Crazy, Crazy, and More Craziness

My poor neglected blog, but it was a busy summer and the fall now has been even busier, and I didn't think that was possible. Thankfully, soccer season is almost over, which will free up some time. Less shuttling around of children. And for the record, Mason LOVES soccer! He would play and just have a big grin on his face the whole time, for him, it was a total thrill! Matthew likes it, but I don't think he will ever love it. He likes the socializing aspect the most...strange considering he was the toddler/preschooler that had socializing issues. Go Figure!!! School seems to be going well for the boys, conferences are right around the corner so we shall see what that brings. In the meantime, Mason has the flu. We made it through Halloween, totally got lucky on that since I've heard of several families where at least one sibling was sick on Halloween, see example here. But the next morning, which was one of the best mornings of the year to sleep in, Mason was up at 5:30 am!! Yeah, I was thrilled! Not!! Grrrr....I got real testy with him and then tried to go back to sleep for awhile. Didn't work and it's just as well. By 8 am he was on the couch with a fever. And coughing. And chills. And throwing up. Let's just say he hasn't hardly touched his Halloween candy and the rest of us in this house are waiting for the other shoe to drop, as in, when are we going to get it?!?

Camping

Yay for summer! ;) We did finally make it camping, although it did get cut short a bit but that's ok. Our goal was to see Crater Lake, especially since Andy and I both had the realization that we both had lived in Oregon all our lives and have never seen Crater Lake except from an airplane. Not acceptable. So we decided we would change that and make sure our boys saw it too. We ended up camping at Diamond Lake, which is absolutely gorgeous! Just a beautiful campground, we went on a Monday and they have a whole section for just walk up tent camping, no reservations needed as long as they have space! Worked out well, we quickly found a spot and set up camp and got down to business, namely, dinner and then roasting marshmallows!

The next day we made it up to Crater Lake, and all I can say is wow. When you first walk up to where you can look out at it, it's amazing. Just amazing. Everyone should experience this! Wow! The water is so incredibly blue and not a ripple on it. It was a clear day, hot down at our campground, but up at Crater Lake it was only maybe 80-85 out. Much more tolerable, although I quickly found out that being that high in elevation, I burn even faster than I normally do.






And yes there were patches of snow! :) Pretty impressive, considering the heat wave the whole state was/is practically under! We had to find a spot of accessible snow because, really, who could resist a snowball or two in July??!!

The second night in our campground there was wild turkeys! They are not much smaller than my children.....

Andy did attempt to take the boys fishing, but only from the shore. Of course they didn't catch anything (not the best spot, too shallow) but it was good practice and experience. Besides, Andy figures out that it's probably best to only take one kid at a time if he wants to do any fishing himself. He spent all his time running back and forth between the boys, but at least everyone seemed to be having fun. There again, it was a beautiful morning....and the boys were thrilled to get into the water! Trust me, by 9 am it was getting pretty warm in the sun.

I wasn't surprised that we got nailed with thunderstorms given the heat, I was surprised at how much it suddenly cooled down (it was cooling down very nicely at night, sleeping was great! The kids did get a little cold though...) and then it started pouring down rain. While we were at Crater Lake the second time! The kicker of that was the entrance that we were leaving out of,ended up getting closed because of the road work they were doing and then the rain screwed it all up. So we ended up going halfway back around the rim and out a different entrance and then a long way back to our camp. We had already done the whole rim drive, and the extra part to the campground was beautiful, but we were also anxious to get back to our camp to see if we needed to pack up or not. We were soooo not prepared for any kind of rain, and a downpour was not particularly do-able for us.


We ended up packing up, (and Andy obviously had a little finger injury!) and decided to head out. But boy it was fun! I'll will have to add some more observations later.... ;)

Christmas Night

This was Christmas night at Grandpa's house...

Of course it's all about the presents! ;)

This cookbook rocks! I'm not sure if it's for Matthew or me(!) but it's really cute. It's a Star Wars cookbook with Star Wars inspired recipes, such as Wookie Cookies and Yoda Soda. Matthew has actually spent time perusing it and made something over at Grandma Dee Dee's yesterday. (some kind of fruit leather thingy that I can't recall the name of!) Trust me, this book will be worthy of a whole other post later on! ;)

Gee Tys, have some pie with that whip cream!! Sorry it's not the most flattering picture....should help with New Years resolutions though, huh?!? ;)

This was my Christmas present. I really didn't have anything much specific that I needed but I told Andy I really wanted a new tea kettle. A nice red one. And I got one! Le Creuset no less....I had no idea Andy had any clue of nice kitchenware. ;)

Stop The Presses!

It is possible to have a successful dinner in the Crabby Amy household! I was sure it wasn't true....someone always wines, doesn't like what I have fixed,(ahem, Mason), doesn't like the texture(occasionally Matthew) or is upset that I have gone on strike for the evening and actually has to fend for himself (read: husband). But tonight, the stars (all four of them!) aligned. And all I was doing was using up stuff that was taking up space or was on the verge of going bad. Nothing special, just penne pasta that had been in the cupboard for awhile, Italian chicken sausage that had been in the freezer for awhile, and veg that was from the farmers market on Saturday. Which, by the way, the farmers market is full of bounty this time of year....get thee there very quickly and buy, buy, buy!! yum! But back to my eaten dinner, I just kinda threw it all together with a little half & half in the sausage and veg once it was cooked and that was the sauce to go with the penne. And my kids loved it! Mason asked for seconds and trust me, this never happens unless it's some kind of processed, non-naturally occurring in nature, sort of food. Andy loved it, (of course that could have been the wine talking ;)!) and I was very satisfied with my dinner. A very good end to a very trying day. (hence, why the wine was opened while I was cooking. I didn't add it to the food, more important to drink it!)

Holding On To Summer

Even though the calendar says September, the weather still says August and quite frankly, my mind couldn't agree more. This last weekend the weather was nothing short of glorious and for that I am very thankful as Andy and I decided to squeeze in a camping trip before summer was "really" over! So off we went to Detroit Lake, nothing terribly difficult as far as camping goes since this really was the first time Andy and I had taken both kids camping by ourselves! In fact, Mason has never been "real" camping and we had meant to do it all summer and just never got around to it. Better late then never!

The whole trip went really well and the boys, of course, had a blast!!

So...some highlights.....

* Duck-1 ----- Matthew-0

Andy took the boys fishing. Mason was excited but being four years old, lost interest quickly. I was actually surprised at how patient Matthew was with the whole experience. Unfortunately, I had already left the dock with Mason when "the incident" happened. Apparently, a duck decided to attack the bobber on Matthew's fishing line. Matthew didn't like that at all and decided to 'chase' the duck (how exactly he was doing this I am not sure, this was Andy telling me the story!) In the process of trying to chase off the duck, Matthew fell into the lake! Luckily he was at a point where it wasn't deep at all and an older gentleman happened to be walking right by him and pulled him out of the water. Matthew was mad (and I am sure Andy couldn't keep a straight face at this point!) but the other men on the dock informed him that in order to be a fisherman he had to fall in the water at some point! :) He did calm down and actually stayed for awhile longer and fished in his soaking wet clothes.

* Both boys think smores are the greatest dessert on the planet!

* Mason loved washing dishes and I discovered this is quite possibly the best way to get their hands clean!

* The weather was beautiful during the day but it was cold at night!! Both kids need warmer sleeping bags...

*Our only mishap with our camping gear was that we didn't completely check for all the pieces of the new stuff we had just gotten. We had just bought a new coffee maker and didn't discover that it was missing it's little glass percolator thingy until we were actually up camping. You do realize how vitally important coffee is when camping??!! (we shall be making a little return to the store!!)

* Now that we have a little confidence in our own stuff and camping experience, we can't wait to book some trips for next summer!!!

* Oh and my kids thought that freeze dried ice cream sandwiches rocked!

Another Slide Show

10 Years Ago....

We were married!

I still can't get over how fast ten years went by. (and it seems even faster since we had kids!) It's amazing how much has changed, such as becoming parents, job changes, responsibility etc. On the other hand, some things haven't changed. I am still continually amazed and impressed at the man I married. I am still thrilled that I married my best friend! And I still look forward to growing old with him and sharing our lives together. Happy 10 year anniversary Andy, I love you! xoxo

And....check out who else is celebrating their 10 year anniversary!!! :) Happy anniversary Amber & Andrew!!

Disneyland Part III - Characters

On the Saturday morning that we were in Disneyland we went ahead and did the "Character Breakfast" or I think the buttons the kids are wearing says it's "Breakfast with Minnie and Friends". Basically, it was a buffet of breakfast foods and many of the characters were guaranteed to be around for picture taking and autograph book signing. It's not cheap, (if I remember the prices I will post them) but in the end it was totally worth it. Especially for my kids, since wandering around the park for hours just to find all the characters was just not an option.

Gotta love the dayglo Tigger!! :)

When I get a chance.....I will scan the autograph books to show you Chip -n- Dale's signatures. They are very cute, especially Dale's because on his signature because somehow he incorporated his buck teeth into the signature!

My children's favorite character by far was Goofy. But that will warrant it's own separate post since there are plenty of pics and a few stories as well! And no, Mickey wasn't at the breakfast. We saw him but the line was so long that the kids didn't bother with pics or and autograph.

Disneyland - Part I

So it's probably going to take me forever to get some of these pictures posted but I will try my best!

These first couple of pics were taken the first day we were there. The only reason the carousel was an option at this point was because Matthew had not had a taste of the other rides. Once he started in on Space Mountain and Splash Mountain....there was no turning back!

Teacups again .....and there would be many more times. It was Mason's favorite!

Alice in Wonderland.....the kids enjoyed this. Andy was entertained in the fact that he figured this ride really would have been fun in college. And probably under an herbal influence as well!

Stay tuned for more.... ;)