Berry picking time

Sauvie Island

I think this is the earliest I've gotten out to the berry fields. I am stuck in a rut, going only to The Pumpkin Patch there on the island.  With all of the flowers for sale I felt a little like Eliza Doolittle. 

I've never noticed the signs for the restrooms before. Cute.

The strawberry field

It was a perfect morning to be out picking berries. Heavy cloud cover and cool temps were ideal.

This was Henry and Anabelle's first time at a u-pick field. Henry didn't like posing for pictures.

A few brief instructions on which berries to pick and he took off with his basket.

Oregon berry farms don't look like Michigan berry farms. There isn't any straw between the rows. Cherise and Anabelle filled a basket pretty quickly.

The boys are looking forward to some fresh strawberry smoothies. I picked up some rhubarb to mix with berries for a crisp.  We will have to go back and get some to put up into freezer jam. 

Next stop RASPBERRIES

It seemed strange driving out to the fields but it was nice to load the van with our produce and not have to haul things all the way back to the market.

The raspberries are just starting to get ripe.  There are tons of green berries.  I think Henry liked the strawberry field better than this one.  He was relegated to staying in one row at a time. We found plenty of ripe berries to make something.  Cherise took a couple of baskets with them on the road when they pulled away today.


I like this picture of Anabelle eyeing those baskets of berries.  She enjoyed sampling the strawberries and liked them a lot!

The green wheat field

I slowed down to take a picture of the wheat field on the way back to the market. I'm sure it won't look like this in another month. There is a lot of green in those stalks still.

Home with the harvest

Fresh Northwest Berries

Four and a half pounds of raspberries and seven and a half pounds of strawberries.

Not bad for a having an almost 3 year old and almost 1 year old along for the experience.

Now it's time for me to be getting them ready to eat!

Followed this truck

Love the bumper sticker!

All I have to say is "Yah, you betcha!"

Another day of summer

Today's walk

Today the guys walked straight south about a mile and back. And they had company. Cherise, Henry, Anabelle and I strolled along with them. Reesie and fam are here for a very brief stay.

Bus boys

 I made them sit at the bus shelter for a photo op. It's hard to squeeze four guys onto two seats.

Cafe D'Arte

We were pretty bummed that they no longer carry gelato. I guess the company that supplied it went out of business. They had to settle for smoothies. Cam had an Oasis, Seb a Zinger and Hayden had "Sand In (his) Shorts" :0)

 Miss Anabelle is a graham cracker junkie. Actually I haven't known her to turn down any sort of food that she was able to chew.

Back at the house

 Boy, does she get around. Creeping, crawling, getting up to sitting, back down to crawling, pulling up to standing... There's not a lot that she can't do, except walk. She can even play on the Sit and Spin.

Slow, slow-cooker = Red Robin... YUM

 We'll eat our slow cooked beef tomorrow.  It should be done by then! I hope so anyway. 

In the meantime. we drove over to Red Robin for supper. Henry got his meal first, which was great, but then he was ready to be done before some of the others.  

So Henry and Gramma went on a walk.

 What kind of flowers are these?

 They look like fiesta flowers! So colorful.

 Henry wanted me to take a picture of the purple ones.

 I was overwhelmed by the hydrangeas blooming there between rows in the parking lot.  Henry and I walked along them periodically  watching for airplanes.  We saw a lot of planes!

The cushy lawn was more conducive to watching the sky, so Hens kicked back for a few seconds (literally) and then we were off again on our walk.

It sure is fun to have these kids here again!

First day of SUMMER!

Cool even going for a nap

In honor of summer he's sporting shades. He doesn't have a pacifier for naps or bedtime anymore, as he has bitten holes in all of them.  We have no more good ones so this is it.

Freddy's flowers

Today when  I went into the garden center a humming bird was flying just a foot or so from me. Of course I couldn't get my camera out in time to take a picture. But as I was picking up a new shade planter and talking to the clerk, I saw the bird again. It was sitting on one of the fountains. I got my camera out and watched it fly over to the flowers and start eating again.

I managed to get a few clear photos. I guess they really are attracted to red. Do you see the tiny speck of red on each of these blossoms?

Focus on fruit

 I would really like to get one of these fresh raspberry tarts on our anniversary.

It looks delicious!

 These dipped strawberries and the tiny fruit tarts remind me of the petite desserts at the buffets in Las Vegas. They were so cute and tasty.

Summer stroll

 It was such a beautiful day, I made the kids go over to the park to play for a while.

The stair steps are getting less pronounced with these three guys. 

Hayden (17), Sebastian (15) and Cam (13)... my how they've grown!

Sebastian is hanging out with our guys for a week or so.  They spend a great deal of time with their screen games so I've determined that they are going to get outside at least once a day for an hour or so.  Yesterday they walked to Fred Meyer.  Today they were supervising the kids' trip to the park.

Iced coffee and free wifi

While the kids went to the park, we continued to walk and ended up at Starbucks with Garrett.  He had an apple juice but had to show off his stick that he picked up along the way instead.  Harlan used his Kindle for the first time outside of the house. I had the iPad with me.  We felt pretty high tech sitting there checking our emails.

Mid-day creativity

Power outage
We had a random power outage in the middle of the day yesterday. The kids quickly wanted me to go down and flip the breaker to put it back on. Couldn't fix it myself this time. They had to find other stuff to occupy themselves.

The bigger kids got a stack of books each and started working their way through them. I'm going to have to start picking up more age appropriate books for Wyatt.  Though he was given a huge amount of Wishbone books from Krystle, along with a few Hardy Boys Adventures. They have been counted among his most cherished treasures.

I caught Garrett behind the tv trying to turn it on.  Sorry buddy, you'll have to play with toys.

Danika to the rescue

Danika took it upon herself to get him occupied with his "fireball". He is getting better on spinning on his Sit and Spin too. They played catch and rolled it back and forth and then she opted for a soccer match.

I'm happy that the power wasn't off for long but it was nice while it lasted.

It was so quiet without the hum of computer fans and other sounds that are the norm.

Fun times across the country

Our kids had one of these tornado maker type thingys back in the day.  Alyssa picked one up and they had to get to the bottom of a couple of soda bottles to set theirs up. Rowan looks very pleased with his glitter tornado. Makes me want to swing by OMSI to get one of these for here.

In less than two weeks Hayden is going to be able to sit on the back deck there with Rowie and watch the swirling in person. Oh how I wish Har and I were able to go too! 

Hayden is going to have soooo much fun!!!

I'm excited for him.