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| Between road trips we were home for all of August. The twins looking like Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer on the way back from the river. |
Rivers and her friends ran in the "Dirty Dash". We saw lots of interesting people...none of which seemed particularly athletic and yet they were showing up to do a 5k. This quote from a woman I overheard summed it up "That was harder than I thought it would be. There was lots of like...running."
Carlos decided he wanted to learn from his Aunt how to make homemade tamales to pass along some of his heritage (which I strongly encouraged...they're my favorite mexican food). He, Rivers and I spent a Sunday afternoon making them and they were delish!
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| We of course spent lots of time on the trails... |
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| ..and in the river. |
Reagan lookin stylin in her goggles.
We also made several trips to Jillicious' Bakeshop for the best sugar cookies around.
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| My Mom's new toy. |
Carlos decided to just get everything done at once, so he got both his knees cleaned out and one of his elbows fixed with one dose of anesthesia. He got it done in Park City by a great doctor that has done his surgeries in the past, so he flew home the next day and said people on the plane thought he was a burn victim because of all of his bandages.
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| Outdoor Chess |
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| Benton County Fair time. Here is Rivers looking nervous as she was about to go into the show ring for the first time. She did great and her lamb behaved and didn't jump or run loose. |
Sarah Evans was the concert that night, so we got a babysitter for the little 3 and went back to the fair for a seriously great open air concert (I couldn't believe it was free with fair admission). I didn't realize she sang so many songs I like.
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| Cute little farm girls |
Right before taking "Trixie" to auction. She got $4.25/lb! I was always so sad to sell my animals, but Rivers loved the auction part and didn't shed a tear.
This was crazy. We got home one night and saw this hanging from a slimy mucous string on our house. It was two slugs wrapped around each other with some weird, translucent thing hanging down from them, which was also moving. I filmed it and was so in awe witnessing this secret nature ritual (which I looked up and found out is how slugs mate). Creepy cool.
Another very fun part of our summer was having my cousin DeEtte and her family come through town on their Northwest roadtrip that I helped her plan. I was so excited that they actually did it!! They were only with us for a couple days, so we packed in the fun. We went on a hike through an old growth forest with enormous Douglas Fir trees, then cooled off with a stop at the local Bushnell Shaved Ice cart.
We swam at my Mom's and went out to dinner at our favorite 'farm to table' restaurant Gathering Together Farms.
The next morning we went to the always fun Corvallis Saturday's Farmers Market and then took them to a blueberry farm to pick loads of blueberries. We also went to the coast with them to show them the great local spots in Newport. Too bad the tide was covering the tide pools. Wish they could have stayed a week!
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| Garden picking at Oma's. CD loves to scavenge in the garden for anything "ripe". |
With my free time after finishing grad school, I decided to build us a dining room table. I saw instructions on a blog for a great farmhouse style table that seemed simple enough for a first time furniture builder, so I went to the lumber store where I was very out of place with all of the contractors, and built the frame first.
Then I put the 2x8's and 2x10's on the top. I actually am wearing clothes in this picture. I put my swimsuit on to show the kids how to run and slide all the way to the end of the slip'n'slide on your belly, and then went right back to work on the table.
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| I used clamps to hold the 4 x 4's in place while I screwed them on for the legs. |
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| Then the moment of truth....flipping it over to see if it wobbles. I was so excited when Carlos and I turned it over (very heavy) and it went "ka-chunk" with no wobble!! |
I wanted it to look kind of like old barn wood, and I read you could age wood by first brushing it with tea, wait for it to dry, break up a pad of fine steel wool into a jar and cover it with vinegar, wait a day while it dissolves, then brush the solution onto the wood covered with tea. The steel wool solution reacts with the tannins in the tea and it almost instantly starts changing colors. This was as the color was changing, and
this was the color it ended up. I wanted it to be a little bit of a lighter grey/brown, but I still like how it turned out. I then put 3 coats of satin polyurethane on it too (which darkened it even a bit more). I made a bench for it too for one side and am now on the hunt for 4 chairs.
For Rivers 10th birthday I got her 4 horseback riding lessons (gotta love groupon) and she loved it. She has always loved horses, so it was so fun to watch her learn to trott around on Quigley (the name of this beautiful horse).
The barn and setting were pretty amazing. We loved just hanging out there. Too bad it's a 40 minute drive or we'd probably let her keep taking lessons.
This night Carlos was out of town, Rivs was at a party, and Whitney and I were starting to go a little crazy because all of the little ones were being so wild. We wanted to do a bonfire but almost didn't because we didn't want to try to control all the rambunctious kiddos by the fire. Luckily we did because the fire started up immediately with like 1 match and then for 20 minutes the kids just sat there mesmerized by the flames. Whit and I just looked at each other in amazement at the peace and quiet and listened to the crackling and popping of the fire.
CD had to spend a lot of time in this chair at my cousin's dentist office. He had a cavity between each of his back molars, so he had to go in 4 times as they fixed each of the 4 cavities one at a time. Time to floss better between those back teeth.
