Hunter's End of Year Middle School Trip (2018)

Hunter's end of year middle school trip was to the Oregon coast this year.  As with last years trip to Boise, I volunteered as part of the chaperone/driving squad.   It was a fun trip with great weather on the first day and decent weather the second two.  The kids got to go in the ocean, visit a marine science center, take a boat around Newport Harbor to see the sea life, ride an old railway line with peddle based systems and sand-board on some sand dunes.  Great group bonding for grades 5-8.  Here are a few pics and a video of hunter on the sand-board. 

Erin's birthday weekend

Last weekend Erin, Jennifer my mom and I met in San Francisco and went to Half Moon Bay. We celebrated Erin's 40th birthday. We had a wonderful time and made many special memories. It was so nice to have no schedule and no interruptions. We ate, laughed a lot, got to go horseback riding and went for many long walks along the beach. It was a very special weekend celebrating Erin and enjoying girl time.
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Garden

We haven't had a vegetable garden since we lived in Boise, so now that we had some space, I thought it would be fun to have one here at the new house. Few challenges - ground is rocky, soil is like sand, short growing season and their are a lot of animals that would love some soft leafy greens - especially deer.  In February I started researching and doing some planning.  The idea was that when we did our landscaping in the back, I would get the team to scrape an area and bring an irrigation line down to the area when they put the rest of the irrigation system in. My inspiration for the garden was here.  Beautiful but unfortunately no plans so I had to make up my own plans just by looking at the pictures. I also used the farmers almanac online garden planner tool just to see how it might look.    

 The garden would be a set of raised beds, with a 5-6 foot wooden fence around it.  The back landscaping went in late march, so I ordered the wood and set to work.  The biggest challenge was getting the base level.  its funny how the ground feels pretty level until you actually start to measure it.  The west side (right side in most of the photos) was at least 10 inches lower which meant getting a load of gravel dropped in the driveway and a lot of hauling gravel in a wheelbarrow down to bring it up somewhat.  Additionally... like a lot of plans, they seem right until you get started so due to large boulders messing up post placement and other challenges I had to make a number of changes and concessions as I went along.  Here is a series of photos of the build process.

Here is the finished product.  Ultimately I think it turned out pretty nice and we look forward to growing some fresh veggies for years to come!  The only thing left to do is install the drip irrigation system.  Abbie and PJ helps plant as well... for now we are hose watering it until the  irrigation is running... hopefully in next couple days.  

 


Kicking off Summer 2018

The summer solstice is still a few weeks away but with the calendar turn to June, and some beautiful weather this weekend, we will call this the formal kick off to summer in central Oregon.  Kelly was gone on girls weekend so it was the rest of the crew making the best of it!  Campfire in the backyard Friday night and a day at Scout lake on Saturday.  Ending of Saturday evening with a glorious sunset off the back porch.  

6k for Water

Saturday we participated in the 6k for Water in Bend. This event was put on by my friend through World Vision and to raise money and awareness for children in developing countries to get clean water.

The average person in developing countries walk 6 kilometers each day (about 4 miles) to get water. As a family we each sponsored a child. On our shirts we wore their picture with their name, age and the country they are from. Walking almost 4 miles really made it real for us and made us think about how easy it is for us to get water but how this is not the case for others who have to walk miles to get it.

The kids were amazed that children each day do this. It made the run a whole lot more meaningful. It was a great day and a wonderful cause!

We know it wasn’t a race to see who could finish first but Hunter came in 2nd place and Noah in 3rd place. We are so proud of our runners always pushing themselves to do their best.

Hunter's 13th birthday party

Kevin arranged for Hunter and his friends to go to the DIY cave to build something with wood. Kevin found a cool chair design. He went and got the wood for the project and the instructor and the DIY cave guided the boys as they built their camp fire chair. After the boys did their wood working they came back to our house for games food and fun. I think it's safe to say that Hunter had a great 13th birthday.