Day 136

Thursday at the park with the homeschool group again.

Day 135

I took the kids in to have portraits taken today. The results are posted in my Facebook album (it should be a public link), but here's a shot I snagged with my camera phone while the photographer wasn't looking. Funny how different it looks watching the portraits than the results.

Day 134

The kids really like watching the popcorn pop in my Stir-Crazy! Looks like I got a bit too much in this batch.

Day 133

Sleeping babes in car seats. So sweet.

Day 132

Hanging out in Troutdale with the family. We saw these cute little bronze statues across the street from the city hall, so we had the cousins all sit for a picture.


After we were done walking through the little Old Town section of Troutdale, we went back to the house to load up our gear, then over to the Beverly Cleary park in Portland. We were in the middle of reading Beezus and Ramona so we had to go find the statues of the characters from the books. I love this shot of Sarah with Ramona!


One last picture today... my geek-ness is showing. The odometer in our Saturn VUE hit 091309. Today's date? 09/13/09. I even turned on the date stamp on the camera so you can see it.

Day 131

Visiting at my brother's house in Portland. He and the kids found a couple little frogs in the front flower bed. The kids were pretty excited!

Day 130

We headed up to Portland today so we stopped at the Wildlife Safari on the way. As we happened to be sitting watching some giraffes, the feeding truck for the close-up encounters pulled around us. I got some great close-ups! I purposely took a couple with the passenger side mirror showing at the bottom of the frame so you can see how close we were.


I had no idea giraffe profiles were so bony and bumpy!

Day 129

Mmmm... pancakes! I love my new griddle, it makes such lovely browned pancakes.

Day 128

A lovely sunset.

Day 127

Bathtime at Grandma's house! Complete with bubble-goatee.

Day 126

We spent this holiday weekend helping Dana (the one who helped us clear out the spare room last weekend) refinish her kitchen cabinets. They look great, and she owes us a ton of babysitting or decluttering help time! LOL Gotta love the barter system...

Day 125

We went to Costco this afternoon and parked next to this Honda convertible. It was so tiny! I had to have Sarah stand next to it and snag a picture to show how tiny it was. Remember, Sarah is the 4-year-old. Only about 3 feet 3 inches tall. She's taller than the hood!

Day 124

Another picture of Sarah... I held the camera out and she pushed the button to take her own picture. We were killing time waiting on Daddy and Hannah after church!

Day 123

Sarah drew her own little hopscotch game today. And when I say little, I mean little! Her little feet barely fit inside the squares!

Day 122

We went to a BBQ at the clinic I work for this afternoon. Sarah seems to really be enjoying the cupcakes they had for dessert!

Day 121

The moon came up before the sun fully set tonight. It looked really cool with some clouds cutting across it, especially the ones tinged with pink from the setting sun.

Day 120

This is the view from our church. It's really pretty, especially during the spring and fall. This is just before sunset, looking north, so it's a little dark. I love the way the sun comes across the tree tops as it sets.

Day 119

We cleaned out the spare room yesterday. (Thanks for the help, Dana!!)

This is the load of stuff I dropped off at the thrift store this afternoon!

Day 118

The weather has been just crazy this summer. Hot, then COLD, then back to HOT and then cold again! I mean really... it went from 113 one week to in the 80s the next! It really confused my poor Flowering Plum tree. It was so confused, it blossomed a second time!

Day 117

A friend invited us over to go swimming this afternoon. The kids had a blast!

Day 116

We went with some friends to the Community Fun Fair this afternoon. Lots of vendors, some giving away free samples. Lots of stuff to look at and do, even if there wasn't as much free as I hoped there would be. I had back to school pictures taken by a photo studio that was there (free), and had the girls' faces painted (not free, but I've always thought it was so cool and never had it done, so we went for it.)

Day 115

Today was Park Day again, but instead of yet another picture of the kids playing in the spray park, here's a picture I took with my phone of some very cool cloud formations. The depth isn't great since it was taken with my phone, after all, but it still looks cool. The puffs looked like fish scales all lined up.

Day 114

Picture to follow soon, hopefully. Tonight was registration at Adventurers and although I forgot my camera, I asked my friend Laura to take photos of the activity I had planned for the kids. We worked on the Ladybug award, and I brought in live ladybugs, donated by Ladybug Indoor Gardens. After the kids got to watch the ladies crawl around in the little tent I had them in, and do a couple of crafts (including a thank you card for the garden shop), we went outside to release some of them. I think Laura got lots of good pictures of the kids holding the ladies, until her camera broke!! Oh nooooo! So then we used Michelle's camera. So again... as soon as one of them emails their pictures to me, I'll add it! Hehehe.

Day 111

I didn't have my camera with me, but the Table Rock looked so pretty as I rode out to Gold Hill with my friend to go to a Scentsy party, I snapped this picture with my phone as we were going down the freeway.

I'm actually quite impressed at how it turned out!

Day 110

Someone brought fresh corn-on-a-knob to potluck today. Hannah didn't want to just hold it in her hands without a knob to hold onto, so she asked me to jam forks into the ends. LOL

Day 108

Park Day again with the homeschoolers... see, I told you there wouldn't be much variation in my photos! Here's Hannah with one of her friends, Arianna.

Day 106

The calendar I'm planning to use for next year came in the mail today. I love all the stickers that comes with it. This will be my second year using the FlyLady calendar. I actually used the one for 2009 all year (so far)! That's new for me...

Day 104

Ever since her nearly-3-week long escapade outdoors, Slinky has turned into a real glutton for attention. I even caught her begging for ear scritches from my Mom, who was babysitting one afternoon last week. Normally, someone who came to visit in our home wouldn't even SEE Slinky until they had stayed for 2 or 3 days. She snuggles with the kids and rolls all over them, unable to get enough human contact.

Day 103

Friends invited us to go with them Sabbath afternoon to Crater Lake. I haven't been there since I was probably 8 years old. I don't really remember much about it. Since it was a nice day, as well as free admission day, we happily accepted. It was beautiful!

Day 102

Today was the day. We were at Costco and I had to buy toilet paper. This is the first time in nearly 9 years that I have purchased toilet paper for our household. We've finally brought the last 24-pack of Grandpa's toilet paper into the house. I wonder how many hundreds of dollars our "inheritance" of toilet paper has saved us in purchases in that amount of time?



Editing to add the full story, just for Ruby! LOL

Ok... Charlie's Grandpa lived during the Depression. They couldn't afford things like toilet paper so they had to use pages out of catalogs, and when those ran out, they had to use corn cobs. He said they weren't so bad when they were fresh, but when they dried out...

So he always said "I'll never use corn cobs again" and every time he went to town (they lived out in the country), if there was a good price on toilet paper, he bought a case, whether they needed it or not. By the time he died in 2000, he had toilet paper stuffed in every nook and cranny of their place. They lived on 10 acres with a huge garage/shop. There were cases of toilet paper stuffed up in the rafters. Stacks of toilet paper in the basement. Everywhere he could store it, there was toilet paper.

My in-laws took a bunch of toilet paper back to SoCal with them after Grandpa died. Twice, they filled from the axles forward, to the top of the inside of the camper shell. Charlie's uncle took a bunch back to Tennessee with him, too. He was picky though and only took the "good" stuff, so he didn't take as much. We packed my station wagon to the brim, front, back and in between. There was barely room for me to sit in there and shift. We piled it up in our garage in a stack about 3 feet deep, 6 feet wide, and 5 feet tall. And that was 10 months after Grandpa had died and Grandma moved back to Tennessee with her son, so we lived in their house to take care of it for a while. So we used toilet paper there for 10 months, plus all the toilet paper that had gone to the other family.

Just last week we finally brought in the last of Grandpa's toilet paper. It's going to be quite a shock to me to have to start buying toilet paper after nearly 9 years!

Day 101

Back at the park again for Park Day with the homeschool group. What fun! It was warmer this week, so the girls were happy to play in the water.

Day 100

Just about anywhere you go in the town where I live, you'll see these giant hanging flower baskets. Anywhere commercial, that is. They aren't in the residential areas. But all up and down the main streets, on the lampposts crossing the bridge, etc. I've seen the little city truck going around early in the morning watering them. They're really pretty!

Day 99

The Rogue Valley School of Ballet offered a free Ballet Fair today. They had a Little Princess Tea Party, a ballet performance, and a craft. The girls were so thrilled about the dances - they clapped wildly at the end of each one and were practically vibrating with excitement.

Day 97

Sunday turned out to be a gorgeous day! The camp host offered to give rides around the lower end of the lake on his new pontoon boat. It was so beautiful out, how could we say no? We saw this brightly colored catamaran sailing around as we were taking our tour.

Day 96

It was really cold up at the lake when we arrived Friday afternoon, but that's what campfires, coats and warm sleeping bags are for!

However, we were certainly glad when Saturday dawned clear and bright. It warmed up nicely without getting too hot. Here's a view from the south-east end of the lake. Charlie and I went on a bike ride down the trail and took this photo while out and about.

Day 95

We headed out to the lake Friday afternoon. It was cloudy and cold. But we had made our reservations for the church camp-out to be held this weekend several months ago, and come rain or shine, we were going to enjoy it!

This is what the sky looked like as we drove out there.

Day 94

Today was our weekly park day with the other homeschoolers. Just one week ago it was over 100 degrees every day, even breaking record high temperatures a couple of days. Just two days ago it was in the 90s. Today? It's in the low 70s, which is perfect! But, it's overcast and rainy. Actually, after the beastly heat recently, even the clouds and rain are quite welcome.

Last week we switched our park day meeting place to the spray park where we had the girls' birthday party a few days earlier, due to the heat. The kids had such fun, we decided to go back today. Even though it was overcast. There's a nice playground right next to the spray area, and even better, it doesn't have swings, so those of us with 4 year olds aren't being pulled away from the other Moms with cries of "Mom, come push me!!"

It was kind of chilly and cool, in the 60s, when we arrived, so the kids pretty much opted to play on the playground. We'd been there just over an hour when it started to sprinkle. And then to rain. I always have my umbrella and the two little princess umbrellas in the back of my car, so we got those out. I guess the kids decided that since they were getting wet from the rain anyway, they would just go play in the spray area. With umbrellas. It was great fun to watch all the kids huddling under my umbrella in the middle of the spray park!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Sarah from this morning. Click on it to see a larger version!


If you'd like to check out the rest of the pictures - the ones of all the kids under the umbrella are especially funny - please click here!

Day 93

We stopped by the office earlier today to pick up some paperwork and my cousin's son was there. He's about 20 months old and just the cutest thing. He was happy to walk around with one girl holding each hand and didn't even seem to mind Hannah trying to carry him around.


Sarah, Jareth and Hannah

Day 92

Slinky got out of the house when Sarah accidentally left the door open 18 days ago. We saw her a week ago and borrowed a live animal trap from a friend and we caught her this morning! She's settled right back into being our house kitty - she's sitting in her usual spot at my feet as I type! You can see by the pictures that she doesn't appear to be any worse for her experience, but I'm taking her to the vet for a check-up tomorrow, just in case.

Day 91

This is the side entrance into our garage. All those dark spots are where the hail from the storm a couple nights ago scuffed the door!

Day 90

Mmmm... biscuits and chocolate gravy for breakfast. A birthday tradition at Charlie's house as he was growing up. He has to continue it on in our family, naturally, and since Hannah had a birthday a couple days ago, he decided to make some. Before anyone says "ewwww", you should know that it's somewhat like a thick, semi-sweet chocolate pudding. It's not made with a savory base, like a meat gravy would be.

Soooooo delicious!

Day 89

Hannah turned 6 years old yesterday. I made her a dress to wear to church today that coordinates with Sarah's. Remember from 3 weeks ago, Sarah's dress is a pink background, has sleeves, and a ribbon at the empire waist. Hannah's, you can see, is purple, sleeveless, and has the ribbons tied in bows at the top of the 6 godets that are added to make her skirt twirl even more than Sarah's. Oh, and notice the matching handbag! Sarah has one now, too.


There was a crazy thunderstorm here this evening. It dumped a whole lot of hail on us, too. We were up swimming with some friends and the hail went around that area, so my Saturn was saved, but Charlie's car is dimpled all over the top. The hail was at least as big around as a quarter, and there was apparently a lot of it, because we found it drifted up in banks like snow when we got home! Below is Charlie's hand, not one of the kids! And this is about 3 hours after the hail came through, so it had already started to melt.