homeofthebudds

Table tennis

This little boy has been dying, absolutely dying, to play some 'table tennis' lately. He's played it on the Wii several times and has since asked us at least once a day for a week or so if we could go to the store so we could buy 'table tennis'.

When he discovered that a friend of ours has a ping pong table in their basement (and once ping pong was translated into wii talk, i.e. 'table tennis') he was dying to go visit. Every day, several times a day, Brennan asked "Can we go to Katie's house?? Will you call Katie?"

So I finally did.

Everyone was very very excited.

And Brennan finally got his chance to play some real live table tennis.

They played for a good 30-40 minutes before Zaiah decided it was time to move over to the foosball table.

Good times.

4th of july

We waited for dark to start our fireworks this year.

Ha! Just kidding. Dark doesn't show up until about 10 pm these days and we are not that crazy brave.

Maybe when the kids are teenagers.

We were going for some tame firework fun which meant sparklers, poppers & flowers for us.

With a few baby fountains thrown in for fun.

I had the hardest time getting a good sparkler shot. The kids kept saying something about wanting to wave them around.

Lucky for me we saved a few and I'm going to try to talk Dave into helping me out tonight.

Maybe we'll even be super crazy and wait for dark.

Wooo! We're wild sometimes.

Last night we finally got some dusk light (which I helped along a bit in camera)

Happy Fourth of July!

And now if you'll excuse me for a few days, I was a bit ambitious at the library this week.

Most of the last several days have been pretty darn nice weather wise. We thought we'd take advantage of the sun and take some school work outside to the park.

We packed up some clipboards and did a little data collection on a few of Mt. Tabor's rocks.

And we thought, really it's more fun to play at the park with friends, so we found some to join us.

The little people occupied themselves playing in the big trees,

while the bigger little people occupied themselves talking (or perhaps yelling)

and listening.

I'm fairly certain there was a fair amount of Star Wars discussion.

*sigh* That was a fun morning.

And now it's started to get rather rainy again. But I am certain, certain, the sun will be returning any moment.

At least it will if it knows what's good for it.

free saturday soccer

This past Saturday we had a little experimental soccer playing. We invited some folks about the same age as our kiddos and headed out to a nearby field.

We started off with a few drills...

...played a few casual games...

..and finished up with one last drill.

Not everyone played. Some chased balls...

some collected flowers.

There were lots of goals scored and I'd have to say it was super fun. Everyone brought a ball or cones or goals or whatever they had and everyone helped the kids figure it out.

This next Saturday won't work out, but if the following Saturday is sunny we are so going to be back out there.

Any kid that wants to play is totally welcome to come. Shoot me an email if you wanna know where we're meeting up!

Zoo days.

We met up with our friends the Smith's at the zoo today. It was freezing. And foggy. Just the way the mountain goats like it apparently. This was the first time I've seen them out. Ever.

The beauty of going to the zoo in the freezing winter is that no one else seems to be as crazy as you. There is almost no one there and tons of the animals are either wandering about their exhibits or else sleeping right next to the glass. Winter makes for some good animal viewing.

Brennan kissed some ducks,

Ellen and Isaiah rode the horses,

And the Smith boys drove the tractor.

(Sorry I know that edit is sorta out of place, but I liked it that way. So I left it. So there. :)

Dave and the kids found some drums to play,

(you get lots of these cause I love the bundled crazy freezing kids juxtaposed with the African drums)

<(Bleh. I was going to insert a video of the drumming fun here, but vimeo is being lame. When it's decided to cooperate with me I'll update the post. Until then imagine a running drumming circle.)

And we were thrilled when the indoors (heated!) Africa exhibit was open. I love how everything on Howie and Dave's faces are warm except their noses (and glasses).

Isaiah had a run in with the concrete steps. Later Brennan did too, but his battle wounds are on his forehead.

It was pretty super fun. Even if it was freezing.

A late night of goodness.

Last night I got to go to my favorite local musician's (Annie Bethancourt) album release party. We were in this cute little former church (hmm actually a former funeral parlor - somehow cute seems out of place...) turned concert venue (The Woods) filled with funky antique-ish couches and chairs and candles and wine and...possibly nachos. I think that's what I saw but it was dark and didn't seem like it really fit the vibe of the place. But I digress.

All the prime stage front seats were occupied when Emily and I got there so we scored some off to the side. I say that only so you know I wasn't a total nerd walking around the concert snapping pics. These few were stealthily acquired from my seat. Promise.

I love Annie's music. LOVE it. This was an album relase/last concert in Portland for a good long while sort of event. Apparently Annie is in Portland half of the year living the musician life style and then when it gets cold packs it up to be a surf instructor in Costa Rica. Seriously who knew that life was available?

So not only was it a (late) night of good music, but I also got to hang out with Emily. I like Emily. Our kids are the same, our homeschools are the same, and our thoughts are frequently the same (especially when discussing fashion). It's just nice. :)

walkin in the woods

Yesterday, the kids I and and some friends went for a walk in the woods. Well, really it was the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. But I like the sound of "the woods" better. It was awesome.

We stopped at a nicely placed bench for some lunch after a bit. Lunch is important.

The kids had a fabulous time climbing up and down this hill. Ellen was an awesomely sweet big sister helping Brennan navigate it a bit.

At one point I asked Ellen if she'd like to model for me and she happily obliged.

Here's "happy"

And "sad,"

And "crazy."

Isaiah thought crazy looked like a lot of fun so he got in on the action too.

On our way back we saw a couple deer out in the field. They were carefully observed and photographed.

And of course, we stumbled across a dandelion flower. Which always deserves to be photographed. I love how Isaiah is getting up close to it. His picture is up on his blog along with a few others. Ellen's got a post up too.

More Halloween candy uses

A couple weeks ago I read something in a magazine about a family using their halloween candy for science experiments. I read it to the kids and they were totally into it. So on Halloween night when I was giving away the candy they'd collected Ellen reminded me to save some for our experiments. Luckily for us we had plenty left over.

Here's our first experiment - dissolving different candies in water. The first is a Gobstopper, the second two Starbursts and the last is a Snickers. If my food consumption was based solely on water dissolution I think it would be super easy to forever stay away from Starbursts and Snickers. They look disgusting. The Starbursts have a layer of waxy looking stuff. Yummm.

After our zoo trip, Lynette stuck around to hang out with the kiddos while I went to a little meeting. When I came back I found them continuing the experimentation - this time examining which candies would streth the farthest.

They started with Snickers and Milky Way which are the pencil markings over on the right. They discovered that caramel was a huge factor in deciding how far a candy would stretch.

Isaiah tried stretching a SweetTart.

When it didn't stretch at all, he thought maybe it would be best to just eat it up.

Then we decided that if it won't stretch, maybe it will smash!

Candy smashing was a huge hit.

Bird refuge with the Harris's

On Sunday we met up with our friends the Harris's and went for a walk at the Tualatin Bird Refuge.

Joey had a new pair of binoculars that he put to good use.

We saw some big birds (anyone know what this is?)

Blue heron right?

And some caterpillars.

And some fall colors! Wooo!

Joey really checked them out.

Micah taught us how to hold a grasshopper.

Awwww.

Yikes!

I can't decide if this looks smoky or sunsety. (If only the sun was lower on the horizon)

Or a cloudy rainy day...

Hmmmm.

:)

The other day I visited a neighbor while she was gardening.

Her yard is pretty much a perfect well tended garden. It's impressive.

I had to ask her if it would weird her out if I ran home to get my camera real quick.

Brennan wanted to come back too. He's decided to be a photographer too.

He saw that picture while I was working on this post and ran to get his camera. "Put away" he said closing the computer for me.

So we went out to look for some more good shots.

And to admire some rocks.