First Day of School 2016

Henry started middle school...sniffle sniffle...and Frances started 3rd grade. Both were VERY excited and both had a wonderful first day. 

Henry loves middle school so far, which is a big change as three other schools feed into one middle school...so it has a LOT of kids. He actually loves that he doesn't know a lot of folks in his classes as he is excited to meet the new people. He SUPER excited about the art elective he got - he can't stop talking about how much he loves the art class and getting time and instruction to draw. It has been really interesting and amazing to watch him navigate the transition. I have to say, I am so incredibly proud of how he is handling it.

Soccer Champs

Frances's soccer team had a tournament the weekend of camping. Thankfully, we were able to go on Friday, skipped the game on Saturday,  and then head to camping and we came back late on Saturday so we could go to the Sunday games.

Her team is awesome - such great players and great team attidude.

They made it to the finals.....that went to overtime...and Miss F scored the goal in OT to put them in the lead.

Very exciting.

Parkdale = Location of my 2nd home when I win the lottery

I have heard of Parkdale - just a bit outside of Hood River (one my favorite towns) with a rustic feel...but one street...one....with four restaurants and a brewery....that are all amazing.

We went there on the way home from camping. AWESOME.

We then ate dinner in Hood River at one of our favorite spots - Solstice Pizza. Amazing when even a drive home stuns you to the point of jaw dropping beauty.

Lost Lake = Oregon Bliss

One of our bucket list items for summer was to go camping. We managed to check it off....on the last weekend of summer. We camped at Lost Lake, a place that I have never been....but it is now one of my favorite places on earth. GORGEOUS. Great camp set up, and basically NW Bliss. I spent half of the time on my SUP just staring at the magical mountain. Janis gave us her tent for xmas and it so fun to be a family and just hang out. A perfect way to end summer - we may do it every year.

Gamblin Paints

For decades (before he met Katie)  Brian has used what he considers to be the best paint - Gamblin. It happens to be made in Portland. They are loyal devotees to each other -- in fact, one of Brian's paintings is on the packaging for a set of paints. We got to go to the where they make the paint. SO cool to learn about and to see a company in Portland that does this amazing work.