Pumpkin Carving and Oh The Mind of a Four Year Old

Richard was gone all last week up near Seattle working at Fluke to add yet more responsibilites to his job. Yet another person has been let go and Richard is up there figuring out what that person used to do and how they did it!! He has been home for the weekend, but is heading back up on Monday, bright and early. We miss him so much when he is gone! But it looks like travel may become more common for him. Yesterday he spent the day helping a family move and late in the day we went to get pumpkins. Today we carved. I covered the table in newspaper, had pumpkins in front of each kid and they all had markers to draw their faces on with. Richard is the official face carver. I was sitting across from Joseph and I said, "Ok guys, time to draw on your faces". I sat there and watched Joseph as he(with a very serious face) drew a strip up one cheek and then one down the other. I was about to get mad? What was he thinking!! Then it hit me, I told him to draw on his face and for once he was not about to question me. I was trying to explain to him what I had really meant, but was laughing so hard! Richard was too. It was one of those moments I will not forget! Here are some more photos of my adorable kids and hubby getting the pumpkins ready for their big Halloween debut! Wait, where is Adrienne??? Apparently at the old age of 17 she is no longer into carving pumpkins with the family. Well, that is ok, we feel blessed she was alright with it for the first 16 years!!

Camping-Didn't think there could possibly be more did you??

We spent a gorgeous afternoon on the beach! The weather could not have been better, it was one of those rare perfect days on the Oregon Coast! The sky was blue, temperature was about 80, the air was fairly calm(much to Richard's dismay-he could not get his kite to stay in the air!). I have few photos of Joseph's face because he spent most of the time in the water facing away from me. He made lots of friends and even when Annalina got tired of taunting the ocean and wanted to dig in the sand, he kept at it. I enjoyed laying on a blanket and reading in between watching the crazy antics of my kids. Here you can see the wreck of the Peter Iredale which has been a apart of this beach for over a hundred years now. It seems there is less there than when I was a child!
Here is Richard, trying his hardest to get that kite to stay up. No luck though!! Maybe next time!
Annalina loves to be buried in the sand. She does this every beach trip. Don't you just love the bikini top fish shapes Richard added for fun!!!

Camping - Part 3, A Bad Day for a Migraine

One day while camping we drove back into Astoria to find adventure! We started by driving over the HUGE bridge between Oregon and Washington. The kids thought it was cool to be in another state and started asking about driving to Idaho, California and Arizona. We tried to explain that they were a bit too far for this small trip! Below is a photo of a small portion of the bridge.
Anyway, back in Astoria we stopped at the Maritime Museum and had a super fun time checking out the exhibits and even got to go aboard an old Coast Guard ship they keep docked there. A great time until.....the migraine hit! Luckily Richard had his pills along with him, so he took one right away and I drove us back to the camp site. He laid down for a while and then was doing better.

Back to the museum....
The Columbia was the ship we got to go on. We were even able to go beneath deck to see where the sleeping quarters were as well as the galley and captain's quarters. One of my favorite things about Astoria was watching the huge container ships come in. There is something really fascinating about watching them up so close. The photos do not do them justice! They are huge and I really want to go back and spend a day just watching them carefully maneuver the mouth of the Columbia, where it is so treacherous a special pilot is taken to the ships to bring them safely into the river.

Camping part 2-Its like Riding a Bike....

Last summer Annalina got a good start at learning to ride her bike, so we took the bikes along so she could get in some good practice. Here is how she felt about that....
In case you can't see, she is NOT happy. She was telling Richard that she would learn tomorrow, but not today. Richard was kind a patient and told her he would help her. It only took a few times and she was off and riding on her own! After that she was on her bike every chance she got. Our campsite was at the begining of a circle and she rode that circle over and over again, with Joseph on her heels. Lots of kids came and went during our three night stay, and she made friends and rode bikes with them all!
We had some neighbors at the top of the circle who were there the whole time we were and they had four kids with bikes. After our success with Annalina we thought we'd teach Joseph to ride his bike. Luckily the neighbors had tools, and we removed Joseph's training wheels thinking he would learn quickly. He responded the same way Annalina had and REFUSED to get on his bike without the training wheels. Richard put them back on and he loved it.....maybe next year.....

Our Camping Adventure-Tip of Oregon Day

We wanted to get away for a few days before the hustle and bustle of school started up again. We had limited funds and decided $17 a night for camping would be acceptable, so I used my coupons and things we had on hand to make up a nice little menu and we set the date for the first week of September. Adrienne had a babysitting job all summer and she had taken a week off to go to Idaho and did not want to take another week off. At the last minute Jake was telling me about the Argus cross country pics he would be missing, and then there was also the time trials that would place him on Varsity or JV. He did not want to ruin our trip by asking to stay home, so I told him if it was important to him not to miss these events, he was welcome to stay home. So he did! He would have gone along happily and not complained, and that is why we felt it was so important to let him decide.

So we took the little kids and camping we went! We had so much gear that we had to take out the two middle seats to fit it all in without a trailer. We had a bike rack hitched up so we could take the kids bikes.
We went to Fort Stevens. It was a beautiful week for camping, not too hot, not too cold. We took a day to drive to the South Jetty, which the little kids excitedly called the very "Tip of Oregon". We climbed up onto the observation platform and had an incredible view! We watched some container ships come into the mouth of the Columbia River. The first photo below is probably my favorite of the day, the land you see in the background is actually Washington. The kids played on the river beach while Richard hiked up onto the rocks and went down the jetty a ways.
Here is Joseph attempting to climb a really tall tree with his sandals on. I don't think he could have made it if he had been wearing spikes, but it was cute of him to try!
Ahhhhh, enjoying our campfire! The kids LOVED roasting marshmallows, but we didn't actually get to do this until the second night because I left them sitting on the counter at home!!Joseph is a born camper. I admit, I am not a real enthusiastic fan of camping. There is so much dirt around, and spiders.....yuck! But seeing how much the kids enjoyed the whole experience helped me enjoy myself! By the way, I only saw three spiders the whole trip, but one was trying to get into the tent and it was moving FAST! Kinda freaked me out. And there were very few mosquitoes which was nice. We did not use repellent, and I only got three bites the whole time we were there!