Swimming Lessons and Community Garden

We put Jacob in swimming lessons this year with the hopes that he can overcome his fear of water, and gain some confidence that he won't drown. He's done a great job for being as afraid as he is, and has even put his head under. Bridget loves the water, and is devastated every morning that she can't go too. They have to be 4 before they'll let them start, so she has informed me that she's 6. I told her she could take special swimming lessons in the bath tub, which she was pretty happy about.

Jacob is the one farthest to the right.

Bridget's special swimming lessons.

There is a community garden for the first time in our town , and we've been having fun with it. They didn't have it ready until almost June, but we're happy to have a spot, and hope that we'll have enough summer to get a harvest.

Our plot is the one in the foreground. They are 20x20, but they guy gave me an extra 8 feet or so. We've got tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, green beans, peas, cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelon, yellow crookneck squash, pumpkin, and sweet corn. I planted extra of everything because I fully expect lazy people to steal stuff.

It's also been fun to see how people do their plots. Everyone does it a little different. I just did boring rows, but maybe next year I'll do something more fancy.

Washington

We went to Washington for David's sister's graduation. Traveling that far with 3 small children was a challenge, but we did our best to break up the trip and make it fun for them too. Bridget decided that she wanted to potty train the day we left, making it all the more interesting. There were frequent outbursts from the backseat of "I want to go potty! Pottypottypotty!" Of course these were usually at points when we were miles from anywhere. We also learned that Jacob has inherited motion sickness from me. Anne did not enjoy the journey, and cried most of the time we were in the car. Having said all that, the drive was beautiful, the kids loved the ocean, and it was good to see family, even though it was brief.

Walking up the trail to Multnomah Falls

We couldn't resist taking a sneaky picture of this guy's shirt. Classic.

Bridget is such a little waterbug, and loved walking in the water.

We found this seal pup on the beach all by itself. At first we thought it was dead and had been washed up, but it was definitely alive. It was pretty small, and we thought that maybe it had been separated from the mom since we didn't see any mommy tracks nearby.

This picture captures the ability of kids to make a toy out of anything. Here, it's sticks, leaves, and pinecones.

Multnomah Falls

Multnomah Falls Painting

I've always wanted to stop and see these falls, so I thought they'd be fun to paint.

Key, Art, and Clouds

We have a community garden plot this year, and as we were planting we found this old key. I guess an old schoolhouse used to be on this site. I gave it to Jacob, and he is really excited about it.

 Bridget got some art projects from Aunt Jenais and Uncle Mark for her birthday. She shared with Jacob, and they had a great time doing them.

Driving home yesterday, Jacob interrupted our conversation with some frantic hand-waving. (We make his raise his hand because we got tired of him always yelling out Mom!Mom!Mom!) Excited, he told us, "I see a bum in the clouds!" Only a 5 year-old would see that. Luckily David was driving, and we had the camera in the car, so I got a picture before it dissolved into something else. I've been laughing about it all day. The picture is a little bit blurry because we were driving, and I was laughing.

She's 3!

 Bridget got a doll house for her birthday, and Jacob just had to play with her.

 She also got a cleaning set, which Jacob quickly commandeered. He was trying to earn some money to buy a new toy car.

Bridget insisted I was making a pink bunny cake for her. I wasn't, and kept telling her I was making a cheesecake. (My attempts at anything other than a normal cake have proved to be interesting.) So I got a zinger (those nasty red twinky things) and cut it to look like a head and ears, and then I drew in the blanket part with decorator gel. Real pink bunny is on table. I guess it passed, because she didn't complain.

Painting of Grandma's House

I've been wanting to do a painting for my Grandma for about a year now. I was in a dilemma though, because I didn't have much in the way of reference material, and I didn't know if I could do it. I finally just decided that I wanted to do it anyway, so I had to paint from memory, an old photograph from a different perspective, and from watching an old family reunion video. I also ended up calling my dad and picking his brain too. So this is what I came up with.

(Sorry, there's a glare from the over head lights, but you get the idea.)

Annual City of Rocks Trip

Jacob couldn't get enough of climing the rocks. He was one happy little boy.

We ran into a sheepheader moving hundreds of sheep to new pastures.

 

The kids liked walking up this slot in the rocks.

One of the most memorable moments was when Bridget picked up some old animal poop, waving it as she brought it to us, and asking what it was. Delightful. Thankfully I had hand sanitizer with me.