Aunt times for Coco and grand ones for me

Enjoying these updates

Courtney had a willing helper in making dessert the other night. She's been spending a bit more time with the girls as Rowan is attending a special Science Camp for a few weeks. Looks like Evie and Kate got to enjoy a couple of cake pops at Starbucks.

Courtney has been instructed to bring me a "you are here" mug from the cities she visits. Not all cities have their own mugs but she found one at the airport in Chicago and one in D.C. I'm hoping she'll pick one up on her way through San Francisco on the way back here. 

Cherise has a San Diego one for me too! 

They are a great size and stack very nicely. 

Yay Starbucks. Good job on these ones.

Absorbing some history

Alyssa took this picture of Courts walking through the church yard where the Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary Soldier is located.  Very pretty day in VA.

After school runnin' around

I stood on the playground waiting for the kids to come out of the building and decided to trying taking a couple of cell phone photos.  We've had a few days of lovely weather here too.

I took the kids to get an after school snack. The girls wanted their pictures taken with the petunias.

Waiting in the van while Hayden was in the dentist's chair. We had more fun with my cell phone. Wyatt was trying to get into the picture as well.

A rare daytime Chloe sighting

This is our elusive outdoor/indoor cat. She usually comes in when Rylan gets home from work around midnight or later then "asks" to go back out when Harlan gets ready for work around 5 a.m.  She's getting up there in age and even though she probably would live longer if we kept her in exclusively, I don't want to deny her the quality of life that she seems to enjoy so much.

Silly GPS

The kids wonder why I even bother to have the GPS working in the van. They told me that I know where I'm going so I don't need it. But I'm trying to get acquainted with its functions and I get a kick out of making it recalculate. Today I confused it into telling me to follow the highlighted route around the block to get to the parking spot two spaces down where I originally programmed it for Hayden's school.

Cityscapes and National Battlefield

A couple of my views

We're having some blue sky weather in Portland these days. Here are a couple of pictures I took this week. I love Union Station and its reminder to "Go by Train". The signpost on the left is encouraging people to go by bike. PDX is known to be a bike friendly place. Our former mayor made sure that enough money was spent on making it so. 

The inner NE section of the city looks nice from the middle of the Burnside bridge. The building closest to the camera was a Sears when we first moved here. It now belongs to Metro. 

 I also like is the picture of the Rose Garden with the old bridge architecture in the foreground and the more modern buildings in the background. 

Courtney promised pictures

Courtney is keeping her promise by sending some pictures via cell phone. She says she's taking a lot on her camera as well. They are having a hot spell in Virginia. A bit too warm to be out on the battlefield. Rowan and Katie have the right idea in finding a shady tree to rest on.

Evie found a piece of a tree and a rock. She's ready for a game of stick ball.

Thanks Courts!!! Hope you are having a terrific time.

I leave you with...

My favorite of these pearls of wisdom?

"Sweat in the sauna, not over the small stuff"

To PDX two days in a row!

A lovely day to fly

Courtney took off to see Lyssa, Logan and the kids in Virginia yesterday.

In addition to her one checked bag, there was a bike headed for one of Logan's buddies. It wasn't very heavy but it sure was bulky to carry.  We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Courtney didn't have to pay for her bag as a military spouse and the bike was paid for by the purchaser so that worked out very well.  

She was alternately excited and nervous.  I'd planned to get a bite to eat for lunch with her and then send her off through security.

That seemed to go smoothly too. I waited until she waved to me and then left her to head toward her departure gate.

Har's birthday present

I've been having fun playing with the GPS that we got Har for his birthday. I have some of our main stops programmed into it. When we were out today, I told it to go to our local Fred Meyer. It says "You have arrived at our Fred Meyer." I like the checkered flag destination marker too. It makes me feel like I accomplished something rather than just drove home.

Another day another trip to PDX

This time it was for an arrival!

Cherise and family came in!!!

My how he's grown

Cam is officially taller than all of his sisters. He's about 3 inches taller than Cherise now.

Aunty Krystle got reacquainted with Anabelle. She shared her White Sox hat and the whipped cream from her hot cocoa. 

We sat around table at Beaches restaurant inside the airport. It had a bonfire burning in the middle of it.

Cherise and her 4th checking something out on his phone.

We got a few minutes to spend with these grands and are looking forward to hanging out more next week.

Kiel had mentioned that they hadn't taken an actual weeks vacation since their honeymoon almost 5 years ago. I showed him this on the bottom of the receipt :0) 

Have a fun, fun, fun vacation!

Kids are characters

Rainbows in the living room

It fascinates me that the sun reflects into the windows on the NW side of our house occasionally. On this day a small ray of sunshine was hitting the rim of Har's bike and causing this refraction of light onto the door. Pretty cool and very bright!
Neighbors

I saw these two critters on the roof next door discussing the benefits and drawbacks of rain gutter gleaning for food. Neither seemed very opposed to the idea but they also didn't come away with much for  their efforts.

Goodwill finds save the day

Genevieve and I took a quick trip to our local Goodwill to find a costume for her for Storybook Character Day at school. She was trying to find an outfit that would be appropriate for Laura Ingalls.
She would have loved to go home with this stuffed dachshund as well but we let him wait for another owner.

Laura Ingalls, Zorro and Bo-peep

Thank you Aunty Lyssa for those bonnets from the Bull Run battlefield. They were perfect inspiration pieces for these outfits.

The kids have been watching episodes of Little House on the Prairie and loving it. It didn't take much to convince G'vieve to play Laura (though she thought Mary would have been more to her personality but decided "No one would recognize me as Mary.")

A serious Wyatt as Zorro. He had this knit cap from a previous year's Halloween costume. It has a monster mask on the other side. We simply turned it inside out and voila! Zorro!

Danika's teacher was kept entertained all day by Bo-peep's antics. She totally embraced the character and used her crook to save her sheep time and again. Her friend Emma helped keep the rain off of her after school.

The girls and I had to make a run over to the church where these irises were blooming. It also afforded us another photo op for their costumes.

Apart from the shoes, they look like they could be extras in a Little House episode.

Central Bible has a couple of great places to take pictures. They loved climbing on the crook of this tree.

One more flower picture and this post is "in the can" as they say in show biz ;)