Random Stuff

I know it's been two weeks since I have posted last, but the time just seems to get away from me. I've been wanting to post these pictures for some time now.

On the 7th we went for our annual trip to Winston to pick cherries. The kids had a blast. Here are some of my favorite pictures from that trip.

Lynn climbing a ladder to get some on the very top of the tree. I had a hard time keeping Miles from following him!

Miles wasn't sure about picking the cherries at first, he was more interested in eating them! But once he got into it, he was hard to stop!

Here he is with his basket full. Notice the flower in the basket - he picked that and insisted on putting it there!

Ellie had fun picking cherries too. The trees are small and there were lots that were low enough for the kids to reach on their own.

Ellie's full basket. She saw her brother's flowers and had to put some in her basket too.

After we were done picking about 20 pounds of cherries, we stopped at Dairy Queen for ice cream (just another part of the tradition) and then we met up with some friends and went to a park that was nearby. The kids had a blast playing with McKenzie and Philip, and it was really fun to see thier mom, Sarah too.

They had a couple of really tall play structures, and Miles of course had to climb them. That kid amazes me sometimes with his lack of fear. Lynn stayed close by him though, and followed him up.

Not only did they have tall play structures, they also had a really tall slide - notice that you can't see the top over my husband's nearly six foot head - Miles of course insisted on going down it. Over and over again! I don't know how many times Lynn climbed up and down those steps!

We had a great day in Winston! We kept busy the next week going swimming and to the park. I got my hair cut and sent to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. I had two ponytails that were about 9 inches long. My hair is pretty short now, but I love it. It is so much cooler, and I'm not getting headaches like I was. Sorry, I don't have any pictures of it yet :)

Saturday the 12th, we went Kid Jam, which is a big kids festival type thing. They have booths all over and a ton of stuff for the kids to do.

Our first stop, Ellie had her face painted - that's an ice cream cone on her left cheek. She thought that was pretty neat. Miles absolutely refused to let the lady anywhere near his face. He kept looking at her like, "You want to do what???"

Then we went to see all the fire trucks and met up with Smokey the Bear. Miles wasn't too sure about him either, but we did get him to high five Smokey. - I had a picture of Ellie with Smokey all uploaded but figured out how to delete a picture with it! :)

They liked the old fire truck too.

One of the booths had a paint your own face table, they said it was because they weren't very artistic! Ellie thought that was pretty fun, it looks more like war paint to me. Looks like we might have some big lessons to learn when it comes time to learn how to put on make up!

At about the very end, we made it to this outdoor stage where they invited anyone who wanted to come up and dance with them. They were doing the Macerena, Ellie really tried, and had a lot of fun. Miles, Amber (the girl who babysits for us, came to help with the kids) and I watched.

The kids had a blast at Kid Jam and we all came home really tired. Ellie asked for the next week when it was going to happen again.

It seems we have been pretty busy every day. The garden is doing well, and we are starting to enjoy some fresh veggies. The kids love seeing everything grow.

We are looking forward to another fun filled week. Lynn is taking vacation this week, and Dad is going to come down for a visit. We plan on going to the beach, visiting friends in Coquille/Arago, and going to the Coos County Fair so Ellie can see a real rodeo. Then we are going up to Brooks on Saturday and will go to a big Steam Tractor show there. It will be fun to have Dad along too. I think he will really enjoy the thing on Saturday.

Well, I got up because I couldn't sleep, and now I'm feeling pretty sleepy, so will go. Will try to post again next week after all our fun!

Late Night Ponderings

This is the first time in a long time that I have been unable to sleep. Last year this was a regular occurance, but lately I have been able to get to sleep pretty easily. Not so tonight. So, since I haven't posted in a while, I thought I would post and see if anyone still reads this. If you do, I apologize for not posting for so long, and I will try to do better. :)

I have been so incredibly tired lately that just getting through the day has been a struggle, so posting on here was just not on my radar. The last month has gone by so quickly. I have my garden planted and it is growing nicely. We ate fresh picked broccoli at dinner tonight, and also had a salad with lettuce, and radishes from the garden in it. Ellie loves to pick radishes and I know she will also love to pick the carrots, beets and peas when they are ready. Both the kids are excited about growing things in the garden. I weeded and then fed it with Miricle Grow last week too.

I have flowers growing too. I planted two rose bushes a few months ago, right before it snowed in April. One is a yellow rose that will be really pretty when it matures. I already have had a couple of blooms from it. The other one, I thought was a red rose, but it tured out to look like this.

The fragrance is awesome too. I have been enjoying it for about a week now. I think this bush only blooms once, but with blooms like this, I can handle it. It had a nice long stem and was so awesome. I can't wait to see it in a few years when it is nicely established!

Our 4th of July was fun. We had a neighbor invite us to a block party and it was nice to get to meet some of our neighbors. Miles loved the fireworks. While Lynn was lighting then he would call out "Careful Daddy!", but after they went of he would say "Do it again!" They stayed up way too late last night and slept in this morning. Miles also wanted to do fireworks again tonight.

Lynn has been working a lot this week. He worked 6 days in a row, 12 hours each. He is exhausted, especially with the late night last night. We will enjoy his 4 day weekend. Then he will work next two weeks and take the last week of July off. We are looking foward to a little bit of a vacation, although we won't be going too far away from home with gas prices like they are.

Well, this has become a pretty long post, and I should close. I promise I will try to post more often too.