Friday

We were out of the house before 10 am and headed down to the Family Fun Park at Medford. First off was the water bumper boats:


It got very hot when we played mini-golf and Braeden had a few meltdowns but some coke and nachos brought him back to life and he was happy on the mini go-karts:

Back to Grants Pass for a late lunch and then off to football conditionining for Cade. Lucy and Braeden thought they would get some exercise too:

Braeden decided his Mom wasn't pushing him hard enough and donned his backpack and set off himself:

They didn't have enought helmets so Cade didn't get his but he compensated with a team t-shirt:

After that, it was Applebee's for Cade's first birthday dinner:

Up early this morning - I thought I had packed my clubs away for this year, but Scott surprised me yesterday when he suggested that we golf this morning, so he, Vic and I are heading off to Myrtle Creek soon. We'll be back by the time that Cindy, Caitlin and Landen arrive this afternoon.

Thursday

Here's the reason why Lucy was housebound again on Thursday:

I'm happy to report that he seems to have recovered this morning (Friday) and should be OK for his first birthday party - and to go back to football conditioning, which he had to miss the last 2 nights - they're issuing the helmets tonight so he's looking forward to that. He's also been promised a morning at the family fun park in Medford, so we'll be heading off there as soon as everyone is up and has breakfasted. Birthday tea is at Applebee's after football tonight.

After Jo and I did a small shop at Fred Meyer's yesterday, I decided to book some golf in the afternoon at Grants Pass. I was prepared to play on my own, but, luckily, Scott got home from work again at lunchtime (things are pretty quiet at the hospital this week) and was able to join me. We had a fun time and Scott did pretty well, especially considering, apart from one game with Vic earlier this year, he hasn't played since I was here last year. The highlight for Scott was chipping in at the last hole for his par.

Grants Pass is not an overly exclusive or elitist golf club but some of the members like to travel in style:

Here's Scott preparing to tee off at the 18th:

I neglected to mention that Lucy made crème brûlée for afters on Wednesday. This was the Lesinas unique way of brûlée-ing the crème:

Wednesday

With Cade housebound, Jo and I took the opportunity to take Lucy's car for a spin. We headed towards Medford and stopped off at Central Point to look at a Creamery that Jo had noticed in one of the guide books. We sampled the cheeses and bought some bread as well and went to check out. The girl there had studied in London in the '70's and her sister had lived in Kintore for a while so she knew Aberdeen City and Shire pretty well - small world!

Then it was off to Barnes & Noble for Jo to top up her book collection - of course, obligatory Starbucks first of all. We spent ages getting books for Jo (and Cade) and by the time we had finished lunch time hunger pangs were calling. I thought we should try downtown Medford - we'd only ever seen the malls there - and I had used my Blackberry to find a place I thought might be interesting, but when we got there, it had been converted to an Irish theme bar - ugh!

On the way from Central Point in to Medford itself, we'd noticed a Wild River place - it's the same as the Grants Pass brewpub we usually go to and as we hadn't been yet this holiday, we thought it might be worth trying it. Of course the sampler tray was ordered first, then the peel and eat shrimp - excellent! One of my favourite things to do in USA - and this was the first time we'd done this this year.


Then it was just back to Lucy's - reading, pool, sunbathing then steaks for BBQ, preceded by more shrimp that we'd bought at Fred Meyer's yesterday.

Tuesday

Not much to report - another quiet day - Jo and I finished reading our books - and it was Jo's last one - we may have to go back to Barnes & Noble in Medford and buy more. I topped up last week and bought 3 more - the one I read first was Barack Obama's latest, The Audacity of Hope - as he has a good chance of being the most powerful man on the planet in just a few months, I thought it might be useful to find out something about him. It was pretty interesting - he came over pretty well. Anyway it's now back to Grisham - Playing for Pizza - pretty short - should rattle through this one, leaving me just Geoff Emerick's book. Who he, you say? Well, he was the engineer at Abbey Road in the '60's and worked closely with George Martin on much of that era's music.

We shopped for piñatas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinata) for Cade's double birthday celebrations this weekend - we leave on his actual birthday on Sunday so we're having an early party on Saturday - and then he gets another one on Sunday! Cade got a skateboard and a football as his 2 piñatas. He went to football conditioning again at 5:30 - Scott took him there whilst Jo and Lucy took some of the huge volume of surplus toys off to a church sale and I babysat Braeden - boy, does he talk! We played on the slide, then went in the pool, hot tub and then played Wii golf - he never stopped!

Lucy made curry for tea and she and Jo were in their element - note "relaxed" hairstyle of our new retiree - don't you think it looks better this way?:

Cade ran a temperature overnight so Lucy and he are going nowhere today - perhaps Jo and I will take a trip out?

Plan B for Monday didn't amount to much - we just stayed home and read whilst Lucy set up Cade's Wii. I nipped out at lunch time to look for golf shoes and to top up our dwindling gin supplies - liver transplant required soon - and when I got back, Scott was home - nothing for him to do at work so he set about putting up a couple of trestles to plant more honeysuckle on and create a more dense barrier between them and their (rental) neighbours.

We ate early and set off to Rogue River for the start of (American) football training for Cade. He had to do laps then refresh himself at the water fountain:


He received his cleats (top) - as above. This week is all about "conditioning" - they worked the kids pretty hard in the heat. After 5 days of this, they get put in to teams and handed their helmets, which they practice in next week, with full contact not taking place until the following week.

It's all very well organised - just like the BMX - and it's in a beautiful setting - parents can just sit and watch and take in the scenery:

They moved around the field to different coaches and differing sets of exercises - this was one of them:

He did OK at that one and wasn't too bad with the ball in his hand:

By the end, however, he was on his last legs and the bear crawl proved a bridge too far for him:

When we got home, Cade just about had enough strength left to play Wii golf with his brother - albeit sitting down!:

Sunday in Ashland

Sunday morning dawned and Jo and Lucy went to early mass again, which allowed us a relatively early start to the day. We had originally planned to go to the Oregon Caves, but we checked the web site and noticed there was a height requirement of 42". Braeden was quickly sized up - just 41" - even a phone call to them couldn't get them to bend - I guess insurance is the main reason. Scott commented on the absurdity of Braeden being allowed on the Tower of Terror a week ago, but not the Oregon Caves!

Our next option was to take a day trip down to Ashland and visit some wineries on the way back. We parked the truck and walked through Lithia park, where the boys climbed on the metal "tree":


Strolling towards the shops we passed the Shakespeare stage - it's laid out just like the Globe in London. There were stand-ups outside and the boys had to pose

Cade insisted on role reversal for another photo when he realised he was the one wearing a dress! They were offering free brass rubbings that day and Cade did one, which he's now got at home - not sure where it's going to hang yet.

On to the shops - Lucy got a new pair of ear-rings:

After much discussion, we finally plumped for the tried and tested Standing Stones brewpub for lunch, where Braeden demonstrated several uses for his hot dog, including this one:

Back to the park and the boys stripped off and walked in the stream:

I eventually went in after them:

We had such a nice time in Ashland that we didn't have any time to take in wineries as the ribs were waiting to be BBQ'd. I cooled down in the pool and Lucy made mango smoothies. Jo enjoyed hers whilst the fountain entertained the boys:

Today's (Monday) original plan was for Lucy to get up at the crack of dawn and go in to work to finish off her notes from last week (she's on holiday again this week) - then we were going to head north to the safari park which is very close to Myrtle Creek GC - I would play there whilst they did the park.

Best laid plans etc - Lucy didn't get up in time, and, at the time of writing (8:30 am), Cade is still sleeping. He has football training starting at 5:30 tonight so I guess we'll have to develop a Plan B for today.

Britt Fest

On Saturday morning, Scott took Cade down to Medford to get his (American) football gear - practice starts Monday - so he's got the skull cap and chin protector and some boots. We went to the mall in GP and bought a couple of low slung beach chairs for the lawn at Britt Fest in the evening.

On the way down to Jacksonville, we took a detour in to Medford and sought out the new Southern Oregon Brewery - the tap room is open at the weekends only. We got a tour of the brewery - just the two of us - and had some samplers and a pint:



Britt Fest in Jacksonville is a great event and the concert setting is superb:


Buddy Guy was great but George Thorogood and the Destroyers? - they describe themselves as the best bar band in the world - and that's just what they are - there was definitely a touch of Spinal Tap about them - still, it gave us a chance to leave early and beat the crowds!