Had a Great Fall...

Each year at Illahee Elementary, the kindergarten classes set out on a scientific journey of sorts. Their goal is to figure out how to throw an egg off the roof of the school and make it survive! They come up with an idea or a design, place their faith in their results and toss ol' Eggbert off the roof. I don't know if they name their little eggs but in my mind they do and at least one of them is named Eggbert or Megg or Egglebert Humptydink...what would you name your egg?

The parent volunteers that agreed to go up top to scramble the eggs.

There goes Oliver's!!

Kids all sat and watched each egg take the plunge.

After all of the eggs were dropped the kids were released to gather up their project. I was not involved in this project or I would have named it EGGspress - sheesh!

SO hard for me to not reach in there and help things along faster! Come on, Oliver, did your egg survive?!?

Nice work my boy, Humpty has no worries in your hands!

Beacon Rock

My friend, Jessica, posted on facebook that she wanted to go to a hike. I asked where and when and we decided to hike Beacon Rock in the Columbia Gorge. Funny thing is, both of us have never hiked Beacon Rock! One of those things that you think, "oh, I can go there anytime!" and then you never do. We met in the morning, hiked on up and up and up the .9 mile trail. Lots and lots of switchbacks take you up the west side of the rock. Once you get closer to the top you finally get to swing around to the east side of the big rock. The top doesn't have a lot of room to roam about but it feels good to finally get up there! We took some pictures, read the plaque, drank some water then headed back down. Once at the bottom we decided that wasn't enough so we headed across the river and hiked Wahclella falls too!

A little warning before starting up the switchback trail.

I just thought this was a cool rock whatever you call it.

The view from the trail on our way to the top. This is looking across to the Oregon side and slightly west.

The view looking west.

The view looking east.

The crazy switchback trail, walk too fast and you get dizzy with all the back and forth.

Another shot of the trail, just looking down this time.

The final climb to the top!

View to the east from the top.

View to the west from the top. To be honest, the view, in my humble opinion, was better from the trail.

Heading back down, the sun was really starting to burn off the mist that was lingering in the gorge.

My hiking partner, Jessica!

Firsts!

Today was a big day...BOTH boys started school. Okay, technically, school started last Wednesday but we were on our annual family camping trip. Anyway, Noah started 5th, yes 5th if you can believe that? And Oliver, he started Kindergarten today. The time really has flown by! Oliver was so excited this morning he could barely sit or stand still. It's a first for me too, I have no kiddos at home and I am wondering how I am going to handle that. So far I've dropped off a huge bag of school supplies, stopped for a coffee, ran to Target and am now working on this here blog post. So far, so good! Oh, if you'd like to see a ton of pictures from our camping trip, check out my facebook page by clicking here or here, that will take you to the two albums I created. Report back later for a recap of their first day!

Good morning boys!!

Speaking of firsts, this boy lost his first tooth last night. It's a big week for this guy! He asked the tooth fairy for $33 or a nickel. Nickel it is!!

Love that he is looking up to his big brother!

Can't stand still, so excited and wants to know, "Where is that bus!?!"

Not quite as excited as his little brother. He is really looking grown up to me these days.

Nope, still not standing still.

"YEAH!!!! The bus is here!!"

On goes my Noah

And there goes my Ollie-Al

There they go...now what do I do?

Good Riddance

This boy of mine has been able to ride, in my opinion, without training wheels for quite some time now. However, there was something about those training wheels that he was unwilling to let go of. I begged, I pleaded, I bribed and nothing worked, well, until this week anyway. He has really been wanting this new Beyblade toy thing and I have really been wanting him to take those noisy unnecessary training wheels off. So I used bribery once again! We started by taking one training wheel off. He rode around like that for a while, I ran beside him, etc. I gave him a little bit then took the second one off. We set out with me holding on, encouraging him and the panic totally set in again. This kid is a gang-buster, no-fear kind of boy and this was totally throwing me for a loop. We happened to be over at the schoolyard and I stood up trying to figure out my next plan of attack and there it was. A giant, flat, mowed, field! I asked him if he would feel better about learning on the grass and he said yes. Took two times of me giving him a little push start and he was off! We spent the next 30 minutes or so practicing in the field. We ended on that note, a high note, a happy note and immediately went to the store to buy the toy! That was a couple of days ago and I wanted to get him back on his bike. Joel and I grabbed the tennis gear, Oliver and his bike and headed back over to the schoolyard to practice some more. Oliver was still very hesitant to get onto the harder surface and ride but Joel and I both knew if he just tried he would immediately love it and never go back to that hard bumpy field. Dad ran around with him in the field for a while, giving him some tips and pointers on how to ride them gave him one little challenge...start about 15 feet from the grass on the concrete and ride into the field. HE DID IT! Rode down the sidewalk, into the field, turned around and came right back onto the concrete and never looked back! The only time he went back to the field was when he raced down the sidewalk and bombed into the field on purpose. He rode and rode and rode some more, all of us grinning ear to ear! (The pictures and video are from my phone, not the best quality.)

Already learning how to slam on those brakes and leave skid marks!

Best skid of the day! And he isn't proud at all...

Goodbye noisy, unnecessary training wheels!

Cousins

My sister is in town taking care of some horsey business so on her way through she dropped Trevor off at our place. Typical boy behavior has ensued ever since. Play, drive each crazy, play, get into trouble, play...you all know what I'm talking about. Lots of energy running around this house. The boys wanted to go swimming yesterday so when Shana stopped by, in between horse chores, we packed them up and took them to the park.

Goggles? Check! Swim trunks? Check! Flippers? Check!

Looks like a meeting to plan their next move.

Apparently, my child has no joints!

(Insert Jaws theme here)

This picture does not do this scene justice. It looked as though he had been eaten by tube monsters and he was struggling to break free from it's jaws. Shana and I were totally cracking up!

Noah, in the green, Trevor, in the orange, chasing after Oliver. Silly boys.

Pictures From a Lazy Day

Had a pretty lazy day today, it didn't help that I had a bit of insomnia last night then got up early to meet a friend that is borrowing the van for a couple of days. Needless to say, we stuck close to home and really didn't do much at all. Somehow, I managed to get the boys down to the "train park," as we've always called it for a quick and easy outing. These here pictures are from my kind of lazy day...

Nature's Abstract Art

BIG Fish in a Little Pond

Cool Little Plants

Fun Patterns

Happily Treed Boy

Butterfly

Apparently, he misses the rain.

Klineline Pond

Salmon Creek Park/Klineline Pond is located in the Salmon Creek area of Vancouver. It's a great little park with lots of amenities. A level path for walking, running or biking that runs alongside Salmon Creek, a sports complex and the boys favorite, Klineline Pond. The pond is fed by the creek and natural springs and is a perfect place to swim on a hot summer day. Or in our case this year, a day that has sunshine and is pretending to be a hot summer day. This is one of those spots that I didn't go to for the longest time and then wondered why it took so long to give it a go! We've been there twice already this year and plan to go back as often as we can.

Racing to the water.

Little brother splashing big brother.

Trying to warm up on the edge of the deck.

Little brother really likes to wrestle with big brother, but Noah really wasn't in the mood for this.

After asking nicely a couple of times, then asking again with a bit more irritation in his voice, Noah finally decided that the only way to get rid of the pest that was clinging to him was to plug his nose and...

...force the little one off of him by falling (forcefully) backwards into the water! In case you were wondering, the leech-like little brother, let go immediately. It worked!