Shannon is being honored by the Oregon Association of American Mothers at a dinner gala tonight. She now prefers being referred to as “Most Honorable Mother”. It’s made her an easy target: S: “Is it terrible if I make grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner again?” Me: “I’m gonna call the committee”. S: “Am I a terrible mom for letting the kids watch TV all afternoon?” Me: “That’s it, I’m calling the committee!” All kidding aside, she is an excellent mother and deserves to be Mother of the Year. She isn’t comfortable with the whole self promotion thing, but sees this as an opportunity to get more involved in the community. At least Britney Spears has pulled herself out of contention this year.

We went snowmobiling at the Diamond Lake Resort this weekend. It’s about 20 miles north of Crater Lake, Oregon’s only national park. They wouldn’t let us squeeze Grace on as a third passenger, so we didn’t make it to Crater Lake THIS time. We took turns cruising around. Shannon had never snowmobiled before. There was a pair of snowmobile tracks that went straight across the frozen lake to the pizza restaurant on the south shore. It was tempting to follow them, but we resisted.

Last trip to So. Cal the Hertz guy hooked me up with an upgrade to a Mustang. Great looking car, but I wasn’t too impressed with how it drove. The interior seemed overly plastic and cheap, it rattled and wasn’t very responsive. The 4 liter engine was just OK. The Impala LTZ I rented last year handled way better and had way more power.

I spent a week training at our worldwide HQ in Boston (Mansfield) earlier this month. It was FREEZING cold. I met my cousin (3rd or 4th?) Ellen for dinner at Legal Seafood. Great to see Ellen and great food. Did a quick trip into downtown for dinner at Charley’s. Very cool town. Looking forward to exploring more next month.

Saturday I took the kids on the new aerial tram in town. “Pill Hill” is running out of room. It’s just up from my lab: 3 hospitals, nursing school, dental school, etc. Parking is $100+/ month. A big chunk of waterfront real estate was donated to OHSU, so they built an aerial tram to connect the two properties. Initial estimate to build it: $15 million, final cost: $57 million. The tram was built in Switzerland (Ja!), holds 78 passengers, goes 500 ft over I-5, takes 3 minutes and has gorgeous views of downtown. The kids favorite part was going over the tower on the way up. The whole thing does a couple big swings.

Just down the street from the tram is a cool bouldering gym. No ropes, just ~15 foot climbing walls with soft floors. Gavin did an inverted wall by himself.

Grace was stopped about 1/2 way up this wall when a girl 2x her age said that she was only able to make it half way. That was all Grace needed to hear to motivate her to go to the top.

Dylan loves him some slack line. He walked the thing for the whole two hours. It was about 30′ and he could go about half way by himself.

Work trips to Boston and So. Cal this month.

Dylan feels like he’s going through the wringer this year. First he’s done vision therapy daily since November with weekly clinic sessions. IT”S WORKING! A couple weeks ago his teacher emailed us saying she had noticed a big improvement in his classroom performance. His reading has improved, too. Last week he had his adenoids removed in preparation for orthodontics later this year. Poor guy. He loves art. They made trading cards for a school project by pasting pictures from magazines on playing cards. He has made dozens of them.

Gavin is doing great in school. He is also becoming quite a piano player. This week Gavin and Dylan started taking lacrosse lessons from a family friend. He is loving it.

Shannon and her fellow Webelos leader took the scouts for a tour of the local Krispy Kreme. It’s funny, we used to go out of our way to find them in Cali and now that there is one down the street we never go there.

Grace had fun singing in the “Elementary School Musical” last month. She was a little sick last week, but is feeling much better now.

We’ve had a gloriously sunny week. It’s bitter cold in the morning and night, but getting into the low 50s during the day.