Lazy, Lazy Me...

My little Hannah turned 8 and got baptized recently. OK, it was two and a half months ago. I really don't know where all that time went. All I know is that suddenly I am way behind on this here blog.

It was Labor Day weekend actually and my whole family was in town. My parents came out from Virginia and my sister and her clan were in from over the mountain. It was nice to have everyone together for a few days.

I can't believe my baby is eight and now all my kids are baptized! I am getting old! Next they will all be in college!...

The Mansion, The Museum, and the Monet

I have a long list of things I want to do in and around the Portland area. I imagined that this summer we would take fabulous field trips every week, knock out a good number of things on my list and the kids would love it and never be bored. As usual, I had less time for such things than I had planned, not to mention that my kids were less than enthusiastic about some of my ideas. Last week, however, thanks to Cole and his never ending quest to finish as many merit badges this summer as possible, we did accomplish two things on my list!

First up was the Pittock Mansion. This place has been on my radar since we moved here and I have been wanting to hike the trail up to the mansion for some time now. Hiking was out, but we did go there and I can't believe I waited so long to do it. It is so beautiful up there! The mansion is located high on a hill in a beautiful old Portland neighborhood overlooking the city. It was built by Henry Pittock, owner of the Oregonian, in the early 1900's.

Just look at this place people. It is gorgeous!

The library.

I loved the staircase...

And these windows.

I want this bedroom for my own, or at least the wallpaper.

My favorite part were the grounds and the beautiful view of the city and Mt Hood, (which was only barely visible through the clouds on this day.)

My kids even enjoyed it, but by the end Hannah was demanding that I "stop taking pictures and let's go already!"

Next up, the Portland Art Museum, which I never thought in a million years I would be able to drag my kids to. I just love any excuse to go to downtown Portland. I love this city.

Honestly, you are not allowed to take pictures in the museum, but I snuck a few in on the sly.

I was amazed at how big this place really is. It covers two buildings, and we were there for two hours and only made it through one - and that is with my kids dragging me along at racing speed.

Also, I had no idea that the museum houses a painting as famous as Monet's Waterlilies! I was impressed, but I couldn't get my kids to look at it for longer than a second. Sometime I will have to go back with no children and explore.

For now, that is as much culture as my kids can handle.

Eagle Project!

Luke finished his eagle project last week, and I have never been so happy to see a project done. It has been weighing on me all summer long. Tracking people down, getting approvals, figuring out cost, getting the money, getting volunteers, and all the while planning on doing it the second week of august and right up to the day we started I didn't feel like we would be ready. The stress of it all!!! In the end it all worked out fine and it turned out beautiful.

He painted a map of the United States on the playground at our Elementary School.

After he cleaned the area with a power washer, and laid out a stencil we started connecting the dots.

Then we filled in the colors.

Two coats. And lastly we went over the lines again and touched up.

Three days, I don't even want to guess how many hours, and lots of help.

Yea, it's done!

It really was a fun project. I could do it again now that I know what I am doing. Just give me a few years to recover.

Mini Getaway

We took off for a few days last week to go to Central Oregon to hang out with Julie and the kids. The girls had been asking when we were going to go visit their cousins (although we just saw them two weeks ago.) And honestly sometimes I just want to get out of town for a few days.

The kids had fun together as always.

We played at the spash park.

We floated down the river.

Hannah was a little nervous to try this. I offered to take her, but she would not go with me. "I only trust Luke to take me." I was only to happy to concede to him - the water was cold!

What a good looking bunch.

Beverly Cleary Revisited

We had a girl's week this week while the boys were at scout camp. This was actually the second week this summer that the boys have been gone and it has been just us girls. One of the things that they wanted to do was go see the new movie Ramona and Beezus. There are a few references in it to Portland and it reminded me of something that has been on my list of things to do. Our elementary school used to do a field trip with the 3rd graders to the northeast Portland neighborhood where Beverly Cleary grew up. They took a little walking tour of her neighborhood and went to Grant Park where they now have the Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden. I've been wanting to go there and with the movie fresh in their minds I thought the girls would appreciate it more.

There are three sculptures at the park of characters from her books; Ramona, Henry and Ribsy. Ramona is looking dashing in her rain boots and raincoat with her hair flying.

In the summertime they turn on the water and it becomes a fountain for kids to run through and get wet.

There are plaques around the fountain engraved with the names of all of her books that are set in Portland.

I remember reading Beverly Cleary books as a kid and it was fun to see these timeless characters brought to life. The surrounding neighborhood is filled with places named in the books, like Klickitat Street where Ramona and Beezus live and Westminster Church where Ramona plays a sheep in the Christmas play. We did not have time to tour the neighborhood like I planned but it was fun to visit the park and drive by the house that Beverly Cleary lived in as a child.

I don't know if the girls will be inspired now to read the books but we did start reading Ramona the Brave which has quite a few scenes from the movie. There are plenty more where that came from and it might just temporarily solve the most difficult question known to man.
"What can I read?"

Homemade Oreos

What do you do when the temperature in Oregon gets up to 100 degrees? Apparently you hole up in the house and turn on the oven. I think 5 years in Oregon has spoiled my kids. They can't handle hot weather anymore. If it gets over 90, they are incapacitated. We have really had only one hot week this summer so far and with the heat comes the age old question "What are we going to do today?" On this day my girls were itching to "make something." So I pulled out my "to try" folder and let them pick out something to bake. They picked a good one. They also picked a bad one because I could not stop eating them. Fortunately neither could anyone else so I had lots of help getting rid of them. I found this recipe here a few years ago and hadn't tried it yet. I'm not sure it is safe to make ever again.

WARNING!!!

Just looking at the following pictures could cause you to gain 5 lbs.

They also made great ice cream sandwiches!

Now I need to go on a diet.

Berry Pickin'

Summertime is all about the berries around here. I look forward to berry season every year. They are everywhere; in the farmers markets, at roadside stands, and in u-pick farms for miles around. Picking them yourself is obviously the cheapest route and certainly the most fun.
I always pick more than I intend to because it is so addicting!

We started out in June picking strawberries out at Sauvie Island Farms. Strawberry season is the trickiest for u-pick because it is so short and usually falls around the time school is getting out and we are busy. There are still strawberries to be found all summer at the farmer's market, but it is so much fun to pick them ourselves. We were also surprised to find some early blueberries ready to go as well.

We ended up with 6 pounds of strawberries and 2 pounds of blueberries. They did not last long. Many of them got eaten. We made a blueberry pie and some strawberry freezer jam. Yummy!

Look, how pretty are these?

It's a good thing I have good helpers.

This week I was ready for raspberries. We went out to West Union Gardens on Monday. The first time I went to pick raspberries here I was astounded. I had never seen raspberries so big in all my life! They were as big as strawberries and just as sweet. This year I forgot the cardinal rule of berry picking - never pick early in the week because the plants will be picked over from the weekend. It was not a great raspberry day but we got enough to make raspberry freezer jam and got some blackberries too.

Now I am just trying to think of what else I can do with berries so I can go out and pick some more.

4th of July Weekend

We had a fairly eventful 4th of July weekend. Danford was home, so we wasted no time making plans and getting things done around the house, but mostly getting out of the house.
On Saturday our neighbors kindly took us out on their boat. The weather was a bit on the cool side and getting wet was the last thing on my mind, but somehow the kids don't notice the cold.
Especially this kid. She was one of the first to volunteer to get in.









It did warm up and turned into a nice relaxing day on the lake.

Sunday we got together with a couple of families for a potluck dinner and some neighborhood fireworks. Danford barbecued some ribs, now that he such a skilled barbecue man and we ate lots of good food and had fun with friends.
We skipped the big fireworks display that we normally go to and stuck with just lighting fireworks on our street. It was an impressive display for a bunch of law abiding citizens.











Happy 4th of July!