More park pictures

I love this park!

Anyplace by water is beautiful to me. This is right on the Columbia River in St Helens. 

Courtney has a friend from her work that lives in St Helens so when Courts saw the photos from the wedding she said, "I've been to that park many times."  It's such a picture perfect park! The kids would love jumping from tier to tier on this hillside. There is a pretty neat playground on the south end too.

Hometown Americana

This was just down the hill from the park. I didn't get to visit there this time but I thought it was so picturesque. I would love to sit with a cup of coffee on one of those benches and enjoy the flowers blooming around me.

The gazebo had gorgeous hanging baskets on each corner.

The use of rock and stone in the landscaping was impressive, as was the big tree on the hill.  I wish the photographer would have gotten a picture of Amanda and Chris under the shelter of that tree.  I wonder what color the leaves are in the fall. It would make an awesome place for a family photo. 

I snapped a wide shot of the official photographer and one of the guests taking pictures of both sets of parents with the couple. The only thing that would have made the day perfect would have been just a little bit of sunshine peeking out. 

Enamored with the river traffic

I grew up seeing ore boats on Lake Superior, and it was always a thrill to count how many we could spy out along the horizon. The Columbia River is a busy waterway. I was fascinated by the variety of ships that were traveling along. I like to wonder where they are going and where they've been. Maybe one of these days Har and I will get to ride one of the Navy ships as they come into port for the Rose Festival.

Waves of grass and waves on water.

Grampa's little man

Garrett is Grampa's official greeter when he comes home from work. On this day, he got to ride on Grampa's bike into the dining room.  Pretty cool!

Look at that cheesy smile :D

Aunty Coco gave him a clipboard, paper and a crayon for him to color with.  He really enjoys drawing (scribbling) but he pretty much sticks to appropriate places to do so. There are probably lots of crafty things that he's old enough to do. I'm sure he would love working with Playdough but I'm still not fond of the stuff. Cherise needs to come back to let him play with Henry's playdough. Maybe Alyssa will have Rowan and Katie and Garrett have a play time with it. We have to plan lots of fun stuff to do when they are here.
Don't you love his new "Monster Truck" shirt? The color is great and the "monsters" in the truck are very Sesame Street-esque.

He's getting to be such a big boy!

Beautiful venue for a wedding

Columbia View Park

St Helens, OR

If I was getting married outdoors I would like to have the ceremony at this park. The amphitheater type setting so so beautiful! Krytle's friend Amanda had a small wedding but the place could accommodate many more people.

Krystle the bridesmaid

All of the bridesmaids wore super high high-heels. Krystle did very well in them.  She practiced a lot here at home, walking around in them but I'm not sure she anticipated the stairs they would be walking down as part of the ceremony.

 The ring bearer and the flower girl are Amanda's nephew and niece.

 Amanda and her dad.

 This was a nice sized gazebo and it doubled as the dance floor for the reception.

 The bridesmaids' hair was so pretty.

 Alternative to a unity candle. 

I took almost as many pictures at the professional photographer. But I also took lots of random shots like flowers, table decorations and guest books. 

The reception

They didn't have a formal receiving line but with such a small group of guests it was perfect to just mingle. Photos were taken after the ceremony so it was a while before the bride and groom and the wedding party got to sit and eat. I'm sure that they are going to have some fabulous photos though.

It was a good looking wedding cake.  The fondant was very geometric looking but very true in color to the purple that was prominent in the wedding colors.

Congratulations and best wishes, Amanda!

I was happy to be able to witness this special occasion and see Krystle all gussied up.

We headed out and left the rest of the group dancing and partying at the park.

Krystle threw on a sweatshirt with a hood and we hit the road in the convertible with the top down.  I enjoyed every bit of the 61 degrees and cloudy while we were at the wedding and reception but driving home in those conditions was different. 

Wind chill factors for 61 degrees at 55 mph for a distance of 30 miles can get a bit nippy.

I did have the heat blowing on our legs though ;0)

Just like having ice cream with a hot coffee chaser. Cozy.

Morning scavenger hunt aka shopping at Fred Meyer

We dropped the kids off at school and headed for Fred Meyer.  It had been a week since we'd shopped and I was anxious to see how the remodel of our Hollywood West store was coming along.

First stop ~ rest room

 Garrett still fits in the child chair on the wall. It is nice to have someplace to keep him from wandering. The other option is to take the shopping cart into the rest room which isn't very easy to do with one of those big car carts.

 Trying out some masks

Garrett wanted to try on all of the masks in the display.
Iron Man.

Captain America &

 The Hulk. Unfortunately, he looks just like this when he gets angry. "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry!" It doesn't help that I left his bangs spikey like Hulk's when I gave him his haircut. Helping handsAfter we were done shopping we went and picked up Harlan for his coffee break.  We came back to have doughnuts and coffee at the new Peet's Coffee and Tea inside our Fred Meyer. I think that today was the first day it was open. Garrett pushed buttons on the card reader and I didn't realize it until I ran my card that all the prompts were in Spanish. I had to try to remember the order of the questions since they were not decipherable to me. #1 Did I want cash back? no #2 Total correct? si

Isn't it lovely?

Way back when the renovation first started Harlan had looked at some drawings of what various departments would look like when they were done.  We couldn't figure out where there would be an eating area near windows. That eating area has become a reality. It looks toward the east parking lot and the can return building. It has a gas burning fire place on one end and a couple of rest rooms on the other and is very lovely. 

I'm looking forward to more coffee dates here with Har. 

Perhaps next time without our busy little sidekick .

After having a whole doughnut and some of a Sobe drink, I don't know if an "Easy Nap" is going to be the case this afternoon.

Sugar buzz and a motorized cart

We really need to tag team when Garrett is with us. Especially when he's not riding in a shopping cart. He's seen this cart in use and thinks he knows what to do to get it going.

It won't be long and he will know what to do.

He's very observant and very much a "Monkey see - Monkey do" boy at this stage.

Hodge podge post

Overflowing baskets

My September calendar page pictures baskets of apples. We were blessed with a large basket of apples that we've been enjoying this week. I appreciate being able to put a whole sliced apple into each of the kids lunches.  They love them for after school snacks with peanut butter too.

I found that Garrett had emptied the shoe basket and climbed into it. I think he's starting to take after his sister a bit in the posing department.

Fall colors

 I had a purple purple color on my nails for the past 6 weeks or so but I wanted to change for fall. This new color is called "Pepe's Purple Passion" It's more of a burgundy than a purple but I like it.  I can't really wear oranges or golds very well.  But if I find a nail polish that is the color of my eyes I think I might try it because I trust that my eye color goes with my skin tone and hair color. Right?

Not the best color pink for me

I got to experience an echocardiogram today. I'm looking to get a green light to be able to start exercising. You know they always say to consult your physician before starting an exercise program.

I have some genetics that could be working against me so we're trying to be better safe than sorry. The crop length top that they gave me to wear was really comfortable and would have made an excellent pajama top, but it really wasn't my color pink. A tad too orange.

Night view of our aquarium

I'd neglected our poor aquarium for way too long. We had both of our silver dollar fish come down with swim bladder disease on the same day! Harlan and Hayden had pity on our poor fish and practically emptied the aquarium and de-algaed the glass. We picked up new air tubes and got a couple of bubbler things and the Sponge Bob house. With a little encouragement to "keep swimming" one of our silver dollars rallied and seems fine the other one was perking up but the danios started picking on him. Poor guy didn't make it. We did get a new plecostomus which we named "Sam" so we are back to a four fish tank.
I think a trip to a fish store might be in order for some barbs and a few more danios this weekend.
It's therapeutic to sit and watch the bubbles and listen to the waterfall from the filter.
"Fish are friends not food." Bruce (Finding Nemo)