2016 Road Trip - Day 1-3

What we have always wanted to do as a family is take Lucy and Ethel out for a road trip. Summer of 2016 is that time!!!

We had a small detour at the beginning of our trip with a last of the summer baseball tournament that Cole was invited too. So our first long day stop would be Yakama WA.

Day 1: We stopped at Multnomah Falls. No hiking as this would be our only day with a time line, but we did walk to the base and then through the interpretive center.

We also were standing under the rail road tracks when a train went over head. Not a big deal you say? The tracks were only 8 or 9 feet off the ground so WOW. Rumbled through our bodies with the impressive power, weight and speed. Poor Doug didn't like it at all.

Next quick stop was Bonneville Dam. Again, no tour but the kids and Mom walked through the building looking at some of the history and the fish ladder (Oma walked outside with Doug and saw the neat fish ladder).

The kids don't think anyone would survive the turbulent waters that was being squeezed through the dam.

Last stop before Yakama would be our very own US of A Stone Henge....replica. We all thought this was pretty neat but the kids thought the view of the Columbia from this height was the best! We do live in a beautiful West Coast.



We pulled into the baseball fields late the first day and thought we picked a good spot until we went to bed and the dang parking lot lights were like a spot light onto our bed through the vent covers. Then we had neighbor dogs who were out all night partying and the noise of intermittent hard rain. Not a restful first night but that's ok, it will catch up to all of us soon and we will then get a GREAT nights sleep then.

Day 2: Two baseball games played, both losses but the boys seem to be having a good time. Oma is assistant coaching and with some of the boys not having had much coaching before, she is working hard trying to help them. What a wonderful coach and parent she is.

Cole played center field and also pitched. His first pitch came in the second inning of the first game with one out. Our pitcher was struggling to pitch strikes so the coach brought Cole in. First pitch, hard ground ball back to Cole where he threw to second base for a double play and the end of the inning. Quite the happy ball player! He also had three or four base hits and a really nice diving catch in the outfield.

We ended the day at the hotel where the rest of the team is staying and the kids swam in the pool.

Day 3: This is our camping spot at 6 a.m.

Freeway directly behind the ball fields and housed behind me.
Not a very quite place to be but having our home were we can come and go during the baseball tournament is great!

Only one game today and our our team took their first win. Tough day for the other team as two of their players were hurt badly. Catcher blocking home plate and two of our players slid home knocking the catcher to the ground, and one of their pitchers took a line drive to the color bone. The line drive to their pitcher was scary for all of us, especially our player who had hit the ball. The opposing player looked to be ok at the end of the game, thank goodness.

We ended the evening at a lovely park where we listened to live music, could eat at different food trucks and the kids were able to run and play on blow up equipment or swim in a pool.


Cole has bonded more with Jackson (middle) and has made a new friend named Kallen (left). I see more hanging out with these three in the future.


Looking forward to packing up and heading to our next destination.

OH, NO SNOW!

No snow here nor in thar hills.

So we headed to the beach for some sand surfing!

We picked a perfect day!

And the family picked it up quickly.

Waxing the boards between each run for maximum speed.

And really the only air they got…

Was when I asked one to jump in place for me!

But it looks cool if you didn’t know any different.

Doug and I got into a photo too.

I was / am feeling on the ill side so I walked and took the pictures.

Doug, ran and ran and ran.

What a fun afternoon this was.

Early Spring?

Well we are wrapping up two sports and getting ready for two others.

Jo has been taking competitive swimming and has done a great job.

She has won a number of ribbons in local meets but has refused to compete in the larger ones.

She always has a smile and has become quite smooth and efficient swimmer. We will miss seeing .

Jo will be moving onto school track next.  

SWEET!

Cole is wrapping up basketball.

Here he is directing his teammates is a common occurrence for him.

His team qualified into the Silver bracket but with four games left and zero wins his team moved to the Bronze bracket.  Three wins with one game left in the season, our boys are quite happy now and having a very good time.

Baseball has also started.

Oma will be an assistant this season with Cole playing Preps.

Always on the go, but always a fun time.

Spring Time, here we go! weee

It's Been a LOOONG Time

We took the kids out on a Sunday for some activities that they have been wanting to do.

First stop, iceskating for Jo.

Second stop, an arcade for Cole.

Ok, the arcade wasn't just for Cole because I burnt through my quarters as well.

Now a little reading...

And a little street football.

Good day today.

November Happens

Jo Color

Never a dull looking meal when Jo helps cook.

Ever had tie-die biscuits with your soup?

Actually, she wanted them purple and plans on

coloring the liquid next time before it hits the

dry ingredients.  We love that she is always

willing to try and learn new ways of coloring

our food.

Lil Visit

We had the pleasure of having Lil stay with us for a for a couple day-time visits.

Doug and Lil had a few words of “This is my toy” and “Those are my people”.  But over all they did really well together and even started to play with each other.

No Walnuts!

I’m sure I have stated this before, but if not, we call our walnut tree our “Giving Tree” as it gives us things to do outside year round.

If it’s not dropping walnuts, it shares leaves or dead branches in the winter and in the spring it drops it’s flowers.

And when there are leaves there must be playing!

Even Doug enjoyed running through them.

Friends

Karly and Jo are at it again creating colorful cupcakes followed by colorful frosting.

Self-entertaining as these two are, the only direction we give them over a full weekend together is “Please pick up your last activity.” Otherwise they just move from one imaginative activity to the next.

For example, after they finished baking the cupcakes they created “walnut families” and drew houses and cars on paper.  The girls just crack us up!

And in the morning they created cinnamon pancakes.

I’d tell you how great they tasted but they only made enough filling for two so the rest of the family ate plain old pancakes.

Jason, Payton and Cole played a ton of football.

On the Wii followed by touch football in the street.

(Why the street? The yard was wet and cold but mostly Cole didn’t want poop patrol)

CAST IS OFF!

Though Cole enjoyed the thought of a cast and the attention it gave him, (for the first couple days), he was ready to have it off so he could resume normal activity. 

After an x-ray and a visit from the doctor he was given a thumbs up. No breaks!

Within an hour he was back to playing the video games he couldn’t play while in his cast.

Findtners Fun

While Betsy and John went to the Duck football game Sam and Cole jumped right onto the computers and played Minecraft…for hours and hours.

And they were quite happy about this!

I had other ideas for Chloe, Jo and I.

During the past month or so Oma and I have been planning on and planning for our wedding. We had reached out to Betsy for some much needed help with planning and organizing.  At one point we were searching for someone ordained to marry us and Oma said, “Betsy, you get ordained and perform our service.” About an hour later we received an email from Betsy with the subject line: “Free Online Ministry Ordination – Notice #” and we now had our Ordained Minister booked!

This long story brings us to my thought of a fun joke for Betsy.

She MUST need a robe to perform these wonderful ceremonies in life, right?

Jo and I found this perfect robe at a second hand store.  Fate!

And Chloe jumped right in with us to design and bedazzle the robe!

Presenting: Ordained by Universal Life Church Monastery, our MC, Betsy!

Chloe, Jo and I had a good time with this project and I will call upon Chloe the next time I have a creative joke to build, the three of us worked great together!

Hoping Betsy gets a few miles of fun with her robe.

Basketball Try-Outs

I guess we are moving into the next phase of sports with Cole as sixth grade actually had tryouts for teams.  Around 22 boys signed up which will make three teams for the North Eugene sixth graders.

Cole made the second team and he is very excited about his team.  He feels his team really came together as a team, not a bunch of individuals who think they are good. But guys who passed, screened and communicated well like a team should.

Looking forward to the season and a new bunch of boys to get to know.