The Wood Between the Worlds

Fun Game! (Toby took these pictures.) I really, really, really ADORE my children.

We took Emily and Zach to the Rose Garden and Pittock Mansion after church on Sunday. (You've got to think of all the blurry pictures as artistic expression.)

We were very delighted to have our friends Zach and Emily stay with us for a couple of days. They took a detour down to Portland from their extended business trip in Seattle. These guys are lots of fun and very intellectually stimulating. We enjoyed all of your conversation, and are especially grateful for all of the Salt Lake nostalgia. It made me homesick for The Great City of Salt. We can't wait to meet up with you guys in Seattle next month.

On Saturday we took them for a little waterfall hike in the Columbia River Gorge...Lower and Upper Horsetail Falls and Oneonta Falls. We were lucky that we had unrainy weather and the leaves were still on the trees and pretty.

I got my hair cut [very short]! It's fun.

Who's the newest little smarty pants in the family??

It's Joshua, of course! He is loving first grade. His reading has taken off so quickly. He is now reading (for fun) one short chapter book per day (you know, those short ones with pictures on every 3rd page?). Today he read "The Magic School Bus Chapter Book Series and the Search for the Missing Bones," and then he wrote a neat little book report on it for his homework. He is doing such a great job and we are so proud of him! His teacher told us at our last meeting that she wants him to be tested for "TAG" (talented and gifted) in the spring.
Bragging off.

Brent was recently called as the EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS specialist in our ward. He is in charge of helping the ward members to be prepared in case of a disaster. This has been great motivation to work on our food storage and other emergency essentials. It is so NICE to have a house where we have room for food storage! There are several potentials for natural disasters here in the Portland area: tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, flooding due to heavy rainfall or due to global warming raising the sea level. (WE are pretty safe up on top of our bluff at about 200 ft). But our Stake Presidency (presides over the churches/wards in our city and a few neighboring cities) has specifically instructed us to prepare for a Flu Pandemic and a corresponding 3 month Quarantine. So we are readying food, supplies, personal protective devices, sanitation, etc. in case we are stuck in our house for 3 months. Oh! And here is a great link to some Pandemic preparedness information that Brent found: BYU-Idaho Pandemic Training. "If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear..."

That brings me to the next point. CANNING! My current calling in church is the Enrichment Leader and one of the special interest groups that I have tried to organize is a canning group. We have planned and consulted and done canning demonstrations to take advantage of all the wonderful and fresh produce that we have in the Northwest (many farms even within 15 minutes!). My friend Tara was awesome enough to invite me to can with her. We planned it while our kids were at school and we did it together to pass the time. I am so HAPPY that Tara taught me so much about canning and I am ELATED about this:



This is my half of the canning that Tara and I did this year. We did Pears, tomatoes, salsa, pickles and applesauce. We have officially re-formed "the cult of domesticity" here :-). (A club that my friends Emily, Maria and I had in high school in which one had to bake, sew and do various other domestic activities in order to join.)

So, I promised my sister Heather that I would post pictures of the Halloween Costumes since she is all the way in NYC and couldn't see us. I figured most of you would want a look too.

I know that I should have mentioned in my last post how lucky we are that it was only our tree that got taken out and not any of our house. Miraculously, our house was completely unharmed.