As is tradition on this blog, here’s an image of the first (non-cherry) tomato harvested from this year’s garden. (We harvested the first cherry tomatoes a couple weeks ago.) There’s one more tomato just a few sunny days away from being picked, but then it looks like we’ll be waiting for a little while longer for more ripe tomatoes. We’ve started harvesting zucchini as well as our second round of lettuce, too.

Evan loves UPS and FedEx trucks, and he can spot them from blocks away when we are driving. We’ve had friendly encounters with both UPS and FedEx drivers in the past, but I have to say, the FedEx drivers have been exceptionally generous. One driver we met last winter offered to help us order a toy FedEx van from her employee gift catalog. She made a special trip to our house to drop off a copy of the catalog from which she could then order the van on our behalf. And then today, the driver we see regularly in our neighborhood left this adorable little FedEx delivery dog (the FedEx Home Delivery mascot) for Evan. He wasn’t even delivering a real package to our house! And like all those drivers, he was in a big hurry and didn’t stay to chat. All he said was that he doesn’t normally do this, but he just really enjoys it when he sees Evan watching and/or waving to him. Now, how great is that?

We’ll start harvesting zucchini any day now. The pole beans are doing the best they can in their shady plot. The cherry tomato plants are full of blossoms, and we have large fruit on the other tomato plants.

We harvested some over-ripe peas upon returning from vacation, and we’re looking forward to more of them soon.

By the way, last year at this time we were harvesting our first ripe cherry tomatoes!

When you return home after 9 or 10 days, you never really know what state your yard and/or garden will be in. We were pleasantly surprised to find our backyard in pretty good shape upon our return. The grass (which we had replanted in the spring) was a little long, of course, but everything else appeared healthy.

For example, this year our four hydrangea plants are treating us to a beautiful spectrum of pinks, purples, and blues. Our astilbe plants are also in bloom right now.

And here are a couple macro shots. On the left, some Oregon grape berries; on the right, the tip of an astilbe blossom:

On Sunday morning, we got up even earlier than the day before so we could make the hour drive from Portland to Hood River in time for our 9am ride with Thomas the Tank Engine. Though it wasn’t initially our first choice, we were relieved to be on the first train of the day because, like the day before, it was really hot. There were a number of activities set up for the kids, including temporary tattoos, story readings, an area to play with train sets, a maze made out of hay bales, and a riding railroad. The Thomas ride itself seemed fun enough for the kids, but I was slightly disappointed that the train simply chugged up the track in one direction for about 15 minutes, stopped, and then returned to the station going the opposite direction. The entire time, various Thomas the Tank Engine songs were blaring so loud throughout the train that it was difficult to hear the person sitting next to you. I imagine that by 3pm or 4pm those train cars would be like saunas — so glad we were there early.

Evan had a good time, and continues to talk about Day Out with Thomas. In fact, he has said several times that he wants to do the exact same vacation again — except for the part where I get appendicitis and have my appendix removed! The wise doctors tell me that probably won’t happen again!

On Friday afternoon, we arrived at the Embassy Suites in downtown Portland. We’ve stayed at a few places in downtown Portland, but this was our first time at this Embassy Suites. Let me just say that when you have kids — especially ones with early bed times like ours — it is so worth paying a little extra to get a hotel room with a separate bedroom (aka a “suite”). On top of that, the Embassy Suites is a very nice hotel! Unfortunately, staying downtown means parking is either inconvenient and expensive, or it’s convenient (read: valet) and really expensive. We opted for the former since we didn’t plan to use our vehicle until Sunday. The parking garage is across the street from the hotel, but to reach the entrance, one must negotiate several one way streets. I, as it turned out, opted for scenic route which entailed a side trip across the river and back, only to realize that virtually all turns — left or right — are prohibited on Burnside! Needless to say, I made the most out of the “inconvenient” nature of self-parking.

It was really hot the weekend we were in Portland, so we made our way out the zoo as early as possible. We caught a MAX train just a couple blocks away and enjoyed a smooth less-than-15-minute ride to the zoo. The Washington Park transit station is quite cool — both figuratively and literally. Located some 260 feet underground, it turns out this is the deepest transit station in North America and the second deepest one in the world. (Who knew?!) So while that is a very cool piece of trivia, it turns out the air down there is also quite cool.

The zoo was… well, fine. We were there less to see the animals and more to ride the “zoo train,” which we missed on our last visit. We checked out the exhibits in the cooler morning hours and rode the train in the steamy afternoon. Evan really enjoyed the train ride. Of course, our visit to the zoo was not without some difficult 3-year-old moments, but we eventually got past those to enjoy the (did I mention it was freaking hot?) day. No one got sunburned, which was a feat in and of itself.

On Sunday afternoon, after returning (and recovering) from Day Out with Thomas (stay tuned!), we walked over to Voodoo Dougnut. It was our first visit to this surprisingly scuzzy but unique (and famous) doughnut shop. While it was no problem taking a 3-year-old who can’t read yet, there are certain menu items that might be less appropriate for slightly more literate kidlings. We shared several varieties, including the Froot Loop and Captain Crunch cereal-covered doughnuts and a Portland Creme. Apparently, Voodoo Doughnut made a big impression on Evan. He can not stop talking about this place!

The theme for the Portland leg of our trip was “trains,” as you can see by the following photos.

From downtown Portland, we rode the MAX light rail out to the Oregon Zoo:

Once at the zoo, we rode the “zoo train” through the woods to Washington Park and back:

The following day, we drove out to Hood River for Day Out With Thomas where we got to ride on a train “pulled” (shh! no, not really!) by a life-sized Thomas the Tank Engine:

At the Thomas event, Evan and I also took a ride on a small, steam-powered “riding railroad“:

We had planned to ride the Seattle Monorail, but as previously mentioned, our Seattle plans were — ahem! — “derailed.”

You can view the entire set of pictures by following the link to our gallery or in the lightbox viewer on this page:

My appendix, to be exact.

On Sunday afternoon we returned from a 9-day “vacation” to Portland and Western Washington, during which I had an emergency laparoscopic appendectomy shortly after arriving in the Seattle area. I awoke at around 1am on the first night in our Bellevue hotel with severe abdominal pain that persisted despite downing numerous over-the-counter medications. Finally, somewhere around 7am, Jen summoned my sister, who rushed over to the hotel, picked me up, and took me to an emergency room in Issaquah.

Despite a mid-day misdiagnosis, by 7pm CT scan results confirmed the diagnosis of acute appendicitis. Next thing I knew, I was scheduled for surgery at 8:15pm at Swedish Hospital in downtown Seattle. And the last thing I remember was being wheeled into the O.R. and then being moved from my gurney to the operating table.

And after watching some YouTube videos of the procedure, I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t remember anything more! The videos also helped me understand why it took so long for my “insides” to start feeling normal again. Apparently, once the appendix has been removed, the surgeon goes on a little tour of your internal organs and pretty much rearranges your entire intestinal tract in the process! (Watch the videos! I particularly like the parts where they poke the surgical trocars through the abdominal wall. Yeeow!)

That being said, one week later I am feeling pretty good. I still have a little pain and a small wound infection at one of the incision sites, but twice daily hot compresses and a 1-week regimen of antibiotics should knock that out quickly.

In the days ahead, I’ll try to put up some posts and photos about the more enjoyable parts of our vacation.

I created the “word cloud” above at Wordle.net using three and half years of blog entries from our site. The larger the word, the more frequently it has appeared on our blog. Wordle crunches the text you give it down to the top n words (n=150 for the image above) and arranges them according to numerous options you can set. It’s pretty slick. The main limitation is that you have to paste the text into the web form. So, for example, you can’t just give it a URL and have it go grab the text and then create the cloud. I think a clever feature would be for Wordle to process RSS feeds!

Anyway, I did it the old fashioned way by extracting all the post content from my blog’s database, scrubbing out all the embedded HTML code, and copying all 400+ KB to my clipboard.

Update: The Wordle.net website has added the feature to create a word cloud from an RSS feed!

Evan loves the Frog and Toad stories, and one of his favorites is “Dragons and Giants” which appears in the book Frog and Toad Together. In this story, Frog and Toad set out to determine whether they are brave. Standing side by side while examining themselves in a mirror, Frog states, “We look brave.” But Toad is unconvinced and responds, “Yes, but are we?” They decide that climbing a mountain is a sure-fire way to answer that question. The story continues with our favorite passage:

They came to a dark cave.
A big snake came out of the cave.
“Hello lunch,” said the snake
when he saw Frog and Toad.
He opened his wide mouth.
Frog and Toad jumped away.
Toad was shaking.
“I am not afraid!” he cried.

Evan is thrilled every time by the snake’s classic “Hello lunch” line, and it is often repeated in our house.

So naturally, when I found the friendly fella’ pictured above sunning himself in our back yard on a Saturday afternoon, I immediately went inside and asked Evan if he’d like to come see. It’s just a little garter snake, but Evan naturally approached with caution. It was the first time he’d ever seen a snake in his back yard so we made sure to reassure him that this was a friendly snake who only enjoyed eating little bugs. After a few minutes, our friend zipped away under the fence. Since then, Evan has, on a couple occasions, headed outside saying — very bravely, I might add — “I’m going to look for the snake.”

… which brings us back to the question: Did Frog and Toad decide they were brave? Why not sit back and listen for yourself:

(There is also an extended and slightly bizarre claymation version of “Dragons and Giants” that dates back to 1987.)

That’s the end of the Seen in our yard series for now!