Our Baby Turns 13

Happy Birthday Will! It’s official, we are now a house full of teenagers!

After church Grandpa, Grandma and Theresa took us to DQ for chicken strips and Blizzards. Yum! They also gave him his birthday gift: Lego Trolls’ Mountain Fortress.

  I think he knows what it is…

Although they enjoyed lunch, Will couldn’t wait to get home. The tree of them spent the next 3+ hours playing with it; attacking the village and fighting the knights (complete with voices for all the characters)! :o)

Just for Will, here are the pics he took so you could see all of it…

  

Will also got a new Wii game all about building cities and then destroying them. Our favorite mode of destruction is the giant llamas!!! But the meteor shower is good, too! It’s pretty fun!

After watching our last installment of “Lord of the Rings” we had pirate cake. Will was glad I just made it so he didn’t have to decide which kind of cake he wanted. :o) We all like pirate cake, and it was even better today!

the glaze is really good!

  

it took a few attempts, but he finally got them all out…

Have a great time being 13 Will. We love you and are very proud of you!

Royal Rangers

Peter Ostrand earned the gold medal for Royal Rangers this year. It is the equivalent to an Eagle scout and is quite an honor. The ceremony was very nice! Many people affiliated with Royal Rangers came as well as his state representative. He also received many letters from people in the community and state.  After he got his medal, Chris came up along with Peter’s spiritual mentors to lay hands on him and pray for him.

the district commander, Peter, Lynn and Jim

 

getting his medal

We are proud of you Peter and look forward to see what God will do through you!

Woodcutting At The Woods’

A tree fell earlier this year at Walt and Dena’s place and they let us come and get the wood in exchange for help in getting it cut up and cleared out.

So we hitched up the trailer and headed to Toledo to get some firewood for next winter. It’s amazing how much wood you burn when you don’t use the furnace!

it seems like everyone had a chainsaw

   

Zack got to drive the quad and trailer to take the wood back to the van after it was cut

the big job was to get this bad boy down without it rolling back on the cutter

they tied the log to another tree to keep it from rolling the other way. And it was a good thing they used two straps because ours broke when the tree was cut through!

it was a pretty big and gnarly tree and we dulled a few chains and still aren’t done

Will made a wedge to help out and it worked great!

Now we just have to get it split and into the woodshed…

Cannon Beach – Day 3

Checkout was at noon, but we just couldn’t leave that early on the most beautiful day we were there. After a leisurely morning and pancake breakfast, we packed up the van and headed to the day use area at the south end of town.

We walked along a lot of beach to places we’d never been before…

we had to cross the log…

 

 

because there was a bit of wood in the ramp! It must have been quite a storm!!!

They came, they saw, they conquered!

I loved this house! It reminded me of a treehouse.

checking out the boats on the horizon

I found my own little cave

while Chris did a bit of climbing on top

I thought this round rock with moss was so cool

All that walking worked up an appetite! So we went back to the trailer to have lunch, play games and watch a movie until low tide.

Andy loved this spinny-thing but it made me motion sick just to watch it

  

Low tide meant another trip to Haystack Rock and the tidepools.

 This was my other favorite house on the beach

the “other side” of Haystack Rock

exploring the tidepools

there were even more starfish and anemones than the day before

More walking meant we had to eat again! But this time we walked over to Mo’s for seafood and chowder. The service was great (complete with magic tricks) and the food was FANTASTIC! The crab was caught off-shore that day and came in only two hours earlier! YUMMY!!!

sharing a dessert

 

We had such a wonderful time and it was great to get the chance to really relax on our vacation! Thanks Faith Fellowship!