A Wolf and a Bear

Not scary animal sightings in the wilderness, but the new badges my boys have earned in Cubscouts this summer. I got a quick snapshot of them at our August Packmeeting in the park.

Yes, Caden is wearing football pants (coming late, straight from practice) and yes, they are wet from a water fight. Sometimes pictures aren't meant to be good, just meant to document life and memories.

I also got to fulfill my motherly responsibilities and chaperone 2 days (since I have 2 boys, I guess) at cubscout day camp this summer. I actually love watching and listening to boys this age - it is a real hoot. And I love seeing my boys learn and try new things.Tyler was a natural at the BB Guns. He was pretty impressed with his mom who got a couple bulls-eyes too! It's no wonder I have all boys - I really like this stuff, and I'm not too shabby!
On to being eagle scouts someday...if I have anything to do with it!

Free to Hit the Road

My hubby and I returned home from our date Friday, Aug 19th and realized that we had nothing going on the next day! A miracle! So we decided before football and soccer games started and we were back to fall weekends, crammed full - we'd take full advantage. So we did an impromptu road trip a couple of hours north to Tacoma, WA to visit family and make a surprise appearance at a cousin's wedding reception.

They might look a little intimidating...but these boys are pretty good travelers and were up for the trip.

We met up with Bart's brother's family and spent the afternoon with them at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium.

The boys were amazed at the animals. I have to admit, I was pretty impressed myself!

Lukers loved the discovery lab and getting to touch the starfish...a little too much...he started grabbing and flinging them...kind of frowned upon by the zoo employees.

A lot of excitment and large crowds helped us lose our oldest child for a little while. It was a little scary and I was feeling like a pretty lousy parent. But luckily Cade kept his head about him and thought to ask someone to borrow their cell phone and call his dad's number before we got too worried. Smart boy!
It ended up being one great day! Sometimes the unplanned trips make for the best ones.

Dickson Family Reunion

When you get 2 parents, 6 Dickson siblings (from all corners of the country), their spouses and combined 16 children (all 9 and under) together for a week - what do you get? Well besides CHAOS?

FUN!!

Bart and I hosted the first Bi-Annual Dickson family reunion. Our amazing family flew from Florida and Seattle (and in between) to the great Northwest to spend a week in one of my family's favorite places- Black Butte Ranch, OR. We truly had a great time enjoying the outdoors and being together.

After a huge BBQ dinner Monday night, the kids gathered around Grandma for a fun family home evening - they listened to the story of "Nephi - the Shipbuilder"

and even got to play with a real hand-made bellows!

then, made their own twinkie "ships".
or just ate the ship ingredients!

One thing the week had plenty of was good food. When you have an event with Grandma Debbie, the eating is definitely TOP NOTCH! Cooking for 30 people for 7 days straight doesn't even phase her.

Besides good food, there was lots of game-playing, bike riding, tennis and swimming. The dads enjoyed a hike of Black Butte, the moms took an afternoon away to shop in Sisters.

There were German-style disco dances in the dark with glow sticks!

And a little time for relaxation...when grandkids weren't sneaking up on you!

He still managed to convince Grandpa into taking him golfing!

And even talked Grandpa into letting him drive the cart!

By the end, there were lots of tired kids, sun drenched faces, and smiles!
After our fun-filled week at the ranch, some went straight home, while the rest reconveined back in Portland for a couple of nights. We hyped up Tualatin's own Crawfish Festival and stared the day off by convincing our family to march in the parade for our friend who is running for Congress - they were of course great sports! Then (in 100 degree heat) checked out what a crawfish festival is about - it was our family's first year attending, so hyping it up was pretty risky. Luckily it wasn't a huge dissapointement.

Of course we had to eat crawfish! Bet you didn't know it's the oldest Crawfish Festival in the U.S. (We all have a fame to claim!)

Dad shows us how it's done.

Caden wasn't a fan.

But the week earned two thumbs up - definitely a hit and fun for everyone. Our family is truly one of our greatest treasures. They are simply wonderful. Thanks to all of them for traveling to our neck of the woods for this one...we're looking forward to the next time!

Enjoying the Harvest

End of summer means time to pick what we planted! Our garden won't be featured in BH&G by any means, but I still get giddy when I glance over at it from my kitchen window each day. I was especially tickled with our little improvements to it this year - we built up a little stone retaining wall and made it into an actual "raised" bed...
and planted a load of new things...
I'm not sure what happened to my pictures of cabbage, peppers and carrots in 6 different colors! The zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes are just beginning to ripen...and will be coming out of ears soon! Hey, for someone who has a black thumb - you can't blame me for being excited!

Cuteness

My very talented photographer friend (http://www.shondabarlowphotography.com/) came across a new must-have prop when she went antique shopping. She wanted to give it a test run - she just needed a cute-one-year-old-boy to fit inside...hey! I have one of those! I think it turned out perfect, even if he wouldn't smile.

We're Back

I don't know where the last 3 months went...mostly baseball is to blame. But for anyone who really follows my blog - rest assured I haven't gone permanently missing (like some people we know - jyl - not to mention any names). But now that we're not spending every night of the week eating dinner out of a bag, spitting (or swallowing as my little ones do) sunflower seeds, and cheering on our older two ball players - I actually think I miss it! - and I actually have enough time to download pictures off my camera and blog. Because I like to slurp my blog into a book at the end of the year (my version of scrapbooking) I have posted the things we've been up to (besides baseball) in seperate posts. So keep scrolling down a ways! You even have to click "older posts" to get to page 2! And don't worry, I'll post end-of-season baseball pictures shorlty after the end-of-season parties are wrapped up! Now we're enjoying long summer days swimming at grammy's, working in the yard and soaking in summer - until football starts the second week of Aug! Welcome to my world.

4th of July at Black Butte

After months of baseball and a slew of cold, wet weather, we joined my sister and her family in a trip to Black Butte to finally kick off the summer. We didn't include a whole lot of patriotic celebration (some BBQing a a little lesson in the hottub about our amazing country), but managed a lot of biking, swimming, tennis and relaxing - what we do best at Black Butte Ranch. The older kids loved that we let them go do some activities themselves - kids becoming independent can be a great thing! Besides Luke getting sick, we had a great time with our raggedy bunch.