family visits to market opener

this post is a little late, but we had a great visit from todd's mom judy at the end of may. it is so great to have her visit and stay awhile so she and the kids get a good chunk of time playing together. and i gotta admit it's nice not to have to schlep the kids to denver. needless to say we love visitors...thanks for visiting judy!

lucy enjoyed an open lap to climb in...

....the kids showed off their scooter skills down at the waterfront park.

.... the grown-up kid hangin out with his mom.

AND in other news the gorge grown farmers market opened last thursday. this is exciting on so many levels (for todd, for our family, for our community)

it was a great season opener depite the rainy day (the weather hasn't keyed into the fact that it is JUNE now!), and folks were really happy to be back at market. the kids helped ring the opening bell which is always a highlight for them.

so i just can't resist a garden shot but seriously look at the garlic....it's taller than lucy!!

hope june is warm where you are!

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!

easter bunny fun

my first draft of this blog entry was a little down on easter, but todd said it was too grinchy, or whatever the equivalent of the grinch is for easter, so i have edited a little. and really we did have a good easter, chocolate bunnies and all.

we dyed the eggs a couple nights ahead of time. this may be my favorite part of the holiday.

...and put our eggs in the basket on the night before (don't you love lucy's new 'smile for the camera smile')

on easter morning the easter bunny did come and brought some books, and puzzles, but not alot of candy (way to go easter bunny!).

we had a little egg hunt around the house making sure we counted to ensure ALL the hard boiled eggs were found so no stinky surprises in a couple months.

then we headed down to portland for the campbell family gathering hosted by my aunt and uncle. the kids had a great time with their cousins (evidenced by the sugar induced photo session).

....lucy and makena

...riley (on sugar) and max

all in all it was a fun day....hope your easter was good too!

spring break road trip

home sweet home, but man we had a fantastic 9 day road trip through 4 states (yes you can be impressed that we did this with a 3 yo and 5yo). we got home last night (and dorothy was spot on...there is no place like home), but we are still smiling from the series of great visits we had with dear friends. so wanted to share a little of our trip with you.

stop number one- missoula, mt.

our friends aaron and caitlin with their little ones emma and wilson. aaron and i were in pa school together and both todd and caitlin had gotten environmental type graduate degrees. needless to say we hit it off. we had our first kids at the same time (riley and emma are a month apart) and then went on to have the second set (wilson is 9months older than lucy). caitlin left the office world when the babes arrived and started her own business making baby slings which i will shamelessly plug www.sproutpouch.com (hers are not the kind involved in the recent controversy). the kids had a blast playing together and the adults got to hang out. great visit, great friends.

stop number two- bozeman, mt

todd's life long friend julie and her boyfriend mike landed here recently and are caretaking a sweet pad (we had our own wing to stay in practically).

it was great to catch up with her and get to know mike. the kids had a great time exploring and julie even took them fishing in the pond in front of her house.

....and proved herself worthy of the rod she was tossing around by landing a little trout much to the kids delight.

we took a gamble and schlepped our skis but it paid off as we had a super ski day at bridger mountain just outside bozeman. lucy went up the lift for the first time and riley cruised the blues with confidence. beautiful sunny day.

lucy up on the lift with mom....

....then cruising down the slopes

and riley showing us all the way down...

stop number three- coeur d' alene, id

our friends erik and myrna with their kids kylie (19yo), makena (9yo) and keilani (4yo) are always fun to visit.

erik is a friend from our africa days (he was not in the peace corps, but was working as an attorney in south africa and let us crash at his pad in durban). he met myrna when he got home and the rest is history. the kids had a fantastic time. the big ones hung out, played soccer and catch (riley was smitten with makena and would follow her anywhere!) and the wee ones spent hours playing dress-up (super cute). the grown-ups got to hang out and chat.....which we so enjoy.

stop number four- othello, wa

we of course had to stop to say hi to our good friends the shelbys. grace, abby and jonathan were the hardest part of leaving othello. always good to see them. just a quick overnight, but worth the stop for the yummy grub grace makes and the hugs.

home stretch of the drive and all worn out....

so today it was back to work for me. back to school for riley. todd spent the day unpacking and putting order back into our home.

waahooo for road trip 2010!!!! happy spring breaks to you too.

almost spring

Spring hasn't exactly sprung, but it's definitely thinking about it. We are getting ready as well and most of our attention has turned to getting the garden prepared. We expanded the garden, doubled it really.

Below is the view from the upstairs window of our backyard. The two large garden plots in the back and over to the left is the chicken coop and yard. The middle of the yard has the remnants of a recent soccer match (Riley I'm sure won).

We found that we needed a fence since we like to have our chickens free-range and they like to bathe and scratch in the lettuce. So fence we made. Sunk the posts, put the fencing on, and Todd built these great gates recycling some old lathe from the walls of our house.

Then Todd recycled the old pump house from the irrigation system (the county redid the system last year and now we don't need the pump), and bought an old window at the rebuild-it center. Voila a cold frame. Ultimately we want to build a green house, but that is realistically a little ways off, so the cold frame will work well for now.

Most exciting was that we planted our seedlings. Lots of everything, (tomatoes, broccoli, greens, peas, beans), oohhh its really gonna be a spectacular garden this year. Lucy loves to water the little seedlings.

oh and look!! The garlic I planted in the fall is looking good so far!

The daffodils bloomed late last week. I didn't get a picture of them because Riley picked a bouquet of them for me. We had to have a little talk about which flowers mommy likes in her bouquets and which ones she likes to leave in the garden.

So next week we are off for spring break. Road trip!! We are visiting friends in Montana, Idaho and a quick stop in good old Othello, Washington! We had to find babysitters for our chickens and for our little seedlings! (so thankful for good friends)

Happy (almost) Spring to you!