Family Art Nights

 We discovered a great after dinner family activity: art time. 

Avery said, "I really love making art with you and Zeal. We make art all together, right Mama?"

Baby, Baby, Baby!

What's better than 2 kids???

3 kids, of course!

"Der's a baby in my Mama's tummy," Avery shares.

A 3rd Hanson will be revealed around January 21, 2016...

Directly from our cell-free DNA test results: As you requested, we are including the information about the sex of your baby. There is a greater than 99% chance that your baby is a boy. 

Zeal Henry is TWO!

We had a wee celebration for Zee today. Six friends came over to wish Zeal a happy 2nd brithday. 

He loved the candles. And Avery loved showing Zeal the birthday ropes. You can see birthday song and candle extinguishing pictures, after which Zeal looked up expectantly and said "again?"

After much Zeal spittle, Avery helped blow out the first candle.

And then, sweetly, he waited for Zeal to blow out the second one.

Attempt 1: fork

Attempt 2: fingers

Attempt 3: full face

Nikko assessing the frosting-in-face damage

And Zeal clearly decided it was worth it

Pictured: Nikko, Zeal, Avery, Tula, Jude, and Torin.
Torin is Zeal's best friend. They are just a few months apart and spent last year carpooling
together to the same daycare. We are lucky to have Torin as a neighbor, too.

The Road Trip (of mixed reviews)

In this review of roadtripping with young children, there is a term you will need to learn:

cellulitis (a noncontagious, spreading skin infection) and you'll see why in a bit.

But first, our most foolhardy choice of the summer: to travel by car to the Northwest for 10 days.

10 days doesn't sound like much, but we quickly remembered that each day of a road trip actually sort of feels like 2 days, and we soon learned that each day of a roadtrip with young children actually feels more like 3 1/2 days. So it was essentially a 30 day trip (once you account for our heading home early).

Day one, hour 3. 

Ear plugs in and creating a more lovely, less-reactive mama/getter-of-all-things needed-by-all-people-in-the-car.

First night: The Rogue River in southern Oregon. This was a 6 hour driving day which included a visit to the beautiful sundial bridge in Redding, CA. 

View from the sundial bridge

The Rogue River campground was hot so we looked for a way down to the river. We eventually found a small trail to the river, swam and ate blackberries off the vine. That night, Avery and Chris got to roast s'mores with the park ranger and other kids at the bandstand. Zeal and I hung out in the sweltering tent, where he cried so hard that he gagged and vomited all over the tent. That brand new 6-person tent we got for Christmas instantly depreciated in value.

We traveled with costumes, which came in handy.

This is what you might look like the day after roasting s'mores way past your bedtime:

Day 2: Aunt Ellen Ovivia Hanson! 

Aunt Ellen is the youngest sibling of Chris's Dad's 14 siblings. She hosted a lovely Hanson family reunion at her house in Hillsboro, OR. 

Uncle Marvin also attended. Marvin is the brother closest to Chris's Dad. They were about 18 months apart. Marvin and Chris resemble each other in many ways. 

Here is a photograph of Chris and Marvin in 2009.

The eyes!

Uncle Marvin and Chris's cousin, Greg, looking at a book that was given to the oldest of the 15 kids, Sydney Hanson.

Here is the whole group at the reunion. Aunt Ellen is the one with dark hair, laughing.
Marvin's wife, Peg, is the one in the flowered shirt.

Day 3: Portland, Oregon. The Truby's house. 

The Trubys are dear friends from Oberlin, Ohio. The sadness of our visit to their lovely home was that their flights were canceled and delayed from the east coast, so we stayed at their house without them. 

Here is what they would have looked like had they been there (plus 7 years because these photos are from our wedding):

 

Their beautiful side yard and colorful home.

Here is a fun thing to do in Portland with young kids: public fountain play! This one was right near the Wilamette River. We stayed all afternoon while the fountains changed their spray direction every 20 minutes.

Big brother trying to be so helpful

Day 4: Onward to Whidbey Island, Washington!

This was another long driving day but with the added bonus of a ferry ride. 

Windy ferry dance

We stayed for two nights at the Keystone Cottage through Airbnb. 

It was the house closest to the ferry landing, so we got to do lots of ferry watching.

Cellulitis side story: Chris noticed that a small inflamed area right below his kneecap (perhaps from a bug bite or ingrown hair that he had in Nantucket over a week ago) was growing in size. He mentions it a few times. Hmmm. 

This is the Keystone Cottage.

This is the view from the main road that leads to the quaint town of Coupeville.

This is a strange photo but shows the driftwood deposits on the beach. We made a driftwood fort, which many before us had done.

The cabin came with canoe and fishing rods. We did not catch any fish but it was idyllic nonetheless.

A view from Coupeville

Katie and Tim visited from Seattle for a night at the cottage. We watched as they helped our children expell tons of energy. Then we had an adult dinner of steamed mussels from the local bay. The sun set after 10 p.m. We sat by a firepit at the beach until 1 a.m. Pure summer.

Cellulitis side story: Right after Katie and Tim left, it was clear that Chris's leg was becoming more swollen and his discomfort was increasing. He began walking with a limp. He decided to drive himself to the Coupeville emergency room. He was prescribed his first internal antibiotics. On this day, he could still drive.

Day 6: To Marrowstone Island, where friends Scott, Rachael, and Cora live. 

Here are the many faces of Zeal as he waits for the ferry:

Hanging out on the beach in Port Townsend en route to Marrowstone.

Cellulitis side story: Chris can hardly walk. He is supposed to keep his leg elevated, which he is trying to do here on the beach. Walking a few blocks to a cafe took him a lot of effort.

We arrived at Soctt and Rachael's, which is also known as Mystery Bay Farm, source of American Cheese Society Winning goat cheese for two years. Scott and Rachael have created this beautiful 5-acre farm over the past 8 years.

Cellulitis side story: By the time we reached Scott, Chris had gotten worse. So Scott drove him to the emergency room in Port Townsend, where his first antibiotics were deemed 'not the right ones' and he was prescribed a stronger, broader antibiotic in addition to the first. He almost fainted from the pain of the swelling while we made dinner in the barn kitchen that night.

Scott and Avery met for the first time. Scott is an old friend for Chris's from his Redwood City childhood.

Evening on the farm, coming back from the garden (sans Chris, who we later wheeled in a wheelbarrow to tour the farm.)

The kitchen, where huge sliding doors open to colorful flowers. The goats are right around the corner from the kitchen. (This is in the barn; they are building a house right now on the property.)

The bathtub and shower are both outside encircled by bamboo.

This is the kid of the farm: Cora Mae. She has a gymnastics setup in a barn stall. Her goat is trying to join her.

This is what Cora looked like the last time we visited Mystery Bay Farm in 2009:

      

Cellulitis side story: The bench (below) is where Chris spent much of the weekend, with his leg elevated and taking his antibiotics every 4 hours. When it rained, he napped in the tent. It was most painful for him when he changed positions, which is tried to do a rarely as possible.

But cellulitis drama didn't keep us from having some fresh crab. Scott trapped these crabs for lunch.

A rainy day on the farm

The farm entrance

The side of the barn and the cob oven (under the little roof).

Wheeling Chris to the corner store.

Avery and Cora

For all you medical detail folks: Here is a slowly-diminishing leg swell (and the site of infection)

Day 7 or 22? (Losing track completely)

To Seattle

We left Scott's a day early to visit Katie and Tim in Seattle. We got to Pike's Market in time to see Katie, who sells paintings by her friend, Tim Robinson, on the weekends.

Zeal did a careful walk-through

We ended up cutting our trip to Seattle short by 2 nights because Chris was confined to a couch and because it was too hard for one parent (Mama) to do all the parenting of two rowdy boys. So we ate breakfast, sadly kissed Katie and Tim goodbye, and tackled the 13 hour trip in one insane, never-to-be-repeated driving session. The only photos that exist from this hellish day are:

Insanely swollen foot

Rainbow, near Mt Shasta after some refreshing rain 

Also near Mt. Shasta; taken by an adult wearing ear plugs, just like when the trip started.

So that's our road trip in a very vertical, cyber nutshell. Would we do it again? Hard to say. We learned that 8 days can feel like a really long time, no matter how fantastic your lovely hosts are. Maybe in 2020 we will take on the Northwest by car again...

Pre-cellulitis bliss near Aunt Ellen's neighborhood park