11 years later and we brought the kids to Foreign Cinema for our annual meal to celebrate wedding number two, albeit this time it was brunch instead of dinner. And again, I appreciate the irony that now that I have kids it is okay to take them to nice restaurants, specifically Foreign Cinema.
The food was enjoyed, the service was impeccable and our “photographers” were able to recreate one of my favorite photos from the actual wedding day.
I wanted to build a playhouse for the kids at Timber Cove. The kids needed a playhouse at Timber Cove. We had enough scrap wood to build at least two playhouses at Timber Cove. I had even done research on what style we needed and how best to build it. I just needed Martin to build it. And with plenty of other projects higher on his list than said playhouse, I had to wait.. a few years.
And then I read a book. I can’t remember which one (and I clearly don’t care enough to go back to my list), but it told the story of a dad deciding to build a playhouse with his three sons with absolutely no plans or experience. It turned out lopsided and leaned more than the tower of Pisa but the kids had a playhouse and a great bonding experience with their dad. Per the book: done was better than perfect. It was a clear sign for me. I was going to build this thing myself. Yes Martin would do it better (his profession would require it) but done is better than…better?
Unfortunately for Martin I picked the very next weekend we were up at Timber Cove to get started which also happened to be his birthday. And as much as I wanted to do this myself I wasn’t going to turn down help when offered and of course he couldn’t help himself to not get involved once I started drawing out the plans and “measuring” the wood.
That first weekend we were able to lay down the flooring, get the framing done and put the siding and walls up on one side. The kids loved it and deep down I am sure Martin did too. We ran out of time Sunday afternoon but I made a point to tell the kids we would work on it again the next time we were up there.
The next time just happened to be Father’s Day weekend and once again we spent a weekend that was designated to celebrate Martin doing a project I insisted on tackling and something he had no strong urge to start.
With a little more confidence in my building abilities this time around we were able to finish the siding on another wall and put the roof on before running out of supplies. We had anticipated this before we went up that weekend so we made the trip up to Gualala to buy plywood for the remaining two walls and paint to brighten up the interior (colors to be decided by Oskar and Alva). Fun fact: driving 25 miles per hour or more on Highway 1 with plywood strapped to the roof creates a deafening humming noise that would make the strongest will go insane but not prevent Alva from falling asleep.
Sunday morning the playhouse was officially complete, the interior (including a few unfortunate spiders) was painted and Oskar and Alva announced that the Happy Hotdog restaurant was officially open for business. They played for hours: Alva taking orders from the front of the restaurant on her “computer”, yelling them back to Oskar, the chef, working the grill and hustling faster than even the most committed line cook. They even insisted on a photo shoot to commemorate their opening day.
It was during this moment of play on Sunday that made me happy to ruin Martin's two special weekends with my crazy idea and made Martin confirm that he was glad I insisted on getting it built.
Oskar turned 8 on Memorial Day and his birthday celebrations lasted all week. We spent Memorial Day weekend in Susanville for a mountain bike race where both Alva and Oskar competed. It was Alva’s first ride and she was super stoked to complete the 2 mile kids ride. And it was Oskar’s second ride (just first being at Scott’s Flat Lake the previous October), although even with the previous experience, Martin was a bit worried about the difficulty level and how Oskar would do.
It took Oskar two hours to complete the 9.5 mile, 785 ft elevation ride, coming in second (of two) in his category and age group. While second, he did receive a huge round of applause as he crossed the finish line and the announcer commented that he was the youngest rider on that ride. Side note; while Oskar was climbing up and down the mountain and over rough terrain, my emotions were doing similar gymnastics. In the two hour ride I experienced: excitement for Oskar and what he was going to do, amusement and acceptance that mountain bike racing weekends will be in our future, curiosity on if I could make this my community of people, concern that Oskar would be overwhelmed and therefore discouraged on the ride given the difficulty Martin was concerned about, validation of my concerns when I got a text from Martin an hour in to the ride noting that it was taking longer than expected, panic that something might have happened an hour later and they still hadn’t come back, the mama bear urge to give Oskar a big hug in case he was in tears when he finally showed up, then pride hearing that he was the youngest rider out there, shortly followed by guilt for ever doubting that he could do it, peppered with a little satisfaction when Martin said he was slightly worried along the way, and of course unconditional love seeing how proud Oskar was of himself while showing off his bruises and scrapes. While Alva pointed out later that I was the only one who didn’t ride a bike that day (thereby implying I didn’t deserve the ice cream we were eating) I would beg to differ. The mental work I did might not have been seen but it was equally exhausting.
We spent Sunday throwing rocks at Eagle Lake (where Oskar managed to trip over his feet and gave himself a bigger scratch than all of his previous day’s bruises and scratches combined) and wrapped up the weekend with lunch at the Worl’s in Reno on our way home. It was a super relaxing weekend, but I had to get Martin back to the city: by Sunday evening he was starting to romance the idea of living in a small town.
The following weekend we hosted a small group of friends for Oskar’s birthday party. I always stress about planning and hosting birthday parties so Martin offered to do everything. He planned the activity (a woodworking class for the 5 kids to make tic tac toe boards), baked the cake, bought the snacks, sent out the invitations and coordinated with the parents. And the kids had a great time! The activity took close to two hours, with plenty of breaks in between for snacks and nonsense, and there was just enough time for cake before the kids were picked up.
The birthday celebrations wrapped up on Sunday with cake with my parents. Where Oskar showed off his growing record collection.
