reach the beach

we just returned from a wonderful weekend at the beach. i participated in a 55 mile bike ride called 'reach the beach' and todd and the kids drove down and met me on the beach. the ride was spectacular! a beautiful ride along back country roads, with perfect weather, ending with my kids running down the beach to give me a hug. what a day!

(i failed to get a picture of the actual ride)

then we stayed in a yurt at one of the state parks at the beach for a couple of days....so fun.

the weather was unbelievable. quite unusually beautiful actually. mid-may on the oregon coast, with 70 degree weather and no wind...who knew? the kids of course had a fantastic time playing in the sand.

...riley is playing a little air guitar (a classic instrument really) in the above picture.

todd and i enjoyed sitting back with a bottle of wine and soaking it all in.

we sat around the camp fire and ate s'mores.

on the way home we stopped at the tillamook cheese factory. it was fasinating really to see the enormous amount of cheese coming out of this building. we sampled all the cheeses, then had grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch....cause what else would you eat at a cheese factory? and then ice cream cones to go.

it was really quite a lovely weekend.

spring days

long time no blog! my intention was to post more frequently but what can i say but life remains full. so this blog entry will be simply a few highlights from the past month.



gardening:

it's spring and that means lots of time in the garden. lucy is always very keen on helping in the garden.




lucy (and the chickens) helping to plant the asparagus.....

...taaadaaa!! she may be the most stylish gardener i know!







earth day:
we celebrated earth day in hood river with a 'procession of animals' which was basically a parade of little kids dressed up. riley was an 'eagle' and lucy was a 'kitty with butterfly wings'.

spring ball:

riley started t-ball and so far the games have been rainy (gotta love spring sports) but he is having so much fun....and he's a good little ball player too!

ballet:

this is actually funny. we were telling people in march that riley was signed up for t-ball and lucy would always pipe in saying she was going to start ballet ...???(no idea where she got this idea as the word ballet was never mentioned in our house). then serindipitously the dance studio in town does this intro ballet for 3 year olds just for the month of april...so she ended up starting ballet, and loved it!

jazz fest:

the last weekend in april was a trip for me. i met up with my college girlfriends for the jazz fest in new orleans (our not quite annual trip). it was so much fun and as my former college roommate lisa said "jazz fest never disappoints".

the girls (lisa, lauren, hava, me and renee) on bourbon st.

so that pretty much sums up the last month for us. hope you are enjoying your spring days as well!