While we’ve had some sadness to start off the year, I also wanted to post a few photos of the happy things that have happened for us in this new year so far.
First off this photo, which was actually from the last couple days of 2009. A forecasted rainstorm ended up turning to snow and dropped 6 inches or so of snow all over Portland right before rush hour. It caught everyone off guard, and the roads around Portland were in chaos. It was taking people 4 and 5 hours to drive across town. People were abandoning their cars on the interstate. A big delivery-type truck slid down a hill into our truck as Nicki was driving it home and she ended up having to walk to a friends place nearby. While all this was going on though, the kids and I were in the backyard having tons of fun. It was absolutely perfect snowball weather, and we put this huge snowman together in about 10 minutes.
A couple more nice pictures. We took a long hike down in Tryon Creek State Park to start the new year.
Here’s our latest fun inside activity. I’ve been running a microphone into my old amp and letting the kids go crazy with it. Sometimes I’ll plug the guitar in too, and we’ll sing some songs or just make noise. So far the most favorite activity is to run the microphone through the delay pedal for maximum echo and spacey weirdness.
Milo got his first haircut, and that was pretty fun and exciting for him. We have always taken Anna to the same place to get her haircut. It’s a nice place. Nothing super fancy, but always a pretty nice haircut for not too much money. Anna likes it because at the end of the haircut the woman brings out this box of spools of ribbon, all different colors, and ties bows in her hair. Naturally, Milo picked up on the fact that that was indeed the best part of the haircut, and he insisted that he get a bow also. I never did get to see him with the bow in, sadly, but was amazed when I got home how much older he suddenly looked. It didn’t really even seem like he had that much hair to cut, we were just planning on giving him a trim to even things out. Suddenly he looks like he’s 3 years old.
I finished Anna’s guitar a couple of weeks ago. That was big excitement for me (and Anna I think). I realized I’ve been working on it (on and off) for nearly 18 months. I think it came out looking and sounding pretty nice. I’ve had the strings on and off it a few times now, trying to dial in a good set up on it. It’s really going to be too big for her for a while, the neck profile isn’t actually all that much smaller than a standard guitar. She seems to like it though, maybe more so just for the fact that I made it for her and we’ve been talking abut it for so long. Here are a few pictures:
I wanted to take a minute to post a bit of sad news. Floyd, our beloved cat and companion of 15 years, died last week. Floydie was a great cat. Nicki got her as a kitten a year or so before I met her. She moved all over Portland with us, living with lots of other cats and dogs and people along the way. She even lived with me in Idaho for a summer. I drove her out there in my little Subaru, with her litter box behind the drivers seat and her crawling under the pedals and on my lap as I drove.
As you all mostly know, Floydie has been pretty sick these past couple of years, slowly and consistently losing weight and getting less and less active. This past week, though, it became clear that she was nearing the end, and it was pretty tough for everyone. Our biggest concern was that we didn’t want her to be in pain. We took her to the vet and ran some blood work and it was clear that there was very little that could be done for her but manage her pain. The vets were very nice, not trying to force us into long shot treatments or rush us to euthanize. They gave her a few days worth of pain medication and we took her home. We spent the next two days giving her as much attention as she seemed to be able to handle. She seemed to enjoy the time as well, but it was also clear that she was ready to go. In the end she found a quiet place to lay down and drifted off peacefully. It was all we could have asked for for her.
It was a sunny winter day, a treasured rarity, and the type of day that would have been her absolute favorite. She was always fond of a nice sunbeam. I carried her out into the sun and set to work making a grave for her at the corner of our garage. We buried her with her food and water bowls. In her last years, her favorite thing in life had become fresh, cold water. She meowed for it two or three times a day, and even if her water dish was still full we would empty it and pour in fresh cold water. It was a small luxury but the only one she requested.
The kids had been napping and when they woke up we talked a little bit with Anna about Floydie dying. This is our second pet to die in a matter of a month. It is a really hard thing to explain. We made some tea and asked if she wanted to go out and see where she was buried. It was mid-afternoon but the sun was still shining. We lit a candle and set some rocks around where she was buried. We talked about that Floydie’s body had died, but that her spirit would always be with us. Looking around the yard we could see the row after row of garlic we had planted in the fall just starting to sprout, life springing forth from the earth, and we felt blessed.
Wow, December had some adventures in store for us this year it seems. Guess I’ll start at the beginning…
It started off simple enough. We spent the month in the midst of the chaos and craziness of preparations for christmas and the winter solstice. Making gifts, entertaining cooped up, cabin fevered kids, and making preparations to head out of town for a week.
The kids and I finally perfected our couch fort design.
Nicki took Anna to see the nutcracker ballet with some other moms and daughters. I think they stopped for hot chocolate afterward too, Anna had lots of fun.
Then some sad news, a couple of days before we were scheduled to fly to Iowa for a week, something got into our chicken coop and attacked our chickens. Rosie (our rhode island red) was killed, and Sol (the buff orpington) survived, but was in really rough shape. We brought her inside and tended to her wounds, it didn’t look like she was going to survive the night, but she hung on and after a couple of days she seemed to have stabilized. It looked like she may have been blinded in one eye, but now it looks like she may have her sight back as well. We’re very happy she is on the mend.
I’ll miss Rosie dearly. She was the smallest of the three, but was definitely top of the pecking order, and she was also the most willing to be picked up, pet, etc. She was a good bird and a good friend.
With the injured chickens mostly stabilized, and with them and our cat in the capable and willing hands of a generous friend, we packed our bags and caught a flight to Omaha for a week long trip across Iowa that would prove to be memorable. Our flight arrived in Omaha around 10pm and by the time we negotiated the rental car, actually got onto I-80 (tip for future travelers, the sign says go right but DON’T BELIEVE IT!) and then made it to my brother’s place in Shelby Iowa, it was after midnight. We slept a few hours, woke up, ate some breakfast, then threw the kids back in the car and drove the 4 hours to Iowa City.
Most of Nicki’s family was in Iowa City for the weekend to celebrate her grandfather’s 90th birthday. Anna and Milo had a great time with all their cousins and aunts and uncles and Grandma and Grandpa around. The birthday party was fun, and included an amazing quantity of delicious food. Both Anna and Milo spent quite a bit of time in the hotel pool with their cousins. There was also an attempted afternoon of ice skating, but Milo was napping and Anna complained that the skates were too tight and that she didn’t want to fall, so that was short lived. She spent the afternoon with her aunt Jenny instead and I think they had fun together.
We had intended to take a few days to head back across the state to my brother’s place for christmas, but the weather reports were looking pretty bad. What was supposed to be an overnight stay with Nicki’s aunt Jean turned into a short afternoon visit, but it was still very nice. She brought out all her kids toys, including some old dolls that Anna was in love with. We watched deer and rabbits in the backyard, sat and chatted, and headed out when the kids started getting tired in the hopes of getting our driving done ahead of the coming storm.
We were in Shelby the next morning, just barely ahead of the first round of snow and ice. We did have to stop for provisions along the way though, and snapped this photo of Nicki on our way into the town of Atlantic.
There was plenty of fresh snow, and we got some outside play time in before the storm really hit.
Milo learned that he really liked playing in the snow, and he especially liked eating snowballs.
The freezing rain hit first and coated everything in a half inch of ice. then it started snowing and just kept on snowing.
Being cooped up inside wasn’t all bad though, we had some fun. Made cookies, played games, and opened a few presents early just to keep things interesting. The power started cutting in and out all day long Christmas eve day, but it never stayed off for more than about 5 or 10 minutes. We figured everything would be ok. The kids wrote a note for Santa Claus and went off to bed with visions of sleighbells and reindeer and whatnot.
We woke up Christmas morning though and it was clear that something wasn’t quite right. We figured power had been off for a couple hours, and already the house was noticeably cooler. After some cell phone calls around town it was clear that the whole town was without power. After some further calls to the regional power utilities, it was clear that it was probably going to be quite some time before power was restored. We made the most of it. Everyone bundled up and we opened presents. Eventually we sliced up some cold bagels for breakfast. Anna got some handmade dolls that she really loved, but no one was more pleased with a gift than Milo was about this little fisher price guitar that he got.
It has like four or five songs on it (love shack and message in a bottle are the two I can remember right now), and has strings that respond in key when you pull on them. Milo just held that thing right up to his ear and got this far off stare of contentment and played the songs over, and over, and over. It was hard to wrestle away from him.
It was getting colder, the kids were getting somewhat restless, and to be honest I was getting more than a little worried about the prospects of a night with no heat. The word around town was that Avoca, seven miles east, had power and that there was a motel there that had rooms available. We decided it was probably our best bet considering the circumstances. Our little rental car couldn’t even move, but there were enough four wheel drive rigs there to get us all in, so we loaded up the kids and we took a caravan down the interstate.
Here it is, the Avoca Motel 6, our refuge.
We settled in, warmed up and then headed across the street to the truckstop/cafe which came highly recommended, mostly because it was open. We ate our lunch/dinner/whatever meal it was there in the truckstop and it was then that it really started to dawn on me that this was going to be a christmas to remember.
The power came on later that night in Shelby. We drove back in the morning as we still had to get to Omaha to catch our flight. The interstate was still pretty dicey. Fine for the 4-wheel drive rigs, but I wasn’t looking forward to piloting our little rental car the 40 miles back to Omaha. My mom was headed back to Bemidji and decided to drive with us most of the way back to Omaha, safety in numbers. There were cars and semis in the ditch and buried up to their window in snow, and the overpasses were all iced up, but we made it eventually. A long day of flying and we were back home in Portland by 9pm with two exhausted kids.
As for me, I’m officially taking the rest of the year off, had my fill of excitement for a while.
Here’s wishing everyone a very happy and healthy 2010!
Has been cool and clear here lately, with a bit of winter in the air. Refreshing.
Not too much been going on, but thought I’d put a couple of photos up while I have minute.
Brussel sprout season is upon us, and we have been eating a lot of them. I get excited every time I see a new stalk full show up in the kitchen.
Anna is busy with school and swimming lessons and birthday parties and craft time mostly.
The weather has been good for walks and we’ve been out and about in the neighborhood a fair bit. Still get quite a few afternoon walks to the park. Nicki took the kids to the comic store down the street, where they can draw on the walls and share a treat.
Thanksgiving with the Ervings and crew was great fun as always (so much fun in fact that it seems we didn’t bother with many photos). A great gathering of friendly folks and a potluck feast. The kids had an especially good time. Anna had pretty much lost her voice by the end of the night.
Milo sat at the grownups table at Thanksgiving this year, but I’m thinking he’ll want to be at the table with the rest of the kids by next year.
Our friend Brian…I just like this picture.
There’s been plenty of time for craft time lately. Anna has now started flipping through craft books that Nicki brings home from the library and requesting certain projects. The other day she and Nicki spent a few hours doing these paper towel tye dyes with food coloring. Also we’ve been doing quite a bit of coloring. I have a big roll of that red drop cloth construction paper in the basement, so I cut off a long piece of it and taped it to the floor between the living room and dining room. We kept it there and kept coloring on it for a couple of weeks before we filled it all in. Last week I swapped in a fresh sheet so we’re just getting started on that one.
Hope you all are well and enjoying the last of fall.
I’ve been meaning to get a post up the past week or so, but have been having some trouble w/ the “behind the scenes” logistics here at the fourpartharmony blog. Long story short, I had to add all these photos in here by hand as opposed to the kind of fast easy way I usually do it. Hope to get things ironed out here before too long, in the mean time…
We’ve gotten a few new picture taking devices in the past couple of weeks, and as a result we’ve been taking a bunch of pictures. We finally replaced our cell phones, which we originally broke down and bought when Nicki was going into labor with Anna. They were great simple phones and we were a little reluctant to replace them…both of them were hanging by broken hinges. Mine you could peek in and see the electronic innards, Nicki’s speaker was broken so when you called her it sounded like you were talking to someone at the end of a very long hallway. Mine was an excellent beer opener. Anyway, we took a long time to finally break down, but we finally did and so we went out and got ourselves the newest, fanciest, cheapest phones we could get, and they actually have halfway decent little cameras on them. Nicki took the kids to the pumpkin patch a week or so before Halloween, and here’s some of the pictures she took w/ the phone.
See, not bad eh?
That said, we knew we were still in the market for a proper little point and shoot camera for the majority of our photo taking needs. I had been scoping out the options since our last camera died, and finally just decided to go ahead and make up my mind. We decided to ditch the canon powershots, as nice as they were, because they kept breaking on us. We got a Panasonic, and so far we love it. We went on a hike in Tryon to break it in, here’s some of the nicer photos we got that day.
See, pretty nice don’t you think?
We didn’t take a bunch of pictures on Halloween night, but we had a good time. Dawn and Doyle and Kadin came over for dinner and trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. Anna and Kadin are getting to be professionals now, but it was still pretty new to Milo this year. He caught on right away though, and after a couple of houses he knew pretty much what he needed to do. He’d walk right up and knock on the door and then try and hold his own for a good position in front of the candy bowl with the rest of the kids. All the kids seemed to have a very fun night.
Halloween 2009.
We took a walk last weekend down to the new play structure they installed at one of the local elementary schools. We’ve been checking it out for a few weeks, but hadn’t had a chance to get in and play on it yet. The kids had fun, and we got some very sweet photos of the two of them.
Took some pictures of the two instrument projects recently. I don’t work on them too often, but still manage to make some progress.
Anna’s guitar is really starting to come together. The body is all finished and bound. The binding was really touch for some reason. I bent the bindings by hand and they weren’t very cooperative. Got them in though, and they look pretty good. The neck is rough carved. The set (the angle the neck makes where it meets the body) looks pretty good on it. I’m working on the fretboard now. Will need to finish the neck and fretboard, inlay the peghead, drill tuner holes, make bridge, then it will be ready for finishing.
The mandolin has been much slower going, but I’m still making a decent amount of progress. I got the sides bent bent and glued up, got the top and back almost completely carved, and the top joined to the sides. I’m working on the mandolin fretboard alongside the fretboard for Anna’s guitar. I’ve got the neck dovetail cut and roughly shaped, thought he fit is far from perfect. Have been working on that for several weeks. Still need to inlay the peghead and cut tuner holes for the mandolin neck too. Once the neck is finished, I should be able to glue it up and close up the body and start on the binding. It’ll be a while before this one’s done I have a feeling, but I feel pretty good about how it’s coming along.
Finally, some pictures of the rhododendron garden down the street (the “duck pond” as we call it). This was last week.
Well, that’s about what we’ve been up to these past few weeks. Not sure what November has in store for us, but I’ll be sure to keep y’all posted.
Yes, once again the weeks have gotten away from me and it’s been a while since I got around to putting up any new photos.
We did have a nice last few weeks of summer out here in Oregon. We went on a couple more camping trips.
Did some hiking.
Some exploration.
Anna started her second year of preschool.
Milo helped send her off on her first day of school for the year. He’s been enjoying coming along when we drop her off and pick her up.
We’ve had a bunch of friends stay with us. Anna was super excited to have her former next door neighbor and bestest friend Nora stay with us for a few days. We put sleeping bags down for them in Anna’s room and they stayed up until 11:00 chattering and telling stories.
We harvested the end of our summer veggies and our squash and have been planting some seeds for fall and winter. We have a nice looking patch of overwintering broccoli, carrots, parsnip some onions, leeks, swiss chard…we also planted some of the garden in clover for next early spring.
We also harvested our first crop of apples off the apple trees we planted this spring. Three apples. A decent haul really, I didn’t think we’d get any. These three all came off one tiny branch of yellow delicious. They’re pretty tasty!
Both kids will be sad to see the last of the tomatoes gone. Picking and eating them was a favorite backyard activity this summer.
We’ve still been getting some pretty good weather lately. The kids had an afternoon painting session in the backyard recently.
And we’ve been on a few bike rides.
This past week, my mom was in town and she had her camera out quite a bit (ours is still on the blink so we haven’t been taking many pictures lately). Anna and Milo of course were very excited to have Grandma Jackie around, and they had a lot of fun over the course of the week. Before she left we downloaded all of her pictures onto our computer, since we didn’t really have any pictures of her trip. I think my mom likes taking the little movies with her camera more than she likes taking pictures because there weren’t nearly as many pictures as there were little 10-30 second long little video clips. This turned out to be kind of a good thing because it caused me to just spend the last two hours or so making this:
Hope you liked it! Hope the fall is finding you all well and happy and above all healthy.
Haven’t been taking too many photos lately, but here’s a few to let you all know what we’ve been up to. I guess I haven’t been through the pictures in a while, because some of these are from several weeks ago.
We’ve been camping a couple more times recently…this photo is from a trip we took with Dawn and Doyle and Kadin to Silver Falls State Park. We finally got Milo his own camp chair and he loves it.
Sitting around our little campfire.
Next morning we fit in a short hike to see one of the falls the park is named for. you can see the trail we took down below that goes back behind the waterfall.
Anna and Kadin took some pit stops to explore some little caves along the way.
Anna and I on the hike.
Two weekends ago (or was it three?) we participated in a really great event called the sunday parkways. Apparently they’ve put several of these on throughout the summer in various neighborhoods, but this was the one for SE Portland. The city closed off a huge 13-mile loop of streets to all vehicle traffic and everyone came out with bikes and wagons and strollers and unicycles to ride around. There were events going on in several of the city parks along the loop, so you could stop and get some food or play in the park etc. It also coincided with the Hawthorne street fair, so it was quite an event. We met up with a group of friends and spent most of the day riding around and hanging out in the parks.
Aside from the fact that you could tell it seriously impacted traffic flows where the loop crossed the main thoroughfares, it still seemed like it flowed pretty smoothly. There were an army of volunteers manning intersections, and I saw no fewer than 30 police officers controlling traffic, so I’m sure it wasn’t cheap or easy to pull off, but it sure was nice to see so many bikes out and about.
The kids had lots of fun (Anna sustained a hula hooping injury), and fell asleep right at the end of the ride.
We also had Grandpa and Grandma Newman in town a couple weekends ago and had a very nice visit. Anna of course always loves to have any visitors, but especially grandparents, so she kept both Grandpa and Grandma pretty busy most of the trip. Milo was also pretty excited to have them around to show off for.
We didn’t have the camera out much while they were in town apparently, but one thing we did get some photos of while they were in town was the 13th annual portland adult soapbox derby. I’ve been hearing about this event for years, but have never actually made it out to see it…so we figured we had to try and make it out this year. Similar to the sunday parkways event, it seemed like half of portland (the crazy half) turned out.
The rules for the soapbox derby are that the car has to cost less than $300 to make, be entirely gravity powered, and must have brakes of some sort…there’s probably some other rules, but that’s the bulk of it. People get pretty creative with their cars. Some are built for speed, some go more for style. Wish we had gotten more photos, but there are a ton of them around the internet for anyone curious. This Lego car was pretty sweet.
This ratmobile (at least we think it was a rat) was one of our favorites.
The flintstone car looked pretty neat…I don’t think it did too well it the timed trials though.
We talked about entering a car next year…we’ll see if anything materializes on that…
One last set of photos from this past weekend. I took Anna on her first fishing trip. She was pretty excited about it.
We went out on Saturday morning to Oxbow Park on the Sandy River. Anna insisted that we stay and fish for the whole day. I had called a fisherman friend to see where I might stand a chance of catching something. The Sandy was kind of a longshot he said, not much running in there yet but if we got anything it’d probably end up being something like a bigger steelhead or an early coho just starting up river. Still it seemed like a nice place to spend the day, so we stopped and got a few spinners and set out for the river. We got a nice spot on the beach and ended up having it pretty much to ourselves all day. I didn’t really want to put a hook on Anna’s line just yet, so I put some sinkers on the end and a bobber and then I’d cast and let her reel it in. We put a spinner on my rod and fished the heck out of that one spot where we sat all day. Probably not very good technique, but we did have fun. Not so much as a bite (we did catch a leaf though).
We took a lot of breaks, played on some the play equipment there at the park. Had a nice picnic lunch. Took a short hike. Sat by the river and told some stories. Waded in the river a bit. Saw a few inner tubes and kayaks going down river but that was about it. It was a pretty nice quiet day by the river.
That’s about all the photos we’ve got for now. This Labor Day weekend was pretty rainy and we didn’t do too much. Anna is excited to start back up at her preschool tomorrow. We’ve been doing a lot of food preservation canning, freezing, pickling etc. Milo is really starting to walk everywhere now and is getting into everything. Will post some more photos soon. In the meantime, here’s a funny video of Anna spinning Milo around in one of our kitchen stools. I don’t know the story behind this video at all but I thought it was pretty funny.
Got a bunch more pictures here, hot off the presses. Some of our recent summer excitement and adventures.
Here’s one from Milo’s first backpacking trip. A short section of the Lewis River called, aptly enough, the Lewis River Trail. It’s up outside of Cougar, WA, SE of Mt. St. Helens. A very nice walk in the woods. We got an excellent camping spot right on a beautiful, calm bend in the river. Got all set up, spent the afternoon swimming, had a nice dinner, turned in early and then found out Milo was just coming down with a fever that turned out to be a weeklong crazy virus! Not fun! But in retrospect, it was memorable if nothing else, and I think Milo really did enjoy his first backpacking trip.
More excitement…Anna’s fourth birthday! To say she was excited would be an understatement. She’s four and wants everyone to know it. We had a nice day…Nicki stayed home from work to have birthday breakfast, then I took the kids to the children’s museum. We spent most of the morning/early afternoon out there which suited both Anna and Milo just fine.
Anna and Kadin had their birthday party at Mt. Scott Park (same place as last year at both kids’ request). A bunch of their friends showed up and a good time was had by all. Once the cake came out the kids were all business. Here they are right before they blew out the candles.
Anna of course was very excited to open her presents and cards. She got many (but thankfully not too many) very, very thoughtful and wonderful gifts from her wonderful friends and family. Nicki and I got her and Kadin matching little hopping things. Anna wants everyone to know that she blew hers up with the pump all by herself! (she is four now you know).
Another bit of excitement…Nicki’s soccer team, “The Muddies” won their division, with a 10-0-2 record! Nicki is having quite a bit of fun with this team, and it seems like a really great group of folks. Since the soccer season has ended, Nicki recently started on a futsal team for the fall. That team is doing quite well too!
We had some very hot weather…the garden suffered, but has since rebounded. We just had our first big tomato harvest. Nicki froze 12 quarts on Sunday! We also picked a huge bucket of basil, a bunch of onions, some other stuff too. We cleared a spot of some spring stuff to make way for the winter garden. We’re working our way up to a four season garden to wean ourselves our (admittedly awesome) CSA share.
A big cabbage! We harvested some things early that could have really gone a little longer, but we needed the space for our winter garden. We’ll plant some more cabbages in a few weeks.
Milo likes himself some tomato! Our little boy is becoming quite the eater!
A couple photos from a city park in Vancouver, WA, just down the street from where I work. Nicki brought the kids up one day last week for a lunch picnic, which was such a treat for me ( I think the kids had fun too). There’s a little fountain where kids are always splashing around. Milo and Anna both dove right in fully clothed.
Here’s some more funny photos from that day.
And just to round out the post, a recent video of the kids running around in the living room. Anna just learned how to do somersaults, and Milo is definitely trying to figure it out for himself.
August is over half over but depending on the day it still feels like there’s a lot of summer left. Hope you are enjoying yours wherever you might be!
Summer’s in full swing here in Portland. The garden is growing like crazy, and the sun has been shining. There’s so much going on, I don’t reckon I’ll be spending a lot of time updating the blog these next few months…but I do still hope to put some pictures up now and then when I have a chance.
We’ve had a few nice hiking/camping trips these past couple of weeks. This photo was from a bridge over the little North Fork of the Santiam River…out near Opal Creek. We camped out there a couple of weeks ago, and spent an entire day hiking and playing on the river.
Milo and I on the river.
Anna and I crossing a bridge on our hike down the river.
We hiked about a mile downriver with the intention of finding a crossing to where we were meeting up with some of the other folks we were camping with. It took a while to find a suitable crossing, but we managed to find a place where the river got pretty wide and shallow, and we could cross. The water was pretty cold as you would imagine. In this picture I had already carried Anna across to the other side…we didn’t make her cross on her own.
Milo was in his element in the rocks down by the water. He sat happily for long stretches of time…picking up and tasting or throwing rocks mostly. It was a really nice trip.
Over 4th of July weekend we headed north to the foothills of Mt. Rainier. Nicki and I used to work out of Packwood, Washington, a tiny town at the southeast corner of Mt. Rainier National Park. We used to get put up in a little dive of a motel or camp out for a week off of some Forest Service Road while we were doing wildlife/botany surveys. We saw a lot of pretty remote parts of the forest up there, and the whole area feels (At least to me) a bit like an old hometown.
We set up camp in a campground just outside the Park boundary, and the whole weekend was just great. We were camped on the Cowlitz River, right at its headwaters. Ohanapecosh Creek comes down off of Mt. Rainier and merges with a few smaller creeks right where we were camped to form the Cowlitz.
Anna and Milo at the campsite. We spent some time Friday evening building little pinecone/stick/moss/lichen houses for the fairies, the elves, the gnomes, the dwarves, the squirrels, the deer, the bear…probably some others too. We had a little village built by the end of the weekend.
Anna and I taking a swim at Rimrock lake, a big alpine lake up past White Pass. The water was chilly, but much warmer than any of the rivers.
Saturday we drove up into the Park, and took a couple mile hike up to Silver Falls, and then beyond that to the “Grove of the Patriarchs”, a remnant piece of old growth with some gigantic old western red-cedar and Doug-firs. The sun was shining, and it was just a perfect day.
While we walked I introduced Anna to one of life’s greatest pleasures…dipping one’s hands and face, or even one’s entire head, into an ice cold mountain stream on a hot day. Anna thought this sounded crazy until she saw me demonstrate and then she was all about trying it out. We stopped several times along the way, whenever we were able to get close enough to the water to stop and splash some water on our faces.
Here we are after another cooling off session.
Nicki and Milo on the hike up past Silver Falls.
Just to get a few more photos in here…this past weekend we were down in Veneta for the Oregon Country Fair!
I didn’t end up getting a lot of “fair-ey” photos this time around, but a good time was had by all as always.
It was Milo’s second fair, and Anna’s fourth! We were there with a big crew of friends and their kids and we spent all day Friday from sun-up to sundown in full-on fair mode. The weather was spectacular and we couldn’t have had a nicer time.
As has been tradition these past few years, we went into fair on Friday, then spent all day Saturday camped out at the nearby reservoir. The kids got good and rested after the long day at the fair on Friday, so they had plenty of energy to run around and be crazy all day Saturday.
There was some sidewalk chalking going on for a while, which ended in Anna decorating her and Milo’s faces with the chalk as well.
The kids also made some delicious looking leaf and mud tacos on the grill. yummm.
We spent the afternoon playing games and just goofing around. Milo played with his friend Lilly quite a bit, and Anna ran around with the older girls and Niko. Anna and I went for a brief swim in the late afternoon which was a lot of fun. Sunday it started pouring rain as we were finishing packing up, which made for some hurried goodbyes.
I think we are staying in town this weekend…work in the yard or do some gardening maybe. We’re planning Milo’s first backpacking trip, which is a fun thing to look forward to. So long for now.
It’s hard to believe, but our little boy turned one year old this week!
We had a little get-together in the backyard with a bunch of his baby/kid friends on Sunday, a couple days before his actual birthday.
I think he enjoyed it thoroughly.
The birthday boy.
Nicki, my mom, Anna, and I all collaborated on making this awesome owl cake. It’s got dried pineapple slices for eyes, chopped chocolate for wings, two cashews for a beak, and a bunch of slivered almond “feathers” (that took a while). It turned out really well I think! Of course, Milo didn’t eat this cake. We made him his very own oat flour/applesauce/apple juice cake.
Here he is having his first bites.
I think he liked it!
The owl cake was a hit, especially with the kids.
My mom was in town for the week, and Anna was pretty happy about that. They went on a lot of walks together, and Anna made Grandma play “baby” a lot. Grandma did a good job of wearing her out most days.
Nicki took the day off for Milo’s birthday, so we spent the morning opening presents. Anna helped him of course. We didn’t get too many pictures of the process…this all happened before breakfast and you can see Anna rolling around on the ground in the background. Still, Milo and Anna had some fun opening presents. His grandpa Newman made him this great wooden dog with moving legs and feet and everything, wish I wish we had gotten a better picture of…
Nicki sewed him this cute little owl, and my mom helped Anna stuff it and sew it shut. Anna liked the stuffing part, but kind of lost steam with the sewing, so my mom finished it up.
In keeping with tradition, we also got him his first drum. We got Anna a drum as her first birthday gift, and she really liked it. Milo has been a drummer at heart since day 1, so it was a pretty easy choice to get him one. Anna and I went to the local music shop and picked him out a good one. He’s pretty excited about it as you can see.
For the rest of his birthday, we took Milo on a few short hikes out in the gorge. We saw the big log jam at Oneonta Gorge, hiked up to the top of Horsetail FAlls, and had a picnic by Wahkeena Falls.
I walked Anna across the stream at Oneonta Gorge. The water is still icy cold.
Nicki and Milo at the bottom of Horsetail Falls.
Nicki knew about this great picnic spot across the road from Wahkeena Falls. It’s tucked away from the road, and I think most people don’t really know it’s there. We had this great big shady park all to ourselves. We spread out our blanket and had a very nice picnic, and then spent another hour or so running around the park, climbing on trees, etc.
And that’s the story of Milo’s first birthday!
Here’s a little video of him playing with another of his presents…a riding toy, which I can’t figure out quite what to call. It looks like it wants to be called a tricycle, I want to call it a tricycle, but it’s got four wheels. He’s really liking it, whatever it is! You can also hear how much he’s talking these days, and how close he seems to be to walking. The little boy is growing up fast!
