Taste of Home

A few weeks back I commented on my sister in law's facebook post. Went something like this:

Olivia - "Sucks living in Denver where you have to pay an arm and a leg for almonds" Stacey - "I know what you mean Olivia" (paraphrasing here, I'm not sure of the exact wording of the online conversation).

A week later the mail lady delivered a package to the front door step. To my surprise and delight, it was a bag of almonds from our wonderful cousin Terri Boersma. Today we made a trip to Walmart. Not my favorite place to shop, but sometimes the convenience of buying sneakers and tater tots in one stop is too much to pass up. The exciting thing about shopping at Walmart, is that each summer we can buy our watermelons there. And these aren't just any watermelons, they are non other than Van Groningen & Sons melons. As I walked by the bin I noticed the familiar label and quickly decided to bring one home. I told Weston, "these are from Avo's neighbor". He said "oh, Vo's nebor", as if he knew what I was talking about. So then I told him "Jason grew these". That was all it took for him to be convinced it was worth buying. He then proceeded to proudly tell every person we passed in the store "Jason grew this", while pointing to the melon. Thank you Boersma Brothers and Van Groningen & Sons for growing great products. And thank you Danielle Cultrera for working hard to make sure watermelons keep getting shipped to Oregon Walmart stores. Now, if we could just figure out how to get some Brentwood corn and good peaches up here!!

da Vinci Days

If you asked our friends or family, they would probably say that we are pretty "mainstream" type of people. In fact, I would like to think we are quite normal, if there is such a thing. On Sunday however we stepped out of the box (and in to the rain I might add), and attended da Vinci Days in Corvallis. What is this event you ask??? According to their website, "da Vinci Days is Oregon's premier arts and science festival". The three day festival includes film screenings, music, art, science and tech exhibits and races (more to follow on those a little later). A friend told us about it and said it's a must see, in his words "at least once in your lifetime".

We started the morning on the OSU campus. There were different sections set up and we of course went to the kids zone. Weston had fun playing with bubbles, trying to juggle, looking at bugs and frogs, making paper airplanes, etc. Danny and I did a lot of people watching....thinking we looked out of place. Most everyone around us seemed "earthy, greenie or hippie" like. Tyge....assuming his regular position. Then we found the real interesting stuff, when we headed downtown and to the riverbanks. Remember when I mentioned races earlier? One of those is the Graand Kinetic Challenge, where racers ride 10 miles of city streets, over a man-made sand dune, across 3000 feet of sun-dried, clay pasture, through 200 feet of deep, thick, sticky mud, and down 2 miles of the Willamette River...all under pedal power. We barely missed seeing the mud bog, but arrived just in time to watch the contraptions enter the river. Weston was a little freaked out by it all.
I think these people may have been using fungi for some alternative purposes when they came up with this one....
There were a few that didn't make it into the river, including one that resembled a taco shop, another that Weston said was a rocket ship, and some others that were well, just undescribable. It was a very interesting day of interesting people....not sure if we'll make it back to da Vinci days next year, it may be a little too wacky for us.

Randomness

Hide and seek is one of Weston's favorite games. He adapted a version to play with Tyge, consisting of putting the hat over his eyes, and then pulling it up and yelling "find you!".A much needed, but unwanted haircut. After some threatening remarks from Daddy, he did sit still for the duration.
Tyge wanting to be up in Weston's business. It's usually well received, but sometimes I have to intervene as Weston will push Tyge out of the way.

Cousin Kash

Tami, Scott and Kash spent the 4th of July in Montana and decided to take the LONG way back to California so they could visit us. Kash and Tyge are 15 days apart...can you guess who is older. They boys were pretty intrigued by each other. While they were here we did some touristy things, like tour the old flour mill by the river.
Weston really liked having Kash around too.
Thanks for coming to see us! Looking forward to having more visitors from California this weekend....Auntie Dolores and cousins Sheri, Kristin and Melissa!

Independence Day!

This year we celebrate America by cleaning the barn, pulling weeds and mowing the lawn. Ok, so it was a gorgeous day outside and we did lots of chores. After the work was done we enjoyed BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, zucchini and mac and cheese out on the patio....can't get more American than that can we? Brownsville has a great fireworks show, so we came in and got the boys cleaned up before heading down town. The boys were in the living room playing while I was getting ready. Every couple of minutes I peaked in on them. First Weston conked out on the floor, and just a minute or so later Tyge crawled over next to him and did the same.We woke them up and headed to Bill and Christy's house. They were just finishing up their hot dogs and then we walked through town to the park. Tyge fell back asleep, and although Weston was quiet throughout most of the show, he did say "pretty neat" a couple of times.
Bill, Christy, Hannah & Jeremiah
Happy 4th of July!!!!

Schwingfest!

Every 4th of July weekend we try and head up to Francis, Washington to attend Schwingfest. For those of you unfamiliar....beer, men wrestling in burlap sacks, beer, Swiss music and dancing, beer, bratwurst and more beer. Having two little ones we can no longer "tent-it" down at the Swiss park, so this is the second time we rented a travel trailer (cheaper and more convenient than the closest hotel, not to mention more fun!). Danny was lucky enough to have Friday off too, so we were able to leave early and got a little bit of down time in before the festivities kicked off. We took the kiddos to play and Flo did some baby-sitting while I helped Weston with the slide.
Our friends Scott & Amanda soon arrived and Weston immediately went to playing with their kiddos, Clara and Jacob.
Weston loved pretty much everything about the trailer..."look what I can do mom!".
Bunk mates. Weston came back from fishing with his dad, Scott and Jacob. "How big was your fish Weston?"
Holding on tight to Scott....too many people in one place I guess!
Hey Daddy....what's that you said....your head hurts? Let me crawl and bang on it some more.
Weston's favorite spot.
Jacob and Colton wrestling.
Weston enjoying his lollypop from Scott (no wonder he likes him so much!), while watching the Schwingers.
One out....the other was soon to follow.
Playing with Amanda.
Ice cream served by the Swiss Miss! And the most exciting thing about the entire weekend.....we got to meet Sadie Lynn Kaech (here with Aunt Mary)! It's only right that her first stop on the way home from the hospital would be the Swiss Hall! Congratulations TJ and Amber!