Pomerleau Family Blog: June 2017

Celebrating my birthday early with Sean

My birthday this year fell on a Tuesday so the weekend before Sean's parents came out to watch the kids on Saturday so we could go out and do something fun just the two of us. We ended up going to Top Golf in Hillsboro which is a golf facility where you can get food and drinks and play fun driving range games. We ended up having a blast and it was the first time I golfed in over two years as I couldn't golf last year because of my shoulder injury. My shoulder held up pretty good and it was a lot of fun. They had various games where you try to get it in the circles or drive it the farthest. We ate dinner there and then headed to Vertigo Brewery in Hillsboro. Sean loves their Raspberry wheat beer and we have never been able to make it out to their Tap Room before. We enjoyed some samples and then picked up a growler for Sean's parents to bring home. It was a very fun time.

Swinging away

The Bloody Mary's were good

So much fun!

Back at golfing

Beer flights at Vertigo

The next day, the kids got invited to Logan's 7th birthday party which was at Big Als which is a neighborhood Arcade/Bowling alley/restaurant place right near our house. The kids both got to bowl although Olivia and Addie only did a few times as they got bored. Then they had cake and pizza and then got to go upstairs and play Arcade games. The kids had a lot of fun and it was fun celebrating with Logan.

Singing Happy Birthday to Logan

Giant sprinkled cupcakes

Brandon and Logan

Opening up Brandon's present

Olivia's Dance Recital

Olivia has been taking dance lessons through a program called Dance on the Move through her pre-school at Rocking Horse. The dance teacher, Miss Chris, is a passionate about her job and also teaches Yoga at the school and comes to the school every Wednesday for a 45 minute dance lesson with the kids that sign up for it. We have to pay extra but its very reasonable at $9.25 per lesson. Olivia loves it because a lot of her friends like Lauren do the class and they get to get dressed up in tutus, ballet shoes, and leotards. It was funny when she first signed up I got her the clothes at Target and then no one else was wearing so she didn't wear them for half a year and now all the girls are wanting to dress up in their dance clothes!

Miss Chris allowed the parents to come to one of her classes in May as an end of the year showcase. I happened to go the same day that two of the other girls' parents went as well. The kids had so much fun showing us their dance moves. She does mainly ballet but does incorporate some free and classical dance as well. I got some cute photos and videos of Olivia and she looked like she was having a blast.

Practicing first position

Dancing

Standing on their squares

Balancing

Dancing with her bestie Lauren

Such a cute dance

Jumping over the stick

Holding the feather

Bravo!

Taking a bow

Trip to the Zoo in Early May

In early May, we finally got a spell of several days of nice, warm weather with the temperatures climbing up into the mid 80s. Very odd indeed since the day before it was in the low 50s as the high! We decided to make the best of the warm, sunny weather since it had been such a terrible winter and I took the kids to the Portland zoo after school. We ended up having a blast going on the Merry Go Round, seeing lots of animals (the large tortoises were out and frisky), eating ice-cream for a snack, and seeing Brandon’s favorite the alligators. We headed back home and the kids had a blast playing in our pool in the backyard. The next day, Olivia stayed home with me and we had breakfast outside. It was so warm in the morning already and we had a blast. Then we went to Jurgen’s Park together and had a blast playing until we had to pick Brandon up. It was so nice to feel the sunshine! Too bad it only lasted for three days.

Riding the Rooster on the Merry Go Round

Riding a horse!

Enjoying a treat at the zoo

Exploring caves

Tortoise love

Breakfast outside in our backyard

Playing at Jurgen's Park in the sunshine

Lego Exhibit with Mommy!

The last Thursday in April my mom was out of town on a trip so I took the day off to spend the day with Olivia and then pick Brandon up from school. Olivia and I ended up going to OMSI together for the morning. Olivia had a blast just having Mommy to herself and we got to go wherever she wanted to go. She loved the sparkly sand in the Discovery Room and making me “dinner” in the play kitchen. We got to go to the Lego Exhibit that they had going on with all the work done by an artist that makes art out of Legos named Sean Kenney. Olivia liked the Lego display but did get a bit bored and was getting hungry. We saw everything but it was a bit faster than I hoped. I got some cute photos with Olivia next to some of my favorite exhibits. It was amazing what he could do with Legos!

We love the soft sparkly sand at OMSI

Making me a stew!

Such a cool exhibit

Buddha

Dinosaurs

Giant T-Rex

Sitting next to the Thinker

You can see his soul

First Couple of Brandon's Little League Baseball Games

Brandon had the option of doing Little League T-ball another season (like most kindergarteners were doing) or doing the Coach Pitch team which was a mixture of kindergarteners, first graders, and a few second graders. His good pal Logan who is in first grade was doing Coach Pitch and he did pretty well at the end of T-ball despite only being barely 5 and not in kindergarten yet so we decided to give the Coach League a try. We are so glad we did because Brandon did awesome. We requested to be on the same team as Brandon’s good friend Cruz from school. Cruz’s dad, who was Brandon’s soccer coach, was going to coach his team again this year but needed two assistant coaches. He talked Sean into being one of his assistant coaches. Brandon was so excited to have his Dad help coach his team.

Baseball season overlapped with Brandon’s Developmental Soccer league with Westside for three weeks. Luckily the soccer games were all on Sunday and the baseball games were on Saturday. Brandon did have baseball practice twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday, which overlapped with soccer practice which was on Tuesdays so he missed a few soccer practices. The weather in April (and for most of the rest of the baseball season) was awful. It was very cold and rainy. So rainy that they did not open the Cook Park fields for the first two weeks of practices so we had to practice at Alberta Rider and one of the kids’ house.

After a few weeks of practice, on Easter weekend they finally got to play a game. I missed the game because I had to take Olivia to gymnastics that day but apparently the game was a train wreck. Kids were running after the ball and taking it from each other and tackling each other. They didn’t know how to hold their positions. But there was a lot to improve upon. The second game, Olivia and I got to watch and according to Sean it was so much better. The kids were holding their position better in the field and Brandon began hitting the ball well. Brandon was the team cheerleader and had positive energy that rubbed off of the team. He had a lot of team spirit. He was also having a blast with his buddies Logan, Cruz, Colton and Riley, and Claire (Cruz’s sister). By the time the third game rolled along they just kept getting better. And they began to listen better at practice because the coaches made them run laps if they did not listen.