Happiness Project: June Update

The goal I set this month to make new friends was difficult.  I knew it would be.  Life is busy, and it's hard to get people to take time away from what they know and give me a chance.  In addition to trying to get some people together to pick berries, I've also made a huge (for me) effort to be more friendly and talk to other moms at Levi's swimming and sports camps.  I've been amazed at how just saying "good morning" opens people up to engage in more conversations.  I've especially hit it of with a mom who's two daughters (ages 6 and 4) are in Levi's sports camps.  I haven't worked up the courage to ask for her contact information...that's my goal before Thursday.

Here are some photos from Levi's swimming and sports camps for the grandparent readers:

This kid rocks the back float!  And his front glides are really looking good too!

Apparently it can get boring waiting at third base!

Levi and I also randomly ran into one of his friends from school at the library this afternoon when we went to see a clown presentation.  I'm so glad we did!  Levi loved sitting next to Roman, and laughing with him at the clowns silly rhymes.  Plus, they are getting out their slip and slide tomorrow and asked if we would be interested in coming over after baseball camp.  So awesome!


We've also been fortunate this month to spend time with some long time friends.  My friend Sarah is back in town for the summer from Japan, so all the girls (and kids) got together last week to visit.  We've also been lucky to spend some time with my dear friend Peggy and her boys during their visit from LA.  We enjoyed a presentation from knights at the library about the science of sword fighting.

Played some at the park.

And picked raspberries (between rain showers)!
Hopefully we'll be able to spend some more time together before they leave on Thursday.  I know for sure Peggy and I are going to go out without the little boys!  A true best friend is definitely one you see twice a year but somehow it doesn't matter because you can always pick up right where you leave off!

OK...I've put off doing my homework for my summer class long enough!

End of June???!!!

Levi has been busy already this summer with swimming lessons and sports camps.  Our mornings have been spent going from one activity to the next.  Luckily, they are all at our community center so it just involves us moving from the pool to one field, and then another.  Between all that activity, we've also had some time to spend with friends.  (I'll get to more about that later!)  Honestly, we had such a busy week I was a bit relieved his two sports camps were canceled on Friday because we got some serious rain on Thursday and Friday.  It gave us the chance to get things ready to head down and spend the weekend with Grandpa Tom and Grammy Joey.

Friday we took off and headed south to hear Grandpa Tom play at Agrarian Ales.  It's such a nice spot and is very kid friendly.  Plus, they have the best musical entertainment!

Levi took this picture of Craig and Tom with Mom and Dad's big camera...pretty good job!

Saturday we went into Eugene and took in the sights, sounds and smells of Eugene's Saturday Market and Farmer's market.  The highlight for Levi was the balloon sword the "clown" made for him.  We also enjoyed some time throwing rocks at the river.  Joanne's birthday is today.  (Happy Birthday Joanne!)  So we were lucky to be able to enjoy the birthday feast Tom made for her as well as cake.  It was nice to celebrate a little early with her!

When we got back into town yesterday, we met my parents and the Osborne's at the Hops game!

It was a great game!  (Just hot when the sun came out from behind the clouds.)

And they won in extra innings.  That's always exciting!

And of course the boys had to celebrate.

We are looking forward to lots more summer celebrations this weekend.  Check back next week for the run down of the 4th of July celebration and BBQ's (of which there are suppose to be many!)

Foster Lake

First camping trip of the summer happened over the weekend!

We went down to Foster Lake and camped at Sunnyside County Park.  It was a bit cool Saturday morning so we decided to do some "hiking" and waterfall viewing.  We hiked around at the falls at McDowell Creek Falls park.

We had a very nice picnic lunch at this winery.  The glass of wine and the view was great.
When the afternoon started to warm up, we decided to take a swim at the lake.  Even though it was the perfect sunny day, the lake was really cold.  Couldn't get Levi to get off the inflatable.

We are excited about many more camping adventures next month!

Summer-Week 1

I'm enjoying the sunshine in the back yard, watching Levi ride his bike around the drive way and climb in the maple tree as I type this blog post.  Oh, the wonders of summer!

We started our summer off right by asking a few of Levi's friends from school to join us at the berry patch.  Several were off on vacation, but it was fun!  The kids did a surprisingly good job picking and we had a nice picnic lunch together after all our hard work.  Levi and I made home made strawberry ice cream, a strawberry pie, and strawberry oatmeal bars with our berries.  Plus, we got some in the freezer for smoothies in the winter too!

Gabe and I did our second of four 5K races on Sunday.  (Gabe kept telling me the best Father's day gift would be me telling him that I was actually teasing and didn't sign us up for a race on Father's day.  I think we made it up to him by taking him to lunch at Fire on the Mountain.)  Levi ran his first of two 1K races.  He did great!  Gabe and I also improved our times from our last race.  I ran mine almost 3 minutes faster!

Since it's been overcast, cool or raining since summer vacation started, we took a trip to the library on Monday to pick up the summer reading packet.  Levi is super excited and we might need to make another trip this week for more books.  I love how much this kid loves to read!

We were (more like I was) very thankful that Levi's summer craft box arrived yesterday afternoon in the mail.  We were running out of things to keep us busy inside while it rained.  A tent and "fire" for roasting marshmallows was perfect!

We've also been keeping busy with swimming lessons in the morning.  Levi back floated for 10 seconds today without his teacher holding on to him.  Now...putting his face under the water is another story.  That's his area for growth!
I also enjoyed an evening with my friend Alexis yesterday.  We went to Powell's to hear one of our favorite authors (Jeannette Walls) speak.  It was fun and I probably wouldn't have bothered to do it if I hadn't set that goal about friendship this month.  I figure it's nice to spend time with old friends while attempting to make some new ones.

We're off on our first summer camping adventure this weekend!

Happiness: June

My happiness focus for June will be on Friendship.

Lucky for me...my best friend Peggy will be here at the end of the month visiting!
But I also want to try and make some new friends.  (Which I've never been very good at...too shy)  I think the best way for me to achieve this goal is to include Levi.  Since I don't stay at home, he hasn't been able to have play time with kids outside of the time they spend at school.  He has told us several times this school year that he wishes he could play with many of the kids in his class.  So the goal this month will be to:

• Make three new friends.  (In the process, Levi will get to have play time with three friends from school).  Since making friends is hard for me, I'm going to have to make an effort to be friendly by smiling more frequently, asking questions, and trying to look accessible and warm.

Happiness is the end of May!

I really meant to get this post up yesterday.  But we were so busy playing (celebrating a birthday here, enjoying time with friends, eating cake and ice cream, taking "naps") I didn't have a chance!  I figure it was fitting for May's happiness focus on play.

Here's a quick update on how else we played the month of May away.
The holiday weekend we spent with Jen, Rich and the boys at their house in Sunriver.  The Nichols family was there too and it was fun to have everyone together for the weekend!  Since this is the second year we've done it that means it's a tradition right?
Levi loved riding bikes and "playing" with Addison.

We all went for a hike to Tumalo Falls.

And of course we had to go splash around at the pool!

It was such a fun time.  Getting all the kids in bed and having just adult time (with beverages of course) might have been the highlight of each day!

We also celebrated a huge milestone this week...Levi's completion of preschool!

Here he is getting his goody bag and "yearbook" from teacher Debi and teacher David.
He's pretty excited he is on summer vacation and I can't wait to join him!

I also heard this very interesting series on NPR a few weeks ago.  It's about how our obsession with our cameras (especially on our phones) may be impacting our memories.  Very interesting.  It has made me think more and take one or two pictures...instead of a dozen.  Check out the story and let me know what you think!

Happiness Update:  We sure did a lot of playing this month!  But I never did have a chance to try learning to sew like I wanted.  I did research where I can take lessons...that's as far as I got.  I feel like that might be a good project for the fall since our summer is already full of fun adventures.  Seriously! I think as of right now, we'll only be home 2 weekends between the start of my summer vacation and going back to work.  I love summer!  Just wish it was longer...