She was a Day Tripper

Packed up the kids and headed for the volcano. Mt. St. Helens has been on the list for two years. We drove to the Observation Station directly across from the crater and saw some amazing footage of the top blowing. I was amazed at the landscape for miles around. The blast sent hot ash and rock 12 miles into the air. The North side of the mountain slid off and went for miles like a river down into the towns surrounding the mountain. There was enough earth in the slide to make a 3 foot deep, 7-lane hi-way from Portland to NYC. Wow. It looked like we were on the moon. The picture of the dragon fly was at an information station about 40 miles away from the mountain. The rivers were all diverted and filled with mud and many miles of land turned into marshland. There were tons of dragonflies and tadpoles. The faraway lake is Spirit Lake which was filled with earth and trees after the explosion. Interesting stuff.

Haystack Rock. Extremely Low Tides.

The tide pools were absolutely amazing, although, the ones we saw with mom last year on July 4th were just as cool. There were sea stars EVERYWHERE. Orange, brown, and my favorite~ the purple ones. The anemone were bright green or brown and closed up if you touched them. There were odd looking creatures and plants everywhere you looked. Crabs, hermit crabs, funny sucker fish, and weird little crawling things. We saw quite a few different kinds of sea birds living on the rocks and you could see them nesting. One gull took a huge crap on my friend Meredith! Gulls have a lot of poop! The "guides" that were there answering questions said that the bigger sea stars were probably close to 30 years old. AMAZING. The tides will be just a little lower tomorrow, but we did have to come home. I couldn't believe how many people were there to take it all in. We ate some yummy seafood and visited another iconic candy store.

Sunset at the coast

Yes, this is our third trip in 2 weeks. Yes, I love the coast. Meredith and I took the kids to the beach for the night to make sure we could get to the 0700 low tide. This is the night before. All was good until.....Sam fell in the water and was soaked. He had to ride home naked wrapped in a towel. AND~ I got a 45$ parking ticket.

Violin camp

two weeks to try out the violin. No commitments. Not a bad deal.....

West of Portland

Saturday morning we went west to a friends farm. He has chickens and cows and a water pump. Yes, a water pump. The water flows from the Porch area of the barn down some tubes that connected in a maze-like fashion to the roof of the overhang to the gutters and down into the cows drinking bathtub. THis was the highlight of the day. Sam (the farmer, not our sam) built it so that the kids that come over can "water" the cows. Our Sam couldn't stop pumping water. He could have done it for hours. He sent ping pong balls down the tubes to see where they would go. He sent peanuts down the tubes....and any other thing available.
We spent the morning with friends and ate delicious scones from my friends new step mother decorated with my yummy jam. The first picture is of the 2 sams. The second is of Sam taken from the house. He didn't know we were watching him and we was seriously working that water pump. It was like a huge live model of his connecting tubes that Gma Dody got him. It was fun to see him so fascinated.
Next, we were off to the beach. We drove to Astoria on an impulse decision and got a recommendation for lunch from the guy who pumped our gas........1st mistake......
Now, I am sure Astoria is delightful, but we turned around and went back to Fort Stevens State Park. We played on the beach by the shipwreck and then headed home in the evening. The kids were pooped and so were we.

The Rose Gardens in Full Bloom

The Rose Gardens are smelling delicious. Note the "diamond" earring in Carson's lobes......Grandma Judy was here and we took her for ear piercing.

STRAWBERRY

Spent the day with the kids and friend Meredith. Went to Sauvie Island Farms to pick strawberries and got carried away. 23 pounds of carried away! We made 20 jars of strawberry jam, made some strawberry sangria to drink, two rhubarb strawberry pies and still had about 8 pounds left over. Mer took half of the berries, a pie, and about 5 jars of jam home and left me a tummyache. We took photos of the jam making and Mer kept sneaking her head in the photos which was really funny since we were drinking all that sangria!

Gramma Judy was here for the celebration.

Gramma Judy came all the way across the country for Sam's Birthday Party. WAHOO! The weather cleared up for just enough time to celebrate Sam's 4th with a B-earth-day party. The earth cake was hilarious. It was a joint project with mom, me, and Carson. Sharon stayed far away from it. Although she did hold it on her lap in the car and keep it from rolling away. The kids planted little Trees in a Box, cracked their own geodes and did leaf rubbings. Carson was in charge of the "activities" and did a great job with the 8 four-year-olds. She said, "mom, they aren't listening......I should talk louder". And with that........she was large and in charge. We skipped the Rose Festival Parade and went to the Columbia Gorge instead to see Multnomah Falls. Carson and Sam were so glad to show Gramma a banana slug they found and then we went to the Bonneville Dam to see the fish ladder.

Happy Birthday SAM!

0

1

2

3

4