Weekend Adventure: Silver Falls

We spent the most glorious, amazing, wonderfully sunny weekend camping at Silver Falls!  (Can you tell I really enjoyed the weekend and really don't want to go to work in the morning?)
It was the first time we've taken our trailer out and it hasn't rained and poured.
We had an awesome time.
We enjoyed a campfire.
Saw lots of native wild flowers/plants.  Lots of trillium, native bleeding hearts, and salmon berry blossoms.
Used our new mini charcoal BBQ twice!

Walked/rode bikes around the campground.
Hiked to a few waterfalls.

Really enjoyed playing in the sun!
(Levi discovered his monster trucks could fly off the picnic table with a little help from some parachutes.)

And I have to share this photo because it shows the stubborn kid who shows up every once in a while.  He refused to smile for the camera!  And really didn't want to hike.  But after the hike under South Falls decided it was really cool after all.

We sure are looking forward to some more beautifully sunny weekends for camping adventures.
Who's ready for summer?

So No To Palm Oil

I was "reminded" by a friend, and loyal reader (thanks Mike), that I never did a post on Earth Day.
Honestly, I didn't totally forget.  I just haven't been feeling very inspired lately.
We did some much needed yard work last weekend.  Pulled out invasive English Ivy and wild blackberries.  That counts as a good deed for the Earth right?
I know...pretty lame!

So, it hit me this afternoon!  (As I used pretzel sticks to consume large amounts of delicious Nutella.)  Palm oil.
It's the second ingredient in my wonderful Nutella snack.
Here's the problem.
The world consumes lots of palm oil.  It's in food, it's in cosmetics, it's in detergents.  And most of that palm oil is not grown and harvested sustainably.  Unfortunately, the world's obsession with this vegetable oil costs the Earth, and more specifically...the orangutan.

Because we care about the Earth, and the orangutan, we are going to be much more careful to avoid palm oil.  (and find out who's doing a responsible job by growing and harvesting it sustainably)
Guess the first step is no more Nutella on our next Costco run!

Educate yourself about palm oil and what you consume!  Here are some resources to check out!

Weekend Adventure: Belly Acres

We took off early Saturday morning to meet Grandpa Tom and Grammy Joey down at their property for a beach camp-out this weekend.  It was a great test of how our little trailer does in the midst of some serious April showers.  The weather was pretty typical of spring at the Oregon Coast, but the company was great!

We couldn't do much in the way of playing at the beach or digging in the sand.  Too cold and windy.
But we did get some time to hunt for agates between (and in the middle of) some rain storms.

Levi is getting a lesson from the master rock hunter.

Our time at camp was spent huddled around the very important camp fire.  Our coats still smell like camp fire smoke, even though they were the first thing I washed when we got home!

Thanks for always being such wonderful hosts, Grandpa Tom and Grammy Joey!  We can't wait to come back in the summer for more rock hunting and some crawdaddy catching.

(And Levi had a very special guest from school who got to join us on our adventure this weekend too!)

Spring Break: Kentucky Adventures

This was the first stop on our grand Kentucky tour.
Since most of the cave tours are fairly long and strenuous, we signed up (with hesitation) for one that was rated moderate.  We were very hopeful that Levi would be up for the 500+ steps in, around and out of the cave.  It was pretty awesome.

Sawyer and I already agreed that when he's old enough, we're doing the 6 hour spelunking trip.

We spent most of our time in Kentucky in Lexington.

We rented a house right downtown with the hope that we could walk to parks and restaurants.  The not-so-spring like weather we had sure put a damper on that plan.

The snow didn't keep Gabe and Ryan from doing what they wanted most while in Kentucky.  Bourbon country to be exact.  One day we all went to these two distilleries.  The kids got to have a sample at one...root beer.  Levi's loved it!  Then the following day, the big boys hit up a bunch more.  They should be getting their t-shirt to commemorate their journey, and bourbon tasting, in 4-6 weeks.  This is what Levi though about the yeasty smell of bourbon being made.

"It's stinky!"

I was hoping Heather and I could take the kids here while the boys were off sipping bourbon.  After all, Kentucky is knowing for it's love of the race horse.  But the snow did keep us from that.  Instead, we found an indoor gym so the kids could play and have some fun!

On our way back to Nashville...we had to make a few stops.
I insisted we visit Abraham Lincoln's birthplace.

Inside this commemorative building, is a replica of the cabin the 16th President was born in.

Pretty neat to this nerdy history teacher.  I was thankful everyone else was willing to tag along!

We also made a stop Kentucky Down Under for the kids.
The highlights were probably:
-Getting attacked by hungry lorikeets

-Getting to pet a kangaroo

We had a great time!
And of course I'm ready to plan our next great adventure.  Levi has his heart set on Disney's Cars Land this summer.  Not sure we'll be ready for another road trip in June...

Spring Break: Nashville Adventures

There are many highlights from our spring break this year.
It's always bitter sweet to go see the Morrison family.  We love them, and have a great time with them, but I always leave wishing Levi had his only cousins closer.  That's why it's so important that we make sure we try and see them as often as we can!
When we arrived, Savannah and Sawyer had a pretty big list of activities for us to do during our stay.

We did start it off with rollerskating and swimming.

Levi's not really sold on the whole rollerskating thing.  But honestly, for being 3&1/2 and his first time, I thought he did a really great job!  He's almost cracking a smile in the picture right?

We made a trip to the Nashville Zoo.

But our favorite times were spent just playing together.  Savannah and Levi made an obstacle course in the back yard for us to play in.  The kids put on a magic show.  And the grown ups played lots of games and had lots of laughs after the kids were in bed each night!

This is Levi making Sawyer "disappear".

It was great to watch the cousins playing and having fun together.

Levi sure does wish he could be just like his cousin Sawyer!  Sawyer even taught Levi how to "arm pit" fart. (Or at least Levi thinks he can do it just like his cousin.)

Love these three crazy fun kids.  (When they aren't arguing in the car on our drive to and from Kentucky...which I'll be back to share about.)

I'm hoping these three will be back together again really soon!

Best Easter

Or so we were told on the way home from Grandpa and Grandma G's this evening.
Lots of hidden eggs were found today.

Lots of treats were eaten.  Specifically jelly beans.  They are someone's favorite!

Lots of smiling faces.

HAPPY EASTER!

(We got in late last night after being delayed in Kansas City.  I'll try to post a full report about our adventures in Tennessee and Kentucky later this week!)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Levi and his friends at school must have been talking a lot this week about St. Patrick's day.

This week we've been informed that:
"If you don't wear green, you'll get pinched."
"There's a pot of gold at every rainbow."
"Jack, Reece and me were talking about how to trap a leprechaun and my idea was glue!"
"Leprechauns give you gold."

We were really hoping to celebrate with some corned beef for dinner tonight.  But New Seasons was out when we got back into town this afternoon!  So, Irish soda bread will be the extent of our Irish meal festivities this year.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Weekend Adventure: Stub Stewart

Since our "camping" trip got canceled in February, we wanted to get at least one weekend trip in before our spring break vacation.  So, we headed west of town about 30 miles to Stub Stewart State Park.  (It's grown up some since Gabe and I went there back in 2008.)

We did some mountain biking.

Discovered a couple of newts on the trail, which Levi wanted to bring home as pets.

And woke up to a dusting of snow.
This was after breakfast when the snow was starting to melt and was mixing with rain.
Levi was trying to catch the big, wet flakes in his mouth.

And Gabe's big question of the weekend was:

"Why do mountain bikers get such a bad rap on trails when horses leave them looking like this?"

It was terrible.  We had to walk and drag Levi's bike on the side of the trail in the left of the picture.

It was a fun trip.  And it's really nice that we can get home from that park in less than an hour.  (Now getting out there on a Friday after work was another matter...)

Birthday and Bunk Beds

We had cake and opened presents on Tuesday to celebrate Gabe's 34th birthday.
Then my parents fed Levi dinner and put him to bed so Gabe and I could have a nice dinner here.

This morning we put a bed together.  Or should I say two beds?  Levi is thrilled to now be sleeping in his big boy bed.  He really wants to sleep on the top bunk but the rules say boys have to be 6 before they can sleep up there.  So, he'll have to wait a while!

Where has my little boy gone?

More birthday celebrations will occur tomorrow evening.  Tricia and Travis also have early March birthdays!

spelling

Levi is really into the sounds of letters and trying to spell things.
And like most boys, he's into gross body functions.
It's pretty funny when he combines the two.

Overheard from the bathroom on Saturday morning:
Levi: "Dad, toot starts with T right?"
Gabe: "Yes."
Levi: "And poop starts with P right?"

Gotta love those boys!

Bowling

Can you tell that Levi was really excited to try bowling for the first time?

We headed here on Saturday after breakfast (they open at 10am on Saturday and Sunday).  And we sure did have a great time!  Levi was excited when he knocked those pins down and was pretty impressed with Daddy's strikes.  (Not so impressed with Mommy's gutter balls.  I should have probably put the bumpers up.)
But it was great to have some fun together since Gabe got back from Arizona (third trip in February) on Thursday night.

We get to celebrate a special someone's 34th birthday this week.  The birthday boy (and the little boy) have requested chocolate cake.  I'll see what I can do.  And I'll try to get back on here to share later this week!

SLIME

Our activity this morning came from a question.
Levi gets to ask one question every night before bed.  (A rule that started because he would call us back to his room multiple times after being put to bed...telling us he "had a question."  Gotta love sleep stall tactics!)  Anyway, I don't usually hear the questions because I do the books part of the bed time routine and Gabe does the final tucking in/one question part.

With Gabe out of town, I've had the pleasure of hearing (and trying to answer) Levi's questions.  They usually sound something like: "My one question is...what is __________________ made of?"
One night last week the question was: "What is frogs skin made of?"
My answer of skin cells wasn't quite good enough I guess because Levi chimed in, "What about slime?"  I tried to explain that some frogs might feel slimy because they need their skin to stay moist but slime isn't really part of it.  So, we agreed to make our own slime!

This morning we took a quick trip to the store for the needed supplies:
A little bit of Borax
Some clear glue (We were hoping to get sparkle glue but our Freddie's didn't have any.)

We added water and a little green food coloring.  Slime was made!
(And I think we've gotten at least an hour of entertainment out of it today!)

Sledding at White River

Our original plan for this holiday weekend was to take our trailer up to Mt. Hood and get some serious sledding time in on the mountain.  But with Gabe's last minute trip to Florida (he got home at 1am on Saturday morning) and his trip to North Carolina/Virginia this week (he leaves at 8am tomorrow...yes, on the holiday) we could only get up there for the day.

And a beautiful day it was.

As you can see, it was clear up on the mountain (although the wind was pretty fierce from time to time).  We got an early start and were on the hill about 9am.  The very first ones!  AWESOME!

We did lots of sledding and when it got really busy about 11.  Levi was pretty tired and ready for some "warm" cocoa.
Oh, I almost forgot the snow angels too!

Listen for the giggles of complete glee!

Early Valentine's Day

Since Gabe will be out of town for the next two weeks.  (First in FL, then in NC...last minute meetings with customers about the power unit he designed.)
We celebrated an early Valentine's day around here this weekend.
First, Levi and I made cards.

That's all we can show you since the grandparents (our loyal blog readers) will be receiving one in the mail this week!

Then for our "Valentine's" dinner tonight Gabe made this.  We had spinach fettuccine as the pasta.
Gabe and I loved it!  Levi not so much.  I don't understand why our child doesn't like pasta.  He had leftover cod.

This afternoon I whipped this up:

I LOVE chocolate mousse.  And I wasn't disappointed in this recipe.  Yummy!
Levi did approve of dessert.  The strawberries we added on top instead of more whipped cream helped with that I'm sure.  Not a big surprise!

Since we were busy with home projects in January (and because Gabe will be gone for much of the next two weeks) we took a family trip to the zoo yesterday.
We saw baby elephant Lily again.  And were please to see the tigers out.  They are always hiding in the back of their enclosure.

And Gabe did get one more home project off the to-do list.  Gutters are clean!
I sure hope the work week goes quickly!  It's tough to have Gabe three time zones away...

Home Office Made "New"

Our month long project is coming to a close.  (We need to hit up IKEA this weekend for a desk lamp. And then figure out some wall decor.)  But that may take a few more months.  I'd better blog before I've forgotten and another month has flown by!

Here's what we started with:

Oh, you want to see an up close image of that outdated wallpaper border?  You got it!

Nice huh?
Levi sure wanted to help us paint.
We let him "help" for a little while and then told him he'll need to wait a few more years.

He sure did take the job seriously.  Look at the concentration on his face!

Well, here's the (almost) finished room:

And another shot from a different angle.

I'm so glad we have one more project off the never ending to-do list!