School – South – Parade

First Grade BS Groupies!
Some say, “I can’t believe it” but I can and I love it. Not how you might think, I’m loving watching them learn, grow and just experience the new. It makes my heart smile.They have different teachers this year and though they say they miss each other a little they are enjoying being separated. They see each other during lunch and recess but from what I have gathered so far they only say “hi” in passing.

Knew it would be a difficult task getting Jo to talk about her days this year because the past few years Cole has always done the talking about what they did in class and recesses. We have always tried to gently pull information from her but she would get lost in her imagination and turn some basic story into a grand one and then her brother would say “that didn’t happen”. She did however come home this past week and was very excited about what they did in class that day.
Her words.
My teacher, he pulled this white thing down from the ceiling.
Then he went over and turned on this light and it shown up on the white thing.
Then he drew on it and it drew on the white thing he pulled down.
He let us draw on it too.
Who would have thought an overhead projector could be so exciting?

Recess seems to be the high light of Cole’s day so far. He plays soccer every day, twice a day with all the boys. He is also becoming quite independent. For example this morning he took off jogging half way to school and was in the door and gone with out even saying good by to me. No kiss or anything. And yes…Mom is whining…just a little.

Hung out for a night with Rachelle and Connie so the kids could meet their new dog and also feed a calf that was being bottle-fed.

After this bottle was empty they picked prunes from a tree and, if they didn’t eat them, fed them to the cows. They have gotten quite comfortable with cows now, to the point that Cole had to be told NOT to put his hand all the way in the cow’s mouth when feeding them.

We then headed down to the creek to pick some blackberries. Creek, cow pies and sunshine make a good combo for blackberries!It took us longer than last year to get our bags full but we managed to pick enough to make a cobbler when we got home. Cole is not much into pies and was not sure about eating this but one bite and he didn’t want to stop until it was all gone.Does it make you hungry?
Might make another trip out hunting berries. Tasted like summer!

Eugene Celebration Parade
We staked out a spot close to coffee again this year and though it was a little cool it wasn’t as chilly as last year. We met up with Martha, Tracy and a couple of their friends for our annual sit and laugh.The kids each got a $1000 bill, some candy, cocoa, Frisbee and a necklace. We watched storm troupers, dancers of all kind, marching bands, the red hat ladies and much more.

Even Obama and McCain showed up.Some of the issues they were wrestling with were, boxers vs briefs and ballet vs hip-hop. You know, issues that keep us focused on America and don’t distract us from the real issues.
Just keeping it real.

Good times and Great friends!

White River Camping

We wanted to camp more this year but it just didn’t work out. The kids and I did manage one trip with Gma Marie to Mount Hood again along with the cousins and a ton more of the GmaM side of the family. The kids were excited to go and could hardly wait for the vehicles to stop moving before they jumped out and headed into the woods.Sounded like we might not have gotten “our” camping spot if it was not for the rest of the families help again this year. Another small group had set up camp in this one spot but after chatting with our family they decided to move to another area on the mountain.
I think it went something like this.
Other Family: We have three or four more people coming tonight for the weekend.
My Family: Great, we have another thirty to forty people coming tonight for the weekend too.
(An hour or so later)
Other Family: (driving out with all their stuff) You might want to pull a vehicle into the spot to save it. We’re going to find a little quieter spot for the weekend. Have fun.
My Family: Ok, thanks, we’ll do that.
Thanks to our family for parking the truck to save us a great camp sight! Like they do for us every year. And to the “Other Family” I hope you had a quiet weekend and a good time.Gma was the first up every morning and started a fire. Cole found the fire building quite interesting and was the second one out of the tent to join her. (Cole is the last one up at home, every day…and I mean every day) Gma was great, fire going and water on the stove for hot cocoa every morning for anyone who wanted it!

Jo was one of the last ones out of bed each morning. See these cloths? The only thing that was changed during four days of camping was underwear. I believe that goes for all of us really, not just the kids. Oh well. Hey, we did brush our teeth and run a brush through our hair too.

As you may have noticed, we were bundled up most of the time. It was down right cold up there this year. Sunny on Friday and warm enough for the kids to play in the water and swim a bit but then the wind blew in from the mountain top and chilled us all to the bone. I didn’t take many photos, about the only thing I thought of was “what else can I do to warm up?”

We did make the trip up to see my Grandparents at the old family campsite; the kids get to ride in the back of the pick up bed for this and they like that a lot. It’s a bumpy ride up and down hills and through some tight spots. They took Crater Lake rocks to leave at their head stones; I think my Grandma & Grandpa would like that.

We also took part in Geocaching with the family. It was our first time treasure hunting and we had a blast. Oh, it was cold and that part was not fun but hunting for a little box in the woods was really fun! We might do this in the future for ourselves. Neat!

Last photo and end of this post because I still need to clean the van, do more wash and clean up the camping gear.This is what the kids looked like sleeping the last night. Blankets, sleeping bags, blanket on top, warm pj’s with heavy socks and snow hats to top off the bedtime gear! Did I say it was cold this year?