Abbie had a Irish Feis this weekend in Portland and tonight we went and saw Lauren, Paul and Eleanor Breithaupt. Aunt Ginni was in town visiting so we had a wonderful evening all being together. Eleanor is a doll and Abbie and Eleanor had a fun time playing together.
Abbie has an economic system in school where they are given job assignments and they are paid each week and have to pay rent etc.. Once a month the students bring in things in from home that they have made and they sell them at Town. Abbie looked up how to make homemade dog treats and she made them all by herself and packaged them too. She sold them all and even some of the others teachers at school came in and used the school money and bought them. So proud of Abbie!
Since we moved into our house a couple of winters ago I have stacked wood on the south side of the house off the garage. When it snows the wood gets wet the last think you want to be doing is clearing snow off when its cold out. I decided I wanted to build a partial open air woodshed to stack the wood in. It would be partially open on the sides to allow airflow to help the wood dry but also covered to keep the majority of the snow off.
In the late summer I slowly started the tedious job of planning out the size, and layout, followed by leveling and squaring the cement deck blocks that would be used as a foundation. Once this was completed I ordered a load of gravel and rented a bobcat to pour in gravel around the bases to level the floor of the shed which would be made of compacted gravel. From here I ordered the wood which showed up last week. I worked at it during the evenings after work and a little on the weekend. All in all it was done in less than a week. A much more reasonable project than the crazy garden project from the spring.
I have learned that the key is not to rush in the beginning and be sure to get the posts squared up right. If this gets messed up you spend a lot of time trying to fix issues later. The picture above shows the posts going in with a few board nailed in to keep them straight and square. I used cedar for the front posts and the cheaper pressure treated posts for the inside back as no-one will really see these once the wood is is and everything is stained.
We just got back from our 5th annual fall boys camping trip in 2018. This year we went with some friends that the kids go to school with and the location was Big Lake near Hoodoo ski area West of Sisters. Dad Patrick with boys Severin and Ben. Big lake is actually a bit of a misnomer, as the lake isn't that big but it was super 'blue'.
Previous years:
This year we went the 3rd week of September so we didn't have to worry about deer hunting season (rifle). I think the 3rd week of September will likely become our defacto standard going forward. This year the weather was colder and rainy, but we were up at 5000 ft so that could have been part of the reason. Due to soccer games we got a late start Saturday afternoon so the trip felt shorter than usual. Going forward we agreed that even if their is soccer games, we might just skip them and even make it a 2-night deal Friday and Saturday. As with previous years the requirement for this trip is that it cannot be car camping, and must have some sort of 'remote' aspect to it even if just a little.
Noah and Preston have their first soccer game today. Go team Smoke! Go team Sharks! It’s going to be a fun season with these two!
It’s that time of year again where the kids started back at school. We had a wonderful summer but looking forward to schedules and routine again. Hunter- 7th Noah- 5th Abbie- 4th Preston-1st Kelly- 2 days a week in kindergarten
Happy birthday to our dear sweet Abbie. You make us so happy everyday. So glad you are part of our family. We love you to pieces!!! ❤💛❤
Abbie had her friends, Ashtyn and our neighbor Avrie over to help her celebrate her special day. The girls got to paint bird houses, play pin the horn on the unicorn, eat Abbie's favorite dinner of ravioli, followed by unicorn cupcakes and ended the night watching the old film, "The Parent Trap" outside. It was fun birthday celebration.🎈🎂🎉
