Fourth of July 2012

We had a traditional fourth of July celebration this year, a small town parade followed by a fireworks show.  What might not be so traditional is where we viewed the parade from.  We created our own float!

Last year, the kids walked in the kiddie parade that happens directly before the Grand Parade in our town.  When they got finished, they had one request, "We want to do the big parade next year!"  We're always open for creating family memories, so we set about becoming float builders.  In order to save ourselves a lot of work, we used the same theme for the float that I have at cub day camp this year, jungle.  I wanted to make it a bit more meaningful than jungle so I tried to come up with some way to incorporate family, since that's what we are and why we were doing it.  I came up with the slogan, "Family...  it's a jungle of fun!"

Do you want to build a float like ours?  Find an old tent trailer, some broken playground equipment, a half rotten park bench, your uncle's lawn mower and some jungle/luau decorations.  Assemble them all together into a fine mess and call it a float.  We did it in the Dickson tradition of re-use, re-purpose, re-imagine.  I've been working on the day camp decorations for weeks but the actual float building didn't begin until July 2nd.

The base of our float is the trailer we use for the produce co-op.  It began life at least 30 years ago as a tent trailer.  Dode found it in black berry bushes several years ago,  tore it apart and put a flat metal bed on it.  We didn't have a use for it so we pushed it off into the grass on the edge of the property and forgot about it.  We never got it licensed since we weren't planning to use it.  It just sat in the grass and slowly rusted up.  A few months after beginning the produce co-op, the produce company said they wouldn't bring the pallet jack up our driveway anymore with our produce (we'd had a few dumped pallets and it really drained their battery to come up our gravel driveway).  We yanked the trailer out of its nest of tall grass where it had become enmeshed and put it to use every other Saturday hauling 1-2 tons of produce up the driveway.  It's not very big but I thought it would make a fine float.

Dode was worried that our 12 passenger van would dwarf the trailer and thought towing it with a riding lawnmower would be more in scale with it.  Our rider mower isn't running very smoothly currently and we had visions of backfiring and just plain dying in the middle of the parade.  We borrowed Uncle Dave's lawn mower on July 2nd, problem solved (thanks Uncle Dave).

This photo was taken shortly after the co-op started using it.

You can still see pieces of grass stuck to it.

Using a lawnmower to tow a car trailer presents a new challenge.  The back of the lawnmower where you hook things on to tow, intended for small yard trailers, is really low and it was not designed to have a ball needed to tow a full size trailer.  When we looked at hooking our trailer up to the lawn mower on July 2nd, we knew it would never work.  It was tipped down at too much of an angle and would drag on the ground.  On July 3rd, Dode's dad came over and he and Dode figured out a way to make it work.  They went out to our scrap metal pile and found a piece of playground equipment (we'd received it last year when a friend who is the head of his homeowners association was re-doing his neighborhood playground).  They figured out a way to attach that piece of metal to the trailer so that it would hook up to the lawnmower.  It had to be removable so we could tow the trailer to the parade, hook it up to the lawnmower, pull it down the parade route, and then take it apart to bring it home.  A little welding, cutting, drilling, testing, and repeating the process a few times and we have a car trailer that can be hooked to a lawnmower.  It's nice to have a father-in-law that can do anything with metal; thanks Lynn.   It sounds like a lot of work but sometimes you have to do things just to know you can!

working on the adapter

We had the problem of a float base and tow vehicle solved.  Next on to accommodating passengers.  We used a wooden bench we'd received through the playground remodel for part the family to sit on.  You can see it in the photo above.  We thought about using the yellow chairs we picked up when they tore Presidents' Elementary down years ago, but as you can see, they were too short.  We ended up using our kitchen bar stools.  The expanded metal and weathered plywood of the trailer deck isn't very nice to look at but a few plush blankets took care of that!

Next we had to figure out decorations.   I've been hard at work making decorations for cub camp.  I figured I could re-purpose a lot of them for our float.  Our float is topped with a canopy that will be used at the entrance to camp.  Everyone will walk through our jungle tunnel to get into camp.

jungle entrance ready for camp

close up of canopy

At the parade, it gave us a top to the float.  We had to do some modifications to make it work for the float.  At camp, the PVC pipe legs will slip over rebar pounded into the ground to give it stability.  We couldn't pound rebar into the float, but Dode had the metal frame from our old trampoline in pieces in the garage.  (He'd used the legs of the trampoline for the base of our giant slip and slide.  click here for more details!)  The distance between the leg connections was perfect for the legs on the canopy I made.  He screwed the metal frame pieces to the trailer, slipped in a rebar, and stuck the PVC legs around that.  We had a nice solid roof.

Sorry for the blurry photo, it's a crop.

You can see the metal pieces going across the trailer.  I painted the upright parts green to hide them.

The plywood jungle animals will be scattered around camp.  They lined the float and hid the ugly fiberglass wheel wells and the old cracked tires.  I already had the table mini skirt from the last time we did the jungle theme at day camp.

Anastaya.

I had a Cleopatra outfit I'd gotten 90% off at Wal-Mart.  She wore it without the big gold collar and crown that came with it and we added a long black wig.  She was a jungle princess.  

We borrowed a gorilla suit for Elizabeth. 

Miriam was a Hawaii girl, dressed up in a mumu turned dress with some creative sewing and a lei.

William had a lion costume in the closet from a few Halloween's ago.

Isaac wore some Indiana Jones clothes I'd purchased for one of the classes we're doing at camp.  

  I had a safari looking shirt I'd received for teaching at National Camp School a few years ago.  Together with some technical pants he already had and a safari hat Aunt Janice found at a garage sale, Dode was set.   

  I already had safari clothes I was planning to wear at cub camp.

Some of our costumes might have been a stretch with the jungle theme, but everyone was happy.

We spent the morning of the Fourth of July decorating and putting together our float.

Just getting started, fighting over who gets to attach what animal and which one goes where.

Good things we have a big area to spread out around because we used it!

Getting closer to the finish line

 Everyone helped with decorating.  For the most part, we all got along but I'm sure anyone can realize that there were a few hurt feelings when something didn't go where someone else wanted it.  It took us a few hours to get everything figured out and then we took it for a test drive in the driveway.

On our test drive.

We lost a bit of greenery but other than that, it seemed like it would work.  Dode was most worried about the canopy but it was nice and solid.  Then it was time to take everything apart so we could load the lawnmower onto the trailer, pile everything else around it, and bring everything to the parade staging area.

Taken apart and ready to head to the parade.  Can you see why we didn't want to use the van?  The trailer looks TINY!

This look reminds me a lot of what the boat looks like when we go camping with it, things piled everywhere!

It was soon time to head down to town and we set off down the driveway.  The worst part of our driveway when you're towing a trailer is the transition from our downhill driveway to the flat street.  Sure enough, we managed to drag two of our animals on the ground before we made it to the road.  We'd brought the electric screwdriver along so with some quick animal removal, we were ready to go.  We drove there slowly, flashers going, while Isaac and I watched out the rear windows of the van to make sure nothing fell off.

I was a bit nervous as we drove there because one of the rules was you had to be insured.  How do you insure a riding lawnmower and a home built trailer that's never been on the road before?  I'd given them a copy of our renter's insurance and auto insurance but I wasn't sure they'd be happy with it.  I got there to sign in and gave them our name.  "Could it be under another name?"  "No."  "Who are you with?"  "No one, just our family."  More looking at the registration page.  I knew I was registered because I'd been receiving emails about the parade.  "Oh, here it is,  under the name 'family'."  They checked our paperwork and said everything was in order and I could breathe a sigh of relief.

We had to take everything off the float to get the lawnmower off, install our adapter, and re-decorate the float before the parade.  Once we had the float put back together, we walked around town until it was time to get back to the float and put on our costumes.

Lined up and waiting for the parade to begin.  The only thing I bought for the parade was the banner.  I'll hang it up somewhere at cub camp.

Anastaya says she won't be sitting by Elizabeth next time because the gorilla hogged all the attention!  Elizabeth was really hamming it up, making gorilla motions and pointing at people.  She loved it!  Miriam and William enjoyed waving at the crowd and seeing some of their friends.  We recognized quite a few people as we went by.

Aunt Viv is running up to get a good shot.

While I was taking a photo of Aunt Viv, she was taking pictures of us.

a silly gorilla and a beautiful girl

The kinds of reactions Elizabeth was getting.

The girl in pink looks dumbfounded, the mom looks a bit scared and the boy with the green bag?  I don't know what emotion that is!

Indiana Jones never looked so good!

Hi Grandma Sharon, Ellie, Sheri and Seth

(and Anastaya's friend Sidney 2nd from the left front row!)

I had a few butterflies as we started the parade.  How would our float be received?  Would the children decide they hated every minute of it? It turned out great.  We heard lots of "Great float!  I love your float!" saw lots of people pointing and smiling, and saw lots of people take photos of us.  Part way down we heard a bunch of girls crying out, "Isaac!  Isaac!"  A bunch of girls he's friends with at school  had recognized him and were excitedly waving and cheering.  Isaac ate it up.  As we finished the parade route, I could finally stop smiling.  I felt like Tour Guide Barbie at the end of the 2nd Toy Story, "Oh my gosh,  my cheeks are killing me! I can't keep smiling like this anymore! I'm exhausted!"

We earned 2nd place for our float.  The kids call it the 2nd place curse since I also got 2nd in the Supermom contest and Anastaya got 2nd last year for Most Patriotic in the kiddie parade.  The kids think we need to get a trophy case to display our awards.  The little Dicksons were totally wound up with excitement after the parade.  I'm sure they would have loved to get home and blow off some extra energy.  We couldn't just drive the 2 miles home, we had to pull onto a side street and take everything apart for the drive home.

While we were disassembling things, someone walked by and said, "Who were you representing, I couldn't tell?"  "Just family."  "Family?"  "Yes, our kids wanted to make float, so we did."  A puzzled, "Oh..."

They are already talking about next year.  Poor Dode!  He has to be the one to carry off our wild ideas.  At least it will be less work next year since we already have the adapter for the trailer to be towed by a lawn mower.  He just has to keep track of where he puts it!  He's already brainstorming how to get a giant rocket on our float with mist/fog coming out.  I hope it's a hot day!

Next year's day camp/parade theme?  Outer Space.  I need a Family... banner that goes with outer space.  Any ideas?

Astoria Trip

Every year the school that the home school kids attend has a year end trip for the last week of school. We've never been able to go before because the cost was always “per person” and when you have a lot of people, it adds up fast. Well, this year it was $190 for the trip no matter how many people were in your family. The trip was to the Northern Oregon Coast. We stayed at the Warrenton KOA directly across from Fort Stevens State Park near Astoria.

The excitement of the trip started before we even left the driveway!

We were in the last hour before departure. I was trying to keep my cool (it's a lot easier to speak with a soft voice when you have laryngitis like I'd had for a few days!) while directing the children in the various things they needed to accomplish before we left.

“Get dressed.” “Get off the couch and get dressed.” “Last night you volunteered to help me this morning, but you won't even get off the couch and get yourself dressed.”

“Eat breakfast.” “I don't care what you choose.” “Yes, you can have chicken nuggets, just eat something.”

I was trying to get everything ready, catch up on the laundry and finish packing. The phone rings...

“Umm... there's a problem with the trailer.” We'd loaned our cargo trailer to another family who would be bringing all the food for the trip.

“Ok, what's the problem?”

“The bike rack just fell off.” I was wanting to spend some time riding the Oregon Coast bike trail. Dode and Lynn had installed a hitch to the back of the trailer so I could mount the bike rack there. I'd placed all the bikes on it before lending out the trailer. We have a “man door” on the side so covering the back with our bikes wasn't a big burden. But suddenly our bikes were a huge problem.

“Oh no! Where are you?” “We're in Arlington, by the cemetery, what should we do?” “I'll be there in five minutes!” I loaded up Jacob, Isaac, Anastaya and Elizabeth and we hurried over to find the trailer. We took off the bikes and the kids rode the two blocks home. The other family had to go back to their house to find a wrench to take the bike rack all the way off. I was SO glad it fell off in town and not while doing 70 miles an hour down the freeway where someone could have gotten hurt!

I'd done my research ahead of time looking for where I wanted to eat on the way down and found just the place using happycow.net (a website that lists vegetarian restaurants across the country with user reviews). I chose an Indian restaurant in Lacey with easy freeeway access called Curry Corner. Imagine my surprise when we pulled up to a dark restaurant to learn they were open six days a week, and Monday wasn't one of them! I looked around and saw a Thai restaurant across the street so I changed my plans and had green curry instead. I used the GPS and saw that we were just up the road from Costco so the kids chowed down on some of the cheapest fast food around, big hot dogs and giant pieces of pizza.

We stopped at Wal-Mart in Lacey to buy a portable DVD player for William to use. He finds the sound of some words really appealing and will say them over and over and over. I'd been listening to, “salt, peper, salt, pepper” for over 20 minutes and needed a break. The DVD experiment was a bust. We got the movie going for him but within the first five minutes he'd managed to change the settings to Spanish (He was wearing headphones and kept asking me why they were speaking English and I kept telling him because that's the language we speak!) Once we got that figured out, he was soon navigating through the special features until even Elizabeth had a hard time finding her way back. We finally convinced him to stop pushing buttons only to have the movie fail to hold his interest. Soon I was back to listening to “Stop! Go! Stop! Go!” We eventually arrived at the KOA and with so many helpers, we were able to get the van unpacked and head to the pool.

 Miriam and Elizabeth's favorite part of cabin was the doors.  They're like pioneer style doors where you pull on the dowel and the arm in the back lifts and allows the door to be opened. 

 I explained to the kids how the pioneers used to pull the string inside at night, giving them a securely locked door.

our cabin

The KOA has a “giant pillow”, like the floor of a bouncy house set into the ground. The kids enjoyed working off their energy bouncing on the pillow.

We made many visits to the swimming pool. Thankfully it's an indoor pool so we didn't freeze ourselves. It was a bit chilly at the campground so the 80 degree pool room was a great place for me to hang out and watch the kids.

Elizabeth could often be found chilling in her bed in the cabin, reading or watching a movie. Once I even found her there hours after dinner. I hadn't even realized that she'd missed the educational program that was offered.

The next morning was our day of exploring Astoria, OR. The school made arrangements with

the different attractions we were visiting to tailor the programs to different age children. That required our family to be broken up and assigned to different groups of kids their own age. I had

children in three different age groups. It felt strange to be on vacation but not do things all

together. Elizabeth was pretty concerned about being away from me but I told her it's like

pretending to be in public school for the day, going on a field trip without your mom.

I stayed with Miriam and William. Anastaya went with two girls she'd befriended. Isaac jumped in with some other high school boys. That left Elizabeth with no one. She asked several families if she could ride with them but they all had full vehicles. Finally, I asked the teacher who is organizing the trip what I could do and she said she was going with Elizabeth's age group and would be happy to take her. 

Elizabeth ended up really enjoying her day with her teacher. It ended up that they spent a lot of the day together, just the two of them.  At the end of the day, her teacher told me that Elizabeth was a delight and made the day really fun. I'm not surprised, she's such a sweetie.

The first stop of the day for William, Miriam and me was the Astoria Riverfront Trolley. It took us up and down the shore in Astoria. The conductors were very good at pointing out interesting things for the children to look at.

The favorite part for the kids was ringing the bell and seeing the sea lions lounging on the docks.  They looked like giant slugs to me!

The hour long tour was a bit too long for the littles!

After the trolley, we went to the Columbia Maritime Museum. The museum tells the story of the treacherous mouth of the Columbia Ricer, some of the wildest water in the world. I really enjoyed learning about the Coast Guard that helps boaters when they run into problems. They also had displays about the history of the area, from the Native Americans to Lewis and Clark to present day fishermen. They had a lot of displays about mapping the area. I had to hold myself back from taking photos of all the old mapping equipment on display. I want to show it all to Dode but I tell myself, "If he was interested in old mapping equipment, he could see plenty of it himself on the Internet."

The next stop on our schedule was lunch. We walked to the Blue Scorcher Bakery, a vegetarian cafe I'd found on happycow. I'd read good things about the Tempeh Reuben and it lived up to the reviews. Now I need to make one at home! The kids brown bagged it with lunches I'd packed at the KOA. We ate our lunch on a sidewalk bench and walked over to the Oregon Film Museum.

It's housed in an old jail building and was used for part of the film Goonies. We got some mug shots before moving on to the movie part of the museum. Over 200 films have used Astoria for their filming. Half the museum was an area where the kids could try their acting and filming skills. They had three sets: a car (their favorite), a living room, and an interview space like you'd see on a local news show. One of the kids could run the camera while the others read their lines from a teleprompter. I got stuck in the interview chair a few times while I asked the kids questions. I felt pretty silly but was a good sport about it. The museum is putting all our filming on disk and sending it to the school.

Right across the street is the Flavel House, built by a river pilot at the end of the 1800's. It's an impressive house but not the best place for kids. “Look with your eyes” and “No touching” were

heard many times! It was pretty modern for its time period. Every bedroom had access to a sink with running water.  They had two bathrooms with old fashion flush toilets. The ceilings in the place were huge. I wouldn't want to heat it in the winter!

Leaving the Flavel House behind, we had to make the walk back to the car. Miriam thought it was way too far and it was a challenge to find interesting things to distrct her from her tired feet. I promised the ride back would be worth it when we got in the car and drove to Rapunzel's Tower, visible throughout downtown Astoria. (Otherwise known as the Astoria Column.)

view from the top of the tower, looking South

Miriam was so excited to finally be at the tower. We purchased balsa gliders to release from the top and she started sprinting up the stairs.

There is circular stair case in the center of the tower. Circular stair cases are always kind of skinny and with a lot of people going up and down, there was a bit of sway to it. It didn't take long before Miriam started to notice how high she was getting and one of her hands was gripping the banister. A bit longer and she slowed to a crawl, both hands holding tightly to the banister while she inched her way up. We didn't spend much time at the top, just long enough for her to launch her glider and snatch a photo, before going down. I'm not so comfortable about heights myself but being brave for Miriam kept me distracted.

We stumbled upon a small playground to hang out at while waiting to catch up with Elizabeth.  

As I sat there, I wondered how much longer visiting new playgrounds would be part of every vacation. I fear the time will come all too soon!

That night, the rangers from Fort Clatsop came and did an educational program for the kids about life on the Lewis and Clark expedition. To start with, it was optional to attend. Once they realized very few people were planning to participate, it became mandatory. 

writing with quill pens

learning about using a full elk.  Look at Anastaya's face,  not happy to be underneath the leather!

On Wednesday, we headed down to Tillamook. Our first stop was the Tillamook Pioneer museum. The kids' favorite part was the taxidermy display on the top story.

Elizabeth took a photo of every owl they had.

Miriam enjoyed hearing what this big Smokey the Bear had to say.

This fun bench was across the street from the museum.

After the pioneer museum, we headed to the Tillamook Air Museum. It's housed in a hanger where they built blimps during WW2. It's so big inside, it's difficult to adequately describe how small we felt.

Inside today, the huge hangar dwarfs the airplanes inside!  They've even had

indoor hot air balloon displays.

Inside the hangar while in use.

We enjoyed going around and looking at the different planes.  Elizabeth had to take a photo of every airplane so she could show her dad when she got home.

See the RV parked behind this plane?  It's a BIG airplane, called a Guppy.

Inside the Guppy

Once we finished up there, it was time to head to the Tillamook cheese factory. The school had purchased ice cream cone tickets for each of the children.  I love it when I don't have to be the bad guy and say "no" to little treats.  Deciding on a flavor was tough for some of the kids but not Miriam, vanilla! 

We've bought enough Tillamook cheese loaves over the years to make one of these out of cheese ourselves!

Watching the assembly line is mesmerizing.

We finished up our day by hanging out at Hug Point. The weather was nice and warm and the kids enjoyed playing in the surf and playing baseball with our dollar store bat and ball. (Best $1 I spent all week!) Isaac gave me a bit of worry. The beach had cliffs on either end, enclosing the beach. Isaac and a friend decided to explore around the point of cliffs on one side. I was sure hoping the tide wouldn't come in and strand him where we couldn't get to him.

Back at camp, it was time for all you can eat s'mores.

I saw this sign along the way.  On the way back to camp I HAD to stop to get a photo.  It just tickles my funny bone.  The kids did not get the humor.  Anyone else?

Thursday it was time to head home.  We stopped at Fort Stevens for a tour of the battery before going home. It just happened to be the 70th anniversary of the shelling by the Japanese.  They have the distinction of being the only mainland fort attacked by an enemy since the war of 1812.  The Japanese shelled the fort, but their missiles didn't make it past the beach.  The commander of the fort chose not to fire back because the Japanese submarine was out of range of his guns.  It's my 2nd time going inside the WW2 battery for a tour.

Fort Stevens was originally built during the Civil War when Oregon and Washington was still up for grabs and the United States was trying to protect their claim.  It was improved during WW1 and again in WW2.  After WW2, the fort was sealed up.  Squatters soon took over the abandoned gun battery and used it as living space until they started a fire that burned for weeks.  We enjoyed touring the gun battery and hearing the stories of its many uses.  

This is my,"I don't care if you're bored, I'm watching this film about the fort!" face.

exploring one of the open batteries on our own

The walls inside the battery are extremely thick.

It's pretty impressive to be in such an immense man made structure and imagine the men who once worked inside it.

As soon as we were finished with the tour, it was time  to pile into the van and head home.  I chose to go home over the bridge between Oregon and Washington (the 4 mile long Astoria-Megler bridge).  It's  a longer ride, but the kids really wanted to go over the bridge and I don't mind exploring new territory.

We're pretty good at Hudson Bay starts. (The Hudson Bay company used to camp close to home on the first night out on a big voyage. That way, if anything important was forgotten, it was easy to go back and retrieve it.) Fort Stevens and our KOA were across the street from each other. Once we got to Fort Stevens, we had to go back to the KOA to retrieve William's shoes that he'd left next to the pillow. Thus, bringing to mind another of our family "traditions", our rule never to get into the car without your shoes on. (Do other families even need that rule? It doesn't just apply when we're leaving home. It can be getting in the car after church, a play date, etc!)


We stopped in Kelso for gas and as I stood beside the car in the hot sunshine, I felt like I was on one of the road trips we'd taken,  not in Washington.  We haven't had much of a summer this year.  While the rest of the country is breaking heat records, we're wearing our jackets and enduring grey skies with temperatures in the 50's and 60's.  We'd left the grey skies of the coast behind and it was about 80 degrees in Kelso.  Apparently that was the only day of summer mother nature wanted to give us because the next day we were back to the clouds and rain.  Miriam was pretty mad to have wasted the only sunny day deep in a gun battery and then in the car.