He was a good cat

We said goodbye to our friend Cisco yesterday afternoon after a two year battle with kidney failure.

He was patient...


Handsome...








Did I mention patient? (Shown here with Sabine's best buddy Birch.)


And here with nephew Gabriel...


With baby Sabine...


And baby Vivian...


He will be missed.

The (b)rain barrel

I've been meaning to post this one for a while...Bret's finished project. He is a pretty awesome artist!

Coastal camping

Very delayed photos from our all girls camping trip to the coast with friends Kat, Marley and Ember. It was the first time I did all the camper stuff -- from backing it into our site, to setting it up (with Kat's great help!) myself. Felt really good to be able to do it!

I promised Kat I wouldn't publicize the camping spot...but suffice it to say, it was amazing! There's nothing like falling asleep to the sound of crashing waves. The girls had a great time exploring on the beach...







This is a place I want to visit again, and again, and again...

Ever wonder...

What the inside of an upright piano looks like?

We had a sticky key, and our friend Ben, who's becoming a piano tuner opened up our piano to fix it (he's available in the Portland area if you have a piano that needs some help! Let me know if you want his contact info). The girls thought it was really cool!

Lost Lake, trip two

We ended up returning to Lost Lake a second time. We were planning on trying Fishermen's Bend outside of Salem, but fortunately I called with a fishing question, and was told they were completely full -- even the first come first serve sites. We were going to head out on a Thursday afternoon, and felt confident that we would find a site at Lost Lake, due to it's relative isolation.

You can imagine our dismay when we completed the almost 2 hour drive and saw the big sign "CAMPSITE FULL" when we pulled up to the entry gate. We asked the employee if we could at least make a quick bathroom stop before we turned around...she said "hold on a second" then talked for a few minutes on her walkie-talkie and said we could set up our pop up in the overflow lot.

The overflow lot turned out to be pretty sweet -- the only drawback being we had no picnic table and fire ring (only one spot in the lot did, and it was taken). The lot was super close to the lake (much closer than any other of the RV campsites) and had great open sky for watching falling stars. We did end up finding a spot and moving the camper the next afternoon (we were staying for 3 nights), but it's good to know that the overflow thing is available (though not for tent camping).

We got to explore more on the old growth interpretive trail...


And eat fish caught by Bret and Sabine!




Sabine and Vivian pose by the statue of Sasquatch outside the little store. Note the Tootsie Roll in Squatchy's hand...

It's not Disney...

The girls and I joined in a homeschool group outing to Enchanted Forest a couple of weeks ago. It was a fun day with friends. Vivian was not so into the tall costumed chipmunk (I think that's what it is...).


This was the ferris wheel in the little kids area (not sure you can see the bored look on Vivian and friend Ava's face...but it was kind of funny!).


Here are Sabine and friend Hailey turning away from the camera on the kiddie train.


I didn't get any photos of the bigger rides -- but the lines were really short, and the girls got to do laps on many of the rides. It was small enough that we could get around easily, and completely shaded by big beautiful trees, so it stayed nice and cool.

Here's an article about EF from the Oregonian. While it doesn't have the glitz and glamor of Disney, it was old-timey fun.

Fishing at Lost Lake

Walking down the trail to go fishing.


Sweet fishing spot.


Getting worms on...


Yup. Worm on.


Blurry pic of the one that got away...

Hanging out at the lake.

Cooking at Lost Lake

Night one...steak with marinated veggies and garlic bread in foil.


Morning one...bacon on the Wilson Handy Camp Grill (we didn't use the steel rod for the grill as we already had the campfire grill in place).


Eggs with leftover foil wrapped veggies. Yummm...

Camping at Lost Lake

We broke out the pop up camper and spent last weekend up at Lost Lake Resort in Mt Hood, OR. It's a quick 1 3/4 hour drive from our house.

It gets chilly up there!


Nothing like a post dinner scooter ride to warm you up.

4th of July

The girls really wanted to go to a 4th of July parade where there would be candy thrown...they also really wanted one where there would be ears of corn thrown (a la Jackson Hole) but we didn't see that happening...We did make it up to Corbett, OR for a "old timey" 4th of July celebration...

We ended up sitting next to some really nice folks from North Portland, who offered to take our picture.


First time I've seen one of these in a parade...


Though I think I might have seen one of these in Jackson.


The parade was preceeded by a TON of antique/restored cars. There were a lot of fun ones to look at, though the girls got a little bored and antsy for the "real" parade the start (even though many of the folks in the cars threw candy).

We spent 4th of July night at our friends Amy and Wade's house -- their neighbors take their fireworks VERY seriously, so with a quick bike ride over to their place, we got to see some amazing fireworks without any crowds. It rocked! The girls loved lighting sparklers, and seeing all the pretty lights in the sky.