Jammin' This Week

 Monday evening we went and played at the new local playground. Meg had fun riding her scooter around, some of us had fun with the basketball, and the seesaw was very popular.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Meg finally collapsed onto the grass and announced that it was time to go home.

Wednesday morning I made apricot jam with a friend of mine. Myles was especially happy about this because it is his favorite!

Rheavyn made some Lemon Curd. It tastes divine.

Two of my quilts are done at the quilters and now it will be time to pick them up, drop off the other two, and start on the binding.

 

 

I love how beautiful the lady makes the quilts look💓

Rhaevyn may be acquiring another job once an evening during the week watching a little boy in our ward. 

Aeva and I traveled down to Portland Wednesday evening. This is one of my least favorite places to drive. Too many one way streets and too much traffic for me. I feel like I am holding my breath the entire time I am driving in the city. The good news is that we made it to our destination with seconds to spare, and I finally found my way home after driving over the Burnside bridge twice. We went to an orientation for a Japanese student exchange program. Aeva will be helping out with the ESL classes this coming week and going on field trips with the Japanese high school students. She will be taking the bus down to Portland, which I am a bit nervous about, but I think for my own sanity we will be picking her up down there in the evenings. I can't seem to make heads or tails of the whole transit map to make sure she gets back up here in the evenings. She is both excited and nervous about the upcoming week. 

I'm finalizing food and decorations for our ward youth conference this coming Saturday night. I am hoping it all turns out great and that the outcome looks, and tastes, as good as the ideas I have in my head 😊

A Scout Camp, another July Birthday, and a Bit of a Hike

 Monday we decided to go for a bit of a hike at Klineline Pond. It was a hot, somewhat creepy, and fun hike. Myles made it down and up this incline three times to help three of his sisters, and me, down to the water.

 

 

  These three were skipping along down the trail.

 We hiked under the freeway overpass. This is the part the kids thought was a bit creepy. It did kind of have an eerie feel.

 

 

 

 

 

 We found a crawdad and a huge tadpole. The crawdad  kind of blends in, but you can make out half of its body and one claw.

 

 At the end of our hike we spent time at the splashpad that is located just to the west of the pond.
Elsa got cooled off with this bucketful of water.

 

 Tuesday we spent time at Kiwanis Park and Splash-pad with our Levesque friends. The kids had fun playing together and having lunch.

 

 I was given a new recipe for Yorkshire Pudding. Finally, I have a recipe that I work well with. They turned out so fluffy and yummy! We ended up using these with Aeva's Sloppy Jo recipe.

 Myles had 11 year old scout camp this past week. Chris was able to go each day with him and do the camp out Friday night. They both had a blast! They had some really fun things planned for the scouts: bottle rockets, leather making, sharpening an ax, throwing knives and tomahawks, making paracord bracelets, interviewing veterans, making a chair, and weaving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Myles was so thrilled that he made a bulls-eye with his tomahawk!

 

 

 Rhaevyn has been busy painting more rocks. She also is going to be helping out our eye doctor's wife twice a week for a few hours. They had twins so Rhaevyn will be helping with their three little boys and doing some cleaning. She is excited about that.

 We celebrated Christopher's birthday yesterday. Rhaevyn painted this rock for him and he took it to work today to add to all of his other rocks that she has painted for him as well as things the other kids have made for him.

 

We picked out a shirt for him; it is a Studio Ghibli movie shirt from Princess Mononoke.

The youth in our ward are going to be having a youth conference. They did tie dye shirts the other night for it. It was a lot of fun. The Miamaids and I are over the Saturday night dinner. I'm gathering decoration ideas and putting the meal together. The theme is family history. These are the shirts that Aeva and I did. Aeva's is the red and blue one. It was fun to see how all the shirts turned out. 

This picture of Aeva reminds me of the Sound of Music. Next week she will be having a bit of an adventure.............