So not ready

I woke up one morning about two weeks ago and I could suddenly feel fall in the air. It was still warm, but the air was somehow different - crisp. Now some of the trees up here are starting to look like this:




Fall is a bittersweet season for me. It is my favorite time of year to run because the air feels so good. I love fall colors and the harvest. Fall also means that winter is coming though, and that's not a happy thing for me. I love being outdoors, but not in the cold. I have a hard time staying warm most of the year, and the cold is actually painful in the winter. Summer up here was short this year. I'm not ready for it to end.

In Oregon, late summer means blackberries and peaches. Blackberries bushes are weeds here and they grow along the sides of the roads everywhere. Spencer and I have been picking a few times, but not many blackberries have made it to the freezer. They're too good fresh!

We went peach picking with some friends last week, but I forgot my camera. Here's what I did with 30 pounds of peaches though:




13 quarts of peaches and 1 batch of jam. Canning is definitely a lot more time consuming and not nearly as much fun when you have to do it by yourself. Don't let Spencer's smile fool you. He was NOT a happy guy while I was canning. He came down with a fever that lasted 3-4 days the day we picked the peaches. My poor little buddy felt so rotten and so grouchy. He laid on the couch and watched movies (well, one movie over and over and over) for the majority of the time.

This he is when he got sick of TV. He came to make "oatmeal" in my rice cooker.




Spencer woke up a new little boy yesterday, thank heavens. He was happy and cuddly all day. I'm afraid he might be hooked on movies now though. (He hadn't watched any TV to speak of until last week.) His "bumble bee movie" is going to be disappearing very soon, but I let him watch it for a few minutes this morning. When I told him he couldn't take his snack on the couch, Spencer spread his "blankelie" on the floor for his own little picnic.




In other news, we purchased a potty for Spencer today. I don't think he's ready to starting potty training yet, but figured it wouldn't hurt to have the potty around so he could get used to it. Spencer was quite excited about it - for 10 minutes.

Soakin' in the Fog

Last week, we realized that we hadn't been to the beach all summer. Pretty lame considering we only live 90 minutes away from the coast. So, we put our trim and yard work on hold for another weekend and made a quick trip to Lincoln City on Saturday. We were prepared with long pants and jackets since the high was only supposed to be 61 degrees, but were pleasantly surprised at how warm and not windy it was on the beach.

Spencer wasn't quite old enough to enjoy the beach last summer, so this was his first time really playing in the sand. He LOVED it and I loved watching him love it. We had planned to go on a hike after playing on the beach, but were having so much fun that we just stayed there the whole time.




I think Alan was unsuccessfully trying to convince Spencer to get his feet wet.




Mud!




The water was frigid and numbed my feet even when I just waded in long enough to fill Spencer's bucket.




It was very foggy even though it was fairly warm. I opted out of sunscreen because of the cloud cover, but regretted it when Alan and Spencer both came home red.




Frisbee on the beach is the best!




He loved racing Alan for the frisbee and running around saying, "bumpy, bumpy, bumpy."




Sometimes pants are just in the way.



We finished off our trip with yummy ice cream cones from our favorite little snack place. We had such a fun time and I'm so hoping we can find another free Saturday to do it again before summer is over.

Cousins!

I was lucky that Alan's brother Geoff's family was here when we got back from our vacation to help ease my end-of-vacation blues and homesickness. Alan had to go back to work, but Spencer and I spent a lot of time hanging out with four of his cousins. We had a great time and Spencer still remembers them in his prayers and asks to sing about them in the "Happy Family" song a week after they left. :)

Making sand castles at a local park. Spencer and I hadn't been to this one yet, but it's water features are really cool. We'll definitely be going back before the summer's over.






We went on a short nature hike one morning. Here are Nathan, Braden and Spencer on a bridge. Spencer couldn't take his eyes off the little creek for a picture.



Grandma with the kids. Debbie is an AWESOME Grandma!






Another day we drove down to The Enchanted Forest in Salem. The Enchanted Forest is kind of a nursery rhyme theme park. There are a few rides you pay extra for, but most of it is walking through nursery rhyme exhibits. Spencer's a little young for some of the activities, but he still had a ball. Here's Kaitlyn, Evan, Nathan, Braden, Spencer and Humpty Dumpty.




Spencer was so excited that Nathan took him down the slide. Way cooler than going with Mom.






We ate lunch in this cool tree house.



Thanks for coming to visit and keeping us entertained cousins! We had so much fun and miss you already.

#5 - Home

I was so excited that we got to spend a week in St. Johns for the last week of our vacation. Especially because we got to be there over the 24th of July Celebration and that's my favorite holiday of the year. (It's the only time there's anything exciting to do in good ole' SJ.) I didn't get pictures of everything, but my favorite events of the celebration are:

• The Ice Cream Social - Free ice cream cones for everyone at the city park. The whole town comes and just hangs out for awhile. I actually only ate one cone this year because I was too busy talking to old high school friends I hadn't seen in almost 10 years.

• The Races - My Dad and I did the 10k while Alan, Katelyn, Zac and Lindsey did the 5k. Dad took 2nd and I was 4th and the first girl! (I can only do that well in really small races like this one. There were probably only 30-40 runners in the 10k.) It's a pretty good feeling to beat some of the boys I went to high school with though. :)

• The Country Dances - This is the only time Alan and I get to practice the moves we learned in our Country Dance class at BYU (highly recommended) since you have to go to a bar if you want to country dance in Oregon. It stinks that we can't remember many steps anymore, but we still have a really good time. Alan felt a little out-of-place however, because he was one of a just a handful of guys NOT wearing cowboy hats.

Here are pics of some of the random fun things we did:

Spencer took advantage of Michelle's trip to the snow cone shop one afternoon and played with her beads for a few minutes. She shares everything else pretty well, but not her beads. Spencer thought it was funny to put several strands around his neck and jump up and down.




Playing wall-ball with Lindsey and Michelle in the hall. It was hilarious because he was laughing so hard.




Roasting marshmallows at the fire pit. It started raining about 1 minute after we got out there, so I just quickly roasted my marshmallows and ate my s'more inside.




Spencer loved playing this Bingo game, but only with Lindsey. She was his best buddy down there.




Not much of a jumper.




One of the best things about growing up in AZ is irrigation. My Dad would probably say otherwise, however. He often has to irrigate in the middle of the night. Once every couple of weeks, water runs down the ditch that cuts through our yard. When it's my Dad's turn, he dams off the water and floods most of the yard. I have fabulous memories of water wading for hours during the summer. This was Spencer's first time seeing anything like it and he LOVED it. It was so fun to see him enjoy doing something I used to love to do.






Continuing another tradition. I also have good memories of sitting on my Grandma's lap while she played songs for us to sing.




Of course, no trip to Arizona would be complete without a trip to the Emergency Room for Spencer. (Seriously, we've been to the ER three times in the last 14 months for this kiddo. Twice while in AZ.) He fell face-first off a bar stool in the kitchen. I watched him fall my immediate thought was that he broke his arm. There wasn't any swelling, but he was in lot of pain so Alan and I took him to the ER in Show Low (about an hour away). The x-rays didn't show a fracture, but they splinted his arm just in case and gave us instructions to have it re-x-rayed once we got home. The 2nd x-rays came back clear as well, so he only had to wear the splint for about a week. The doctor up here thought he probably dislocated the radius bone in his lower arm. It's taken several days for his arm to get back to normal, but he's good now. I'm SO relieved that he doesn't have to spend this summer in a cast.







Everyone had a great time with this marble set. Michelle has decided to rebel against smiling in pictures. She prefers to salute instead. Notice the awesome fire-man hat. It's her favorite.




There were too many kids at the park for Spencer during the ice cream social so we went back another quiet morning.






We rented the city pool for just our family one evening. We wrapped Spencer's splint in plastic wrap, but he and I still sat out most of the time.




Watching the parade. It was only about 20 minutes long, but Linz still collected a lot of candy.




I swear that I get more home-sick each time I have to leave again. I thoroughly enjoyed being with my family and just the feeling of being home. It's so true that there really is no place like home. Thanks for making our stay so great, Mom and Dad. Maybe someday we won't live so far away. We can't wait to see everyone at Christmas!