Valentine's Day weekend

This past weekend was really perfect in a lot of different ways. J had a three-day weekend due to Presidents' Day, so we were able to go on a little family vacation. Before we left, though, Sam gave the family a really sweet valentine (see above). I love that the sweet sentiment that he expressed there.

I wanted to have the family go on at least one snowshoeing trip this year, especially since I'm not sure if we will be able to go snowshoeing next year (since Lucy might be too big for the backpack but to small to walk on her own by then). So far, every single time we've been able to go it has been rainy. J did some research and found a small strip of land in central Washington that wasn't expecting rain or snow, so we quickly packed up and headed out that direction. It was quite snowy in a few places along the way, but we made it without difficulty. We ended up staying at a small, cheap motel in Pateros, Washington and we pulled into the motel when it was dark. The rooms weren't anything special, but in the morning we were surprised to see that the motel was right on the bank of the Columbia River, with an absolutely gorgeous view!

My three favorite valentines

Just down the street from the motel was a local bakery, and we had a nice Valentine-themed breakfast there. The cinnamon rolls were huge!

We went snowshoeing along "The Shoe" trail at Echo Ridge (see map of trails HERE), which is in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest outside of Lake Chelan. This trail was a loop and it offered really lovely, expansive views of Lake Chelan and the Cascades. The trail took us a little longer to hike than we anticipated, just because of the snow.

Just before we got on our snowshoes!

When driving up to the trailhead, we passed the Echo Valley ski area, which also has a tubing hill. Sam and J went on a few runs, while Lucy and I cheered them on. This was the first time that Sam had ever been tubing and he liked it!

We finished off that fun day by throwing rocks in Lake Chelan, dining at Rivers Restaurant in Pateros, and watching Paddington together as a family in the motel room. It was such a fun, memorable day.

Lucy Reads to Pooh Bear in the Bathroom

Yesterday, while I was filming the clips below, I had the distinct realization that Lucy is no longer a baby. She really is a little toddler person. I was scrubbing the bathroom (right after I changed Lucy's diaper, which explains her simple outfit), and Lucy brought a book and her stuffed Pooh bear into the bathroom so she could be near me while I worked.

You'll have to forgive the filming location (in the bathroom) and her undershirt onesie, but I had to capture this scene as it was occurring. She already had been "reading" to Pooh for a few minutes before I started to film. On one hand, it was really neat to see her entertaining herself (especially because I could get some work done!). But I really loved seeing her play with her Pooh bear and "read" him books. Now I just need to teach her to not identify the green witch figure in her book as a "mommy" - oh dear!

Most people won't be able to understand what she is saying (and I can't understand everything myself), so I'll include a transcript of her dialogue below:



Lucy: Momma! Yeah, good job! Good job!
Clap!
Color? Yeah! Color!
Spider? Pooh [pause, to show she is asking a question]: [Where is] Spider?
[Lucy helps Pooh "point"]
A spider? Yeah! Spider!
Momma?
[Lucy helps Pooh "point"]
Good job! Good job!
Baby! See? Baby!
Fishies! Fishies! Yep, yep!
Mommy! Eyes, eyes, eyes! Nose.
Yep! Baby! Shirt [Lucy points to onesie}


Momma? Momma? Momma?
Witch!
Pooh - lap! Lap!
[Pooh points to witch]
Good job! Good job!
Fishies!
All done! All done! All done!
Baby!
Bubbles! [she sees her bubbles just beyond the camera]

I feel like Lucy's vocabulary is growing at an exponential rate. She is saying new words almost on a daily basis. It is fun to have her be so interactive and chatty, and I think she has gained a newfound confidence that she can really express herself. She feels like she can say the words that we say to her, so she is constantly trying to repeat words back to us. Yesterday evening we could hardly get her to stop talking so she could go to bed!

Debbie Reynolds as a Football

My little sister C sent me a link with a clip of a "football dance" from I Love Melvin (1953), which stars Debby Reynolds and Donald O'Connor. In this musical number, Debby Reynolds is dressed like a football, and she is tossed between the male football dancers players. I think this is such an interesting take on football: the men are crowding around the ball, like they are vying for a moment with a lady on the dance floor. Is it really that dissimilar to the actual sport?



I don't think I have ever seen I Love Melvin, but I know that it was made the year after Singing in the Rain. From what I read, though, it seems like Donald O'Connor ends up being the love interest in I Love Melvin, which is a role reversal from Singin' in the Rain (in which he played Gene Kelly's sidekick and funnyman). I remember reading that Gene Kelly wasn't that kind to Reynolds during the filming of Singin' in the Rain, who felt like she was an inferior starlet in comparison to him. It seems like Reynolds and O'Connor got along well off-screen.

This online biography for Donald O'Connor says that I Love Melvin was pretty much a dud of a film, but there is this really great scene (in addition to the football scene, naturally) in which O'Connor tap dances in roller skates:



I kind of wish I had chosen Donald O'Connor for one of the celebrities that I am studying this year. I guess I'll leave him for next year...

Portland, Tillamook, and Cannon Beach Trip

For the first time ever, J has been given Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off as a paid holiday. We had hoped to take advantage of the holiday by going on a snowshoeing trip, but our plans were foiled by the rain. So, we decided to take an impromptu trip to Oregon. My Ant Bee and her family were so kind to make time to visit with us (especially on such short notice), and we were glad we got to visit with them.

The view of Portland from our hotel window. J found a great last-minute deal, so we got to stay at The Paramount.

At the OMSI 

With Ant Bee in the foodcourt of the OMSI (which has a really great sandwich called the Yammy Bar)

Image of the installation of the Paradise exhibition by the artists Fallen Fruit. The images for the show and their juxtapositions were semi-interesting to me, but I really loved the hanging of the installation and the custom wallpaper. 

Sam dancing inside Kenny Scharf's Cosmic Cavern

We took the long way back home by driving to the coast and visiting Tillamook, the motherland of almost all of the dairy products that we consume. Before we reached the cheese factory, we took a slight detour to visit the Munson Creek Falls. This was a really short hike (about 1/4 of a mile from the parking lot to the waterfall), but it had a lovely payoff. This is one of the longest waterfalls that is located on Oregon's Coastal Range.

We then headed to Tillmook for a self-guided tour of the factory. We ate lunch there (and all of our meals included some variant of cheese), and we had ice cream cones before we went home. We really love Tillamook products, so it was fun to go there. Sam liked to see the production line for the cheese, too.

We also stopped for a quick twenty- or thirty-minute detour at Cannon Beach on our way home. It started to rain really hard just after we got back to the car. I'm glad that we were able to spend just a few momens

I'm glad that we were able to have this fun getaway trip. I look forward to exploring Oregon more, hopefully sometime this summer. The next week and a half after this trip were quite difficult (we all were sick with colds one week, and then Lucy had a fever for about four days afterward). It was nice to think back on this trip while we were feeling miserable; it helped to lift our spirits! 

Lord Hill Regional Park

These days Sam tries to make a silly face in about half of the photos I take

A couple of weeks ago, the weather was really lovely over the weekend and we were able to go out and explore Lord Hill Regional Park for the first time. This park is up on Monroe, but we felt it was well worth the drive. There were lots of different trails to take (see map). We went along the Beaver Lake Trail, and then went along the Pipeline trail and a Pipeline Cutoff trail, until we got to the Main trail. Eventually we took another Pipeline Cutoff trail to get to a viewpoint, which had a 630' elevation. There is another viewpoint in the park with a 650' elevation, and maybe we will try to do that one later this year.

The sunlight was so gorgeous while we were outside; I was so happy to be outside, in the sun, with my family. When we were hiking, I told Sam that I feel most alive when I am outside in nature, hiking with my family. I like to feel my heart beating while I hike, because it reminds me that I am just as alive as the plants that I see thriving around me. J chimed in and said that he likes to be reminded of how much nature there is in the world, and that there are a lot of places that manmade or affected by mankind. I hope that sharing these types of comments help to instill a love of hiking (or at least of nature) in Sam and Lucy.

Along one of the Pipeline Cutoff trails

 The Main Trail

 Second Pipeline Cutoff trail, just before the rise to the view point

You can see the Olympics in the distance on this side

View of the Cascades on the other side of the viewpoint

Sam was a trooper, and I think that we hiked around four miles altogether. I think that it was really fun for him to reach that view point, because he could visually see how far he had climbed through the spectacular vista.

Rosemary Clooney and George Clooney

I learned today that George Clooney is Rosemary Clooney's nephew. How did I not put this together before?!? And I can totally see the familial resemblance now, too, with the spacing of their eyes and the shapes of their faces. I love that George Clooney feels a connection with his aunt's music, too: he had Rosemary's recording "Why Shouldn't I?" playing in the background on the night that he proposed to his wife Amal (and the song was also played for the couple's first dance at their wedding celebration).

Audrey Hepburn vs. Sammy Davis Jr.

I have just barely started Sammy Davis Jr. Month, but I am already struck with how different he and Audrey Hepburn are. Audrey Hepburn was the daughter of a baroness, went to boarding school in England, lived through horrors of enemy occupation during World War II, and tried to keep aspects of her life private from the public. She also wanted to be a ballerina, and only came into the world of modeling and acting after her dancing career didn't pan out. In contrast, Sammy Davis Jr. didn't receive a formal education, grew up on the vaudeville stage performing acts with his father, and was very public about his personal life and feelings (he wrote two autobiographies: Yes I Can (1965) and Why Me? The Sammy Davis Jr. Story (1989)).

Physical appearance also affected these two individuals' careers. Audrey Hepburn was considered the epitome of fashion, and her attractive European face caused her to receive a lot of leading roles in Hollywood films. While Sammy Davis Jr. appeared in a lot of films, I don't believe that the ever scored a role as a leading man. Undoubtedly, race tied into the roles which Sammy Davis Jr. received. He also was quite short and small to be a leading man (weighing 115 pounds, which was just a few pounds more than the slim Audrey Hepburn). Sammy Davis Jr. used to actually joke about his physical appearance (while also hinting at issues of race). Once, when he heard someone commenting about discrimination, he said, "You got it easy. I'm a short, ugly, one-eyed, black Jew. What do you think it's like for me?"

Interestingly, though, it seems like both Audrey and Sammy Davis Jr. wanted to use their public image to evoke change in society. Audrey focused on work with UNICEF, and Sammy Davis Jr. was involved with politics and the Civil Rights Movement. I especially liked this quote I read in Yes I Can last night, when Sammy Davis Jr. was writing about using his talent to bring about change in regards to discrimination: "My talent was the weapon, the power, the way for me to fight. It was the one way I might hope to affect a man's thinking" (p. 72).

Another similarity is that Sammy Davis Jr. and Audrey Hepburn both were smokers. Sammy Davis Jr. was a chain smoker (he died of throat cancer in 1990) and Audrey Hepburn also was a heavy smoker - she especially seemed to have smoked when nervous, and there are instances in her biographies when she is described as having "chain-smoked her way" through interviews.

I couldn't find a photograph of Audrey and Sammy Davis Jr. together, so it could be that they never met (or perhaps never interacted with each other very much). They did have mutual acquaintances, though, which is why I included the photograph above of Audrey Hepburn with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. (You can see more pictures of Audrey with Dean and Jerry at this webpage and this webpage.)