MOTHER, DAUGHTER, SISTER DATE

We went to Mor Art to make fused glass coasters today.

It was a Mother's Day gift that was being redeemed and it was so much fun being creative and giggly with these gals.  We had the best afternoon.

PADDLING ON THE WILLAMETTE THREE DAYS A WEEK, RAIN OR SHINE, IN A 40 FOOT DRAGON BOAT

with 20 paddlers is fun, hard work, fun, exhausting, fun and did I say fun?

Larry and I joined a paddling club!  It's been a whole lot of awesome, topped with awesome sauce.  It makes me happy with a capital H and SORE.

HOOD TO COAST 2012

I was one of the 3600 volunteers this weekend for Hood to Coast - the largest relay in the world, and it was SO much fun!

We were so excited when we saw part of our team at the exchange we were volunteers at.
Here's Heather pointing to a great parking spot.  That was our job - directing traffic at Exchange 30.

I was also looking for my brother, Ivon, and one of my idols - running extraordinaire, Kelly, but didn't see either one of them - bummer for me!

Seeing these five smiling faces, you'd never guess they were exhausted, would you?!

It was only a four hour shift and it was inspiring, motivating and a blast.  I saw runners of all ages and skill level.  My favorite runner was an older man - he looked like he was in his 80's and he was spunky and booking it - I loved watching him running past me to the end of his leg.  It was so awesome.

All the runners were so happy, positive and incredibly APPRECIATIVE of the volunteers.  Countless "thanks for being here!", "thanks for volunteering!", etc...from the runners, they handed us tokens of appreciation - lollipops, noise makers, high fives, huge exhausted smiles and I even got serenaded with "Call Me Maybe" - so funny.

Super fun experience and I absolutely want to be one of the runners next year.

SOME PEOPLE PAINT THE TOWN RED, I PAINT MY GARDEN BOXES

The other day I decided I wanted a pop of color in the garden. I come up with projects like this when I am procrastinating on doing other, more important, things.  Projects with quick gratification makes my soul happy, and it needed a little happiness, so I decided procrastination was full speed ahead and painting moved to the top of the to-do list.

BEFORE - BORING

AFTER - RAVISHING RED

I decided to show you how horrible my garden is this year. It's absolutely pitiful, with a capital P.
Want to know how many carrots grew? Three. That's right. Three.
Lettuce - zip
Broccoli - nada
Cucumbers - zero
Zucchini - I don't think I need to tell you.

I do have 6 tomato plants with lots of flowers and a few green tomatoes, so that's good.  I've never grown potatoes before and the middle box has those growing.  I'm anxious to harvest those in the fall.

If your garden has a plethora of veggie goodness and you just don't know what to do with it all, you know who you can call because my garden is giving me squat this season.  On the bright side, I have enough carrots for a side dish.

I LOVE FLASH MOBS!

You know me well if you know I have quite the list written down to accomplish before I die. Being part of a flash mob is one of them.
I love this one with Julie Andrews - The Sound of Music at Central Station in Antwerp.
What is there not to love about a flash mob? Surprised faces, fun energy and at the end they all go on as if nothing had just happened.  I LOVE IT!

WE CAUGHT A FISH, THIS BIG!

Not really, we didn't catch a thing.  It was super fun though.

The best part of the outing was casting.  Larry wanted us to cast and leave it, but that isn't any fun.  Fish, smish, we wanted to cast.

The wee ones just KNEW we were going to catch something, but their patient bones haven't developed yet.  They ended up stripping to their skivvies and playing in the lake.

IT WASN'T THE WARMEST DAY OF OUR SUMMER, BUT IT DIDN'T STOP US FROM PLAYING IN THE LAKE

PS - After Lily gets wet, she likes to take a nap while being swaddled and held like a baby.  (See photo 7b) She's just a little spoiled.

A CAMPING WE WILL GO, A CAMPING WE WILL GO, HI HO WE'RE OFF TO THE BEACH, A CAMPING WE WILL GO

And that's just what we did.

 

It was our first time camping at Honeyman State Park and we loved it - we'll definitely come here again.

 

I love catching the boys learning from their dad by mimicking every move.  Melts my heart.

 

Go Fish by lantern light - a family favorite.

Camping with my man clan is one of my favorite things - as long as I have a bathroom and a shower.

WHOOO WHOOOO

Owls represent knowledge and wisdom.  I hope I can learn a thing or two from this feathered friend we saw in the Tetons, so this one step forward, two steps back business will end.  Isn't he a beauty?!

Here's to a wonderful weekend for you.

OLD FAITHFUL

One of our best days in Wyoming was a 14 hour excursion into Yellowstone National Park.  Unfortunately, our photos got lost and deleted somewhere between camera and computer, but thankfully, one of our other cameras got a few photos in too.
We were lucky enough to see Old Faithful blow two times.  The wee ones were on a quest to become Junior Rangers and get a badge.  The funny thing is after they took the junior ranger pledge and were 'sworn in', they got the badge and were more impressed with the safety pin being GOLDEN.  They had never seen a gold colored safety pin.  They thought that was the coolest!

BEARS!

When we were in Idaho we went to Yellowstone Bear World.  It's the cutest.  You can drive through as many times as you want - we went through 4 times!  
They have an awesome petting zoo, with the cutest deer, and the highlight for the wee ones was the free amusement park (5 rides) for kids.

COUCH RACE

We had two couches in the 2nd Annual Capital City Couch Race.  We named them LongBoardLarry Pro (our new couch) and LongBoardLarry Amateur (last year's winning couch)

Here is 'Amateur' crossing the finish line in one of the races.

Both couches ended up in the finals and had to race each other!

'Pro' won!

Here is Larry and the other two riders, Brian and Anthony, showing his guns.

One of the fun things 'Pro' had was a parachute that got deployed after the finish line. (I made it!)

Look at that beauty.  It didn't help them slow down though, not one little bit.

There were so many creative couches - check out this pirate ship and whale that squirted water.

And seriously, how much fun do they look like they are having?  This was the atmosphere of the couch race - so much fun!!