Silver Falls: Family Reunion

Over the weekend we went to the reunion my dad's side of the family has every summer.  This year the reunion included my grandparents...and all of my dad's brothers (his sister and her kids and grandson live in Hawaii now so they didn't make it)...and most of their kids...and even the grandkids.  In addition, two of my grandma's brothers and some of their kids were there.  Reunion for the Girard/Rhoten crew means we camp, we eat, we laugh, and we listen to stories of all the crazy things my dad and his brothers did when they were kids.

We also play games.  Beer frisbee was the popular choice for the young men.

We hike...well some of us do.  Since this year the reunion was at Silver Falls State Park, the activities included some hiking.  So glad our family from Nashville is here visiting and was camping with us.  (Even though all my pictures of Sawyer look like this one.  I guess I know where Levi gets it from and that unfortunately the smiles won't get better any time soon!)

Here's Levi with his big cousins under the South Falls.

And four girls.  It's been over two years since my sisters and I have all been together.

We cool off after hiking in the water.  And cute Coen easily manages to convince a stranger to let him use their little raft for awhile.

We play card games too.  The men in the Girard family love pinochle.  The youngest generation of males started their training this weekend.

It was a great weekend with family.  Both immediate family and extended family too.

Morrison, West and Osbourne grandkids with their great Grandparents.  These great Grandparents have 3 more great grandchildren not in the picture.

My dad with his parents and three brothers.

Clackamas Lake

On Friday we were very excited to take our first camping trip to Mt. Hood since getting our little trailer.  We love Mt. Hood, but all the camping up there is on forest service land and the sites are primitive.  (Meaning they have no hook ups...and we've become pretty spoiled having running water and lights in our trailer.)  So when we saw smoke billowing from between the trees as we approached, we were concerned that our blissful weekend on Mt. Hood with friends would be over before it even started.  The paved road we were suppose to take was blocked.  The fire crew was concerned the fire was going to jump the road.  So they detoured us on a forest service road with gravel that hasn't been maintained...ever?  It was slow going hauling the trailer over washboard and huge pits in the gravel.

And we arrived at our camp ground to this:

Three helicopters were using the lake at our campground to fight the fire we had just driven around.  It was very cool to watch, but we left the trailer hooked up to the car just in case the campsite had to be evacuated and we needed to leave quickly in the middle of the night.

Levi spent most of the weekend "rally racing" on his bike around the two campsites and the trail in between. We went over and played in Timothy Lake for a while.

It was nice to just relax with friends around the campfire.  We love camping!  Sadly, the last camping trip of the summer is coming up this weekend.

Ways to stay cool

When the temperature is over 90 every day this week what do you do?
First, spend Monday afternoon at the pool.

On Tuesday work up a sweat riding bikes with a friend at the skate park, and then cool off in the fountains at the park.

Spend Wednesday at Blue Lake Park's splash pad with friends.

And don't forget the afternoon Popsicle snacks.  They've become a necessity around here this week!

Mt. St. Helens Mini Vacation

Since Gabe and I are taking the big vacation this summer by ourselves, we wanted to do a little something as a family.
Off we went on Thursday up north to spend a long weekend exploring Mt. St. Helens.  The camping was fun.  Levi met lots of friends to play and ride bikes with.  And we finally made ice cream!  It was way too hot to have a fire and make s'mores.  So a cool treat was perfect!

We explored the northwest side of the mountain on Friday.
We took in lots of amazing views!

And we did some hiking.  2.5 miles was more than Levi could handle.  The hike on the Hummocks trail had him in tears because his "legs hurt".

Saturday we explored the east side of the mountain.  It was a lot of driving, but the views were worth it!  And we stretched our legs with a little more hiking...without tears over tired legs.

The amount of logs in Spirit Lake is still pretty amazing.

At Windy Ridge there are 367 steps up to a view point.  Levi and I conquered all those stairs together.  I was able to convince him that he could do it if we took lots of breaks.  And lots of breaks we took!  But he did it!

And the view was amazing.
From the top of the view point we could see Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainer.  Here's Mt. St. Helens with Spirit Lake.

And here's the view to the north with just the peak of Mt. Rainer.

Levi and Gabe took the trip down together...and more breaks were taken.  Mt. Hood is in this picture, but barely visible because of the high noon sun.

We learned lots about the 1980 eruption. 

It was lots of family fun...although I could have done without the mosquitoes.

Oaks Park

Portland summer fun has officially been had!  Levi and I met friends at Oaks Park last week and had a blast!
Every ride was enjoyed.  The Tilt-A-Whirl a few too many times for me.  I'm getting too old to do it again and again and again like these boys want to!

The boys even road the "roller coaster" a  few times on their own!
They are in the very front pink car.

Holiday Weekend

The 4th of July holiday weekend began on Blueberry Hill.  Oh how we love fresh picked blueberries!  Between the three of us, 22 pounds of berries were picked.  Plus, it's also very nice to meet friends to pick with!  I put blueberries in many delicious baked treats over the course of the weekend.  Blueberry lemon muffins...of course!  An amazing Blueberry Rosemary Focaccia bread.  And blueberry crumb bars.

This kid is turning into quite the berry picker this summer.  And he still wants to go pick blackberries later this month.

We enjoyed another great evening at the Shaut's 4th of July BBQ.  Delicious food was eaten, corn hole was played, water balloons were thrown, cold hoppy beverages were enjoyed.

And I can't forget that sparklers were lit and colorful explosions awed over.  Everything the celebration of America's birth is suppose to be.  And I loved Levi telling me (while the big mortars went off), "Mom, hold me!"  That just meant I had to put my arm around him.  He loved it and I was happy to be his reassurance.  We actually didn't leave Dave and Carley's house until after 11pm.  After all, I did tell Levi we could stay as late as he wanted...

The rest of our weekend was spent with bike rides to the park, chatting with friends visiting from the Netherlands, rides with said friend in Gabe's "race car", and another BBQ to celebrate Jackie's birthday.
Great weekend with lots of friends and fun.  Perfect!

Happiness: July

This month the happiness focus will be on money.  I firmly believe money can't buy happiness but I do believe the opposite is very true.  Money can cause a lot of unhappiness.
I'm a saver.  Gabe's a spender.  This difference has brought us both unhappiness at many points in the last 10 years.

The focus this month will be on these three areas:

• Take time to really examine our budget and find ways we can cut back on things we don't really need.  Give something up!
• Indulge in a modest splurge. (Maybe one for both of us.  I know Gabe won't be happy this month if I cut him off from amazon and steep and cheap completely.)
• Spend out.  This month I want to focus on spending more love and generosity.  That could be financial but it could also be time.  Time is extremely valuable in our house too!

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!