Elsie Turns 1

We celebrated Elsie’s first birthday on Saturday. And what a glorious day to celebrate! We couldn’t have asked for nicer weather to enjoy a party in the sun!

Amy did the whole party in a ladybug theme. Her decorations were so sweet!

a bunting of pictures from every month since she was born

We opened presents out on the grass… I think Ada liked it as much as her little sister.

  I love this look on her face!

 

Then the kids played in their “tent”. Ada wore it around her head and said she was “Mary”. I think she meant she was getting married… ;o)

Time for cake!

The weather was gorgeous and Andy had a biology project to do at the creek, so we all headed down to play and eat supper.

Ah, creek… How I have missed you!

  

the last of the trees from the landslide

 

Now it really is a “root” cellar

throwing rocks was everybody’s favorite activity

 Stella loved her rock so much!

 

Elsie isn’t quite ready to throw rocks yet…

What a wonderful day! Thanks for letting us come and help you celebrate, Elsie! We love you!

Zack is 19

This post is only 2 weeks late but we did kind of spread out his birthday celebrations this year.

We spent his actual birthday doing gifts and spending the day down in Portland with friends: Powell’s Books, Voodoo Donuts, Guitar Center, the mall and Olive Garden for dinner.

    Apparently I didn’t do a very good job of wrapping because he knew what all of his gifts were before he opened them. But in my defense they were very hard to wrap…

The day after his birthday we celebrated Zack, Stella and my birthdays at a big family party! Lots of fun as always!

Then the following weekend was his joint friend party with Hobo. He now plans all his parties himself. I just give permission and cook. And this year I didn’t even have to do all the cooking… :o)

    Zack thought it would be more fun to blow out Hobo’s candles instead of his own… LOL

It’s  hard to believe that next year we will have a son that is no longer a teenager! Zack you are becoming quite an amazing young man and we love you and are so proud of you!

The Art of Lego @ OMSI

Today was our third and final field trip of the last week. Whew! I have a brand new appreciation for field trip coordinators! I’ve done them before, but 3 in 8 days is a bit much… Thankfully, OMSI was wonderful to work with and made the whole experience so much more enjoyable!

We had a fantastic turn out of 64! Field trips are even more fun with friends! I even had a friend from high school meet us there for the day with her kids!

While I loved taking the boys to OMSI when they were little, it was kind of fun for Chris and I to experience it on our own. You get to see a whole lot more when you aren’t constantly doing a head count… ;o)  They also had quite a few new exhibits since the last time we were there.

  We found some suspicious fingerprints that turned out to be ours… LOL

William and his friends spent most of their time in… Can you guess where??? 

I loved this poem, from the book above, about a princess and a prince 

I loved the girl tied to the tracks detail

   

Some Lego artwork by a local Portland artist. I want one for the house but Will didn’t think he could do it… :o(

I heard reports that he had built a tree, but he was working on his dome by the time we arrived. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to finish it before lunch… :o( 

Nathan did get to finish his! Very nice!

We were all pretty hungry by lunch time. And we all enjoyed the entertainment provided by the vending machines… Will made a bit of money by figuring out the “give change” button on one machine. Poor Asher got his hand stuck in one of the vending machine doors. :o(   And 3 people bought Pirate Booty, but the machine just didn’t want to give it up…

Thankfully, Preston gave it a bit of a shake and they all fell! Whew!

The sun started to peek out a bit, too!

The boys had a bit more fun after lunch…

That was a fun but exhausting day! 

Fort Clatsop

What a difference between our trip to Fort Vancouver last week and Fort Clatsop this week! The rangers were amazing! We were treated with respect and they truly made the story of Lewis and Clark engaging, interesting and exciting! I learned things I didn’t know before and was able to pick up a few new hands-on objects for my class.

a scale model of the fort (it took the corps less than 3 weeks to construct the original)

 

a fishing rake inside a canoe (now that’s how to fish!)

Will loved how Clark could draw such detailed maps and this is his drawing of the fort plans

Our guide at the fort, Tom was amazing! He consulted in and played the role of William Clark in the OPB movie “Searching for York”. He knows all kinds of stuff about the expedition, is a phenomenal teacher and got to meet Ken Burns! (I am SO JEALOUS!)

a reenactment of a grizzly bear encounter

  

 

I think the boys were pretty pleased that he even fired the gun! ;o)

I think I may have had more fun than the kids… ;o)

On the way up, we stopped at a lovely viewpoint and played around at the Astoria column on the way home. It was just too nice a day to waste!

Canoeing Class

Today was my canoeing class for Dangerous Class for Boys. We prayed for sun. We didn’t get sunshine but God did hold off the rain for us while they paddled around the lake… :o)

getting the canoes down to the water

safety lesson before launching the canoes

I didn’t get many pictures (and no good pictures). I was too busy helping people into canoes and keeping an eye out to make sure everyone was safe and sound. Then by the time I got the camera out, they had all paddled FAR away!

But I am very proud of how well they did! Some of the boys had never been in a canoe before, but they all did a great job and were getting around just fine!

  

Thanks to Chad for coming up and bringing all the canoes!