California trip

We returned on Monday from a trip to the Bay Area to visit my parents. We hadn't been down there since last fall, so it was time for a visit. We all had a great time. Although we had the best intentions of calling friends who live in the area, we used our four days mostly to spend time with Grammy and Grandpa. The gravitational pull of my childhood home overpowered our will to socialize! We played a local park, ate some gourmet pizza, and then ate more and more and more, as my mom had stocked up on lots of favorite foods.

We went to a Giants game with my dad and visited Tilden Park and rode on the steam trains there. We even went to the big carousel in another part of Tilden, which was a big hit with the little guy. The kids could not get enough of their grandparents, which was really sweet. My sainted mother got up every morning at the crack of dawn to play with Mateo so we could sleep. Thanks, Mom! The kids had a rough time sleeping while we were down there and both of them were up several times every night. But, that was a small price to pay for a great vacation! We're looking forward to next time already.

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Now that we're back in PDX, we've launched into an extravaganza of berry picking. In the past two days, we've picked and frozen 20 pounds of marionberries! They are incredibly delicious, which is why we also saved some to eat fresh. The first day we went out, the berries were practically jumping into our hands, they were so ripe and plentiful. Today was less bountiful, but still fun. Of course, some days are all about trade-offs and today was one of them. We had parked the car right next to the row of berry bushes and were letting Mateo pretend to drive while we were just a few feet away. When we were getting organized at the car before driving away, M announced that he had put "money!" into the CD player. Who knows what he really put in there, but it doesn't really matter - it appears to be broken. Or, at least wounded. We were dismayed to realize that for whatever money we saved by picking massive amounts of fruit and freezing them for the winter, we are now about to spend (likely) far more to get the car stereo fixed. Argh.

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So, I am quitting my job. After Sacha got the news of her new position, we started looking into childcare. Wow, it is pricey. If we went that route, I'd be paying nearly my entire salary to have the kids in some kind of childcare while I worked. Add that to the fact that I would love nothing more to stay home with our munchkins, and we found our decision was made. In fact, as our health care will now be free (well, except for the taxes we'll pay on the cost of my health insurance, thanks to the government's lovely domestic partner policy), and Sacha will be getting a raise, we'll actually be doing better financially than we are now. I gave notice earlier this month and am going to work until the end of the month. As my job hinges on serving families in crisis, and summertime seems to be a prime time for that, things have been craaaazy at work this month and I'm not sure how I'm going to wrap it all up by July 30th. But, I'm sure it will work out. And I'm really looking forward to being a full-time mom again.

That's about all for now. We'll be hanging out with Sacha's parents for the next week, so blogging will continue to be light for a little while here. Here are some photos from our trip!