Memorial Day Barbecue

We spent Memorial Day relaxing while the kids played in the pool ALL DAY LONG!! My parents came to visit and we ended the day with a barbecue!!!

Happy Memorial Day

To all of our country's military personnel, past and present, "Thank you for your service!"

Double P weekend...Painting and Pool!!!

We NEVER travel on holiday weekends! We'd rather stay home and do things around the house while the crowds leave town!!! So, this weekend has been a weekend for painting and pool preparation!

For the last couple of months I've had blocks of color on the walls trying to decide what color to paint our great room. I decided on Devine Paint's "Mocha" color. Below are some "before and after photos"!

Above is the new "pool view" from our great room windows (borrowing that term from the resorts that boast about such things). It is the only place large enough in the back yard to hold the pool!

We have deemed this summer, the "summer of yurting and swimming", so we bought a pool for the backyard!!!

Waiting for the pool to fill.

Tyler thought it might fill faster if he held the hose, rather than leaving it hanging over the side of the pool!

Ryan "living the life"

Pool still not completely full, but the kids couldn't wait to get in. Who can blame them?

Floating the afternoon away!

Tori lounging on the patio!!!

A trip to McMinnville

On Thursday, I pulled Ryley out of school and took him and Sarah to McMinnville, Oregon for an Astronomy class at the Evergreen Space Museum!!! Below are photos we took throughout the day.

Ryley and Sarah at the top of the Space ship on the playground outside the Space Museum.

Sarah and Ryley in the center of a giant compass in front of the IMAX theater.

Waiting for class to begin inside the space museum.

Sarah all in pink raising her hand during astronomy class. The gentleman speaking has been to space and has an amazing amount of knowledge to share!

This was during Sarah's astronomy class. They had a science experiment and made a comet from dry ice, water, dirt, and diet Pepsi. Kids thought it looked like chicken and oatmeal.

Hanging out with the first ever astronauts.

Huge rocket!!

Our favorite exhibit in the museum was the Titan II exhibit

Ryley and Sarah in front of Titan II. It was amazing how huge it is. There is a stairwell that goes down 2 stories to the bottom of the rocket.

The actual instruments and control panels that were used when TitanII first went into space.

Underneath Titan II

Looking up from the base of Titan II

The chopper was called "The Sea King"...don't remember the story on what it is carrying.

After class was over we went to visit the tanks they had on display.

Photo from the back side of the Aviation Museum where the Spruce Goose is on display.

First tent camping of the season!

The weather has hit the 80s, which means it is camping season for the kids!!!! Those who know us, know that Matt and I will "yurt", but the kids love to sleep out in the tent, so we set up the tent in the back yard last night and Ryan, Tyler, Tori and Sarah had their first night out of the season!

Miss Tori with her wild static hair!

Matt with Sarah pitching the tent!

Our campers!!!!

All snug in their beds...when we first moved in to our house, we slept 5 kids and a pregnant me in the tent...apparently they were all a lot smaller because we couldn't fit any more people in the tent even if we wanted to!

Sound asleep......well, all but 1!!!

The Mountain is out!!!

Mt. Hood was out (rather than hidden by low clouds as usual) on this beautiful blue sky day!!! We took this photo this morning from the kids' middle school that is 2 blocks down the road from our home!

Carnival fun

Tori and her friend spent the evening at the Elementary school carnival last night!!!

Good times!!!

The end of the evening, loaded with prizes!

Tori doing her contortionist trick....I swear she is double jointed in her back...this makes her look like she is coming out of the concrete!