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!