My busy week

I had such a busy week, I didn't get on the computer to blog much. I intended to post photos of our beach trip each day, but I was so busy and tired I haven't been on the computer much.

VBS
Starting Monday, Natalie and Zander enjoyed a week long VBS at our neighbor's church in Pleasant Valley. The theme was Avalanche Ranch and each day they got to bring home a "Bible Buddy" figurine with that day's memory verse written on the back. They also did fun crafts, ate yummy snacks, played games, sang songs, watched a movie and had TONS of fun. I was a little bit apprehensive dropping them off at a church they had never been to, where they didn't know anyone, but when I picked them up the first day, Natalie had her arms wrapped around a new friend she made and she was giggling and smiling and having so much fun. Zander, like always, jumped right in and didn't even look back. Every day this week after I picked them up, all they could talk about was Avalanche Ranch.

Natalie and Sarah had fun together at VBS.

Weeds vs. Allergies
My plan was to use the three hours each morning to clean up around the house and catch up on yard work. So for the first two days I was out in my vegetable garden pulling weeds. A few weeks of being ignored and the weeds literally took over. Unfortunately, my allergies were so bad that it became extremely difficult to remain outside at all, much less stirring up grass and weeds. I decided it wasn't worth it.

Broccoli, lettuce and leeks.
If anyone needs fresh lettuce, come on over...It's all coming up at once and I would hate for it to go to waste.

Here is the scary part of my garden...this is where I have not only weeds coming up, but pumpkins and sunflowers thanks to some seeds planted by our vast bird population around here. Anyone know if it's too late to transplant these things? I intended to have an orderly garden, but don't think it is turning out that way...oh, well...don't tell Martha Stewart on me!

Getting into Shape
Later in the week, instead of gardening, I used the 3 hours (while the kids were at VBS) to go to the gym. Earlier in the week I was going on walks down our road, but again, my allergies wouldn't have it, so I had to do my work-outs indoors. I have done about an hour of cardio each day along with some light weights and let me just say it practically knocked me out. It took all of my reserve energy and by the end of the day I could barely load the dishwasher. Dan has been so helpful, knowing how much time I was spending at the gym. I think he put the kids to bed more days than I did so I could just crash.

Blazer Draft Party
Our friends CJ and Cathy Gish and their three kids are in town from Idaho, so on Thursday Dan and CJ headed over to the Blazer's Draft Party at the Rose Garden Arena. They got to meet The Shonz (Bill Schonely) and saw first hand, along with 6,000 other Blazer fans, the Blazermania that erupted when the crowd rushed the court after Greg Oden was selected as our #1 draft pick! Am I kicking myself that I didn't send my camera with Dan?...um, Yeah!!! I know my dad, who was quoted in last Sunday's Oregonian (about the draft), should be pleased with our pick too. He is an Ohio State alumni and a big fan of Oden's. That about covers my week until Friday.

Greg Oden, our new guy.

They're Baaaack...
During our recent beach trip, I began to experience some "flank" tenderness, which made me think something was going on in my kidneys again. I didn't think much of it because the dull ache was nothing compared to the agony and pain of passing a kidney stone, so I just upped my water intake and went about my day. Due to my mother's recent kidney stone problem, I was prompted to finally (after about 6 months of on again off again soreness) make an appointment to see what was up with my kidneys. Since moving out to the sticks, I didn't really want to drive all the way out to Emanuel Hosp., so I decided to make an appointment with my Mom (and Dad's) urologist at Portland Adventist. He was all booked up, so I was assigned to a different doctor. Friday morning I woke up at O-dark-hundred hours because I had to get an X-ray before my 8 am appointment. I took the X-rays to my car and decided to go on a walk as I had 30 minutes to kill before my appointment. After waiting FOREVER, the doctor finally saw me around 9 am. (Hey, I was on time...why couldn't she be!!!) After discussing my medical history, she took me to see the X-ray...there, way up in the upper section of my right kidney, was a HUGE spot. Yep! I got a monster kidney stone. I just shook my head in disbelief. For those of you who know anything about kidney stones, this was over 1 cm. My last one from 2 years ago, which was also considered large, was between 6-7 mm.

Due to the location, my doctor ordered a CT scan to get a better look at what we're dealing with. She said there is a small chance it could be a gall stone, but I am going to assume it's a kidney stone for now. So the bad news is...I have another kidney stone to deal with. The good news is...this sucker is way to big to pass (or even fit in my ureter), so I am almost guaranteed that it won't cause me any excruciating pain! Unfortunately, I will have to undergo one, maybe two procedures to break it up. This part I am not worried about, but the stent that is put in for a month afterward is what I dread. UGGG!

So, with this lovely news weighing on my mind, I drive home just in time to get Dan and Hayden and drive to the VBS program and hear all the songs Natalie and Zander have learned all week. Afterwards we rushed home to clean up for our friends who were coming over for dinner.Zander, 4th from the left, shows us all the motions that go with the songs.

Dinner Party
Dan had arranged a small reunion of sorts with our friends CJ and Cathy and our former college journalism advisor Bob Watkins and his wife Patty. Dan has been working with Bob for the past 3 years at the college, but CJ had not seen him for over 10 years. We had such a good time talking and catching up over dinner. I brought out my college scrapbook (done the old-school way with those horrible magnetic pages...yea, I know bad, bad, bad) and they loved seeing the photos of the old newspaper staff. Some really, really great memories were made during our newspaper production down time. In fact, the camaraderie that was established during that time is largely responsible for Dan and I getting together and it's also where CJ and Cathy met. After lots of laughs and funny stories it was time to call it a night. After everyone left I crashed on the couch...which is where I slept all night, as Dan didn't have the heart to wake me up.

Bob, scoring some points with Hayden, then looking through some old photos. CJ and Cathy, our long-time friends from college.

More pictures from Long Beach

Most days we didn't leave our condo until after lunch, which made for a nice relaxing slow pace. We then spent the rest of the day at the beach, playing in the sand.

Here are Natalie and Hayden feeding the seagulls.

Hayden and his shovel...he never let this shovel out of his sight!

Natalie wanted to be buried in the sand, so I made her into a mermaid.

Hayden really enjoyed digging in the sand.

It was a great day for flying a kite.

Even Hayden gave it a try...we didn't tell him he was flying a Barbie kite!

Zander had fun building sand castles and drawing in the sand.
Here he is running around the road I made for him.

Dan and Zander (but mostly Dan) spent all day making a big sand castle. It was big enough for the three of them to fit inside. I think they had as much fun destroying it as they did building it.

Father's Day at the Coast

This year we spent Father's day out of town so it was a little different not seeing our extended families, but fun just the same. For breakfast I fixed blueberry pancakes with blueberry syrup, eggs and sausage. Then Dan opened his gifts from the kids. We hung out for a while in the condo, then had lunch and decided to go on a drive. We ended up at the beach, but it was cold, so we didn't stay long. We drove around some more looking at houses and then went back to the condo where Dan took the kids swimming while I made dinner; green salad, sausage and steamed artichokes...mmmm!

Our First Day at the Beach

We're Back!!!We had a wonderful week at the coast and although it was hard to leave, now that we are back, it's so good to be home again. Although the week away from my computer was great, I've missed my blog...but I took lots of photos and now I can't wait to catch you all up with what we did last week...be glad I am showing only the best photos...out of 460!

This trip we stayed in the Long Beach area of the Washington coast. While Washington has nothing on the Oregon Coast in terms of beauty, it was a nice relaxing place to spend a week. For the most part, the weather was great and the kids loved playing in the sand, despite high winds at times. They also spent quite a lot of time swimming in the indoor pool...and Hayden had a great time splashing in the kiddy pool. There was a playground within walking distance to our back door, so the kids also enjoyed spending time there.
We went to the sand castle building contest in Cannon Beach, the kids kite festival in Manzanita and even a garlic festival on Long Beach.

Patrolling the beach on horse back...in the rain.

Natalie and Zander at Cannon Beach, Oregon

Haystack Rock, at 235 feet high, is the third largest coastal monolith in the world. This spot on the beach has a special significance to Dan and I because it's literally where we fell in love...or at least where we discovered that we were mutually attracted to one another...and had our first kiss — over 15 years ago!

Sand Castle Contest at Cannon Beach

Part One: Construction of the Sand Sculptures

Today's post will cover the day's events for last Saturday when we drove south for about an hour to see the Sand Castle contest in Cannon Beach. I had never been before and was so excited, but when we got there it was starting to drizzle...which of course turned quickly into rain. We drove from Tolovana, past Haystack rock on the beach and then walked over to see the sand artists hard at work.

Some of these contestants were hard core and very good at what they do. If you blow up the photo of the bear, you can see there is a clay model sitting on top of the bear which helps in the overall composition of making a bear from sand...unbelievable! I haven't done much in the way of 3-dimensional sculpture, most of my creations are from paper, so I was in awe and could really appreciate the talent and skill that goes into these sand sculptures.

Part Two: The end results
After the rain soaked us to the bone, we decided to head indoors to the kids kite festival in Manzanita. The kids got to make kites and get their faces painted. Then we stopped for lunch and went back to Cannon Beach to see how the sand carvings turned out.

A sand castle, complete with a moat and Haystack rock in the background.

"All Hands on Deck"

"Public Anemone"As you can see, we got there right as the tide was coming in to wash these guys away.

"Sea Turtle" was one of the kids' favorite.

"Royal Flush" What you may not be able to tell is this is a sculpture of a King (deck of cards) going to the bathroom...thus royal "flush." Definitely a guy's idea!

This is a crab crawling out of a martini glass with a green olive in his claw.


...Alyssa's Favorite: Bear Necessities

Fabulous Food Friday

That's a Wrap!
We just got in from a week long vacation at the coast so I wanted to fix something easy for dinner tonight and this is what I came up with:

It's kind of a twist on Greek cuisine and it was very tasty. Here are the ingredients so you can try for yourself:
Whole grain wrap, cream cheese, spinach, roasted chicken, mango, tzatziki sauce and feta cheese. Roll everything up and serve with pita chips, hummus and tabouli salad.

Picture of the Day 06-14

School's out for summer...

This morning I took Natalie to the doctor to make sure she doesn't have strep throat. I was glad to hear that she doesn't have it, but the doctor gave her a prescription for Magic Mouthwash which numbs the throat and should help her swallow easier.

Later in the afternoon, we met up with her friend Sarah at Dairy Queen to celebrate the last day of school...mmmm blizzards! I was surprised at how expensive everything was...guess this will be a once a year tradition!

Remember this place?

...It seems our old Troutdale home is for sale. It was fun looking at the photos on the realty website. How often do you get a chance to see what someone has done to "your house" after you move out of it? Maybe I am just biased or whatever, but they didn't really do a very good job staging the house to sell it. Here are some things I noticed:

• The clover is back all over the front lawn (don't tell Dan!)
  
• The shrubs in the front need pruning
• roses need to be pruned
• decks need to be stained
• can't even see the gazebo in the back yard as the photo is so dark.
• The photos don't really capture the great qualities of this house. Don't get me started on the ugly chairs!!!
  

It was nice to see that she didn't paint over any of the walls or stenciling that I did. She did add hardwoods which is something I wanted to do, but we never got around to it. I did notice that the curtains were missing in the window near the dining table. After seeing the garage with all the cupboards we installed I was wishing we could have stayed long enough to really enjoy them, but I'm really glad we moved when we did.

Oh, how much easier it was to have less yard to maintain. Looking around this place, our shrubs need to be pruned and the gardens need to be weeded too. Guess it will have to wait for one more week as we are headed to the coast!

Last day of Kindergarten

Although tomorrow is the last day of school, today will be Natalie's last day of Kindergarten. She was sent home early today with a fever and with the 24 hour rule, she won't be back for the last day. I was kind of bummed that she will miss out, but she was able to get her yearbook signed today. I was up all night until 2 am finalizing the kindergarten slide show DVD with another mom from the class. This was a labor of love and totally our idea and we couldn't be happier with how it all came together.

Here are some photos I took before school on Tuesday using a cap and gown I borrowed from a friend. Natalie's school doesn't have a kindy-graduation, but I thought it would be cute to get some photos...to scrapbook of course!

She had a great year in kindergarten and has already started to read! She also has really strong math skills (didn't get that from me!) and I hope to spend time reviewing these areas with her through the summer so her transition into first grade in the fall will be as smooth as possible. I still can't believe she is all done with kindergarten. I am kind of feeling a tad emotional about the whole thing...I have really grown attached to some of the other moms I see on a regular basis and hope our friendships continue as the years go forward. I also feel like time is slipping away too fast for me. In just 12 short years we will be celebrating her high school graduation.