Washington County Fair 2008

This weekend weather was absolutely perfect for spending time outdoors. Sunny, but not hot.

Saturday Emily got a special treat for her birthday. Daddy took her to a fancy hair salon to get her hair done. They picked a picture in a style magazine and the final product looked exactly like it. I think she was pretty happy!

Meanwhile the rest of us headed to a Russian food store. As usual, we got lots of sweets and crackers. We made sure to get Emily's favorite candy, but I don't think we got enough. They were all gone in a couple of days.

Due to a minor family meltdown we didn't go to an earlier planned Washington County Fair that night...

On Sunday though, nothing was going to stop us from going to the fair. We had a late start, but after creating our own face paintings, we headed off.

Many people made comments, asking where we had it done. Most looked puzzled when we told them we did it ourselves. Perhaps they though we were cheapskates...

Jon made a collection of stamps and stickers on his arm. He insisted they all go there, but learned a painful lesson next morning when "got milk?" sticker had to get pulled off, along with some hairs.

We had lots of fun till our money all run out... Everything was rather overpriced, but Gabe and Emily got to take a scary ride. They sat in a back row, and because Gabe is so small, I couldn't see his face very well. From what I could see though, he looked petrified!
Now, when Larissa saw his face (mind you she is already afraid of the rides as it is), she started crying, because she was worried Gabe would get hurt! She messed up some of the paint on her face... When Gabe got off the ride, she run over and gave him a big hug!

Garage sale

We finally got rid of our boxes full of un-needed stuff at a garage sale over the weekend.

What was predicted as a hot sunny weekend didn't start as such. Saturday morning was freezing cold, so I was talked into serving kids hot chocolate for breakfast :-)

I gave in since they were manning their new business outdoors. Kids filled a cooler with ice and cold drinks and sat outside, waiting for some customers, in a cold weather. Needless to say, cold drink sale didn't go too well.

For that matter, neither did the garage sale. We barely made enough money on Saturday to cover money spent on a newspaper ad. I think in part it was because we don't live on a through street. Customers really had to make an effort to end up at our garage sale. Later on we also found that some of our signs got ripped off the posts too, so that didn't help either...

Now, we did meet some "interesting" people.

One guy in particular was very friendly but also very odd, which I turned into a people lesson. As soon as he left I told the kids that if they ever to see him again on a street to NEVER talk to him and run. Hopefully they now understand that it's OK to talk to a stranger while your parent is there, but no matter how nice the person is, not to talk to them when they are alone.

Sunday was like Saturday all over again...

The only difference was that at the end of a day, none of the stuff went back into garage. Instead, we loaded it all into boxes and took it straight to Goodwill.

Garage is looking better too. I can actually walk through it! A little more "filtering" and it's going to be useful again. For now, we will keep our workout equipment and not the vehicles there though.

Also, Miranda and Dad went on a Pocker Run on Dad's Harley. They were gone all day, and came back with the sunburns and dirty faces, but happy!

PS: Larissa had a great time at the Summer Camp. I messed up on the lunch/awards time on Tuesday, so we got there late, but I think if all is well, next Summer it's a "go" for a whole week session!

July 12th weekend

I need to work on my procrastination...

By the time we got around to go berry picking on Saturday, strawberries were out of season. That's really too bad. On the other hand, blueberries are in. Boy, did we get lots of those!

It was sunny and really warm, so most of us lost our patience early on and just wanted to go back into a shady, air conditioned car. But, before we escaped back into cool, we had trays of berries to take home.
It was actually so hot, that I only took a couple of pictures, and that says a lot (if you know me...)!

On Sunday, we had Larissa all packed up and took her to her Summer Camp. There was a lot of excitement and worries at the same time.
This IS her first time away from home with a bunch of people she doesn't know, but because this is a Diabetes Camp, I knew she would be OK and it's only a couple of nights. Sort of like a two night sleep over at a friend's house... (with a nurse available to check on her).

We can not wait to hear how it went! Tuesday afternoon is a pick up time and Lunch with the campers. I really hope she likes it and wants to come back!

Almost a Mid-Summer point

To me, Mid-July indicates that I have reached a half way point through the Summer. I think it all goes back to my own childhood and Summer vacations from school, when school always started on September 1st.

This is also the point when I start thinking "what have I done that was fun this Summer? It is too late to do something?"... Not having a whole lot of vacation time saved from work makes it more challenging finding the time to have fun. Price of gas is only making it worse.

Since I got a year long membership to OMSI I can at least use it a few more times. There is always so much for kids to do, that they can easily spend all day there. I am the one who soon gets bored.

But most of the days we stay in our backyard and look for fun things to do there. Top choices so far are: surfing in a wagon down hill (and getting hurt), looking for poisonous bugs, spraying other with a hose when they list expect it... making desserts and watching TV.

(Hurt but smiling...)

(Silly faces)

Fourth of July weekend, 2008

I took a week off from work to spend time at home with the kids, do more unpacking, and sleep in late. We looked for things to do around town that were inexpensive (or free). Library and a playground is always a good choice, OMSI is good, since we have the membership.

Shute park is actually right next to the library, so one trip covers both :-)

Fourth of July was pretty quiet at our house. We didn't buy any fireworks, but no worries, our entire neighborhood sounded like a battlefield, all the way through the night, and kids were happy with the "glow sticks" we had.