Parades, Parties, and Pets

After going through the camera today, I realized we have a lot of random pictures to post. So here we go:

 Obi Wan Jack-  

Yes, Jack is still in love with Star Wars and I fed his obsession by making an Obi Wan cloak

Our house backs up to a green belt and so we have lots of critters coming through the yard. Mostly our visitors consist of squirrels that the kids call Bushy and Muncher, and a raccoon we call Bandit. The kids love watching the squirrels climb across the telephone wires and eat the nuts from the trees. Bandit isn't as frequent of a visitor, but he comes out in the afternoon sometimes to drink from our bird bath and take naps in the yard.

We have really enjoyed living in a small town. There is only one high school here and the football team is a pretty big deal. We can hear the marching band, cheerleaders, and game call from our house on Friday nights and we love it. This last Friday was Homecoming and after school, there was parade right down main street. We asked some of our new friends to walk over with us and check it out. The parade was short and sweet, which was perfect for me, and the kids got a bag full of candy, which was perfect for them.

On Sunday, we went down to Em and Dave's to celebrate Steve' 35 birthday. We ate pizza, watched General Conference, played in the yard, and had some yummy cake. The kids had a great time decorating cupcakes and playing with each other.  We had a really nice afternoon.

Some Questions for the Kids

We recently read a blog where the Mom asked her kids a bunch of questions about herself. The answers were cute and so we figured we would try it with our kids too. I asked the questions with Jack, and Christian asked them with Anna. Here is what we got as well as a picture of the kids in the linen closet. They like to dump out the sheets and towels and make beds. As cute as it is to find them like this, I am not always happy to find my clean linens on the floor! Anyway, the questions are a little long but we wanted to keep all of their answers:

Mommy According to Jack:

1. What is something Mommy always says to you?
Jack: Good things

2. What makes Mommy happy?
Jack: When I play around.

3. What makes Mommy sad?
Jack:  If I don’t play, Mommy will be sad.

4. How does Mommy make you laugh?
Jack: Tickle me

5. What was Mommy like as a child?
Jack: I don’t know cause I don’t remember.

6. How old is Mommy?
Jack: 26

7. Where is Mommy's favorite place to go?
Jack: The cemetery (This is not true of course, but it's what he said. Crazy kid!)

8. What is Mommy's favorite thing to do?
Jack: Play cars with me

9. What does Mommy do when you're not around?
Jack: Sneak

10. What is Mommy really good at?
Jack: Winning

11. What is Mommy not very good at?
Jack: Sharing   

12. What does Mommy do for her job?
Jack: Lots of things. Chores.

13. What is Mommy's favorite food?
Jack: Carrots

14. What do you and Mommy do together?

Jack: We play lots of things and do lots of things.

15. How are you and Mommy the same?
Jack: Our skin.

16. How are you and Mommy different?
Jack: Our eyes are different

Daddy According to Anna

1.       1. What is something Daddy always says to you?
Anna: Thank you and you’re welcome

2. What makes Daddy happy?
Anna: Play together

3. What makes Daddy sad?
Anna: When we play tennis

4. How does Daddy make you laugh?
Anna: He makes me tickle

5. What was Daddy like as a child?
Anna: He liked to play with us

6. How old is Daddy?
Anna: 4

7. Where is Daddy's favorite place to go?
Anna: To his work!

8. What is Daddy's favorite thing to do?
Anna: Play with me in the sprinkler

9. What does Daddy do when you're not around?
Anna: Play with the TV and he doesn’t sneak around

10. What is Daddy really good at?
Anna: Good at playing tennis with Mommy

11. What is Daddy not very good at?
Anna: Not playing soccer

12. What does Daddy do for her job?
Anna: Play with the tv

13. What is Daddy's favorite food?
Anna: Chips

14. What do you and Daddy do together?
Anna: Plays with me

15. How are you and Daddy the same?
Anna: He’s good at hearing

16. How are you and Daddy different?
Anna: He’s different with his hair

Portland Temple

 Last Sunday, we drove up to the Portland LDS Temple to walk around and enjoy the flowers. Here's some pics:

Here's Anna trying to get Jack to smile. 

It worked!

Jack posed himself for these pictures and really got into it!

 Notice Anna's feet in this picture. While I walked around the fountain to take this picture, Anna managed to take her shoes off. After I finished taking the picture she proceeded to get up and walk into the fountain. The kid is crazy about water. We should have known when she sat down that this would happen! 

Sprinkler Silliness

It was really hot on Saturday when we got home from the coast. We turned on the sprinkler to help our sad looking front lawn and the kids decided they wanted to play in the water. Well actually, Anna wanted to get wet and Jack kept dry with his umbrella. He did keep things fun and crazy by coming out with various costumes on. Crazy kids!

Ward Campout

For the second weekend in a row, we went camping, this time with our ward. We camped at the cub scout camp, which is right on the beach. We had a great time roasting marshmallows, and building sandcastles and playing on the beach.

Camping

We had our first Oregon camping adventure this weekend and it was a blast. The rest of the family got up to the campground on Thursday but we had to head out on Friday, after Christian got home from work. Of course the kids fell asleep on the drive.

They were pretty hyper once we got to the campsite and stayed up late since they were so rested!  

Lucky for them there was a park right next to us and they could play like crazy.

We stayed up pretty late hanging around the campfire and Anna did not want to get up the next morning! Seriously, she slept in until around 9.

Christian and Dave snuck out of camp really early and went to catch some crawdads in a nearby river. Apparently they are pretty easy to catch. Here is their haul after it was cooked and piled on the plate. They look like mini-lobsters and tasted mild like shrimp.

We spent the rest of the day playing at the campground, enjoying the company and good food. My Mom, Stepdad John, sister Emily and brother-in-law Dave were there, as well as Dave's parents, Mary and Gary. Dave grew up a half an hour down the road and his Grandmother was able to come up and spend the day with us on Saturday. We lucked out because they all brought really yummy food and fun games to play.

We packed up Saturday evening and headed home to the utter horror of our smoky smelling kids who wanted to stay and camp forever. Good thing we have another one planned for next weekend with our ward at church!

Getting Settled

We started our move to Oregon over a month ago and sadly had our camera packed the entire time! We weren't able to take pictures with the family members we stayed with or the beautiful scenery along the way. So here is a quick recap of the trip sans pictures. We packed our Pod with all of our belongings and sent it on its way on July 2nd. As the truck drove away, Jack told us how sad it was that we were sending all of our stuff to the dump! Not even sure how he knows about the dump, but lucky for us the Pod was truly on its way to Oregon. We stayed with family in Salt Lake and Saratoga Springs for the rest of the week, which was wonderful. On Friday afternoon, the kids and I picked up Christian at work, and we started our long drive. We figured the kids would go to sleep since it was evening but they were too excited and stayed awake all the way to Boise, where we stayed the night. By Saturday afternoon we arrived in Vancouver, where my parents live. For the next three weeks we looked for a home to rent and played with family. We drove out to Tillamook, went to the coast, and also went down to visit Em and Dave in Monmouth. Christian started work on July 18th and has really enjoyed it, minus the traffic jams and long commutes when we were still in Vancouver. Finally on Tuesday we were able to move into a little house that we found.

It is a cute little cottage built back in 1930.  It's located in the old historic part of town which is fun, and is also within walking distance of the library and a few parks. I've always wanted to live in an old house with some character, and this house certainly has some. Here is a couple of pictures from rooms we have finished unpacking:

I fell in love with this kitchen. I love the cabinets and the galley style counter tops. It is kind of fun cooking in a kitchen that wasn't built for modern appliances! The fridge is through the doorway on the right which is actually a side entry-way. While unpacking, we found two drawers lined with metal which would have been used for flour and sugar. I think they're wonderful because they are old and I love old things, but we haven't been able to figure out what to put in them since they are a little too old for our flour and sugar.

In our last home, the kids had to use the living room as their playroom. They lucked out when we found this house because we were able to give them a room just for their toys. They love it!  It's the first room we finished. Getting them in there with their toys made it much easier to unpack.

Now that we found the camera and when we finish packing, we will post more pictures soon.