him -- and two of his closest friends -- a birthday party yesterday.
The triple-birthday celebration at a nearby park was a reprise. Soren's one-year party was shared with the same friends: Tayla, who is 11 days older than him (pictured above, at right), and Noah, who is 11 days younger (in the middle). (Soren blogged about this last year--check out how much younger the kiddos look!) The cooperative family effort was another stunning success. No one had to knock themselves out, and no one's home was left smeared with sticky vanilla ice cream... Thanks, mamas Sarah and Shannon. I'm guessing we team up again next year!
The setting was lovely Chetzemoka Park on a surprisingly sunny afternoon rescued from a grey and blustery morning.
We brought our hand-crank ice-cream maker, and Jeff got it started--with his mother Gloria looking on and Soren sneaking ice cubes. We were grateful Jeff's parents were able to make the trip over the mountains this weekend to be with us.
While the ice cream froze, the kids played--sometimes with their mommies, as Tayla did with Shannon on the tire swing.
You can see why they call her Tayla-bug--she's as cute as a bug!
Soren was happy following the twisty-slide train. Grandma Gloria watches from below, and that's River leading the way.
Whee! Soren follows new friend Max down the slide.
Birthday boy Noah was a slider, too. We had to tear him away for the group photo.
Soren's proud grandparents, Gloria and Jim. The carrot cake she made was a hit.
And what could be better than cake topped with homemade ice cream? Noah and Mama Sarah kept close tabs on the finished product.
This year, Soren was not denied any sweets (it seems like forever ago we were keeping wheat out of his diet). He opened wide for this bite of ice cream.
Mmmmmmmmmmmm.
Torin and Max were special playmates for Soren yesterday. Thanks to them for coming, and thanks to all of our friends who joined us in celebrating the lives of these three very special youngsters.
And as more than one parent pointed out, Jeff and I deserve kudos for making it to Year 2 as well! Ditto to Shannon and Brandon and Sarah and Craig!!

Aug. 19: Shelly's first "show" opens!

If you're in PT this coming Thursday, you're invited to attend the 5:30-7:30 p.m. opening reception for my first "show" -- that is, the first photo exhibition in which not one, but two, of my photographs will be shown. These are them!

I've never entered an art or photo contest before, but was inspired to do so by one of my colleagues in the fabulous Work-At-Home Moms support group (see prior entry), who is busy getting her video installations shown at galleries around the region while mothering a four-year-old. (Yay, Jess!)

The call for entries of maritime scenes in the arts section of our local newspaper caught my attention, and while selecting three photos to enter (two were selected) was not difficult, I have to say that getting the digital files printed and framing them on the cheap turned out to be more work than I thought!

"On the Water: An Exhibition of Maritime Photography" will be on view through the Wooden Boat Festival in the upstairs of the new Northwest Maritime Center.

And if you can't make it in person, just enjoy "New Brunswick Lobsterman" (above -- see lots more photos of this day on the water from our 2006 travel blog, here) and "Frosty Stem, Point Hudson" (below).

Busy summer times

It's summer and we've been busy! I agonized over the decision to take the months of July and August OFF and not do any consulting work, but now that I'm halfway through this "trial," I see it was the right thing to do. I'm way more relaxed and Soren and I are spending much more time at the beach than would be possible if I was shoehorning client work into our days.

I really needed the lifeline of my professional career when Soren was an infant, but he slept a lot more then, and now I've grown more comfortable in my mothering role and found different outlets for creative expression. Plus, my teenaged babysitter support network unraveled when school let out, and it's a relief not to be piecing together childcare. Maybe I won't go back to "work" in September...we'll see!

This all means I haven't spent much time at the computer, and when I have, I've been cranking out Volume 4 of S'ing Around With Soren (photos from 1 to 1-1/2 years old). Until Aug. 14, you can view the entire book (all 80 pages!) here. (Although if you're on the recipient list--you know who you are--you might not want to spoil the surprise.) I suggest using "Full Screen" view. Yes, that's our Auntie Jill on the cover!

So here are some of my favorite photos from the month of June, to bring you somewhat up to date.
The first ice cream cone in Soren's short life, at a 2-year-old's birthday party. He liked licking the ice cream, but biting down on the crunchy cone was a surprise. He quit then.
Summer in the Northwest means wading in the water up to your ankles! Soren could splash around all day. And my feet eventually go numb, too.
The cutest "First Mate" ever!
Warmer water can be found in our wading pool in the backyard, shared here with Soren's good friend and age-mate Tayla.
Here they are at the sand-turned-water table. Check out the difference between the male and female thighs, even at this age!
Other friends: little Mila, daughter of my old friend Marinka, who lives in Seattle.
Making music at our piano with Satria, a Port Townsend chum.
Did you notice Soren's colorful hands in the previous picture? After reading a book where a little girl painted her toenails, I caught Soren doing this...
Not to worry, he takes frequent baths.
His wet hair makes some wild shapes.
In late June, both sets of grandparents visited together. Soren was thrilled to have Jim, Glory, Nannie and Papaw all at The Roost.
Jeff's parents brought a box of his old Tinker Toys, and the adults had as much fun as Soren with the initial creations. Here's a working swing for the Monkey King.
Speaking of working, Soren can't wait until he can mow the lawn by himself. Here he is on Nannie & Papaw's riding lawnmower in Anacortes.
He did help Papaw out a little.
And on those "June-uary" days, Soren is happy to don raingear and splash in the neighborhood puddles.

Hard to believe Soren will be two in less than a month! He is so accomplished in so many things. Wouldn't you agree?

Photoshopping Soren's class pic

So school ended last month and -- hey, Soren's in school already?!? Not to worry, we're not cramming his head full of math drills. It's only "playschool," where he interacts three hours once a week with other little people and gets messy with the featured art project. However, it is a program of Peninsula College, so that should look good on his resume... ;-)

Soren was the youngest kid in his class -- most of the ten other kids were two years old, with some threes -- and I'm afraid this immaturity shows in the class photo.

After the particularly wiggly photo shoot, I got involved in reviewing the digital pictures, and we were chagrined but not surprised to discover there was no frame in which each child's face was showing. We're not talking about kids not looking at the camera, we're talking about only seeing the back of their head because they were twisting around to complain to their mommy about sitting still for so long.

So I offered to try some Photoshopping magic, and here's what I did. I took one image where a good half of the kids were looking (not Soren, alas -- see front row, left)...
...and I layered another pretty good photo on top of it (where Soren is indeed facing the camera, but trying to spin out of my iron grip) and used the "erase" tool to make the lower layer visible. You'll have to believe me that the erased patches below contained other squirmy kids whose charming faces were not at their best.
Then the tricky part of smoothing and blurring the edges of the transitions and rebuilding some patches of clothing (thankfully solid-colored) where the two photos did not match up well. If only I had kept my right knee down in the first photo... It was hard work to recreate the jean bottom of the little boy behind me and to the viewer's left, as well as his mother's sleeve.
But when the final image (above) was printed as a 5x7, none of the other moms could find the Photoshopped areas, which means I succeeded!

Oh, how long did this take? You shouldn't ask. I told myself "one hour" when I sat down at the computer, but of course it took two. Soren, I'm not doing this every year!!

We're back from cruising "up" to Alaska

A big adventure has come and gone -- last week we spent seven days aboard a "dam ship" (the Rotterdam, of the Holland America Line) cruising from Seattle to Hubbard Glacier in Alaska and back.

In the days before the trip, I prepped Soren with the line that we were going "up to Alaska" on a "huge ship," with the result that when he wanted to talk about our voyage, he pointed "up" in the air and then held his arms very wide apart.
This is our mighty cruise liner -- with a capacity of around 2000 persons; on this run, with about 1300 passengers and 400 crew! -- at anchor in the bay off Sitka, Ala. We see a parade of these ships passing Port Townsend every night through the summer weekends, and we were thrilled to finally be a passenger aboard one. [More photos of our ship.]
The trip was the brainstorm of Jeff's mother Gloria. She had the wish to see Alaska, Jeff handled the trip planning, and Gloria and Jim invited us three to go along as their guests. Here we are on their private veranda deck before departing Seattle.
The ship was a near-perfect vacation venue for a super-active toddler and his not-so-mobile grandparents. We were always on the move, there was always room to run, run, run, and yet the distance between their stateroom and the dining room was not too far. I'll let Soren tell you about the other big perk: the pool!

We had two separate rooms on different decks, and Soren slept better in ours than he did at home -- I think because the ship was one big, vibrating, white-noise machine. We also didn't fret about keeping to a sleep schedule, which was kind of freeing.

The above map shows our route. We stopped at three Alaska ports for visits of half a day each: Juneau, where Soren admired the Native art (below) in the Alaska State Museum; Sitka (our favorite -- felt kind of like Port Townsend, and Soren and I garnered the compliment of being mistaken for locals by an art gallery owner); and Ketchikan (had a nice playground within walking distance of the waterfront).
Here's Jeff and his mother on the dock in Juneau. Believe it or not, there were three more cruise ships the same size or larger docked behind ours! We followed or were followed by these three other ships all week long, but the captains did an admirable job of keeping our distance at sea, and taking turns at the glacier viewpoint.
So, northward to the glacier! We lucked out with the weather -- clear skies and very warm temperatures for this time of year. So we could see all the mountains surrounding us -- often on both sides, as we wove our way up the Inside Passage. Jeff got up early one morning to watch the sunrise.
Finally we reached the apex of our journey -- Hubbard Glacier, one of the largest and fastest-moving glaciers on the continent: 5 miles wide and 40 stories tall. We whispered through a slushy ice field in Disenchantment Bay...
...quite close to the glacier's face, and then the engines were cut and we could hear the thunder and booming of calving chunks of ice. A truly awesome sight!
May I just note that the lack of crowds of people in these deck pictures is both accurate and telling. There was a bigger rush of sightseers on the bow as we approached the glacier, but most soon retired to the dining room (with its constant buffet) or the bars or the library or their rooms... Let's just say it was not the hardiest crowd. But it was also an older crowd. We estimated there were maybe only 50 children aboard under the age of 18.

But our family gamely joined in the tradition of dressing up for two "formal" nights on board the ship. The first night, we dressed up Soren to get his picture taken with us, then Jeff and I went to dinner by ourselves. The second night, we roped Soren and Gloria into accompanying us to the formal dining room.
I'm afraid to say Soren didn't last the meal. Jeff had to take him away because he was just too fussy, and Gloria and I had to eat our baked Alaska without the boys.
However, before Soren defaulted, we were treated to the sight of at least three humpback whales crossing our wake in the sunset light. By some good fortune, we were seated at one of the best tables in the ship, right next to the stern windows. That was our big wildlife sighting.
Our most memorable shore excursion was a horse-and-carriage ride around the inner harbor of Victoria, BC -- our one foreign port of call, on the last night before returning to Seattle.
We really enjoyed this mode of transport, and the sights of this lovely British-inspired provincial capital (which of course Jeff and I are fairly familiar with, as it's just across the strait from Port Townsend). Here's our view of the Parliament Buildings.
And a happy family on the final day of the cruise. So glad we did it. Thanks, Jim & Gloria -- this trip will hold a special place in our memories.