1981
31 things that I love about Brent:
1. His smile
2. His sincerity
3. His outgoing friendliness
4. His complete devotion to me and our family
5. The way he loves me
6. His brain
7. The conversations that we have
8. His incredible work ethic
9. He is silly and goofy
10. His humility
11. His adventurous spirit
12. He goes running with me even though he could go faster by himself
13. He is so healthy and health consious
14. He seeks out knowledge and is not afraid to learn new things
15. He loves Jesus Christ
16. He is worthy to go to the Temple and hold the Priesthood of Jesus Christ
17. He is a problem solver
18. He is kind and gentle
19. He love playing with kids
20. He loves to play and make music
21. He loves learning about other cultures
22. He is a dreamer
23. He is a realist
24. He has no guile
25. He thinks outside the box
26. He collects musical instruments
27. He puts my needs before his own
28. He loves to cook and clean
29. His frugality and financial planning abilities
30. He loves going on vacation
31. He is so darn good looking!
Happy 31 years Brent!
I am finally done catching up the blog today!
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We have been waiting for a year and a half to visit a little place called:
It's a kitschy little theme park south of Oregon's capitol city, Salem....but alas, it is the best that Oregon has to offer so far as theme parks go. It is and old and dated (think early 70's) park with storybook and nursery rhyme attractions. There are 4 very old and expensive rides. So we went with my sister Lara and her crew and it was fun.
The 7 Dwarfs' House
Hansel & Gretel at the Witch's Gingerbread House
Alice's door to Wonderland
(This was really cool...the door led to a tunnel that went under the sidewalk and came out someplace totally random.)
Jack and Jill
This place was awesome for Joshua. He loves stories and fairy tales and is such a good reader. He was reading everything for Toby.
Little Red
The Old Mother who Lived in a Shoe
Had a fun slide to give her children something to do
(this was fun...I tried it)
The pictures were blurry-I need refresher on how to use my camera for action shots
Snow White's Witch...
You actually climb into her mouth. There is a dark tunnel inside with scary witchy pictures and at the top, there is a slide that comes out the other side of her head. Cool. Toby was so brave. Joshua was too scared to go in.
The Man with the Crooked House
This house was SO crooked inside. It gave me fits of nauseous vertigo walking through it. It gives me vertigo just thinking about it. And I usually don't get nausea or vertigo!
Joshua with Abraham Lincoln (or a guy dressed up like him). Joshua was excited because he has a book about Honest Abe that he loves to read. Except he knew this was just a "fiction Abraham".
The Log Flume. Very big (bigger than Lagoon). This was probably the only ride worth paying for here. Wet. Good thing it was a nice warm summer-like autumn day.
The whole place was very charming
Joshua's favorite part of the whole day was not the ride. He loved this Tee Pee that had a tree stump inside of it. From the outside of the tee pee looking in, it just looked like a stump. But when you go in the tee pee and around to the other side of the stump, there is a secret dark tunnel (I had to crawl to get through) that goes under the sidewalk and into the Indian Caves. The caves were just like "Injun Joe's Caves" at DisneyLand, if anyone remembers those. (It's been a really long time since I've been to DisneyLand so I don't know if they still have those caves). Anyway, it was REALLY cool.
When we left the park, Joshua said "now we are out of fiction land and back to real land." Here, here! It was an enjoyable place to play for the day. We will probably go back again next year.
We've done some amazing things with our subaru. We tied our picnic table on the top to drive it home from the store. We transported all of the wood for the swing set and the patio cover on the top of the poor car. And now this:
Brent filled up the entire back with cedar wood chips for under our playground, not once...but 5 times. Our local landscaping supply outlet started referring to him as "The Subaru Man." Watch out, we still need to get gravel, flag stones and landscaping plants.
Joshua was SO VERY excited to go back to school. He started asking me about it a few weeks after summer started. The first day of school for Joshua = pure bliss! He is so eager to learn and is such a nice, friendly soul.
Joshua All Ready for the First Day!
Over the summer, we made the really tough decision that had to be made and we switched Joshua from Springwater Environmental Science School to our local neighborhood school. All last year I felt that the switch would be the right thing to do for Joshua, but I had such a hard time letting go of Science School and Friday Field Studies. But it has turned out that this switch has been the very best thing for Joshua. He loved Springwater, but he says that he loves his new school even more and doesn't ever want to leave! We'll see if he still feels that way when he's older :-). The transition was very quick and easy, and even better the 30 minute drive 4 times a day is now down to a 10 minute walk 4 times a day. The best part is that he is in the same class with his best buddy Kaden!
Joshua and Kaden in front of their classroom
Our summer was chock full of nice days in our house and in our constantly improving backyard. Some of the boys favorite activities included picnics in the backyard, swimming in our wading pool with friends, riding bikes around the new backyard pathway, hanging out in pajamas all morning enjoying the sunshine, working in the garden together (and watching the giant sunflower grow), playing on the grass and the swings/clubhouse that Brent built. It has been a grand old summer!
We started a new tradition this year that we hope to carry on for many years. The last week of summer, we had a camp out in our own backyard. We put up the tent and had a heyday! One of the nights we invited our friends over for dinner, a bonfire, games and songs. I think we will commemorate the end of summer every year with a camp out in our own backyard.
We were very fortunate that our good friends stopped by to stay with us on their way from Alaska back down to Utah. We love listening to their great stories of their world travels and we have the most stimulating conversations about politics, religion, finance, emergency preparedness (composting potties, etc), world issues, etc. with them. Brent met them originally by working with them at Rite Aid in Salt Lake. They are both Pharmacists who moved out west from Upstate New York. They are awesome people and we are so thankful for their friendship.
Colin and Sarah in their splendid camping van
We decided that we needed to get to know the people in our subdivision after living here for over a year, so we organized a block party! Our subdivision is pretty new (built in 2006) and we were one of the last families to move in, so pretty much everyone is new. It was a good thing. We have great neighbors.
WE had sidewalk chalk, bubbles, a wading pool and a bike course for the kids
The adults had a barbecue and many people to socialize with
This is our next door neighbor and her new little baby. We obviously have known them for quite a while before the party.
Everyone had a great time. I hope we can do this again next year!
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Hey-
It's time to finish getting caught up on the summer so that I can get on with my blogger life.
My younger sis Heather flew into Portland from New York City to spend a couple of days with my sister Lara and I before we drove down to McCall, Idaho to spend the week with my mom, her husband Marvin, my sister Annika, her husband Nate, and several of Marvin's kids and grand kids. It was a grand old week.
We took Heather biking along the 5 mile Portland water front (Joshua rode his own bike, happiness!):
Heather and Joshua
(by the way Joshua told me today that it is OK every once in a while to call him a nickname, but most of the time he wants to be called "Joshua")
Toby in the bike trailer
(soon Toby may be riding his own bike on the Portland Waterfront too...he's getting really adept)
Heather and Lara ended up wearing twinner shirts :-)
(The youngest sister with the oldest sister/4 sisters)
Then on Monday Heather and I took off with the little boys (Brent had to stay for work) and drove down to McCall, Idaho to meet the rest of the family. Silly me, I forgot my camera! Since I keep track of what we did by looking at the pictures, and I have no pictures...I will just give a run down of some of the great things we did there:
(any pictures I post are copied from the internet, sorry)
- We camped at the very beautiful and nice campground: Ponderosa State Park
- We sang songs around the campfire
- We played games
- My mom had activities for the kids like decorating hats...I know my boys will always remember that
- We swam in Payette Lake, paddled our raft, and rented jet skis for 1/2 day (very fun!)
Payette Lake
- We visited Roseberry, Idaho and went to a museum with a very interesting exhibit on the area barns. I decided that someday I want to have a barn. They are so neat and fun and it would be great to keep a few animals for emergency preparedness. Roseberry also had a neat general store with Scandinavian Gifts and old fashioned toys/candy. I bought a rooster alarm clock to wake Joshua up for school. The Scandinavian items were eye candy.
Roseberry Museum
- We ate dinner in McCall Idaho
- We contemplated going to the Tamarack Ski Resort to ride the 90 minute zipline (but changed our minds after finding out it costs $90 per person...maybe another time)
- I went on a wonderful long run by myself through the woods and meadows by the lake while my mom and sister watched the boys. It was liberating. Thanks guys!
- We visited Gold Fork Hot Springs...this was my favorite thing we did together! It was soooo worth the money! It was a beautiful and relaxing series of 6 shallow pools that went from extremely hot down to cool...all under next to and under the shade of the pine forest. I recommend the whole trip, but I would go especially for Gold Fork Hot Spring.
