Sunriver..

We got back Tuesday evening from a really fun trip to Sunriver. Kevin had an Oregon Restaurant Association meeting over there so Kevin, his dad Dave, my Mom, the boys and I all went over on Sunday morning. We stayed in a really cool house with a fun bunk bed/toy room for the boys and nice rooms for all of us adults. I love Sunriver and could see myself retiring there. It is soo relaxing to me. Anyhow, I got to go to all of the fun stuff, the fancy dinners and the casino night/party night as my mom stayed at the house with the boys. We had a great time. It is fun to actually get out and about as an individual and talk to adults. Not that I don't love my kids and cherish the time I get to spend with them. It is just really nice to get a break once in a while too, helps me to be a better mom...

The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure is on Sunday and I am running.. can't wait. I am now on this kick to beat my time and see if I can do better each time I run a 5k. I am about ready to move on up to a 7k - and eventually up to a half marathon. That would be an ultimate goal for me, we shall see. :)

I love this super cute idea of reading a book to your kiddos and having a special fun snack that coordinates with it. Check this out. I am totally going to have to do this with my boys...

Camping, Garden, etc..

We got back on Friday from another little camping trip - trying to squeeze as many in as we can before the end of summer. The boys love camping now and want to go all the time. We took our bikes this time and we all went on quite a few rides and basically just hung out at the campground, going on walks, hanging around the campfire and all that fun stuff.

Our garden is winding down now, still waiting on those green tomatoes to ripen. We planted carrots this year and I am loving them. The boys love to eat them raw and we have been putting them in salads and making yummy salad rolls.. my favorite.

I am obsessed with this thing called Letterboxing. I am soo excited to do it with the boys. It is like a scavenger hunt type of thing that you can do and I know the boys would LOVE it. Here is a link and all the details. I want to try and start it this fall, before the weather gets too bad. We need to get a stamp and a journal to get started but that is all you need.

Summer Fun..

We have had a really busy summer this year. Lots of fun stuff crammed into the hot days and we have been loving it. We went to the Hillsboro Airshow which was tons of fun, both boys love their airplanes. I was too slow to take any good pictures of the planes but here is one from the Monster Truck ride we went on. I think they maybe even liked that even better than the planes...

We have been spending alot of time in the garden and have beans and zucchini's galore. We have had quite a few cherry tomatoes and little pear tomatoes but the big ones are just hanging there green and ready for a few more days of sunshine. But the beans, my goodness. I can't keep up with picking them let alone figuring out new ways to cook them, etc. We mostly eat them raw the boys love them this way and so do I.

Kevin turned 30 yesterday and last weekend I had a little surprise party for some of his friends & family. It was really fun, even though Kevin had sort of figured out something was up on his way down to the restaurant and wasn't like totally blown over with surprise which is what I wanted but it was fun. The theme was James Bond and we had different food stations from all over the world, martini glasses for the candle holders, really neat and fun.

On Wednesday night Kevin and I went to see Jack Johnson up in St. Helens. The show was excellent and we had a great time. It is an outdoor venue and it was a beautiful night, a few sprinkles here and there but no real rain which was great. We hit a huge traffic jam on the way to the concert though and ended up being an hour and a half late but Jack had not even started when we got there so I was soo relieved.

Also happening this week.. Kevin won a four-wheeler. At Cash-n-Carry where he buys alot of his beverages for work (RockStar) they were having a drawing and he won. So we are now the proud owners of a custom RoskStar mini (holds 210 lbs) 4-wheeler. It is too big for Carter to ride, and a little small for Kevin.. guess that means it is mine for now. :) I was cruising around on it in the backyard and the boys are beyond excited. We will have to scope out a good place to go riding around here and take them out someday soon. After helmets are purchased of course..

Camping..

We got back from our first camping trip of the year yesterday. It was a great trip.. We went to a new (to us) spot called Little Cultus Lake campground. It is about 20 miles from Sunriver in the Deschutes Ntl. Forest. It was just beautiful and had great spots for the kids to swim.



The first night we got there and got all set up only to find that there were TONS of mosquitos. The camp host mentioned to us that the mosquitos were way better in a different part of the campground so we moved everything to a new spot the next morning and it was alot better.

We had a great time swimming, floating in our raft, roasting marshmallows, all the fun camping stuff. There were alot of chipmunks around which the boys loved and there was one that hung around our spot that had one eye poked out. Carter called him "one eyed mater" which has something to do with the movie Cars of course, not sure how the one eye thing figures in. But anyhow he was really cute, here he is...

We camped Sund. - Wed. and had quite a bit of thunder and lightning on Wed afternoon/evening. We kept seeing forest service trucks going up the road past our campground (really, really primitive road, like old logging road, our truck could barely make it up there). Anyhow, the camp host came over later in the evening and told us there were two small fires about 5 miles up the road and that the Forest Service was going to send smoke jumpers up in the morning.. I was like what, in the morning? I didn't know you could just wait when there was a fire... we slept ok, didn't have to high tail it out in the middle of the night or anything. But when we woke up on Thursday the lighting was really really close and it started to rain and even hail at one point so we packed it up and headed for a hotel in Bend. After a shower of course (did I mention, no showers, yikes) we headed to the outlet stores and dinner at the Deschutes Brewery. I think that is Kevin's favorite place on earth. We had a fun time there the next day too, walking around downtown Bend, swimming in the pool, etc. Then we headed for home Friday evening. Good to be back, now it is time to tackle the mountain of laundry..

Chair & Future sewing project...

I finished my sewing table chair. I posted about it a while back; anhow I repainted it "restful rose" and then recovered the seat. So cute. I really like how it turned out.

I think my next big project is going to be this quilt. The pattern is by Anna Maria Horner who designs fabric (LOVE her stuff) and she has this cool blog as well. This looks like quite the project, it might take me 6 months or more as much time as I get to work on it (only like 1 hour a day maybe).. Anyhow, I love the design of this one and can't wait to start. First I need to go fabric shopping.

I recently ran in the Salem Art Fair 5K and got a pretty good time (my best actually for a 5K). I was stoked, to run the whole thing, which is always my goal - no walking allowed - and the time thing made it even better. I have another race coming up in September, the Komen Race for the Cure.

Craft & Gavin's 1st haircut...

We did this really cute and easy craft yesterday. You buy simple white t-shirts, sharpie markers and then rubbing alcohol. You use a plastic cup and put it underneath the shirth and tie around it with a rubber band (bottom up to make a flat surface). Then the boys color that little circle and drop it with rubbing alcohol. I did this part mostly. Anyhow, the colors spread out and make a funky pattern. Then you let it dry for 1 minute or so and mover your cup to another part of the shirt and repeat. They turned out really cute and the boys had alot of fun doing them. Gavin lost interest a little about half way through so I finished his up but Carter loved it and is still talking about it today. He wants to make one for his Dad so we will have to do that. :)

Also yesterday, Gavin got his first haircut!! They chopped off a lot of curls (it was getting really out of control) but he still has plenty and it has to feel much better... Here is the before and after.

Remodeling, etc.

Our siding is all up!! Here are some pictures I took yesterday (we still have to paint). I think it looks soo good. We are still trying to figure out what color we went to paint but I think we have narrowed it down to something in the brown tone family.. We are headed to Sherwin Williams sometime soon to pick for sure. That is such a hard decision, something we will have to live with for years.

The boys have been such great sports with all of the attention we have been putting into the remodeling, they play outside next to us on the grass while we are working and have been really good. I took then to DQ last night for a special treat for being such good boys. Of course I had to try the new Girl Scout thin mint blizzard - not as great as I had hoped. Anyhow, here is Gavin trying to escape down the block when we were working, I just love this picture.

I also made this yummy fruit pizza last week (i think) when we picked berries. I used this recipe from Giada of Everyday Italian. Kevin and I thought it was yummy. The kids could take it or leave it and it didn't all get eaten up but we each had a slice or two..