Picnic lunch on Saturday

We made our way to a park after Train Mountain....








Bug spray was a necessity everywhere we went:








Relaxing with a mojito back at the lodge:


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Train Mountain--a good idea (Saturday)

On Saturday (on our Crater Lake weekend) we went to Train Mountain Railroad Museum. It was like a simple version of Tiny Town in CO, but also had larger trains and tracks and more of a set-up for it's train-enthusiast members in addition to the tiny trains. Entirely run by volunteers!


The trains weren't the only fun things there:


All aboard!


We all barely fit on one train.














Sedric had fun:


The whole group minus Fr. Juan who couldn't come until the evening:








James had this rose made for me, what a sweetie!



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Berry picking

This was not at Crater Lake. :o). This was the other day. I told you I would skip around! Anyway, we went to Rowell Bros and picked Marionberries for jam and blueberries for fun. We even picked some gooseberries. We definitely ate more than we picked, at least blueberries! We made one batch of jam and had enough left over for a small simple cobbler (Marionberries, a little sugar, some chopped canned peaches, dry yellow cake mix sprinkled on top, butter on top...oven until bubbly...yum!). Hannah came with us and I was very grateful for that. :o). Lots of fun:











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The start of our Crater Lake adventure

Get ready for a plethora of Crater Lake posts! I will release them one by one so you'll have something new to read each time you check in. :o). I'll probably also do other current posts in between. May be a little confusing so try to keep up. :o)

First day--last Friday. After a not-TOO-late night, Marcus and I woke up early Friday morning, finished packing up, and got the kids ready to go. They were so excited that the big day was finally here! We had all been talking about our trip for so long, it was hard to believe it was happening. The van was packed up tight but not because we over-packed but mostly because of two things: first, the kids were allowed to fill a backpack or bag each but somehow they managed to bring along even more. Second, we brought along a large cooler and a lot of food, and that took up space.

We got on the road around 9am and all met at Brian & Nicole's house. Then on the road down south, with a stop at Subway for lunch:


Potty break:


(Marcus is changing Gemma's diaper):


We made it! We all unpacked and then relaxed a little before dinner:





Friday night was our turn on KP. Marcus had made gumbo and cornbread at home, so he just had to cook some noodles and voila we had dinner! Bourbon Blonde Brownies for dessert, yum.

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Some catch-up

It's time to catch up after a few weeks of Crater Lake trip prep/fun/recovery!

The Sunday before our trip we hosted family dinner, and it was Fr. Juan's first time meeting Sedric:


We're hoping to set the baptism for early October for when Sedric's grandma and grandpa are here visiting. Here is a picture of my favorite room of our house right now, the nursery:


The nursery is one room that is calm and somewhat clean. :o). I love retreating here to take care of Sedric or even just read a little in the glider rocker. My mornings are often a little more boisterous, when Gemma wakes up before me and comes to visit:





A few Tuesdays ago we all went to watch Emmett play T-Ball. He's a natural!





I often set Sedric down for a few minutes to get something done. This time he got tired of waiting for me and gave up and fell asleep:





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My husband has talent

(this post has been months in the making...)

My husband has talent:

He gets the ~exact~ amount of food from the store's bulk bins to fill our containers to the top!














Whatta guy!

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Trip to the toy store

We all drove into town yesterday morning...Marcus dropped some us off at the market and he continued with Gemma and James to do some Winco shopping. (Bunny, Mariposa, Sedric and I definitely got the best of the deal!). First we market-goers had a yummy lunch of schnitzel on weck and then we continued on to buy sausage, hummus, pitas, and zucchini for family dinner tomorrow. I also bought some beets and goat cheese, yum!!! Then to cool off we went to the toy store. It was Sedric's first visit to Let's Play, and the ladies there were happy to meet him.


Bunny worked on her birthday wish list. You can tell that Sedric liked the toy store:


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Crater Lake lapbook

In preparation for our Crater Lake trip I put together a lapbook project for my kids and the cousins to do together. I had never done a lapbook before so it was a little daunting, but I looked at some examples online, bought a few to do later (Olympics, solar system, and history), and set out to make my own. (reference note: a great place to buy lap books is currclick.com)

After I created all the pages on the computer, Marcus set out to Office Depot to get it all copied and to buy some file folders. I also bought some woodsy-themed scrapbook paper. We all got together yesterday morning and got started!



The project involved a LOT of cutting and pasting, and following directions. The kids did great! The goal was to learn a little about our destination, to have fun, and to do a little "school" work like following the teacher's directions, patience, and hand-eye craft work.


Almost done.....


The back of the folder has their handprints and foot prints and says "take only pictures, leave only footprints."


The finished product:


They learned about history, geology, topography, and wildlife. The front flap has a pocket that holds a "junior ranger" card that has squares on the back where the kids can earn stickers for spotting various things, and inside there is a blank spot to paste a final picture of all of us on the trip. This was a flurry of activity to get it done in one morning, but it was worth it! :o)

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Picnic lunch after the project

Nicole brought push-up cake pops, how cute!!!








(Gemma likes wearing her backpack...now Sophie wants one too!):


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