In search of nursery furniture

This weekend was the Memorial Day camping trip but I bailed early. I was hoping to make it at least two nights with an escape plan for the 3rd night since I am 33 wks pregnant. However the campsite chosen this year was on the Washington coast and it rained the whole ding dong time. And any time it slightly cleared up, the mosquitoes came out. The clincher for me was that this camp ground's group campsite didn't have it's own outhouse. Instead one had to walk all the way thru the RV section to get to the bathrooms. That's not exactly idea if one needs to get up in the middle of the night multiple times to pee. I'd have to layer back on my clothes, wrestle back into my galoshes, waddle through the dark in the rain to the toilet and hopefully not pee myself on accident. I considered just squatting in the bushes since it was the middle of the night and no one would see me, but I was too worried I'd loose my balance and slip and fall in the mud. Since Mr. W snores through everything I was also afraid he wouldn't hear my cries for help and one of his friends would ed up finding me half naked in the mud. No thank you!

I left after lunch on Saturday and missed out on the Star Wars themed dinner we were planning with the L family for Sunday night. I made some Star Wars sugar cookies in advance with cookie cutters from WS. They turned out pretty cute, and I'm sure there will be lots of Star Wars events in my future with 3 children.

 

On my way home I stopped at HomeGoods when I crossed over into Oregon. We were planning on not getting a new chair for the nursery. The wing back chair and ottoman I had reupholstered for Baby Boy's arrival is in the playroom and I anticipate nursing a lot in it in that room while I watch the boys play. I saw a great photo of a purple tufted chair with low arms in a nursery and it inspired me to find a similar vintage chair for my own nursery. I thought I'd do an in person search while I'm child free since I haven't had much luck on CL. I found this one at HG in a shiny grey and shiny green. I like the tufting, but the back may not be high enough. This one was $399.

Even though it was very sunny in Portland, I was able to talk my mom into going furniture shopping with me. We started at City Liquidators, This chair was an upholstered rocker. It doesn't thrill me, but the price of $279 is not bad.

City Liquidators also has some antiques available . This dresser is exactly what I am looking for for the nursery, a 5 drawer highboy, something with an attached mirror. This turn of the century oak dresser even had most of it's original hardware intact. Unfortunately I have my heart set on an off white dresser that is shabby chic. I couldn't possibly paint over real oak!

We drove out to Bridgeport Village to check out Good Night Room, they closed their Irvington location. There had a mint green glider and ottoman on sale because they were floor models. The chair was about $500. An ottoman would overwhelm the space in our nursery, and the mint green would clash with the green of our walls. But here is the chair in a different fabric with a contrasting welt.

Our last stop was Kitchen Kaboodle. I was really tired at this point, the weather was SO different from that of the camping trip! None of the chairs really worked, This blue velvety chair had arms similar to what I was hoping for, but far too expensive at $770.


What I like best is the Julia chair from Ballards. It has the tufted back and low arms. And even though the comments section has a few complaining about how much smaller it is than they anticipated, it is comparable in size to my Amanda chair in the family room. It's made for short people like me. But so expensive! And I'd have to pay shipping. And none of the custom fabrics are plum. I'll order some fabric swatches, so we'll see. I'm hoping something perfect turns up on CL soon.

Mother's Day Picnic

Our tradition for Mother's Day is to go to a picnic at a park, and we alternate garden years with view years. This year we were due for a garden year and I was planning on going to the Crystal Springs Rhododendron garden; however, the weather forecast was for rain, and I know Mr. W really dislikes getting caught in a rainstorm on a picnic. Since the anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St. Helen's is coming up this week, and I haven't been to any of the new visitor centers since they were opened I suggested a mini road trip to Mr. W. Also Our Little Helper's best friend at school loves volcanoes (dressed as a volcano for Hallowe'en, had a volcano themed birthday) so he is getting into them too.

Everyone thought a trip up to the mountain was a great idea so after Mass we packed our picnic basket and headed up to the mountain. We totally nerded out in the car too. Mr. W recently purchased the 1970s radio version of Star Wars, which is longer than the actual movie and provides lots of back story. OLH really wants to watch Star Wars again, but we worry it is too scary for him, and when we attempted to let him watch it with us, he didn't have the patience to sit through it. Listening to the radio version seems to be a good compromise, and he gets to use his imagination too.

It was a fascinating drive, so much of the vegetation has grown back. I hadn't been up there since the early 80s when we stopped to check out the damage to the Toutle River. I remember we collected some ash in little containers. One can still see areas where trees were knocked down and stripped of everything, but live has returned to the mountain; it is amazing what 30 years can do!

OLH was very interested to hear my stories about being just a little younger than him when the volcano erupted and that I remember being at home with both my parents who were listening to the tv all day. I remembered it being daytime, but it was totally black outside and they kept pulling back the curtains to peer outside. (And by curtains, I mean hippie blankets tacked up over the windows.) I also had memories of walking to kindergarten wearing a little mask over my face because there was ash in the air. But when sharing memories with friends during high school, Ms. Mc pointed out that we wouldn't have started kindergarten until September, and the volcano erupted in May. SO what on earth were my parents doing letting a 4 yr old walk around the neighborhood after a volcanic eruption. When I questioned my parents about it later they said there were still days months after the eruption when there would be ash warnings so that is why I remember walking around with a face mask.

Once we finally made it up to the Johnson Ridge visitor center I felt really bad because I hadn't packed outerwear for the boys and it was drizzly and there was snow on the ground. Whoops! The boys didn't seem to mind at all. They enjoyed the reenactment movie at the center and the light up exhibits.

 

 We also took some photos of the crater, but getting little boys to pose is an effort in futility.

 

 It was too rainy to have a picnic outside so we moved the booster seat so we could all squish into the back of the micro van for a car picnic. We had so much fun, even though I was pretty squished ad lot feeling in my feet.  As a family we can never get enough cheese or fruits.

Showing off his combination of baguette, salami, cheese, and grape.