Weekend Trip to Bend

 Last weekend we drove over to Bend for the weekend to see a few sights.
We spent a day at the fabulous High Desert Museum.

Dylan as a park ranger...possible future job opportunity since he does enjoy telling people everything he knows!

 Cole the fisherman.

We watched a raptor show and a critters of the desert show where we saw a skunk, a badger, a snake, and this very cute porcupine.

Enjoyed spending some time outside in the sun and heat along the Deschutes River.

The next day we hit the lava.  Here we are at the Lava Visitor Center where there were many cool displays about the surrounding volcano's and lava flows.

Then we were able to go up to the top of Lava Butte and walk the rim trail.

Some amazing views of eastern Oregon!

Then we needed to cool off a bit (since it was bloody hot there!  I'm talking like 90 degrees!!  Us western Oregonians just saw the sun for the first time this year about a week ago!) so we headed to the Lava River Cave.  It is about 40-50 degrees in the cave and is a pitch black 1 mile hike to the end.  Good think we had headlamps, flashlights and a lantern!

To end our lovely weekend we headed to an outdoor amphitheater to hear some live music.  But it was so hot and the amphitheater had no shade, so we stayed for one song before heading back to the river to cool off.  We are on a pedestrian bridge watching the hundreds of people float down the Deschutes River.

 

Happy 4th of July!

 We had a lovely 4th of July with some of our great friends.  The kiddos obviously had a blast too!!

Gotta love that corn on the cob!

Sparklers...not so excited when it is this light out.  It was about 8.30pm but it stays so light so late that is was the best we could do.   

Rob kept saying wave the sparkler around and you can write your name with it...not so much with the sun shining!  The boys were up until about 9.30 when they just petered out so they missed the big fireworks again this year...since they didn't go off until about 10.20pm!  We'll try again next year! 

 

Early summer harvest & Dirk Bones

Some of our first garden harvests of spring...Dylan is holding half the cilantro we harvested and Cole is holding about a 1/3 of the cherries we got from our cherry tree.  Last year we only got 4 cherries total so we were very excited for such a huge harvest this year!

 To get ready for this year's berry harvest season we had to use up the last of our frozen berries from last year...so we baked a berry pie!  Guess Dylan thought it would taste better in the nude!

Both boys are amazing readers.  Here is a little taste of Dylan reading out loud...

Beach Time

To start the summer off right we headed to the beach for a few days at our friends beach house in Ocean Side.

We had several lovely days of typical Oregon beach weather.

But enjoyed every moment!
Mom and her boys!!

The sun did come out too!

The boys had so much fun climbing on the rock and exploring for sea creatures. They could do this for hours!!

The boys were very prepared for all weather Oregon skies through our direction.  Including high tide that made some seriously fun pools of water! 

They didn't even bother removing the rain gear...they said it was fun to have their rain pants fill with water.  They said it made them too heavy for Mom and Dad to pick them up.  They had a blast with that!

Dylan getting a snack from Dad who doesn't have his hands covered in sand!

Cole digging a hole big enough to put his whole arm in.

Dylan telling Dad all about what he saw in the tide pools.

Dad carrying both boys out to the water.

Hiking down the beach...

Happy Cole.

This was a great low tide where we go to see many fabulous tide pools.

Again the disregard for the current clothing attire...

The boys were so excited to be almost stranded on this rock island...but they swam to safety, still in their rain gear!

Who is happy to be at the beach?

Mom is very excited to be here!

Cole is a happy guy sitting on his sitting stick while playing his stick violin...you never know what these boys will come up with next!

Dylan blissfully playing in the warm sands!

 

From Strawberries to Friends

We were excited for a few days of sun...and went out to our favorite farm to pick strawberries.

Cole is an expert picker. He is very concentrated in his picking effort and inspects each berry!

Dylan is our expert taster and bucket manager.

The Montessori school the boys go to had a lovely end of year celebration where the Head of School sang with all the children in the school for the parents.  It was a great year and the boys are looking forward to next year (their Kindergarten year) at the school.

Right after school got out we had some of our favorite visitors...Nicole and Jonah!
Here the boys are all playing the piano in costume!

Off to have dinner together in downtown Corvallis.

Silly boys trying on hats at Old Navy!