School Days!

So now in my effort to stay more current, it's the last day of September so I had better talk first day of school before that's old news, which it sorta already is. : )

I really wasn't ready for school to start this year, which is partially due to the fact that it didn't really feel like summer around here until the last week of July. Our weather was so unusually cold & rainy! I feel like there were so many things we had wanted to do that we just didn't have time for too.

But now that the kids are in school again, I'm loving it here with just the 2 little guys each day.

So now, 1st day of school pics--we have 1st, 4th & 6th graders!

Their individual pics... Anthony is finally starting to grow! He may just pass me up this year or at least we'll be eye to eye very soon. Aaron is not growing though and in fact I've been noticing how close Christopher is to him. It's all those veggies he's not eating!

Then it was so sad that first morning to send Anthony off to the bus stop & not go with him. He seemed so little and lonely walking away. I had to leave with the other 2 at the same time his bus was due to arrive so there was no choice. Luckily he does have some friends at the same bus stop.

I rode my bike alongside the other 2 that first day. Christopher's backpack is so huge that I crack up seeing him balance on the bike with it.

Then came my annual first day at the desk pics. : ) 

I'm sure Anthony wasn't so sad that I wasn't there to snap a shot of him.

I got rave reports from all 3 about their first days! Anthony was happily surprised to find that one of his favorite buddies from gymnastics (who has since quit) is in his class! He LOVES his new school and I haven't heard one negative word about it. Aaron has Anthony's old 4th grade teacher and he's loving that too (but this teacher does love to give homework...that's becoming such a chore!) And Christopher has been so excited about 1st grade that there's no surprise that he loves it. That kid was made to go to school! I've often pondered homeschooling and I think I could definitely do it for Anthony & Aaron...Christopher, on the other hand, thrives at school and I don't think homeschooling's for him at all. I'd still do it if I thought it necessary but we'd be butting heads all the time.

Now for Benno... I have not done an official preschool for any of my boys. I've always thought they got plenty of ABC's, colors, numbers, etc, and socialization with all the things we do each day. But somehow or other I got roped into doing a preschool co-op for Benno and he is in heaven. He is so proud to take his little lunch and sit in his "class".

So I'm doing this co-op and there are only 3 kids. We've tried every way we can think of to get a couple other kids in but everyone out there has their own thing going on already. Despite that, the 2 other moms & I have decided that 3 is turning out to be the perfect number! We have already done so many fun things and the kids get along wonderfully. It's turning out to be a lot of fun. The kids took a quick field trip yesterday to a pet store to look at fish--if there were 5 or 6 kids that would be a lot harder to do on your own, you know? (Local friends--we still would love to get another kid or 2 in the group if you or someone you know (with a kid who will be in Kindergarten next year) is interested!)

So I've just taught 2 of the classes so far. For my first one, we were chefs making cookies (can you guess what the letter was? 'C' of course!) We made those chef hats out of white paper and white plastic grocery bags!

The next time I taught we were on the letter 'D' and we learned all about dinosaurs. Then the kids went out back and dug for dinosaur bones...

And miracle of miracles, they all found a bone! : )

The other moms told me how much their kids loved those dino bones--they carried them around for days showing them off to everyone! How cute! (I made the bones from baked salt dough...but shhhh!!! to the kids, those are real bones!)

And I loved this that Benno brought home the first week. I have no idea what "roast beast" is, hahaha! And I love that he said his hair was "lightness"--that's a great way to describe it!

Anyway, despite all my reservations about preschool, I think I'm having just as much fun as Benno and his friends are. : ) It's looking to be a really great year for all of us!

Scouting News

This week my little Anthony crossed the bridge from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts! And then that reminded me that I never posted his Arrow of Light achievement from way back in May, eek. So this post is both current and flashback. Little by little here we'll get caught up.

Our Cubmaster is such a hoot. (That's a wig, ha!)

I don't know why George was without shoes.

Oh wait, I do know why...he rode his bike to work that day and forgot an extra pair of shoes--only had his bike clips, oops.

Receiving his arrow.

All of the kids there that night got an Indian headband and warpaint.

Christopher thought a ninja pose appropriate for the occasion:

Now jumping forward 4 months to this past Tuesday night...Anthony's in his new giant scout shirt (those things are SO expensive...this has got to last, if not until he's out of scouts then at least long enough for his brothers to use it! And speaking of which, I've decided that I have to sew patches on in order to be able to re-use the shirts for the little boys...I'd been using the magic badge stuff but it doesn't really work all that well and is a nightmare when trying to remove patches, grr. Sewing on patches really stinks but what can you do? I need a new sewing machine--the one I have is ancient and there's no way it can go through patches so I'm doing it all by hand, ugh. Any of you have a great machine you can recommend???)

Notice our Cubmaster now with his normal hair-challenged head, but again sporting Indian paint & feather in honor of 3 more boys who received their Arrows of Light that same night. : )

 Now crossing the bridge to his new Scout leader in Boy Scouts. : )

Anthony's excited to get into real Scouting now!

Congrats to my big boy!

A Kitchen Odyssey....finally part DEUX!

Ok, this is a little embarrassing...it's been so long since part 1 that I should almost forget about calling it part 2. And even this part 2 is coming months after the fact. I was going through my pics from June and  realized none of this ever made it up on the blog. And a whole lot more, ugh, as if I wasn't already way behind.

So for a refresher, go back and peek at part 1. It's actually kinda crazy to me to look back at that--it's been SO long since it looked like that.

George's aunt & uncle made a surprise visit & spent the weekend helping us get back to work on the kitchen. First order of business was sanding the textured wall, and patching the holes...

Thanks Aunt Cecilia & Uncle Ron--you were SO helpful! You are welcome back anytime! : )

 Next job was to finally install trim around the large new (well new in 2007) kitchen window.

Yay so pretty!

Then we took stuck up this tile-cheater stuff to adhere our backsplash. We kinda ran into a problem though....you're supposed to overlap the sheets--what they don't tell you is that you overlap too far, it sticks to the next sheet and then you can't pull it open to apply the tiles (does that make sense?) Well, of course we only realized that AFTER we had stuck up ALL the sheets. Grrr!!! We made it work, but what a headache.

Then we began sticking up the tiles.

After the tiles were up, I primed all the walls in prep for new paint.

And then...it was like a month or two before we finally got around to grouting...but we did get to it!

And look, there's the new paint too!

 Grouting was both harder and easier than we expected. George slathered it up there & I wiped it down.

And voila! Lovely finished subway tile!

So now look at where the kitchen is at! Isn't it so much better & brighter than it was before?! Notice though that we're still not finished...a few cabinet doors left to attach, the lightbox to remove, and some other little things. I just painted my chairs black too.

This pic is making that yellow look much too mustard-y. It's not that dark. I think it's the perfect muted gold-yellow (almost the same yellow as on the outside of the house). Also, a post for another day--we had our floors refinished & new floors added into the front 2 rooms. Doesn't the floor look so much better too? We love it! And while it's taken (and still is taking) forever to finish, we've done everything but the counters & refinished floors ourselves and saved a boatload of money!

What do you think? (You had better say you love it!) : )

South Beach

So I'm finally getting to the 3rd story of our July camp outs. 

Remember, the 1st was too hot...the 2nd was too cold...and the 3rd was just right!

The first thing that made this camp out so much better was the fact that we weren't staying in the tent--we were in a yurt! And this yurt had some pretty nice decking on it too!

Each of the yurts was named for nearby landmarks/rivers/etc...so ours was the Rogue but I think it was appropriate regardless of the river. : )

We weren't sure whether we might get rained on--always a gamble at the coast, despite whatever the forecast might say--so again we packed & set up the new canopy.

We've made a tradition out of camping with our good friends Shelley & Javier & their kids every summer (and friends, we'd love you to join us! Let me know if you want to come too--we are not exclusive!) They brought Javier's mom along with them this time too & she was so great. I love it best for the fabulous & fun company but also because we trade off on the meal prep too. That first night they were in charge of dinner & made delicious spaghetti. The boys brought along the candles they had made at the Stake Pioneer Day activity and we ate by candlelight. Don't you like my elegant homemade candlesticks out of tin foil? : )

Somehow or other, I managed to leave home without Zac's sandals. Poor baby had no shoes until the next afternoon when I ran to a nearby Walmart & purchased some. 

Shelley & Javier know how to make the tastiest dump cake! I tried and failed miserably on our Mt Rainier trip...their secret is the dutch oven, I learned.

 Besides forgetting Zac's shoes, the other drawback to this trip was that George did not come with us. He was supposed to but had this big thing going on with work which he couldn't take time off from...so off we went without him. If we had been tent camping I don't think I'd have braved it alone with the boys but in a yurt, it was totally doable. I'd do it again in fact! But it's way more fun with George along.

One of my worries with not having George along was getting a fire started, which I depended on for my breakfast plans...and I am so proud of myself! I got a fabulous fire going (before anyone else was up) and kept it hot enough to keep the water boiling for our breakfast. Go me!

I'd read about this brilliantly simple idea for making omelets--you just throw your eggs & desired veggies, etc into a sandwich bag (and squish the bag up to "beat" the eggs), close it tight & toss it in boiling water for however long until the eggs are thoroughly cooked. I think it only took about 5 minutes for each one. I cooked it just a little extra to make sure those eggs were cooked.

And voila! Pull it out, put it on a plate, add a little cheese, salt & pepper. 

Delicious & perfectly filling omelets! I will totally do that again. Easy & super yummy camping breakfast.

You might recall in my long ago told "lost" camera saga that I said my camera battery died right as I reached the beach. This here is where that happened. So pics from here on out were all taken on my phone.

South Beach was so great--it had a huge campground spread out across many loops but where our yurts were was a little isolated from the rest so it was nice and quiet. Then there were multiple biking trails. I brought our bikes with us so we did a ride out to the beach that morning after breakfast. It was SO beautiful. We let the kids run around and play for a while before we headed back for lunch. Following lunch I rode out to Walmart with Shelley for Zac's shoes and a couple other things (another huge plus for South Beach, it is right there by Newport so if you do need civilization, it's there...but you totally feel like you're out away from it all!)

Then that afternoon when I returned with Shelley, we all hit the beach again for the rest of the afternoon.

See Zac's shoes? : )

My boys think the world of Austin.

And this is as busy as the beach got that entire day--looking north:

And looking south:

Dinner was my turn again and I made tin foil dinners again since I'd finally figured those out at Mt Rainier. : ) (The boys look a little pasty-faced...went overboard on the baby powder again. Did you know you can use baby powder to knock sand off your body? Nice trick we learned from great friends years ago.)

We got kids to bed that night and then I hung out with Shelley & Javier by the campfire (which I got roaring again....go me!) until it was really late. Javier left after a while...and Shelley & I stayed up until we got startled by a pair of raccoons poking around in the trash! That was so scary sitting there in the dark hearing those critters creep up on us! We decided we'd better turn in at that point.

Next morning I did one last bike ride with the boys after packing up camp--the bike trail from the campground took us out to the jetty where we could see the Newport Bridge.

We couldn't get Anthony's bike onto the bike rack when I was preparing to depart for the trip so we took my bike instead for him to ride since I was using George's to be able to take Zac in his bike seat. Javier helped me load the bikes back up on the rack, and thank goodness he was there because I have no idea how I'd have done that myself. 

Before we left Newport, we visited the aquarium there (and thanks to George's foresight in grabbing a Groupon for it a couple months prior it cost half as much as it would have!)

Newport Aquarium is nice...but having grown up visiting the awesome Baltimore Aquarium, it does seem a little less than exciting and terribly small.

Shelley & Javier had opted not to do the aquarium since they didn't have the benefit of a Groupon so we'd said our goodbyes there and parted ways. However, before we headed home, I wanted to visit the lighthouse nearby so we were driving out that way when we spotted Shelley & Javier's car! We parked and followed the trail down to the beach where we found them again. That was a happy surprise. : )

Marissa had a collection of shells and other beach-y oddities she was "selling". (The currency was shells.)

My favorite of her items was this creepy looking thing--doesn't it look like Davy Jones' beard from the 2nd Pirates of the Caribbean?

See here:

Once again we said goodbye to them and headed off again in search of the lighthouse--Yaquina Head Lighthouse. When we visited a few years ago, it was run by Oregon State Parks so I was surprised to find it was now some other organization running it but thankfully they accepted my National Parks Pass so we were able to get in free.

The setting here is magnificent. Those rocks are white thanks to the myriad of birds leaving their business all over it...you could hear the birds squawking like crazy, which is pretty impressive given how windy it is out on that head.

This is the view looking south. It was such a perfectly beautiful day (which again, on the Oregon coast even in summer is a rarity!)

One of the prettiest lighthouses, in my opinion:

Since I was on my own with the boys, sadly I could not go up in the lighthouse as there was a height restriction--those under 40" or so are not allowed up the stairs so I hung out with the 2 little guys while the older 3 waited in line. It was so windy and chilly though as the sun was headed down and the line was SO long and terribly slow that Aaron gave up on it and waited with us while the other 2 finally went in and got their turns to climb up and see the view out the top of the lighthouse.

After they returned, we ran back to the car and drove 2 hours home and told George all about our awesome trip. We loved South Beach and lucked out with the most perfect weather!