Thornley Family Reunion and Our Travels Along the Way

We started the long, hot drive to UT last Saturday for our family reunion.  Along the way, we stopped to have lunch with some cowboys.

We made it to Logan with minimal crying, minimal naps (Sophia took one 45-min. nap in 2 days of driving), and minimal snacking.  I don't think any of us really felt like eating when it was so hot and dry.  We visited the cemetery where my Mom is buried.  On the way there, Amelia asked if we were going to dig her up.  Hhm?  Perhaps I shouldn't have told her that's where she was buried.

And then we were able to play for awhile at a park with my dear friend Carol.  My girls loved this slide built onto a hill, and I loved watching Carol playing with my girls.

Still great friends after 40 years!

The 4 of us looking quite smiley.

After meeting my good friend, Tara, for lunch, we headed up to Bear Lake for our Thornley Family Reunion.  This is the house that 3/4 of the 40 of us stayed in.  The rest of the family stayed in a slightly smaller house just across the street.

And here is a view of the lake from our balcony.  The hillside around the lake may be dry and not so pretty, but the lake is still as beautiful as I remembered it.

On Tuesday, we all spent the day on the lake.  Our house rental came with a voucher for water "toys" so we were able to rent a few things that everyone was able to enjoy.  I took a ton of pictures, but these are just a few of my favorites.  My brother, Paul, looking like he was getting ready to go crazy on the lake.

Tila and Amelia building sand castles together.

Our family's turn on one of the paddle boats.

Jared doing the paddle board with Sophia.  Sophia LOVED riding on all the water toys.

Rachel doing crafts with the girls.  Thanks to my sister-in-law, Cheryl, the girls had plenty of crafty things to make and thanks to my nieces, I didn't have to help them make them - so everyone had fun!  

I loved the way that so many of my siblings and their children played with my girls, who are the youngest and only have a few cousins their age to play with.  I probably wasn't as good at playing with other people's kids as they were about playing with mine.

On Wednesday, we went on a small hike up Logan Canyon, the Limber Pine Trail.  It's just a bit over a mile, perfect my girl's little legs, and thanks to cousins, they had plenty of help and cheerleaders along the way.  Here's Alison with the girls.

And that afternoon, we went swimming.  Amelia loved swimming with her cousin Richelle.

That night the "Other Thornleys" were able to join us for dinner.  SO good to see my cousin and best friend, Kathryn.  (We're still friends after 40 years too!)

I tried taking a picture of the 6 youngest cousins . . . but forgot that where I had them line up was making them stare directly into the sun.  Oops!  But I didn't want to try to round them up to a different location, so I just went with it and laughed afterwards.

Laura and Tila playing with my girls on this cool airplane that was on the patio of one of the houses.

On the 5-10 min drive to the beach on Thursday, Sophia fell asleep . . . just as we were pulling into the parking lot.  

A picture with Grandpa.

Sunrise over Bear Lake on Friday  morning.

Friday after the reunion, we drove down to Riverdale to meet up with our friends from Grad School.  Our girls are similar in ages and had fun playing at the park/splash pad.

I think it wears out Ken when I have to/want to see so many of my friends when we come to UT, but it's important to me.  I'm grateful that I have great friends . . . and lucky that so many of them are in UT, which makes it easier to visit them. 

Friday after dinner with my Dad, and visiting more friends, the Hymas' family, we met up with Carol again.  This time to enjoy the fireworks in Hyde Park as the city celebrated July 24th . . . on the 18th . . . apparently Hyde Park celebrates on the Friday before the 24th each year.  This was the first fireworks that the girls had seen, and I was worried that they'd be too scared of the loud noises, but they absolutely loved them.  Yeah!

And on Saturday before we left my Dad's house to come home, we took a few more pictures.  Amelia loved picking the sweet peas - she picked a bouquet each day we were there.

Stopping at Multnomah Falls on our way home on Sunday.  It's not nearly as impressive from the parking lot as it is close up - but the girls still liked it.

A highlight of our trip was when Sophia surprised us by wanting to use the potty and did so successfully 3 times in 2 days.  Like I've said, she knows how to use the potty, she just doesn't want to . . . unless it's on her own terms.

And another highlight was listening to the girls singing along with the Disney Tunes cd that we have.  Don't mind the camera falling at the end - that just adds to the humor of it all, right?

This year, Ken and I took turns driving.  It gave us both a break - him from driving, me from playing activity coordinator for the girls.  I loved watching/listening to him playing with the girls.  Overall, the 4-day drive went well.  The girls broke last year's record by only sleeping for 1 1/2 hours during the 4-day drive.  And of course, both times Sophia fell asleep, it was just before we were getting to a stopping place.

I was glad that Ken had Monday off, as Amelia was sick throwing up all day yesterday.  Thank goodness that didn't happen until we got home.  Better stop bloggin' and get back to reality - cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc.

Remlinger Farms

Ken had Monday off, so we spent the day at Remlinger Farms (thanks Groupon for a great deal).  We've never been before and weren't sure what to expect, but it turned out to be a good experience.  The whole park/farm is geared for kids 2-10 yrs old and the girls loved it!  The girls wanted to ride on everything and weren't afraid of any of the rides.  They went on their first pony ride and smiled the whole time.  I was with Amelia and didn't have the camera, so sadly, no pictures of Amelia.  But both girls LOVED riding on the ponies and rode like a pro. 

Here's a video of Sophia riding the pony.

Monday was a great day to go because the crowds were minimal, so the lines were short, if not non-existant.  They had a good variety of rides - like driving an antique car and this canoe ride.  The girls liked dipping their hands in the water . . . I'm just glad they didn't try to get in the water.

The girls liked the carousel and the spinning pumpkins, the corn cob airplanes and the 2 different trains.  Amelia wanted to go on the roller coaster so Daddy went with her.  Amelia loved it . . . Daddy, not so much ;)  Sophia wanted to go too, but Mommy was a wimp and wouldn't ride with her.  Maybe next year?

They even had fun "non-rides" like a hay maze/hay jump and these cool digging toys in a giant sandbox.  My girls thought that was almost as fun as the rides.

And after spending twice as long at the park as we had anticipated, we headed home, with great memories and looking forward to going again in the future . . . as long as the Groupons just keeps on comin'.

More Random Happenings

• Ken and I had our 9th wedding anniversary last week.  We went golfing and out to dinner on Saturday to celebrate.  We learned how to golf when we first got married and have enjoyed doing it together, but it's been over 4 years since we've been golfing.  I was a little nervous, but actually didn't do as poorly as I thought I would.  We had a great time, except for the bee sting I got while half way through our game - serves me right for wearing sandals instead of shoes while golfing.
• I've been preparing for our road trip to UT and I think I'm all ready.  This year I made a few adjustments to the "entertainment" after last year's trip.  I made/bought less activities to hand to them and instead, tried to create/think of more activities that we can all do together.  The girls and I made BINGO markers out of glass beads, paper, and magnets.  That was already a hit on our road trip to the beach last month, so I'm hopeful it will still be good.  And how do I determine success?  If the girls play with it for more than 5 minutes.  BINGO lasted 30 minutes when we played with it on our way back/forth to the beach - that is a major success in my book.
• Recently Amelia has wanted to have "tea parties".  She doesn't actually want to drink anything (so water works out perfectly), she just wants to pour it from teapot to cup and from cup to cup, etc.  Today she really wanted to have a tea party, but it was cold outside (which is the where we have tea parties so that I don't get grumpy about the mess).  Not to be deterred, Amelia sat outside, by herself, in her jacket and wrapped up in a blanket to have a tea party for one . . . because neither Sophia nor I wanted to be outside in the cold.  Eventually, she ended up back inside, where her and Sophia had a tea party on the rug - so it wouldn't be so messy.  And everyone was happy.

Strawberries and More Strawberries

It's that time of year again . . . it's strawberry time!  Ken LOVES strawberries.  I like strawberries, but Ken LOVES strawberries . . . and so do the girls.  So on Saturday afternoon, we headed to the berry farm, rode the "Berry Express" out to the fields, and started picking.

The girls did pretty good.  Well, mostly okay.  Sophia had a hard time only picking the ripe ones, but Amelia did great.  And they only got bored right near the end of our picking . . . but then I got bored too . . . but Ken said I had to keep picking ;)  Here are Sophia and Amelia saying "strawberry".

So what do you do with 2 overflowing flats of strawberries?  I wish I knew!  I wish I was more of a strawberry connoisseur, but all I really know what to do with them is make strawberry jam. 

I'm wondering if the checker at the grocery store could guess what I was making today since this was all that was in our cart.

Once I got the strawberries cleaned and hulled and chopped, the girls helped me stir in the lemon, pectin and sugar . . . lots of sugar - oye!

Amelia was so proud of "her" jars of jam.

Amelia took this picture . . .

and this video (it's a bit long but fun to hear Amelia narrate).

Sophia wasn't as excited about "her" jam.  I think the whole long process wore her out.

I feel like I spent all day making 3 batches of jam. . .

But overall, I don't think I spent as much time as Ken spent the last 2 days, as he cleaned, cut and prepped his overflowing flat of strawberries to freeze.

We're all set for strawberries. 

Now we have blueberries and blackberries to look forward to.

Stay-cation

Neither Ken nor I had anything planned or on our calendar for last weekend, so Ken planned us a little stay-cation.  The girls have been wanting to go fishing for quite awhile, so we started Saturday morning by fishing at the local community lake.  When Amelia was just a baby, somebody gave us a cute little pink fishing pole and it's been collecting dust for years . . . until now.  Amelia was all set with her fishing pole and her chair.

She was so excited to actually be fishing.  When I asked her to smile, she smiled and yelled "Happy New Year!".  Hopefully we didn't scare away any fish . . . or any neighboring fishermen.

Sophia was sad that she didn't have a fishing pole just her size, but she happily used Ken's pole.

 She was so excited to reel in the line "by myself".

 Could Sophia be any happier?

The girls lasted A LOT longer than I thought they would . . . almost a whole hour.  The girls said they had fun, but Amelia was sad that we didn't catch a fish.  The person next to us did, so at least Amelia got to see a live fish up close and personal.  Maybe we'll have better luck next time?

After lunch, we headed to a Burfoot Park in Olympia.  A park with playground equipment AND beachfront.  The girls loved it.  It was such perfect weather too - not too hot, not too cold.  The only thing that would have made it better was if I had actually planned appropriately and brought swim clothes with us, so that the girls didn't have to run around in their shirts and diapers.  Oh well!

And then on Monday, we headed to the Pt. Defiance Zoo in Tacoma.  I've been there before and think it's a perfect size zoo for little people.  Completely walkable and able to see all the animals within a few hours.  Amelia's favorite animals were the fish in the aquarium and the polar bear.  Sophia loved watching the walrus swim.  She was content to sit and watch the walrus swim back and forth, back and forth.

All in all, a great weekend - very relaxing and minimal amount of money spent.

Who Let the Squirrels Out?

I used to think that squirrels were so cute and innocent, until . . . 

When we first moved into our house, one of the first things I noticed that I didn't like, was this very large, over grown, bush/tree combo in the front yard.  It actually had leaves on it in this picture, but 75% of the year, there were no leaves or flowers, just ugly dead looking branches.  And underneath it was a hodge-podge of overgrown, just as ugly, bushes.

Last Fall, Ken trimmed part of it, to see if just trimming it would help (it's hard to see in the picture below), but trimming it did NOT help.  It was still ugly.  The clump of dead-looking branches is actually a very overgrown honeysuckle vine that had grown out of control.

So, in order to appease me AND to give our house better curb-side appeal, Ken agreed to cut down all of the honeysuckle vine, and ended up also ripping up the bushes underneath the honeysuckle vine, which had grown out sideways due to a lack of sunshine, etc.  Leaving just the oak trees with nice, clean dirt around it, and a bit of myrtle, the area looks SO much better.

But here's the problem.  Squirrels lived in that clump of mess in our front yard.  And when we cut it down this March, the squirrels moved in . . . to our house!  I had no idea squirrels were nocturnal until we heard them running over our heads and over the girl's bedrooms all night AND all day.  When do squirrels sleep?  I certainly wasn't getting any sleep, and the girls would get scared from the noise and end up in our bed, which resulted in, yep, you guessed it, no sleep.  During the day when we'd hear the squirrels, the girls and I would pound on the walls to try to scare the squirrels.  Yet despite our pounding and the girls screaming, the squirrels were not scared away.

Ken started researching methods to get rid of squirrels.  But then just as suddenly as the noise from the squirrels started it, it suddenly stopped . . . and before we'd even had a chance to try out any of our squirrel-be-gone methods.  A few weeks later when Ken finally had a chance to get up into our attic, he found a few things - one of which was a very dead squirrel.  He also found that squirrels had chewed through quite a few of our air vent caps on our roof, which is how we suspect they got in, but which aren't exactly easy to get back out of, hence, the dead squirrel.

Today we hired a roofing company to fix a small leak we had in our roof and asked them to also replace the plastic, chewed through, air vent caps, with new steel, squirrel-proof, air vent caps.  The contractor replaced all 10 air vent caps and told me that some of the old ones were so chewed through, there were gaping holes in our roof.  We're lucky we haven't had a wet spring!  He also told me that he saw a squirrel run out of the attic while working on the roof.  Hopefully there aren't anymore up there, because now they really won't be able to get out.  And hopefully the new metal caps will keep them out and they won't find anything else they can chew through.

Gleneden Beach - Memorial Day Weekend

When I was growing up, Memorial Day was such a tradition filled day:  Lion's Club breakfast, picking flowers with my Mom from our yard, then heading to the cemetery.  And then we'd spend the rest of the day with our cousins for a picnic.  When I moved away from home, Memorial Day was one of the holidays I missed sharing with my family the most.  This year, it hit me especially hard, and I am grateful to my friend, Travis, who took a picture of my mom's headstone.  

Starting traditions in our own family has been important too.  We love going to the beach and this year we went to Gleneden Beach, OR (near Lincoln City).  We were prepared for cloudy, cold, and rain at the beach.  It was a bit brisk when we got there on Saturday (you can see the girls happily playing in the sand in their rain coats and fleece), but there was also blue sky, with few clouds and definitely no rain.

Here's Amelia "parting the sea".

And no matter the weather, the girls have to get in the water.  Thank goodness for a Daddy who indulges and doesn't mind numb feet.

We were fortunate to be able to stay in a resort (courtesy of Ken's Dad) with a view of the ocean.  Since the girls are usually in bed before the sun sets, they thought watching the sun set was pretty cool (I never get tired of watching it either; especially over the ocean.).

They also thought it was pretty fun to sleep on the bed that came out of the wall.  And they surprised me by sleeping together without me, all night!

Amelia loves flowers, and loves taking pictures of flowers (probably because I won't let her pick them).  Here are the pictures she took of her favorite flowers.

Day 2 turned out to be even more sunny than the day before . . . although still a bit cool at first.  But we enjoyed another few hours on the beach, digging, flying kites, and splashing in the waves.

Sophia finally got her turn to fly the kite.

Monday surprised us by being sunny AND warmer than the 2 previous days.  Surely a miracle for the Oregon coast, but a miracle that did not go unappreciated.

We built more sand castles, splashed in more water, saw a few seals, and just enjoyed the sunny beach.

We even went for a "boat" ride.  Here's Amelia "throwing out candy" as if she's in a parade.

Sophia's turn to drive.

We had a great weekend, despite Ken being bombed by a seagull :(  And despite the fact that my girls don't sleep in the car, we all survived the 4-hr+ drive each way without too much whining or "are we there yet?".   This trip was, to me, a test run for our big road trip to UT this summer.  I'm finding more interactive games for the kids and other ways to "entertain" during the drive and even though I need more for our longer drive, I'm well on my way to happier children, and therefore, a happier me.

This weekend I also practiced being more flexible, less schedule-driven, less worried about structure . . . I wasn't perfect at it, but I think I did okay.