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!

 

Silver Falls

A couple of weekends ago we went to Silver Falls for a hike with some friends.  The water was quite high and the falls impressive!  This is the South Falls and only one of dozens of falls in the park.

Here is the trail you can take to go behind the waterfall.

Happy boys on a fun adventure!

Their friend Anders and his family enjoyed the day with us!

They are three peas in a pod!  Here they are looking at and analyzing the map of all the falls after our hike.  Great times!!

 

Bike Race and the Grand Prize!

At the beginning of  June the boys' school put on their annual Corvallis Spring Roll bike ride.  The boys were very excited since this year they got to ride in the street with the bigger kids!  They were also very serious in thinking it was a bike 'race'.  It wasn't really  a 'race'...more of a 'ride' to see how many times a rider could go around the course (more of do your personal best).
In this picture the boys are getting ready to start...and Cole is not super excited to see all the children that are in front of him at the starting line!

There goes Dylan!

And Cole!

The 'ride' was for an hour and I could hardly get them to stop for drink breaks.  I'm telling you they were VERY determined to go around the course fast and many times!  They ended up going around 11 times which was between 6 -7 miles total!

Here the boys are enjoying their victory burritos that a local restaurant provided for all the participants...yeah Laughing Planet!  That was definitely a highlight for the boys!!  Then there was a raffle that all the participants were entered into...prizes were like bike helmets, gift cards for bike shops, ice cream gift cards, water bottles and gift cards for parents night out event at The Little Gym (parents leave kids in evening at The Little Gym and kids get to do gymnastics and games)...Dylan won a gift card for the parents night out AND....

...ended up winning the GRAND PRIZE of a brand new Specialized Rock Hopper bike!!  That is like a $200 kids bike!  Cole was a bit unhappy at first because Dylan won two things and Cole none...but the boys worked out a deal where for about a week (or it seemed until Cole forgot about it) Cole would get to ride his bike in front and Dylan would ride his new bike in the back.  If you have ever gone on a bike ride with Dylan and Cole you would know that that was a big concession for Dylan (aka the boy who always wants to be first).  There is ALWAYS debate on who gets to ride in front and when they get to switch spots...so that made Cole's pain ease a bit. 

It was also a special weekend because Aunt Lesley and Grandpa Charlie drove up from San Francisco to watch Mom play in the Willamette Valley Symphony...and they got to cheer the boys on during the bike ride!

Here we all are with a few celebratory cup cakes after the ride.

Cole asked if next time we could just get the icing and forget the cake part!

Here Grandpa Charlie is giving the play-by-play of a rugby game to Cole and Aunt Lesley.  Can't believe we didn't get a picture of all of us!!  Just means you guys will have to come back again soon!!

 

Friday Harbor Visit

Memorial Day weekend we drove up to visit Nana at her new spot on Friday Harbor.
There is a pond at her new place...and the boys were in this position for much of the weekend!  Next time we visit we have to bring empty jars with us because Nana didn't have enough to keep all the creatures the boys kept finding!

We spent a lovely day at South Beach.  That is the Olympics in the background...and we saw a whale too (at least I (Claire) saw it!).

Lot's of fabulous seaweed to play with!

And fantastic kelp to drag around!

Mom and Dad's toes...watching Nana and the boys throw stones into the water.

Relaxing to just sit back and watch the boys having fun.

Strolling  down the beach with Nana!

Dylan pulling another kelp!

Lots of great drift wood to climb around on...and only got a few bruises falling off the logs!!

We got to watch this plane land and take off on the water...between lot's of boats on the harbor.

Cole and Nana having a cocktail together before having to take the ferry back home!
Thanks for a great visit Nana!!

 

Where did May go?

OK. So where did the month of May go?! It went by way too fast that is for sure! We managed to pack in the fun though!!

 Mom and Dad got a chance to go to Portland to see a Portland Timbers game (soccer).

 We visited a friend who's sheep just had babies.

And got to feed the lambs with a bottle!

This is a strong little lamb!! I can hardly hold it still...kind of built like Cole...a brick!

They got to pick them up and give them a hug!

Cole could do arm curls with this little guy! "He's not heavy at all!" says Cole through clenched teeth!

We made it back up to Portland to celebrate cousin Brooke's birthday! Which means we got a little Grandma time too!

Mom got to jet down to LA to watch Uncle David graduate from USC film school with a graduate degree in cinematic writing (screen writing). Here we are having brunch and having a very LA moment with our outdoor seating, fancy food and celebrities walking by (with their paparazzi following them). And it happened to be my birthday so it was all so special!!

The graduate. So proud.

My dad and his girls.

Me and Aunt Lesley! 

Our mothers day brunch before we all headed back to our respective homes.

May was a great weather month in Corvallis.  It was WARM!!!  And the SUN came out!! Here we are having bedtime stories in the evening sunshine.

This is Cole's "I just enjoyed my first Popsicle of the season" face.
 

This is still Cole's "I just enjoyed my first Popsicle of the season" face...it lasted quite a while!

Rob and his mini-him. Dylan.

With all the good weather and sunshine we even got our garden all planted!

The boys are excellent garden helpers...even when you need more than a hole dug! Here they are planing our corn.  Cole is putting the seeds in and Dylan is covering and tamping down the soil.

Dylan stuck in a bucket is always a fun time.

So much so that Cole had to get stuck too!!