Beach Trip - Girls only!

A few weeks ago Barb took me and Carus (and Yoda) to the beach for a girls only beach day.

It was gorgeous! We stopped in Tillamook at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and we perused their gift store while eating some really good ice cream.  Then we went down to Lincoln City to walk along the beach for a bit before grabbing a late lunch/early dinner and heading home.  It was a really lovely day.  Thanks for taking us, Barb!

Go here to see the rest of the photos.

Faire In The Grove

This year I'm going to have a little photo booth at the Faire In The Grove in Forest Grove, Oregon Saturday, May 3rd and Sunday May 4th. 

It's an annual event held at McMenamins Grand Lodge.

Here are a few photos from a couple years ago (I didn't take my camera last year) to give you an idea of a fraction of all the fun stuff there.  The kids love the actual fencing lessons with real swords, foils, and rapiers and the sword fighting arena for the kids where they have paddle swords that allow you to smack the crap out of your sibling and not do any damage.  

The merchants have fabric, costumes, jewelry, candles, soaps, weapons, tools, and more.  I got an amazing hair stick there a few years ago, which I've unfortunately lost.  I put it somewhere I wouldn't loose it. There are demonstrations of how to make beads for jewelry, how they did wood working without power tools, and others.  So much to learn and see and do.  

There is also a battle competition that is always amusing to watch.  

I would LOVE to see all my friends and family come out and have some fun (well, at least those local) - and stop by my booth and have a photo taken with your swag. 

Last week

A shot from my cake smash session last Sunday.  These babies are so stinking adorable!  They loved their cupcakes - and we enjoyed the leftover cupcakes.



My hosta is blooming.  The leaves aren't looking that great though.  I have a few plant munching bugs this year and I don't use pesticides (because of my plant eating dog) so I just have to deal.  It's not too bad though.



My dahlias in the front are blooming after taking so long to come up that I thought they didn't survive the winter.



And my lavender bush is doing AMAZING! I don't think it has a lot of bugs that snack on it though so...



My neighbor has a garden bed just over the fence full of wildflowers and these ones are tall enough that I can enjoy them over the fence.



Friday we had a game night and played Blokus, a pretty fun and fairly easy game.  I was red, Adam green, Carus yellow and Robert blue, and because I usually win the game I got ganged up on and lost that round.



Saturday I canned some spaghetti sauce since we've been out for about 2 months now.

7 days, day 4

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Today was my last vacation day.  I took the kids shopping to Walmart specifically to pick up The Hobbit and to Goodwill to look for a new suit for Adam and band concerts (see below for a pic of how that went). I broke both pairs of my sunglasses recently so I'm in the market for new ones - I tried on like 50 of them today....didn't like any of them.



Adam suited up!

Reading.

And then I fell off a horse

Robert and I ventured out on Black Friday for a little shopping around noon, well after the crazies cleared out a bit. We went after two things in particular, a good price on a gift for Adam, which we got, and half off on a fuzzy blanket from Target that I wanted, that I didn't get.

We then hung around and was being lazy when my friend called and asked if I wanted to go ride a horse - I did.  Carus and I took off for the barn with her, did a few chores and then we saddled up Starlet and I got on. I did a few laps around the arena with a lead on the horse, which we then removed so I could get a picture for my 366 and left it off.  (Geneva took the photo with my cell and I later processed it with Instagram.)



I did a few more laps without the lead.  I was just starting to pick up speed just a bit when Starlet stumbled, and then she sidestepped to correct her gait and I started to go over the side.  There was a moment when I really thought I was going to be able to stay on and then I lost it and just committed to the fall. Starlet's back is about 5 feet from the ground so I had some time for a few thoughts on my way down. First thought was, I hope this doesn't hurt as bad as I think it's going to.  Then, I noticed I had started to put my hand out to catch myself, like I usually do, and knew that would definitely break something so pulled it up and let my hip/butt/side area take the hit.

I then proceeded to scream out obscenities.  Or one obscenity. I was not eloquent.

After a few moments I was able to get up, though painfully, and calm down.  Geneva got me home, apologizing profusely and I showered and iced my side.

I am so very sore and stiff, sleeping last night was fitful, but I'm okay.  I haven't even bruised.  I don't know how I'm not black and blue because it feels bruised, as well as a few other things.

I do not blame Geneva or Starlet. Shit happens, and I'm not surprised when it happens to me because I'm a bit of a klutz.  I will get back on, just as soon as my butt/hip stops hurting like hell.

Did you know it was already JULY?!

No seriously, it's July already.

This year is going by incredibly fast.  Okay, I'll get on with the catch up.

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Wednesday

Sisters and a cousin.

I went to high school with two of these girls, the twins.  One lives in Idaho and was in town visiting so the other threw a little party so everyone could visit with her while she was here. They were already posing for a family shot so I grabbed one for my 366.




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Thursday
Gramma picked up the kids Thursday afternoon and kept them until Sunday.


Green bean heavy harvest.  With this batch I actually have enough green beans collected for a meal. YUM!


LONG green bean - 7 inches!





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Friday
Bed time snack - peaches.  They were very good too; worth the itchy mouth. (I have an allergy to most fruits and occasionally vegetables.  Usually only raw fruits, and some worse than others. And it never keeps me from eating them.)

(Instagram photo)


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Saturday
Last minute camp out at a friends place.  We packed up some sleeping bags, the dogs, and had some fun hanging around the campfire.  Unfortunatey the air mattress had a slow leak and we didn't sleep well.

(Instagram photo)

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Sunday
I passed on my glider rocking chair from when Carus was a baby to a friend who just had twins.  They were born premature and are still in the NICU. They are doing good, though still have the problems preemie babies face.  There is a lot of promise that baby girl will get to come home soon, and hopefully her brother won't be far behind her.  I took the chair out to her Sunday and sat and visited for awhile; then I made her pose with the recently acquired hand prints of the babies in her new rocking chair.  If you can't tell, those hand prints are TEENY!



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I had Monday off and took the kids to the zoo.

Every time we go to the zoo the kids pose with this bronze goat statue.  They used to both fit on that statue, but now...

The zoo trip plan worked out well coinciding with a Facebook photography group I'm a member of doing a zoo meetup too. I actually got to meet a few of these photographers I've been chatting with for months, which was nice. The day was a perfect day for the zoo.



I got many more photos of this trip, and I'm uploading them to a Facebook album.  I made it public so you should have no problems looking at it.  (Photos will be added to it as I get around to it.)

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Tuesday

Robert helping me water my garden.

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Later in the afternoon on Monday we left Roswell to head down to Tularosa to see my other grandparents, Granny and Gramps, as well as some cousins I hadn't seen in like 16+ years.  We got to see cousin Emma, her husband Cody, and daughter Reese (who is so stinking cute), and Laura and her baby bump.

I love Granny and Gramps's house. Lots of really good memories there.


Tuesday we hung out, laughing and chatting and drawing with chalk. 

Look, I drew Ariel.  I'm pretty proud of her. I didn't think I would be able to draw it well enough.



One game we always played every time we went to Granny's as a kid was bubbles.  Does that count as a game, or is it just an activity?  Granny would give us flyswatters (most likely they were clean ones) and pie tin full of bubble soap, and we would dip the flyswatters into the soap and then spin in circles making bubbles.  Or having 'sword' fights/bubble fights. Or run with the bubbles blowing out behind us.  Fun. :)

So of course the kids had to do bubbles! Granny didn't have a lot of bubble soap at hand but after a quick google search on my phone (what did we do before smartphones!) I mixed up a batch of bubble soap. I just eyeballed things and tested the bubble ability by putting my hands in the mixture then blowing a bubble between my cupped hands. I estimate what I used was a gallon of water, 1/4 cup corn syrup, and 1 cup dish soap.  Granny had Ivory dish soap and it smelled lovely.  Just stir until the syrup is dissolved and voila! 

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Robert and I spent yesterday hanging out with some friends.  We went to the home and remodeling show, went to Ikea, then out to dinner and a movie.  This is our friend with his GIANT margarita at dinner.  We ate at Red Lobster, which was good (I had never been before) and saw Underworld: Awakening in 3D (first time watching a movie in 3D, which I enjoyed much more than I thought I would).  The movie was great, lots of action.

When we got in line at the theater to get tickets, there was a lady in front of us who treated us to the following conversation -

Lady: What movies are playing next?
Ticket counter person:  Such and such, yada yada (I wasn't paying too close of attention), Man On A Ledge
Lady:  Oh, what's Man On A Ledge about?
Ticket counter person:  Uh, it's about a guy....on a...ledge...

And then I couldn't stop giggling so I'm sure what else was said and soon it was our turn to get our tickets.  Continued giggling about it the rest of the night... and into today.

I'm easily amused.

Behind

327/365 - I hung this hummingbird feeder outside my kitchen window and patiently waited for hummingbirds to visit.  Our first year here I saw very few hummers BUT this year has been good. I have 2 regulars now - possibly three - but I've only seen two at the same time.

There is one that stops and sits while eating, every time. And then there is this guy - who flits and flutters and always takes off the second I grab the camera.  Took me a bit, but I got him!

I'm very happy to start a hummingbird following. When visiting my Gramps and Granny's house, one of my favorite things to do is to sit in their breakfast nook and watch the hummingbirds come to feed.  She has 3 or 4 feeders out there and like 100 hummingbirds (probably not 100, but seriously a lot).


328/365 - We worked on this puzzle for about a week. It was sitting out on the dining table and the cat (Simba) decided to play with it a few times.  We thought we found all the pieces he batted around the house/took off with, but apparently we missed two.  Quite frustrating... hope they turn up eventually. It was a new puzzle


329/365 - Out weather has cleared up and we've gotten to enjoy some big blue skies and lovely sun rises and sunsets. This is the very beginning of a sunset.


330/365 - Messing around with my flowers (and trying some high key).


331/365 - Leia puppy, who is learning to be a very good puppy.  She has officially learned lay down now.  We are working on roll over.


332/365 - Timmy was "helping" Carus with her school work.


333/365 - Can I have a cracker?


334/365 - Carus in high key


335/365 - After work I took the dogs for a short walk and checked the mail on the way back home. (Mailbox is at the bottom of the hill.) There was a lot of mail, which left me one hand for two leashes. About 2 houses away Yoda decided to go in front of me and then behind me and Leia went behind me and then in front of me and I ended up wrapped up in leashes and penguin walking. I paused and after failing to get them to unwind (and I didn't trust myself to be able to step out of the mess without falling) I called Adam to bring out the camera to get a picture and then help me.


336/365 - We went to the Forest Grove Holiday Light Parade.  We had our sweaters, coats, gloves, hats, and scarves, but it was still cold and we were quite frozen by the end of the parade.


I'm caught up again to Saturday, December 3rd.

I'm frustrated with myself that I got so behind in my 365s.  I've been thinking about whether I want to do a 365 again next year, and I think I do.  The more photographs I take, the better I get.  I think.  I feel I've been improving, at least a little bit.

If I do another 365, I'd really like to work on posting one 365 at a time, each day.

Still have a few weeks left to fully decide.

What do you think?  Should I do another 365?

Show me the button!

I was sitting on my patio talking with my Granny and enjoying how the wind was rustling through the leaves of this tree, and the way the sun hitting the leaves made them seem to be dancing.

Photo processed with a free action from Rita at The Coffee Shop blog, Golden Vintage.*

210/365 - We went and got a little wading pool for the kids and the dog. Okay, mostly the dog. The kids are more interested in going to the big pool. But Leia LOVES it!


211/365 - Sleepy Leia.


212/365 - We went to Big Al's (an arcade/bowling alley/sports bar/sports restaurant/etc etc) for lunch and some arcading and while we aren't huge sports fans we couldn't help but get excited at all the TVs! Especially this big one that had 9 different channels going at once! (Actually 3 projectors, and a portion is not shown in the photo.) Not to mention the 15+ "small" TVs hanging up around the restaurant. Can you imagine the awesomeness of the Super Bowl?


YAY! The hummingbirds have found my feeder! Robert got this picture for me (only cause he wouldn't give me my camera and when he finally did the bird flew off).  Not a 365, but wanted to share all the same.  I was worried they would never find the feeder, but they have, and maybe someday I will have as many hummingbirds as Granny does.  (Which is A LOT.)


213/365 - Big grape, little grape. Didn't like it in color so changed it to black and white and now I'm all artistic and deep....or something.
Photo processed with a free action from Rita at The Coffee Shop blog, Splendor B&W (I believe).


*A lot of my pictures are processed Perfect Portrait action. It's my favorite action, but all of her actions are amazing.  And she does tuturials on how to use them and how to do many things in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, and others.

Our favorite beach

Sunday we did go to the coast for the day to enjoy the surf and sun and have a picnic lunch.  We went to our favorite beach, Arcadia Beach, which is just a few miles south of Cannon Beach on Highway 101.



It was still a bit foggy when we first got there...


But it didn't take long to start burning off.


Leia enjoyed herself, but I can't wait until she has all her leash manners. The whole jumping on me and yanking herself in every direction got old quite fast. 


I love Adam's sense of humor, even when he is driving me batty with his sarcastic and smart-alec remarks to me.
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Lunch time!


View from the parking lot at the top of the trail down to the beach, looking south.


Since Yoda is such a momma's boy and doesn't wander far from me and I can call him back when he tries to go say hi to people, he gets to be lucky enough to be off leash.  He loves when the kids run ahead of me and he will run to them until he touches one of them or circles in front of them and then run back to me.  One downside to him being friendly was some guy was trying to coax him into following him home. Not joking around either, he was seriously walking away from me calling Yoda. 




206/365 - Jumping over the waves.  When did my baby boy grow up?!












Seagull floating on the waves.


My baby doll, who is also growing up way too fast...


Adam running with Leia - he was having a bit of a time keeping her from jumping on him.


Floppy puppy happy to be on the beach.