Happy Birthday Jim!!

Halloween... Thanksgiving....and now almost Christmas!

Okay, I might be a little behind, but allow me to blog again somewhere: Jim's Birthday!

We celebrated Jim's Birthday earlier this month. I got to meet with him at work and take him out to lunch.

I surprised him at work by delivering some freshly homemade Lemon Poppy seed Cupcakes. Yum!Later, the kids got to take their Dad out to Red Robin for a celebration!

The night before his birthday, we served Daddy some Green Eggs and Ham Omelet. He was getting up way too early on his birthday for a proper breakfast in bed.

The kids loved celebrating their Daddy. Jim, we are so lucky to have you in our lives. We are sure glad you were born!

Post Script: This is our totally awesome 12 foot Christmas Tree we grew not too far from our home. More on this later! Merry Christmas!

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

In September we had a wonderful weekend at this cabin with 3 other families.

The catch was we had to cross The Rouge River to get to it.

Actually... this was the boat we ferried ourselves across in. Thanks Tyler and Jared for being the muscle behind the oars!

There was a family of deer that would roam all over the grass.

The kids loved admiring them.

Happy mom.

The kids (and parents) also enjoyed taking rides.

A sweet slip and slide.

We enjoyed many walks and throwing rocks into the river.
Another view of the cabin - our room actually had the best view in my opinion since we were really sleeping in our tent and could look out to the beautiful view.
Let's hear it for playing games to the wee hours of the night after the kids go to bed.
Thanks friends!

Having been born of a goodly mother

Today is my wonderful mother's birthday! Happy birthday momma!

My mom is so talented, so loving, so nurturing, so fun, so joyous, so smart, so hilarious, so beautiful...shall I go on?

Okay, I will! She loves her family so much, with every fiber of her being. She is an example and inspiration to me.

I hope I can be the kind of mother she was to me. Mom, you have always been so loving, understanding and supportive of me. You are a light in my life. I hope you know how much we all love you!

Have a wonderful birthday!!

The kids can't wait to see their grandma soon!

Love ya!

The Jazz Pianist

Happy Birthday Gramma!

Having been born of a goodly father

So, obviously I am not great at posting every day. Hey, who has time for this? However I feel good about what I have been able to document in the last few weeks and will continue to catch up on our summer for the rest of this month.

When my dad was out for a visit this summer, I was able to have some fun adventures with him (sans kids!). One of our great adventures was white water rafting on the Deschutes River.

This was our crazy river guide. He was a lot of fun and was sporting the "Tom Hanks in Cast Away" look. As I was looking at all the river guides who are basically transients and spend their summer days floating the river, I couldn't help but think "Why did I go to school all year round?" Ugh!

Ahh... Summer time and the living is easy.

After our adventures on the water, we headed to Mt. hood for some adventure in the snow. We spent some time hiking up to the ski area and glissading down the icy snow.

Here is my dad by the Pacific Crest Trail sign. When he was a teenager, he and some of his hippie friends (his words, not mine) decided to hike along the Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon from California to Washington. And you wonder where I get my love for things outdoorsy?

More Daddy/Daughter adventures to come!

Having been born of goodly parents

Another of our summer highlights was a visit from my parents.

We love when Grandma and Grandpa come to town.

We had so much fun and had so many great adventures, I will need to take the next few posts to cover it sufficiently.

One of our adventures took us to the coast.

My Arizonian parents thought it was just terrible that I would allow my Oregonian children to run around on the beach practically naked (in shorts and t-shirts) in 60 degree cloudy weather. :) In all fairness, it was 100+ degrees in AZ when they left home.

Thanks for braving the weather!

Cousins at Crater Lake

For our last night at Crater Lake my cousin and his family joined at our campsite.

We had a blast visiting by the campfire, roasting marshmallows and watching the kids have such a great time together.
In fact, once our cousins showed up, we hardly saw Bridger because he was so enthralled by this exciting new company.
Thanks for the fun and thanks for being game to join us!

Jumping into Crater Lake

One of the highlights of the Crater Lake camping trip was actually getting into the water!The water was as blue as Bridger's blue eyes.
It was also clear enough to see beyond your toes.
I found this prehistoric pine cone that was bigger than my head!

My guys.
We couldn't just look at all this water...

without making a little...

SLASH!

We also went on a boat ride!

The elusive Phantom Ship. Spoiler alert - it is actually an island.

The water was truly as blue as Jim's reflective glasses.
This sums up how we all felt at the end of the day...

Pinnacles at Crater Lake

One of the hikes we did at Crater Lake was to see the Pinnacles. These were interesting spiky formations created when the volcano erupted and ash and steam collided. Bridger has been interested in volcanoes lately, in particular he wonders if he will ever get to see a volcano erupt, so we thought he might enjoy these geological features. It is always to curious to see what will fascinate a 3 year old. He thought they were "okay".

Like Father... Like Son.

Oh no! We broke it! Quick, Bridger hold it up while we run for help.

Just kidding. We did find this mildly entertaining to find a leaning sign where where the Department of Agriculture and National Park Service meet.

Yay for Crater Lake!