Long-Awaited: August Vacation Part 2

I noticed recently that I did a part 1 blog about our wonderful vacation with my sister and niece, but never went farther than their first full day in Crescent City! There was much more to our vacation. We had four or five days here so they could see where we live and enjoy the redwoods and the beach, but our solution to getting to take time off to visit with them AND have a vacation away was for them to join us for the first part of our vacation in Bend, Oregon. 

We rented a great house on the outskirts of Bend, but not too far away from downtown and fun stuff to do. Ev and I traveled to Bend via Eugene for reasons that turned out to be not valid, but had a great visit with a friend of hers who lives just south of Eugene. Michael took the girls more or less directly to Bend. Here are pictures of their journey:

Darcy and Liana review their Junior Ranger books at the Hiouchi Visitors Center on their way out of town.

 

Showing off their brand-new Junior Ranger badges!

They stopped at beautiful Crater Lake on the way and happened to run into our former neighbor from Mojave, Anne. They got a second Junior Ranger badge each -- in one day!

Crater Lake still had plenty of snow nearby, despite the calendar claiming it was mid-August. They stopped for some snow play, of course.

 

Michael's trip was made much more pleasant by the addition of the portable DVD player that made its way from North Carolina. More than five hours in a car is a lot for two Junior Rangers!

Hey! I just realized that this post actually goes with our blog title -- two National Parks in one day!

In Which Girls Avoid A Crab

Before I get to the title story and pictures, let me update the Wright Brothers saga. Yesterday, Michael was reviewing bids for the new Mojave film, to be shown at the Visitors Center. One of the companies putting in a bid sent two of the films they've made for other parks, including -- is it karma? fate? what? -- the film shown at the Wright Brothers Memorial in Dayton, OH. Darcy has sat through it twice now. If I let her, I suspect she'd sit and watch a continuous loop for hours while making her various dolls and animals be Wilbur and Orville and everyone else mentioned in the film.

On top of that, I got her some books about the Wright Brothers at the library today because I'm tired of reading the board book six times a day. One of them is from the perspective of their sister, Katherine, who was a big part of their lives. She called them Will and Orv. Before Darcy fell asleep tonight, we heard through the monitor, "Orv, open the door! Come into my room!" Michael responded as required.

And now, back to the vacation pictures. Before painting horses, we walked out on a pier that took us through thick greenery (and bugs!) out into the Sound. We saw Canada geese with their goslings once we got to the end. It was a nice nature break from the tourist-y surroundings.

When we got out to the end, Liana very rapidly climbed up Michael's leg -- you can see her croc disappearing at the top of the photo. Video was really needed, but it happened too quickly. The cause was the small blue crab holding onto the orange pole in the bottom right corner. Liana is not fond of crabs.

Darcy doesn't really mind crabs -- they are, after all, much like bugs, which she loves. Nevertheless, she joined Liana in Michael's arms while the crab-wrangling was happening.

The crab really, really didn't want to let go of the pole, even when shaken inches from the water. Eventually, it did let go and returned to its watery home. And Michael got to put the girls down. It was good entertainment all around. Except for the crab, probably.

Darcy Loves Orville

Darcy returned from vacation with a new obsession. Orville. Wright, not Reddenbacher. As in one of the fathers of human flight. Airplanes are no longer just airplanes. They are Orville rides. She thinks every one is owned and piloted by Orville. Apparently, at the same time.

On Wednesday, we went to the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk. Darcy likes airplanes, so we thought there was a good chance she'd be entertained there. We didn't know the half of it. She sat through about half of a program about the engineering problems the Wrights overcame to create the first successful airplane and then she had a good time looking at all the airplane-related things in the visitor center bookstore. I bought her a board book called The Story of the Wright Brothers. Who knew that one could regret buying a book? (At least a little.)


Following the program, we asked a staff member what the other buildings at the Memorial contained, trying to decide whether we should just leave. For small children, he suggested a metal sculpture/model of the 1903 Flyer installed for the Centennial celebrations. So we drove around the monument hill and drove to the installation seen above. It has statues of all the people involved with that flight. The photographer whose perspective we borrowed had never taken a photograph before. Orville set it up before getting in the Flyer. Orville is flying the plane and Wilbur is the figure running by the wing. This is the famous "First Flight" shot seen everywhere. The 12 seconds that changed the world, so to speak. And again, who would have thought one might live to regret taking a small girl to climb on a reproduction of an airplane? (At least a little.)

Darcy and Liana had a ball climbing on the plane. Or, more accurately, Liana had a ball climbing on the plane and Darcy had a ball sitting on the plane, first at the end of one wing and then next to Orville. Walking on the wing surface didn't interest her. Liana was fond of fixing the engine and here, she explains the various parts to Darcy. Darcy, who has eyes only for Orville. Watch out, Adam! You have a rival for our girl's affections now!

Darcy sat with her arm resting on Orville for a long time, repeating his name and patting his shoulder. Here, she is suggesting the next flight path they should take.

Notice the clenched fist as Darcy waits breathlessly to see if the first flight is successful. She is Orville's best new friend and admirer, and he is very much alive and well in her imagination. She lay awake instead of napping that day and, through the monitor, we could hear her asking, over and over, "Did you have fun with Orville?"

I read the "Orville book" a half dozen times that afternoon, and a few more that night. In the five days since, I think I've read it at least 40 times already. Michael hasn't escaped, either, so she's heard it dozens and dozens of times, apparently without tiring of it one bit. It's possible we've created a monster, but I do love that she says things about Orville and Wilbur as kids and then as grown-ups that show she understands they were kids just like her and, therefore, she can grow up to be like them. While she can't be the first person to fly, she can follow her dreams as the Wright brothers did. It may feed the flames more than needed, but we'll be looking for more picture books about the Wright brothers next time we go to the library. A girl's got to dream...

In Which Horses Are Painted

I found the card reader: Let the vacation pictures begin!

Here is the house we (Grandma/Kathy, Granddad/Dave, Ev, Liana, and the Glores) stayed in for our week on the Outer Banks. Apparently, the architectural "style" of Corolla and other, newer parts of said Outer Banks was influenced by the question, "How many roof lines, cantilevered rooms, half-levels, and decks can we put on one house while raising it off the ground in case of hurricanes?" Truly bizarre. Ours tried to put as many languages in its name as it had roof surfaces: Castle de la Mar. English and Spanish and French, oh my!

In truth, the house did right by us, with plenty of space for active girls, a well-equipped kitchen, and beds and bathrooms for all. It also came with access to a community pool, kiddie pool, and playground, which will be featured in later photo installations.

We had an active vacation, with plenty of beach and pool time, and some exploration of the northern part of the Outer Banks. Darcy picked up a new obsession (Orville Wright -- more on that later, too). We all got a bit bronzed. And we ate lots of local shrimp alongside the agricultural bounty of the Carrboro farmers' market.

We also had some art time. The local wild horse museum does horse-painting as a fundraiser on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the summer. No, you don't get to paint a wild horse, but for six bucks, you do get to don a plastic apron, get a plate-full of paint, a handful of brushes, and a pretty big wooden horse cut-out to paint.

It was a great event and the horses are reusable, too! We got to old Corolla village early so we could do other things before painting horses and saw the museum workers painting over Tuesday's art. Here are our young artists tackling their equine canvases. Darcy needed a bit more help and guidance than Liana.

The artists were more than happy to pose with the finished products after painting the smaller wooden horses that they got to bring home with them. A fun time was had by all.

At Play!

One alteration was made in the plans for my parents' house once there were two grandchildren in the picture. The unfinished storage room upstairs was made a little smaller to accommodate a play area (later to be a sleeping loft for little girls' sleepovers). The play area was a hit. Here are Darcy and Liana in tutus with everything collected on the table.

Here they are playing with my cousin Gideon's daughters, Tamara and Aviva. Liana and Tamara were taking full advantage of the costuming props.

And another crew of children during the Gordon family Christmas/Hannukah celebration. From left to right, we have Daven, Dabiela, Darcy, Lilith, and Jordan. It was a loud celebration.

More Water Woes and Christmas Baking

So we are once more in Baker, camped out in our old house while another water issue is solved. This one is not actually AT our house, but at the source of our water, several miles away. We're unclear about the exact nature of the problem, and know only that it requires a part that is supposed to arrive tomorrow. With any luck, it will arrive very early in the day, be installed without problem, and there will be no need for elaborate testing of waters before we are allowed to go home. In the meantime, we have extremely minimal furniture in our giant former house. The upside is that it leaves me with few things to do during Darcy sleep periods, so I can go through more Christmas pictures without feeling guilty about not doing laundry or dishes or meal prep and without the temptation of television in the evenings.

One of the activities Darcy talked about before we went to NY was "painting" cookies. I had tried to explain Christmas cookie decorating to her and it left her with an excitement for painting and eating cookies. Here we are cutting the first round of cookies. Darcy's participation was minimal. Mostly, she watched. Until she got bored with watching and went to play with her trains again.

But the painting! She was so excited about doing it. She just couldn't wait. Again, until the time actually came. Then she painted the somewhat green crimped circle at the bottom right corner of the platter and stopped. That was it. Eating cookies turns out to be what she's really good at. Luckily, she can't reach very high, so her cookie consumption was able to be closely monitored. I suspect that next year will see more participation in cookie creation.

In the meantime, there's not much Darcy likes more than looking at books or being read to. Here, the cousins take advantage of the landing for a light morning read.

A Taste Of New York Christmas

We took well over 400 photos during our week in NY, so there are lots of pictures to document what was a very fun trip for all. It takes time to crop and resize and select and such, so y'all (I recently have been converted to y'all as a gender-neutral pronoun) will have to be patient. Here's a small sampling of the fun.

There was snow when we arrived, but it was actually raining on the drive home from the airport, so that snow wasn't very fun. But then we got more! Enough for some sledding, which Darcy enjoyed, as you might be able to see. The quality isn't great, but the expression is perfect.


The whole week was the Darcy-and-Liana show from morning to night. They had a lot of fun together and amused the rest of us in the process. Darcy took to standing at this corner, leaning into the dining/living room shouting, "LIANA! LIANA!" Here, they are showing off the matching Christmas dresses Grandma made them. Their footwear was not coordinated, but the hand-holding added a little extra something.