Conference on the Oregon Coast

Maeve loves to travel, especially when she gets to use her "pack pack," which is really an ingenious device that turns her car seat into a stroller for the airport. Of course, she rarely wants to ride in it and prefers to drive it instead.



We were in charge of this year's Pacific Northwest American Studies Association conference, which was held in lovely Lincoln City, Oregon. Putting on a conference with two kids and two jobs was a lot of work, but it all turned out OK.

Some stumbling blocks:

• My cold the week we left.
• Declan's diagnosis on the morning of our flight to Portland of one ruptured eardrum and one rupturing eardrum. Brian and Maeve left as scheduled, and I took Declan on another flight one day later. He was fine.
• A rental car that, on paper, would have been big enough but that wasn't big enough for us, two car seats, our luggage, Aunt Tara and her bags, and the food and other supplies for the reception we put on. We exchanged the too-small car for a bigger one when Brian and Maeve picked up Declan and me at the Portland airport, and we all made it to the coast in plenty of time. But Declan did manage to fall head-first on the parking garage floor during the car-exchange process. (See picture below.)

The conference went well, and thanks to Tara's wrangling of Maeve, Brian got to devote himself to his duties as president. I managed to finish and present my paper, all the while dealing with a still-sick Declan. But most of all, we got to enjoy the coast and Tara and her new boyfriend Robert and some friends from work who attended the conference.

Here's our friend Tony holding Declan after the conference lunch, while Maeve laughs at one of Tony's amusing and ironic remarks:



Aunt Tara and her favorite niece!:



Maeve enjoying getting her feet wet!:

—posted by T