Sunday Tradition

Church is long. Worth it, but long. When we finally open the chapel doors and let the kids out, they run. And run. And run. We get home and ravenously eat. Then Ben and I try to nap while the kids bounce off the walls. This does not work very well.

So now we have a new Sunday tradition. This is to prevent the children from clawing our eyes out and chewing through the walls.

We simply stop at the park on our way home and let the kids get their ya-yas out. We take a small lunch and picnic together and then the kids play for an hour or so. When we do finally come home everyone is in a much better mood and much more willing to rest while I take a nap. Because that is the most important thing that must happen every week.

Camping 2014

This year we spent two beautiful nights camping at Oxbow. It's only like a thirty minute drive and it's gorgeous. After our successful camping trip last year we figured we could handle two nights this year.

We couldn't check into the campsite until the afternoon, but Ben had the entire day off from work. We made the most of the morning by biking to Mount Tabor, hiking up to the top, and playing at the playground up there. It was a great way to start our weekend out of doors.

When we arrived at Oxbow we were immediately greeted by deer who aren't skidish at all around people. They came right into our campground, sniffed around, pooped, and galloped off with their babies in tow. It was pretty cool to see them up so close.
In addition to the friendly deer, we also encountered some thieving squirrels and crows. Shortly after we arrived at our campsite we went into the woods to explore some deer trails, leaving some fully-packaged food on the table. When we returned we were shocked to find packages of ramen strewn across the ground, holes poked into our bread, and an entire Snicker's bar missing. We kept the rest of the food safely locked in the car for the rest of the trip.

Our favorite part of Oxbow is spending time at the river. The kids spent hours digging in the sand, throwing rocks into the river, and hauling water around in their buckets. They preferred playing at the river over everything else we did on this trip. Who can blame them? It's gorgeous and peaceful.

We finally convinced the kids to go on a hike or two in the woods. The vegetation was so dense and the woods were so quiet I actually got a little bit spooked. I could just see the headline the next morning: "Family of Four Gets Eaten by Mountain Lions." Luckily, we didn't get eaten this time.

And, of course, it was back to the river to skip rocks, catch tadpoles, and build sandcastles.
Our second-favorite part of camping at Oxbow is sitting by the fire. The kids love roasting marshmallows, eating hot dogs and ramen, and throwing sticks just to watch them burn.

We loved camping at Oxbow this year! We look forward to camping there for the not-back-to-school homeschool campout later this summer.

A Little Story

Once upon a time we owned a home in Goodyear, Arizona. And that home had four bedrooms. This meant the kids each had their own room with a bedroom left over for Ben's office. We thought four bedrooms was the absolute minimum we needed at the time.

Then we moved to Portland and rented a home with three bedrooms, thinking we absolutely needed each one of those bedrooms. Shortly after moving, Tommy decided he wanted to sleep in Lily's room. The extra play room we were left with was basically wasted space because the kids would never play in there without a parent.

So then we moved to a two-bedroom apartment in inner Portland. And we thought that was the absolute minimum amount of space we needed. We bought a bunk bed to make room for more floor space.

Then the kids surprised us all and started sleeping in the same twin bed. In Lily's bed, the bottom bunk. And even though we still feel like we need that second bedroom, we are thinking the second bed in that bedroom is now wasted space.

It's funny how the same family of four can eventually transition from a 1,700 sq ft house to a 750 sq ft apartment, and still have room to spare. Cheers!

Portland Meets Juggling

We got word of a juggling festival going on today. Since we didn't have anything else going we decided to bike up to Alberta (about 35 minutes) to eat at our favorite pizza joint and watch the jugglers.

Via Chicago has amazing pizza. It is packed with flavor and the crust is just to die for. They put the sauce on top, which I thought was kind of weird at first, but apparently that's how authentic Chicago pizza is made. One small pizza feeds our whole family generously. Any excuse to visit the Alberta District is welcome as long as we get to dine at Via Chicago :)

The ride up was pretty good, save one gigantic hill that took all my might to conquer. I love biking through the beautiful inner Portland neighborhoods, especially Irvington. The houses are accurately described as small castles. Each neighborhood has it's own personality and beauty.

The jugglers were really fun. We watched a bunch of them work on tricks with each other. Some of them let us use their equipment and even showed us how to juggle a little bit. We were thoroughly entertained for an afternoon for free, which was doubly awesome.

Dancing Kids

Our kids love to dance. They love to dance to all kinds of music. If they don't have music to dance to they make up their own songs. One day they got totally silly in tub and made up several inappropriate songs. Here is a video of the dancing, without the shocking lyrics :)

Tommy Turns Five

We now have a five-year-old son. I have no idea how this happened. Somehow the giant baby we brought into the world has grown tall and slim, has learned to speak articulately, and is learning to read. We love our Tommy so much and are grateful each year for the opportunity we have to celebrate his birth.

This year we planned a marathon birthday celebration. At Tommy's request we had German pancakes for breakfast. We opened presents and played a bit with each one. Then we got on our bike and joined Ben in "le tour de Hawthorne" as we biked into work with him. We left our bike at Ben's office and then caught the train up to the zoo. Every time we go to the zoo we have to buy some candy from a specific vending machine and eat it on the big grassy lawn. Tommy's birthday was no exception.

After the zoo we went back to Ben's office and ate pizza and played foosball. We tried to make Tommy feel as special as possible.

We then biked home to meet up with our regular park day with our homeschool friends. Tommy brought a little tennis set he got for his birthday and practiced hitting the ball back and forth with his friends. We ate cookies and enjoyed the sunshine. We then went home, ate dinner, and had a small birthday party with our friends upstairs, the Meuses. Tommy requested chocolate brownies with peppermint frosting in both red and blue. I guess I didn't add enough food coloring because the red part turned out pink. Even though it looked like we were announcing that I was pregnant with twins, Tommy was thrilled with his party and his cake and even ate some of the pink part.

Thanks to everyone who participated with us to make this a special day for Tommy. We are so proud of our five-year-old boy! Here is a little video we made of Tommy's birthday celebrations:

What to do When You Can't Get a Car

Living carfree is an awesome and interesting life. We get asked many of the same questions over and over again, one of which is, "What do you do if there is somewhere you want to go, but you can't get a car." I will attempt to answer this question with a real-life example of what we actually do when this situation comes up, as it did today.

Our plan was to drive to a farm to pick our own strawberries and blueberries. It's the Portland way, and it's totally fun, not to mention delicious. I submitted several requests for a car through Getaround, but nothing came through. This was mostly our fault since we didn't plan ahead. We were pretty disappointed. There were so many fresh berries that we couldn't eat, just out of our reach! Ben left to teach a class at Free Geek and I took the kids to Swap 'n' Play to play for a bit. Honestly, I wasn't feeling great and I was just waiting for the day to be over.

Everyone got home around noon, at which time we had a choice to make. We could either just stay home and feel sad that we couldn't get a car to do what we really wanted to do, or we could open our eyes to the awesomeness that is within our reach and go do something fun. Gratefully, we chose the latter.

We stopped feeling sorry for our carless selves, got on our bikes, and spent the day in the city we love. Our first stop was Cartopia for lunch. This is one of our favorite food truck pods. There are eight or so food trucks that surround communal picnic tables. There is even a small sink to wash your hands in and a long-broken merry-go-round for the kids! It's similar to eating at the food court at the mall, except way better.

Ben ordered pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven, Lily got a toasted PB & J, and Tommy and I both ordered fried pies. It was all delicious. All of it.

After a delicious lunch we got back on our bikes and rode to Ben's work. We left the bikes there and then caught the free shuttle bus up to Washington Park. We were aiming to hike around Hoyt Arboretum, which is covered in beautiful nature trails.

The kids were hilarious on our hike. They ran, especially Lily. Her little curls bounced up and down as she ran down the trail. We always say, "The yoing-y curls are leading the way!" when she does that. At every split in the trail the kids decided which way to go and then they would take off running. It's nice to have such capable hikers on our hands!

Right at the end Lily lost her steam and insisted on being carried. She told me, "I want to sleep with Mama, at her arms." As we made our way down the last quarter mile of the hike Lily slowed way down and stopped to point out every tree that had fallen down while Tommy complained and acted like he had been hiking for days without rest or water. We eventually made it back to the shuttle stop, which took us back to our bikes, which took us home again.

So what we didn't get a car? We had a freakin' awesome day. We ate good food, hiked in the beautiful woods, and rode our bikes like champs. Yeah, we were disappointed not to go berry picking, but we'll go some other time.

So what do we do when we can't get a car? We do something else awesome instead.