Category Archives: Events

A new addition to our family: Cheeto!

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That’s right, we finally made good on a promise for Oliver’s birthday to get him a dog.  He was becoming impatient with how long it was taking to find a dog online, so on Jan 3 we hopped into the car and took a trip to the Oregon Humane Society to meet some dogs.  After meeting two potential matches, the first turned out to be pretty sensitive to fast movements and touching her feet/tail and the second was a pretty cute Chihuahua who already had two people in line to adopt him.  Our third and final meeting was with Cheeto who had just been put up for adoption minutes before we arrived.  And here he is:

Oliver and Cheeto

Cheeto is a 1 and 1/2 year old Chihuahua/Terrier mix and has fit right in with our family.  He ended up at the Humane Society with a broken pelvis/leg that had healed incorrectly.  He underwent surgery to repair it as much as possible, but he still doesn’t use one of his hind legs all of the time.  It doesn’t seem to hurt and sometimes he does walk on it, and it certainly doesn’t slow this little guy down at all.  He has tons of energy and loves to play with us and his toys.  From the get-go he fell in love with Jen and loves to snuggle in her lap. He and Oliver have been bonding and playing so things are working out great!  We’re all so happy to have little Cheeto in our lives.

At the Cinco de Mayo carnival downtown.

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Jen and Oliver met me downtown tonight after work for the Cinco de Mayo carnival. It was your typical carnival experience – greasy food, wild rides and high prices but Oliver had a great time. He went on a few rides (most of them cost 7 tickets these days) but his excitement and joy made it all worth it.

The trip through the haunted house wasn’t all that enjoyable for him and he rode with his head between his legs the whole time, but the fact that he wanted to do it was promising. He got the most bang for his buck in the (6-ticket) kid play area which was a small cage with a tiny ball room, slide and punching bag things. They didn’t seem to monitor how long kids stayed in there so he hung out and did his thing for at least 15 or 20 minutes.

We topped the night off with a ride on the Ferris wheel. Oliver’s head almost exploded with excitement when they stopped the wheel with us at the top. Yay!

Oliver at the top of the Ferris wheel.

We didn’t have the camera, but luckily were able to snap a few pics and videos using our cell phones. Check them out in the gallery. I’ll post video soon.

Oliver the docent.

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Here’s a quick video of Oliver performing his docent duties. He worked for half an hour, 7:25-7:55. People were very charmed by his acting out of the movements. You’ll see what I mean when you watch it.

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Length: 0:51 Size: 4.06MB

Oliver plays “King Midas” in his second grade play.

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On February 5, 2008 Oliver starred in his school’s production of “King Midas.” We were so excited and, to tell the truth, a little nervous but he did a fantastic job. When we first heard that he was going to be in the school play we were a little concerned thinking that he might not be able to handle the pressure. But, Oliver surprised us when we first went over the script at home he knew all of his lines as well as everyone else’s! Of course they had already been rehearsing at school and by the time the script came home he had it down. We worked a little on the speed – he was initially speaking way too fast – but other than that he was totally confident.

Below is a video that I put together using footage I took using our old VHS-C camcorder and video that Jen captured using our digital camera. It turned out pretty good, and to make it fun for Oliver I added a Star Wars type intro and rolling credits at the end. He loved it! I also added subtitles here and there where it’s difficult to make out what some of the actors are saying.

[flashvideo filename=/video/King_Midas.flv image=/images/video/tn_king_midas.jpg /]

The King hanging out before the play.

Whole Child Montessori graduation ceremony.

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Here is a video of Oliver’s graduation ceremony from Whole Child Montessori School on June 13, 2006 just before moving on to Lewis Elementary and the first grade. This was at Sellwood park and the kids sang a few songs and then a short procession where the graduates received necklaces. Oliver became grumpy during one of the songs and refused to sing for some reason. Watch for his famous tortured soul facial expression.

[flashvideo filename=/video/oliver_graduation.flv image=/images/video/tn_wcmc_graduation.jpg /]

There are also pictures of this event in the photo gallery.