Banks-Vernonia Bike Trail

With what may quite possibly be our last gorgeous weekend of this year--chilly rain is expected most of next week, ugh!--we chose to spend the afternoon doing something I've been wanting to do for a long time: ride bikes along the Banks-Vernonia Trail, which is one of those "rails to trails" projects in which they take defunct railroads and make them into bike trails. We had a trail like that back in Michigan which we loved to ride regularly.
This one is especially cool with a couple trestle bridges you can ride across! We hit only one of those today (the entire trail is 20 miles from one end to the other)...in fact we only did 3 miles before turning around and riding 3 miles back to the car, though going back was way faster as it was all downhill. At our turn-around point we feasted on raisins at one of the 3 picnic tables Christopher found (he always notices things like that...food is important.)

Benno was quite determined to ride his own bike too (he even snuck it into the car while we were loading the other bikes)...we let him ride for the first bit but he was slowing things down significantly and despite his insistent protests, we put him in the baby seat and strapped his bike along for the ride. He fell asleep but woke up soon after with the first words out of his mouth being "I want to ride my bike!!!"

Anyway...fun little family excursion and we definitely want to return to explore the other 17 miles of the trail!

And pumpkin fun is here!!!

It's my favorite time of year here in the Pacific Northwest--the FALL!!! Mostly because all the pumpkin patches open up for the month of October. I found out that our favorite pumpkin patch had opened up for the season this past weekend so we could hardly resist a short visit today after our adventure at the Rock Museum.

We got there too late to enjoy much of what this farm has to offer...but we did buy some caramel apples and feasted on those while the boys played a bit on the playground. Then the cow train caught our eye--there was no line whatsoever today....the boys had the cow train all to themselves!

George & I hung out while the boys were off on their personal cow train ride...and the farm dog joined us, not-so-subtly staring at our caramel apples as if to ask "Are you done with that? Mind if I help you?"

George tossed his apple core and here the dog happily devoured it.

As if to say, "Hey you got any more of that?" all the turkeys in the neighboring pen came running immediately after George shared his core with the dog. We laughed.

Expect to see plenty more pumpkin fun in the weeks to come...we'll be making regular visits.

Rice NW Museum of Rocks & Minerals

I happened to find out that today was "Free Museum Day" across the country (though not all museums participated) so we went to a Rock Museum. (To me, perfect opportunity to see that particular museum...I really don't want to pay to look at rocks, or so I thought anyway...) Anthony came to this museum on a field trip a couple years ago and has asked to come back...so at last today we did.

We had a great time and saw some pretty amazing rocks! Check out the fluorescent rocks in this darkened gallery:

This one I really loved the pattern of the "orbs" floating throughout:

My Opal baby posing beside a beautiful giant opal!

George & Benno gaze upon my personal birthstone...the lovely amethyst.

These I thought were pretty cool--petrified wood blocks! How'd you like to have a set of those to play with at your house? Benno's saying that he likes the "orange one"...

I liked the flower look of this one:

This just makes me LAUGH. What a GOOF! That is a giant calcite crystal he's pointing to.

Is this color amazing or what?

And here too...that blue was so vibrant, especially set against that brilliant green.

The museum had a gallery devoted to fossils too--check out the dinosaur eggs!

Naturally, the boys' favorite part was outside at the rock pile. Kids are allowed to choose one small rock to take home with them for free.

Benno's so helpful to point out the rules.

Fun day! I was far more entertained by the rocks than I had expected. I'd even go back again. : )

Soccer, game 3

3 games down, 5 to go, but who's keeping track? It was a gorgeous day today so spectating was a little more fun this time as opposed to last week's rainy game.

Aaron almost scored a goal right after this pic was taken...if only that kid hadn't tripped him. He got tripped a lot today--I have my suspicions about that other team and their defensive tactics.

T & J summer visit: Fountains

Portland has an abundance of fun fountains to cool off in on hot days--the Rose Garden fountains are especially fun. The kids all had a blast and we had fun taking pics, so there are TONS of pics, I warn you!

T & J summer visit: Blueberries

We took everybody to go pick blueberries...unfortunately it was a HOT day--that entire week of their visit was the hottest week of the summer here with temps hitting over 100 several times!--so the kids had had enough after about 15 minutes of picking. Benno taste-tested the blueberries as quality control...he approved.