Walk #20 and the Rest of the Day Before Colorado

With this post, I'll be done with pre-Colorado times.  Shesh.  Behind much?

After walk #19 the night before, we picked Lena and all of her stuff for the trip up and came home.  Lena was not to return to her host family until after the Colorado trip.  Actually, it was just her host mom at this point, as her host dad and siblings had all gone to a language camp she'd opted not to go to.  Any-who, I encouraged the girls to get some sleep as we had plenty to do the next day and an early start.  Then I put my earplugs in and went to sleep.  I suspect they, on the other hand, did not settle down so quickly.

Tuesday morning dawned cloudy and showery.  This was not overly encouraging for our 3 mile walk in the Belmont area, but we loaded up the troops and headed out anyway.  After all, it was the last of our walks and our only time slot in which to get it done if we wanted to do our soak in the soaking pool at the Kennedy School, which was our reward.

This walk is near our neighborhood.  It's near enough that, if we'd had a longer time slot in which to walk it, we could have walked from home rather than drive.  Everything being what it was, though, we drove.  We'd enjoyed all of the other walks in our general area and fully expected to enjoy this one, as well.  However, it wasn't our favorite.  I don't know if we were a little burnt out, if it was the rain or what, but we mostly found ourselves just going through the motions, wanting to be done.

Davan read us the introduction in the car as we hoped a shower would pass.

This part was boring for Ranger.

What wasn't boring for me was realizing I'd forgotten her leash.  Yikes!  It was the first time such a thing had happened on our walking adventures.  I guess I'd been so busy planning for being out all day that I forgot that simple thing.  I improvised with a cloth bag.

We saw some nice Victorian houses.

And walked some steps here and there.

The girls deemed the playground too wet to play on.  Shocking!

 Along this walk were three different apartment complexes, all built by the same guy.  The author was quite taken with them, dubbing them all to be reminiscent of being on vacation.  This was one of them.

We just thought this house was cool.

Smiling in the rain.

We hadn't eaten breakfast before the walk, intending to stop at Sweetpea's, a vegan bakery that was a block off the route.  Sadly, though, they weren't open yet when we went by and so we were reduced to snacking on these soy crisps from Trader Joe's.

Walking though a lovely bamboo patch.

This playground, part of the Buckman Arts Magnet School, was covered, so the girls had a go.

Davan and Lena started in Portland, OR...

And walked to Colorado Springs, Co.  Sort of.  Ranger was trying to tag along, but was usually a state away.  LOL  See her bag tucked into her collar?  Fancy, no?

This was another of those apartment complexes.

We have a lot of green here in the Pacific Northwest.

We found another painted intersection.  Due to the wetness, however, Davan and Lena just posed standing.

I told them to interact in some creative way with these dogs on unicycles.  This is what they came up with.  I tell you, we were not really at our best that morning.

We finished with just enough time to go by Sweetpea's before our next appointment.

Ranger really thought the girls should share.

Our next appointment was a good one!

Okay, actually, the mechanics of it weren't that fun.

 
I dropped Davan and Lena off for this appointment, then made a quick trip to the DMV because when they sent us our renewal stickers, they sent them for this year, not two years from now!  The person I dealt with had some reluctance to believe me, but after hearing the story and seeing the plates for herself, she grudgingly gave me complementary replacements.

I got back just in time to see this, as well as the above very flattering picture that Davan will be delighted I shared with you.

The after was really good, though!  No more braces and Davan is loaded up with balloons and caramel corn, something one is not supposed to eat with braces, but which she and Lena (who is still in braces) shared anyway.

I then took the ladies out to lunch.  We'd talked about lunch at the Kennedy School, but Davan asked if we could go to Nicolas' instead.  It's a middle eastern restaurant we frequented fairly regularly when we lived in Gresham and is right by the orthodontist.  When Lena said that sounded good to her, too, I agreed.

The plan had also been to do lunch and soaking in between the orthodontist and the next appointment.  However, it was clear by the time we were done that we didn't have time to get to the Kennedy School, soak in a relaxed manor, then get to the next appointment, which was Davan's final back study appointment.

I ended up calling to see if we could move the back study forward so we could fit in a soak after the back study and before the girls had to be at Do Jump.  I didn't get an answer, but we headed to the school anyway and kept trying.  While we were waiting, the girls managed to entertain themselves.

In addition to picture taking, I look Ranger on another bag as leash walk.  We weren't there long, though, when we got the go-ahead to come on in and do Davan's appointment. 

Lena and I entertained ourselves with the physical therapy equipment while Davan did her strength and range of motion assessment that was both part of the intake process and the out processing.  Davan joined in in between things, but she was a little jealous, I think, of our challenges to one another throughout her appointment.  Davan was working, but Lena and I were having fun.

Then she was done and wound up with mixed feelings about it.  She'd ended up feeling like the chiropractic care was helpful, even though she didn't love it at first.  She was glad to be done with the weekly appointments, though, and had also felt like the PT stuff she was given to do was a bit of a waste of time for her. 

Next, it was off to the Kennedy School for a soak!

This is not my picture, as I chose not to take the camera in with us, not wanting it to get wet.  When we were there, we were there with a good dozen (give or take) other people.  It was fun and it's obviously very pretty, but it was also a big hot tub and by afternoon, it was warm enough that we didn't want to be in that long.  I'd like to go back in the winter.







Then I had to get the girls to Do Jump for their last Zig Zag practice of the year, or ever for Lena.  :(  That was followed up by the last fabric class of the term and it's end of term show, which I've already shared highlights of with you.

I had to practically pry the girls out of Do Jump with a crow bar so we could come home and get some sleep before our road trip to Colorado the next day, but they finally came.  Once again, though, actually going to sleep was another issue all together.