Shopping and Portland to Coast

A couple weeks ago we did some school shopping, and HAD to find some sleeping-eye-masks for some reason... luckily they had them at the dollar store.  Ronin convinced me he'd sleep better with one.  So we all got one, mine came in handy at Portland to Coast for sleeping with headlights constantly shining in our van.

Bella and the boys with their eye masks

Quinn wanted Byrekka to sing Rock-a-bye-baby to him

Ronin made a mustache out of silly putty

Ronin and I had dental visits - he got a goody bag full of toys and tooth stuff

At the mall with Sly Stallone

Funny- I make the same face for pictures!

The boys at the play-area in the mall

Portland to coast...

Last weekend was my third and probably my last Portland to Coast relay.  In my van I had my friend Brandee, my coworker/friend Julie, Brandee’s coworker/friend Mechell, an old soccer friend Crystal, her friend Sarah, and me.    Julie had the first leg which was a back road with kind of a hill-billy feel…  at one point there was a man sitting by the road with no shirt on and a goat minature horse by his side.  The horse had purple hearts painted on it.  The man ran across the road to give Julie some kind of homemade pinecone flowers.  She told us by hill-billy law they are now engaged.  Haha  

My first leg was at midnight in the dark on some back roads by the woods… Luckily it was only 4.2 miles and Brandee volunteered to walk it with me. We blasted music and walked as fast as we could while discussing the “what-ifs” of walking in the dark.  Like what if we get sprayed by a skunk – would we still be allowed in the van?  I pointed out that we can’t just abandon people because they stink.  Another “what-if” was "what-if" you were a crazy psychopath and hid in the woods to pick off Hood to Coast runners and walkers?  It would be the perfect place!

We chatted with lots of people, made fun of a few, were made fun of by alot more people, practiced twerking...  At some point I got to explain how the Human Centipede works, and how Sharknado's are possible.  

Our van

My bra!

Same random van with a blow up doll..

My new friend, Mechell, and me

waiting in the van

Night time in the van

Brandee walked with me during my creepy night leg

Choose wisely... The line to the left is for food.  The line to the right is for the port-o-potty.  You better believe I got in the food line!

My $8 breakfast

At some point people just gave up trying to recycle...

Kevin Bacon's head was there

Mechell is not shy...

Seriously- the outhouses were a big deal!  These were CLEAN and had TOILET PAPER!

Julie, Brandee, Mechell and me!

My last leg was 7.15 miles uphill on a gravel road...  which mostly sucked since it was in the middle of the day and it was sooo dusty... I was so happy to see the end of that leg.

The Finish Line!  I hate crowds... there was way too many people there... I couldn't even see the ocean, the fog was too thick.

Our team...

It was a fun time with a good group of girls, but I was sooooo ready to come home and see my boys and sleep and take a shower and not walk...  We are looking at doing a one-day relay next year as a group instead, I found a Mt. Raineer one that's all down-hill jogging...  that's my kind of relay :)

Hiking and brushing guinea pigs

Last week went by so fast!  Lot's of playing outside... lots of eating... in fact we have now resigned to having TWO dinners every night.  One is "Quinny" dinner - as soon as I get in the door he announces "I'm hungry, pick me up!" so I make dinner.  Quinn eats, Ronin and I nibble.  Around 7 Quinn is hungry again, and this time so is Ronin.  So we fix dinner #2.   A couple of evenings last week Quinn was extra grumpy and tired - I find it kind of amusing to discover what things will cause a break down.  Example:  a piece of chicken fell out of his pita sandwhich - he screamed "IT FELL OUT!!!!!!" and proceeded to cry until I "fixed" it again.  He drank his brothers water and a few drops got on his foot "I'M SOAKED! DRY ME OFF!!! I'M WET!!!!"  and lately when food falls off his plate onto the breakfast bar it's cause for screaming too.  Although when the cat scratches him or he falls down there's no tears or even acknowledgement that anything happened.  I'm amused.

 

I had to buy a huge bottle of bubbles because the boys love their bubble-guns so much. 

At least they gave up on hitting each other with sticks for the time being.

 

I got the kiddie pool out last week- Ronin went to the neighbors house to go swimming in a real pool, but Quinn and I enjoyed the tiny pool just as much.  I love these action shots - he kept making me say "ready, set, go!" so he could jump in and splash me.

 

Ronin coming back from swimming

Last week was the fair!  We got to see llamas, cows, goats, rabbits, chickens, even Guinea pigs, which the boys got to brush.  Of course they want one now- the owner showed them how you can brush them backwards and they 'oink' for you.   Actually I kind of want one now too...  No, just say NO to new pets... 

Brushing the pig

Yay rides!

There was a pirate ship with a "pirate" and his parrots at the fair, if you held out a dollar, one of the birds will fly to you to take the dollar and put it in the tip jar.  Ronin thought it was pretty amazing.

Very pushy cow

Hungry goats

 

We got to eat fair food, see animals, go on rides, play a couple games - the boys wanted to do more but I ran out of money quickly :(  I think I will take them to Oaks Park another time where it's cheaper to ride and play games.  ooh, and there's roller skating too!

I brought my yoga mat and DVD's home from my locker at work.  Ronin really wanted to do some yoga last week.

Getting into plank pose...

Quinn grabbed a bulb of garlic from the pantry and decided to carry it around one evening.  He tried biting into it but didn't care for all the skin. 

 

One morning I came into work and found this on my monitor. 

 

 

I still don't know who left it, but I thought it was nice.  Although Robert said it was probably my lack of deodorant making me "strong"...   ha ha

Taking Kiera for a walk

 

On one of our walks we found this.  weird.

 

I'm going to guess this was Chocolate milk...

Painting the letter "Q"

Painting/glittering the letter "R"

 

I tried making cake pops... apparently you aren't supposed to use frosting.  :/

 

Over the weekend Alesha and I dyed each others hair dark, the boys got their hair cut and we went on a few hikes and did a little Geo Caching.  I only had to carry Quinn for a few feet to the car because he said his legs didn't work any more.  haha  We found snail shells, mushrooms, and squirrels on our hikes.  Ronin even found a half eaten crawdad claw. ew.

Brandee's dogs igloo

I tried to find the trail that went around "Round Lake" by Lacamas Lake but instead we found another park called Fallen Leaf Lake, the trails were empty of people, so that was kind of nice.

Trying to get a nice photo...  haha 

 

Quinn wanted to drag my purse up the hill for some reason.

 

We found this cool log foot bridge - I image the ground gets a little swampy during the other seasons... but there's a trail right above so I'm not sure what it's purpose is.

Cheese!

We went to Moulton Falls with Alesha later that day.  I didn't realize it was so close.  Very busy but we got lucky enough to grab a parking spot as someone was leaving.  It smelled so good out there- Quinn said it smelled like grapefruit. haha 

 

 

 

Where's his foot?  I didn't even get the words "don't!" out before this happened.

 

Grabbing rocks or those snail things...

Alesha making plans

 

Sunday we went Geo Caching -- we only found ONE this time.  The super small ones are way too hard for us to find, but this was pretty clever - the hint was to look for the garden gnome, we were looking at the ground, he was in a tree.

The Geo Cache "treasure"!  They swapped out goodies.

Whew, I took a lot of pictures!  We had fun and the boys are really liking hiking - it will be fun to take them on day-hikes when they get older-- once Quinn stops asking me to carry him when his legs are tired. :/

Ronin and I ordered a book about all the world religions, it's kind of interesting to read and tell him about other places in the world.  I'm learning a lot too just looking up answers to his questions.  He's very bright, and his concept of the world is still pretty small, but he wants to know more about what "other" people do and how they live, I love that.  We were going to make a solar system model last week but the craft store doesn't sell foam balls individually and I didn't want to buy a ton - so we are going to make them out of paper mache next week... which is going to be super messy, but it will look pretty cool.

Quinn is a little night-prankster lately.  One night after I put him to bed I was walking down the hall to my room to get something and he was just standing at the end of the hall with his blanket over his head.  He scared the crap out of me!  When I let out a yelp, he started giggling!  Silly guy.  A couple nights ago everyone was in bed and I had just shut my eyes when I heard his glow-worm music turn on.  It kept getting louder for some reason, and when I opened my eyes Quinn was standing right in front of me with his glow-worm.  I think he likes creeping me out!  haha

 

That's about it...  the boys are with their dad again this week.  And summers almost over. I'm ready for it to be over.  I love the sunshine, but I love lazy rainy days too.

 

Lots of love,

C