Bean Anderson

Kennedy had fun on the shores of the Deschutes river this past weekend. She especially liked picking up river rocks and carrying them around.

posted by Bean @ 9:13 PM 0 Comments

We've been out-of-pocket the past few days. The weekend was hot here in Oregon. We got Kennedy a little swimming pool to splash around in and beat the heat.

posted by Bean @ 9:33 PM 0 Comments

We went to the reproductive center today; everything looks good. Here we are in the parking lot.



Megan stopped by for a visit this evening and we all went to eat dinner. Kennedy sure loves company.

posted by Bean @ 8:34 PM 0 Comments

The new camera arrived today, yay! I took this picture of Kennedy before we went up to bath time. She had just finished a cookie snack.



The base cabinets are starting to go in and sheetrock is being replaced/added. We're making progress!

posted by Bean @ 8:58 PM 0 Comments

Still no camera – but it should be delivered sometime this week. Today’s photo is courtesy of Sheryl’s camera phone. Apparently they were playing beauty parlor at school today for she came home with pigtails. Can you believe how long her hair has gotten?!?

posted by Bean @ 11:22 PM 0 Comments

Friday after work Sheryl and I loaded up the pickup truck and headed over to Maupin, OR for a weekend of whitewater rafting and relaxing. We were fortunate enough to get to use my aunt and uncle’s cabin for the weekend while the friends we met were forced to camp in various forms. (We were the envy of the group – thanks Peggy and Eric!!)

Saturday morning brought with it small town café breakfast and a lot of hurrying up and waiting. We were fortunate to have been invited to join a group of experienced rafters that had their own gear and boats so we were free to be flexible with schedules.

Our guide, Tim, did a half run in the AM with his son and then we all set out about 1pm for the first half of our trip down the Deschutes River. During that first half we encountered Wapanitia rapids, Boxcar (my favorite!) and several others. There is a booming business in Maupin for river rafting photos – you can check out some of our photos by clicking these links. (I can’t legally show the photos here – but you can check them out on their websites for at least a little while.)

Wapinitia photo #1

Wapinitia photo #2 – Sheryl and I are in the back near our fantastic guide, Tim.

Boxcar photo #1 – Sheryl’s side of the boat got the brunt of this wave.

Boxcar photo #2 – After this bumpy ride, Joy’s center of gravity was luckily leaning towards the boat so that’s where she landed. On the left side of the boat, everyone ended up about 2 feet further back than they started. It was a blast!

After about 5 miles we pulled off at City Park which is in Maupin for lunch and a chance to shuttle the vehicles from our launch point to the final destination. We were back on the river about 3pm where we were facing rapids with names such as Roller Coaster, Island, Stagecoach and the feared (respected) Oak Springs which is a Class 4.

After much debate we took the more difficult route through Oak Springs and road through it like champs.

Oak Springs Photo #1 – Sheryl and I are on the left side of the boat in this run. I love it how calm our guide seemed.

Oak Springs Photo #2 - Everybody hold on!

All in all it was a fantastic time – we cut our trip short to get home on Sunday to see Kennedy and we’re hoping to get her up there soon to watch the boats go by.

posted by Bean @ 10:07 PM 0 Comments

Big updates for you – sadly still no camera to provide us good photos so my camera phone will have to suffice in the short term. (No worries – a new camera is on order from our favorite website www.overstock.com.)

Kennedy recovered nicely from her virus late last week and had a grand time with Grandma and Grandpa Anderson while we (Sheryl and Susan) snuck away for a couple of days to whitewater raft on the Deschutes River. (More on that story soon!)

This afternoon, a kid-starved set of moms attempted to make up the two days away from Kennedy with an afternoon trip to the Oregon Zoo for a 45 minute ride on the train. (Choo Choo trains are Kennedy’s favorite things to jabber about these days so we felt it a suitable bribe for the time away, ha ha). Here are Kennedy and Sheryl enjoying the fantastic scenery.

posted by Bean @ 10:36 PM 0 Comments

Despite a slight fever when we picked up Kennedy from daycare, we made a go of it for the Wed. night zoo concert. Sheryl had a work function tonight so it was just the kiddo and me settling in for a picnic dinner before the concert.

Before dinner we went to see the elephants and played on some of the kid-sized animal sculptures. Here’s Kennedy taking a ride on the camel. Although she wasn’t feeling all that great – she did manage to moo a few times (didn’t you know camels moo’d?). Too funny.



The trouble started when Kennedy wanted nothing to do with getting out of her stroller. I tried tempting her with food but there was no way she was going to be OK with getting out of the stroller. Needless to say, a hungry, I-don’t-feel-good baby makes for a difficult situation so I tried addressing the hungry part and fed her some of her dinner in the stroller. Soon she was content to sit on the blanket.

The big crisis arose, however, when I collapsed the stroller so that those sitting behind us could see. You would have thought I had taken a baseball bat to her favorite toy the way Kennedy got upset. Attempts at telling her that the stroller had to be down so others could see – or that the stroller was tired and taking a nap had no effect.

After about 10 minutes of Kennedy being pretty upset about the stroller, we packed it in and headed home. Poor little bug was really not feeling good by the time we got home. I’m anticipating a trip to see the doctor tomorrow if her fever continues through the night. Breaks our hearts.

posted by Bean @ 9:14 PM 0 Comments

Well, two days and the camera still hasn't turned up. I think I (Sheryl) must have lost it at the park on Sunday evening. Oh bother. Here's a photo of Kennedy from our trip to Victoria Canada last month. She's sleeping hard on Aunt Shelly's shoulder while blowing sleep bubbles. This photo was taken on the bus ride back to the Empress Hotel from our Buchart Gardens excursion.

posted by Bean @ 9:28 PM 0 Comments

It’s hard to keep up with the blog when the camera is playing hide and seek with us… We hope to have new photos up soon.

In the meantime, here’s a funny picture from a couple of weeks ago. We bought this iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner that will vacuum the house for us while we are gone. It is too cool, if you ask us. If you were to ask Elle, however, she’d have a different answer; she can’t decide if its something to run from or attack. Pretty entertaining!

posted by Bean @ 8:06 AM 0 Comments

Wow what a difference a week makes. Dave and Cooper have really moved the work along and there's some excellent craftsmanship in the beam work seen here. These beams are parallam.



Sheryl just returned from the 37th AFSCME Convention in Chicago. More about that later, but she did have a great dinner at Tuscany's in Little Italy with Benita and Janet, both from New York. Benita is the sister of Surah, our super fabulous chiropracter.

posted by Bean @ 9:35 PM 0 Comments

Kennedy has been spending some quality time with Grandma and Grandpa Anderson. She loves riding in her stroller down the block to the local park where she is quite confident in climbing the equipment all on her own.



Dad writes, “Kennedy and I spent about 15 minutes playing in the flowers before dinner. She liked to smell them, then always made a funny face after she had smelled one.”



Dad continues, "Later, during dinner, Kennedy didn't want to eat her roast beef. The airplane fork (circling the field and dropping food off in the mouth) used to work beautifully on you (Susan). Kennedy was no match for it and ate all her roast beef. We gave her a second helping of cantaloupe. She handed me the fork, then pointed to her cantaloupe.

It's amazing the words she is willing to tackle. Like cantaloupe. Not understandable, but spoken with no fear, and usually the right number of syllables."

posted by Bean @ 11:09 PM 0 Comments

Pictures like these catch me completely off guard. Gone is our little baby and peeking around the corner is our little girl. In addition to looking older (get a load of that hair finally coming in strong!!) she is acting older too. She has strong opinions and isn’t afraid to assert her views. (This is especially funny when it comes to snack selections: Do you want the crackers? [no], graham bunnies? [no], honey nut O’s [yes, yes, yes!].)



It’s been amazing to watch Kennedy grow; just the other day I was telling Sheryl we should try and create a listing of all the words she knows and realized the list would be far too long; we’d tire of it before we even got partway through.

My other ah-ha from this last weekend happened when we were at breakfast on Saturday (gotta love not having a kitchen!!)... I had taken with us Kennedy’s puzzle shapes book (featuring triangles, ovals, circles, squares and rectangles) and was blown away when she knew each and every one of the shapes. Smart girl, this one...

posted by Bean @ 11:30 PM 0 Comments

This morning Kennedy, Sheryl and I got up early early to take Sheryl to the airport (she went out of town for a work-related trip). After a yummy breakfast at the airport and a trip home to get dressed and showered, Kennedy and I were ready to hit the town at the relatively early hour of 9:30am.

Kennedy and I decided to head to a local park where there was a large fountain - especially good for hot sunny days. At first, Kennedy wasn't sure she liked the water - but she warmed up to it soon enough.

posted by Bean @ 6:37 PM 0 Comments

We met some co-workers at the zoo concert on Wednesday. It was a blast. Ska Cubano played some great music. Kennedy sure enjoyed everyone.



This is the view of the east side of our kitchen from Sunday evening.



Here it is as of Thursday evening. And the demolition continues. Hopefully new construction will begin next week.

posted by Bean @ 8:38 PM 0 Comments

When Shelly was here she called mom and officially declared Kennedy ready for Christmas at Mema and Papa Sanford's. The proof--here's Kennedy eating popcorn and watching a movie; both key Sanford house behaviors.

posted by Bean @ 8:57 PM 0 Comments