Robin Hood Festival

Sherwood holds it's annual town festival the 3rd week of July.  Alan was in Washington for a race all day, but Spencer and I had a great time together.  The highlight of the festival for Spencer is the parade.  They throw lots of candy.  I didn't want to fight the traffic this year so Spencer rode his bike as I walked beside him.  Much better than driving!

This funny, two-wheeled car was my favorite. 

The loot.  Yikes!  Luckily, there was lots of hard candy and chocolate with peanuts that he gave to Alan.  He still has a pretty good stash a week and a half later though.

 After lunch, we drove to downtown Sherwood to check out the rest of the festival.  They had tons of craft/food booths and entertainment.  We watched a horrible magician/comedian, went down this bouncy slide and made a tool box at the Home Depot table.

My favorite part was this troupe of sword fighters from Seattle.  They dress up as Robin Hood, Little John, Maid Marian, the Sheriff of Nottingham and the Sheriff's gaurds and then duel each other.  They are all gnarly and sweaty, but are actually quite funny and entertaining.  The Sheriff (the bald guy) totally reminded me of my Uncle Eric.

It was pretty hot that afternoon, so we ended with an ice cream cone.  Does it look like he's enjoying it?!  I'll say it again: I love summer!

Ahhh, summer!

I'm pretty sure I have a post with this title every year.  I seriously cannot describe how much I love this season in Oregon.  It's perfection (well, having AC on the high 80's days would make it a little better, but it's pretty darn close to perfection.)

Raspberry picking.  We've picked strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, marion berries and logan berries this year.  Over 48 lbs. in all and I think we're done.  I would still like to do blackberries, but I'm not sure it's worth the complaining I get from Spencer.  I keep thinking he will turn in to a better berry picker as he gets older, but he gets worse and worse.  At least I got Alan to come with us this time so it went faster. :)

Sprinklers and splash parks:

We've been having lots of play dates lately.  M. is one of Spencer's best little buddies.  They will probably be on the same soccer team and in the same kindergarten class together in addition to being in the same primary class.

He's getting better and better on his bike.

We have always loved picnics and had one at a new park a few weeks ago.

Throw in the fresh veggies we're getting from our garden now and it doesn't get much better for me!

4th of July

Alan timed two races on the 4th of July this year, so Spencer and I spent the most of the morning at our ward's pancake breakfast.  They held it at a park with a water feature and Spencer had a great time playing after we ate.  I didn't have my camera with me though.

After both of the races were over, we had a bbq at our house with Darwin and Debbie.  We had a good dinner and continued our tradition of making homemade ice cream for dessert.  

Alan, Spencer and I headed to Tigard High School for the fireworks later in the evening.  We didn't get there until 7:30, but we still had a long wait.  We taught Spencer how to play skip-bo, but it was a little breezy and we had to hold the cards down while we played.  Spencer loved seeing the life-flight helicopter land (it just came for fun, not for an emergency) and eating candy.  The wind made it pretty cool once the sun went down and I was wishing I had brought warmer blankets.  Spencer warmed up with some awesome dancing just before the fireworks though. :)  I took some videos, but they won't post on here.

The fireworks display wasn't very long, but it was still pretty and Spencer LOVES watching them. Watching his excitement is better than actually watching the show.  

Happy 4th of July!

LeFevre Family Reunion

After spending several days with Elise, Spencer and I drove down to Kanab to visit my parents and Michelle and to attend the LeFevre family reunion.  It was 108 degrees when we pulled into Kanab on Thursday evening and that is HOT for us wimpy Oregonians!  We went to a splash park for a few minutes to cool off before dinner.

It had been three years since I had been to southern Utah and I had forgotten how much I love the red rocks and desert beauty.  It's a very different beauty from where we live, but that just makes it even better.  This picture doesn't do it justice, but it was the best I got.

After dinner, Dad and Michelle wanted to show us Kanab's awesome city pool.  There was a playground sitting in the shallow water, a slide and a lazy river.  We stayed for two hours and had a great time.  Spencer loved the lazy river, which was really quite fast, not lazy.

We all drove over to St. George on Friday.  My Grandma has been staying in a care center there since she had a series of strokes a few months ago.  Since she isn't able to leave the care center, we held a mini family reunion right there in a dining room.  Five of my Grandma's seven kids were there along with quite a few grandkids and great grandkids.  I hadn't seen any of these relatives for three years so it was really good to catch up with them, especially my Grandma.  We had a yummy dinner and then spent the evening playing games, working on a huge puzzle and visiting.  The LeFevre's are the most fun game players I know.  I have so many great memories of staying at my Grandparent's house with a few of the older cousins and of reunions at Deer Range.  It's sad for me to live so far away from such an awesome family.

My Dad with some of his siblings and his Mom.  Now you can see where Spencer gets his tall genes.

Four generations:

Spencer had fun meeting and playing with a few of his 2nd cousins.  Lainey (6) and JW (4) were great playmates for him.  Too bad we live so far away!

My Aunt Linda and Uncle Jamie were kind enough to let all of us stay at their house that night.  Spencer was thrilled that they a Foosball table.  He was so busy playing with it that he never even discovered the toy closet.

I thought Kanab was hot, but St. George was 115 that Saturday!  Yikes!  At least it was dry heat.  We visited my Grandma again in the morning and then a few of us headed to a nice, indoor pool in the afternoon.  It took some convincing to get Spencer to go down this huge slide at first, but after he went once, he didn't stop going  down it the rest of the time we were there.  They let little kids wear a life jacket to go down and that gave him the confidence to even go down by himself a few times.  I don't usually like that kind of thing, but I even had fun.

A lot of the family drove back to Kanab to stay at my Grandma's house on Saturday evening and then we all drove up to Tropic on Sunday for my cousin Logan's mission "farewell."  He's now serving in Mexico and gave a really good talk.  Uncle Layne and Aunt April hosted a nice lunch at the park after Church.  I let Spencer run around as much as possible before we had to get in the car to start our trip home.

After a tearful goodbye with my parents and Michelle (why does it never get easier?!), Spencer and I headed back up to Lehi to stay a night at Alicia's.  We are so blessed to have so much family who all let us crash at their houses! Thank you everyone!  That was about a five hour drive and went pretty quick. 

I was anxious to get home, so I decided to tackle the 12 hour drive from Salt Lake to Portland in one day.  I had never done that before, let alone done without another adult to help with Spencer, so I was a little nervous.  It wound up being a lot better than expected though.  Spencer watched a lot of movies, I listened to an audio book and we both ate a lot of snacks.  A few new toy cars helped too. :)  It was somewhat helpful that the outside temperature was over 100 for almost the entire drive.  It was so hot that we didn't even want to get out of the car so we just drove and drove.  It wound up taking us about 13 hours to get home and it was really nice to sleep in my own bed and see Alan again.

It stinks that we had to be apart for over a week and it was a lot of driving, but it was so worth it.  My Grandma LeFevre is my last living grandparent and I don't know when/if I will get to see her again.  Family is SO important and we are so blessed with amazing people on both sides of our families.  I'm always homesick after trips like this, but at least I have some good pictures and a lot of good memories!

Long Lost Friends

The only good thing about my good friend Nicole moving away from Sherwood last January was that she was moving to Salt Lake and I knew I'd get to see her again.  Spencer and I got to spend a morning with Nicole and her adorable girls while we were visiting Elise.  They were all a little under-the-weather, but still made the effort to see us.  Nicole has a hill in her backyard and she set up this super fun slip 'n slide for Spencer and Anna.  Oh man, they had so much fun.  I think they played on it for two hours non-stop while Julia napped and Nicole and I talked and talked.

Anna is more than two years younger than Spencer, but they've always gotten along great.

Plasma car races!  What a fun mom!

It's been 6 months since they moved, but I still miss and think about Nicole all the time.  I've never had a more thoughtful and caring friend.  I could go on and on about the amazing person she is.  And, she's one awesome cook!  She made me her delicious apricot lentil soup and homemade bread for lunch.  Thank you for sharing your day, your food, and your friendship Nicole!