Halloween cookies

 As has been tradition for a while now, we made Halloween cookies last week:

Tie the season 🎃👻💀

Happy birthday to Maren 🎈

 Yesterday Maren turned 11. We had a full day that included scoring a goal in her soccer game (woo hoo!), fancy donuts and decaf lattes, and dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory.

Then today we had another celebration with my family, and next weekend she will have her sleepover with friends. Plenty of good times 🥳

Disneyland

The six weeks or so since I blogged last, have been full and busy. But before I go into any of that, the big last hurrah of the summer was a quick trip to Disneyland!

The kids had their first three days of school September 2-4, then on the 5th we flew to LAX, spent the next two days in Disneyland, and flew home on the 8th. Since it was a holiday weekend the kids only missed one day of school, so we didn’t feel too guilty 😊

Our first night in Anaheim didn’t go quite as we had planned. There was a water main leak at our hotel, which I was informed of just after we landed. They were able to book us one night at another hotel, then there was some confusion and frustration, and unfortunately because of the holiday weekend basically every hotel room in the area was booked. After a long time on the phone I was finally able to secure another hotel room for us at a different hotel for the next two nights; not an ideal start to a vacation but at least we had somewhere to stay.

The next day, our first day at Disneyland, it rained hard. Apparently the remnants of a hurricane/tropical storm came through, dumping more rain on the area than it had gotten in many months. We were undaunted, and were determined to have a good time anyway. There was basically no line at Tiana‘s Bayou Adventure (formerly Splash Mountain), so Maren and I decided we would start the day there. We were already wet so figured it wouldn’t be a big deal to get a little more wet.

However, the ride was stopped just before we went up the climb for the big splash down. Apparently many rides at Disneyland are affected by rain and it basically broke down. The ride had to be evacuated, and unfortunately because of my disability I was not able to climb out and walk along the uneven side of the ride to the many stairs that I would not be able to climb. So instead I had to be rescued by firefighters. Not exactly how we planned to start our day, but definitely a unique Disneyland experience!

Here is a picture of me and Maren stuck on the ride, and a picture of what we could see in front of us while we were stuck:

 

Linden in the rain:

Lunch in the rain:

A small wet world:

The next day was mostly sunny and mostly not raining. It was a much more typical Disneyland experience. We had a great time!

Mt Saint Helens

 This weekend we went cabin camping with friends near Mount Saint Helens. It was a bit cloudy the day we explored the area, but still fun. There were a couple of accessible trails (paved and boardwalk) that I was able to take my scooter on. One of the trails had a section where you could go underground through a lava tube if you wanted to. Jeff and Maren went through:

Also exciting this week – Linden got braces. She is still adjusting but doing really well with it!

Camping

 This past week we went camping for two nights at Alsea Falls. It was last minute, kind of on a whim, and we were pleased to discover that this campground was not fully booked and we were able to get a site. It turned out to be a really great place to camp – very relaxed, quiet, no bright lights, and not close to any busy roads. We also did not have cell service, so were truly forced to detach. 

We roasted marshmallows, explored, read, and took a short hike to the falls. We will definitely go back ❤️ 

4th of July

 This year to celebrate Fourth of July, we spent the day with my family in Eugene on the third. We hung out at a park and played in the river.

At the end of the day we came home, got the kids ready for bed, then loaded them back into the car and went to watch fireworks at the end of a baseball game for our local collegiate summer baseball team. We were told that if you go up to the top of the parking structure near the stadium it is a good place to watch, and it turned out to be extremely close and totally un obstructed viewing. It is the first time our kids really saw a good fireworks show, and they thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a little loud for Linden and maybe next year we will not watch from quite as close!

Yesterday for the fourth, we hung out in our neighbourhood where our neighbours have a party and fireworks every year. Linden wanted to stay back a bit, so she and I were across the street in front of our house, and Jeff and Maren had front row seats (as did everyone else) 😁

Pickle piano

 Today we went to a local festival called Open Streets Corvallis.  We enjoyed many unique local experiences like:

Wood planing with a folk craft school,

 

Riding a bicycle carousel,

And my favorite, the original pickle piano:

Not a bad start

 This past week Jeff had to work a lot because he is teaching an online summer class. That means there is a lot of work upfront, and then maintenance and grading for the rest of the summer (which is much more flexible). His work schedule gave me a chance to spend a lot of time with the kiddos. 

Among other things, we went out to lunch, had ice cream, and shopped for Father’s Day presents. Linden had a friend over for a sleepover, and Jeff and the kids went to see a movie. Not a bad start to summer vacation.

For Father’s Day today we went on a little walk, had some presence, and at Jeff’s request had blueberry pie. Jeff had a bit of time for a video games, and we played a board game as a family. Also not a bad Father’s Day!

School’s out for the summer!

 Last week was the last day of school for the kids, and also the end of the term for me and Jeff. It feels like we have been in GO GO GO mode and we are rapidly headed for STOP. 

To ease the transition a bit we signed up for a Girl Scout camp work weekend, where we went to camp as a family and the idea was that we would spend some time working on projects and then have the opportunity to enjoy camp. I thought it would be a fun way to spend the weekend after the end of school.

I had expectations going into it that turned out to be a little bit wrong. There was a lot more emphasis on the work part of the weekend then on the fun part, and it was not run like a normal camp experience. We never got a schedule of any kind so we never really knew what was happening and had to check a lot and wait a lot, and we spent a lot of hours clearing invasive ivy. In 90-degree heat. The kids were not super happy. 

However, we finally did get to do some canoeing, and did get to enjoy a campfire complete with all of the campfire songs. We probably will not do it again, but it was a good way to transition from school into summer!

Big girls

 Maren and Linden keep growing. Last week Linden bridged from Daisies to Brownies in Girl Scouts. 

You can see that her Daisy vest is much too small for her now, even though it was at least a size too big when we got it for her. She is super tall, the tallest kid in her class at the moment. For her brownie vest I bought the size that Maren is using right now. Hopefully that one will last the two years that she is at this level!

And Maren has passed a major milestone this week:

She is finally tall enough to safely use the seatbelt in our car without a booster seat. She has been waiting about two years for this, and lately has been wanting to check every couple of weeks. Last I checked a few weeks ago she was still half an inch too short, but this week she made it!

Wind down

 Last week the kids had “hat day“ at school. This is what they wore:

 

Linden was going to make two eyes to tape onto her cat hat, but she ran out of time so she decided it would be a cyclops cat, which was infinitely better. Maren didn’t have a hat she wanted to wear so she made one.

Things are starting to wind down for the year. Maren had her last volleyball game of the season. She is number three here. Volleyball at this age is mostly about learning to serve, and they rarely do a return so this picture is a little misleading, but it looks like they are really playing 😂

On Saturday Linden had her last soccer game. She scored two goals! Last week she scored a goal and another parent caught it on video:

It has been fun watching the kids learn and grow, but it will be nice not to have games and practices to take them to 😊

My goofy kiddos ❤️

 Today Jeff and the kids took me out for breakfast and gave me lots of cards and chocolate and flowers ❤️

And just before bed, a silly, goofy, funny… thing:

Happy Mother’s Day 😊

Summer preview

 Today was super warm – high of 86°– and it felt very much like summer. We have mostly just been plugging along like normal, with work, school, and all the usuals. 

This weekend though the kids went to “spring camp” with Girl Scouts. That meant that Maren stayed two nights in a cabin at camp, and Linden went for the day. Canoeing, archery, learning about wildlife, campfires, s’mores, and the whole camp caboodle. Jeff and I stayed home and had time to get things done like bike maintenance and ticking things off  the household to-do list. We even went out for lunch.

I have one picture from one of Maren’s leaders of Maren canoeing. Unfortunately the leader with Linden‘s group forgot to take any photos. But here are some soccer and swim lesson in photos instead :-)