Victoria

So basically every weekend in July we have been up to something. Over the 4th, we went to Eastern Oregon to hang out with Caleb's family (pictures and post to come soon). The next weekend we went to Victoria, BC (pictures and info below). The following weekend we redid my parent's deck - not really a big outing, but a definitely a big activity (see raspberry post). And then this last weekend we went camping (see previous post). Thank God this next weekend we are chillin' around here, because the next weekend we leave for a 10 day vacation to La Grande, Kalispell, Glacier National Park, and Bozeman - during which we will attend 2 weddings and 1 high school reunion. We'll see how much sleep we get. Anyhow, now you can understand why I am a little behind on blogging (not to mention I have 2 super active kids :-p).

The second weekend in July Caleb and I went up to Victoria, BC, Canada kid free. My parents offered to watch the kids for a night. I know, pretty awesome. So we took the Victoria Clipper on a 3 hour boat ride up to Victoria early Saturday morning and returned via Clipper Sunday night. This was a fun trip for us because 7 years ago (+ or - a couple weeks) we spend some of our honeymoon in Victoria. So we had already done all the touristy things like Butchart Gardens, whale watching and tea at the Empress Hotel. So on Saturday we went up in a small airplane for a site-seeing tour of Victoria and the surrounding area. It was something Caleb wanted to do on our honeymoon and we just didn't get around to it. And then the next day we rented a scooter and just drove around for a couple of hours. Here are some pictures from our weekend get-away.

Here I am in front of the plane.

Mt Rainier. The weather was gorgeous the whole weekend and we could see the Olympic Mountain Range and it was BEAUTIFUL!! I love Washington! :-D

Caleb in the plane while we are cruising.

Butchart Gardens from above. I have to admit, it's not that impressive from the air. It's much cooler on the ground.

The mountains, which don't actually look that great in the pictures but were amazing in person.

This is down town Victoria. On the bottom right you can see the Victoria Clipper and on the left you can see the Empress Hotel.

Me getting off the plane.

Here I am in front of some hydrangeas in the Empress Hotel garden. Hydrangeas were our wedding flower. :)

Caleb looking mean on the scooter.

Action shot!

More action. We took a lot of pictures of ourselves riding the scooters. It was a lot of fun. I would recommend it to everyone!...most everyone.

Here we are both on the scooter. We decided to get a two person scooter instead of a 2 one person scooters because it was more social (and warmer). But note that Caleb did most of the driving, so this picture is a little deceptive.

A scenic shot on the scooter.

Caleb in front of the castle. This was Caleb's favorite site on both visits to Victoria. :-P

Me and some flowers. Caleb likes to take pictures.

Together in the gardens.

So that was our trip. We had a great time and would love to have another get-away before #3 arrives in February. So if you would like to watch our kids, let us know...it will be easier now than it will be next summer. :-D

Camping

This last weekend we went camping. Caleb's second cousin, Tina & family, invited us to join them at Jarrell Cove State Park. Honestly, I was a little nervous about camping. Typically when our whole family sleeps in the same room (or tent as it may be) I don't get much sleep. What if Peter wakes up the whole campsite? And there was definitely no hope of the kids getting naps...or mom. Well, everything turned out OK...actually great. The first night we didn't sleep much...but the second night (and the third night), the kids slept like logs. Praise the Lord!

Anyhow, we had a great time. Tina and Lloyd have twin girls who are 4.5 years old and all 4 kids got along great. Megan and Madeline loved to play with Hannah and they loved to "mother" Peter. Every time Hannah went to the bathroom our conversation would go something like this.
H: Mom I have to go to the bathroom.
K: OK, do you want mom to go with you?
H: No, I want to go with my friends (Megan and/or Madeline) to come with me.
K: OK, great.

The girls basically did everything together. This was great because then Hannah didn't need me to do everything with her.

Anyhow, here are some photos from our weekend.

This is all the food I packed.

And here is my ingenious salad idea. I made a pasta salad and a potato salad to take with us, but I only had one bowl with a lid, and that bowl was too larger for either salad. So what I did was I made a divider and then put both salads in the same bowl, as seen below. Pretty cool, huh? I was really proud of myself for that idea! :-D

Lloyd brought a hammock that was the perfect size for the kids. This was a source of much entertainment, whether it was sitting in the hammock or pushing someone else in the hammock...both activities were fun. Here's Hannah enjoying the hammock.

Here's Megan carrying Hannah to the bathroom. The first time this happened, Hannah didn't have any shoes so Megan carried her across the rocks. Apparently it was so much fun that they did it again, even though this time Megan doesn't have any shoes on either. Kids?

Here we are going down to the dock. Aren't they cute?

Hannah, Megan, and Madeline at the dock. Unfortunately Hannah says "cheese" with such vigor that her eyes are closed in every picture I took down at the dock.

Here they are in the life raft.

Tina and Lloyd had these blow-up flamingos that they set up outside their tent. Well, one of Peter's favorite activities was decimating the flamingo population.

Here we are by the water.

While we were there we saw several hints of wildlife, and heard even more. One night when I woke up to a peep from Peter I heard rummaging around our campsite. I opened the door and and turned on the flashlight and saw 3 raccoons...one of which was trying to tip over our large gray bin. Luckily, he didn't have any success! Anyhow, here's a deer checking out our neighbors campsite.

And here's a raccoon that we scared up a tree. OK, so we didn't do it on purpose. We just saw the raccoon and the raccoon saw us so he went running up a tree.

And here's Lloyd capturing a picture of the raccoon with the mega lens.

Our Epic Cake

Ever since December of 2008 Caleb has been talking about this cake...and tonight we finally made it. The Devil's Food Cake with Peppermint Frosting was on the cover of the Bon Appetit magazine and ever since we have been drooling over it. It has 4 layers of cake and in between each cake layer is a layer of chocolate ganache and white chocolate cream. And then it is all topped with peppermint frosting. Now you know why the making of this cake was epic (or at least part of the reason). The other reason why it was epic is because we had a major cake slide (like a land slide except with the cake layer...major sadness). But it was still super tasty. Anyhow, her are some pictures of our epic creation.

Here's the cake waiting for the oven to get warm.

Here it is waiting for the layers. I've cut one in half already.

Here's Miranda spreading on the chocolate ganache.

The cake before the frosting.

With frosting and chocolate shavings (before the major slide...sorry, no pictures of the major slide...too depressing).

The final product. We realized afterwards that toothpicks would have been a REALLY good idea. The fork was a quick fix that wasn't quite quick enough. :-D

Anyhow, it was fun and tasty. However it was also really rich so next time we will need atleast 14 people present since 7 of us could only eat half (well, 7 adults and 3 kids).

Matching Jammies

For a while now Hannah has been asking to get some PJs that match Peter's. Well, Nanny bought them matching jammies so now she wants to wear them every night! Here's a some cute pics.









And here's a pictures of us enjoying out patio table. We've been eating dinner outside almost every night since we got it!


And here's Peter enjoying his food. Eating is not only nourishing, it is also a full contact sport for him...

Raspberry picking

Yesterday we went raspberry picking. We picked 27 lbs. Here's our loot!


I'm really excited to have fresh berries on our cereal, in crepes, in pies, and in smoothies. YUM! Actually, the raspberries have already been put to good use in the gourmet meal that Suzanna and Miranda made for us last night. I'll post some pictures of that soon!

In other news, we spent this past weekend replacing my parent's deck. The wood was old and splintery, but now it's soft and smooth.

baby bunnies

Yesterday we discovered 2 baby bunnies in our front garden. We also a full sized bunny in our neighbors yard. Hannah loves animals so this is pretty exciting for us!

Peter on the Move

Here's a super cute video from our weekend. I'll post more later (we were in Eastern Oregon and had a blast), but this video is so cute it needs its own post. :-D

My Birthday week

Last week was my birthday week, so there was alot of fun to be had. It started on Tuesday (my actual birthday) when I woke up to beautiful sunshine! We, of course, went to the park and played in the backyard all day. For my birthday, Caleb bought me a patio table so we put it together while our food was BBQing and then we enjoyed our first meal on the deck. Eating on the deck is such a great thing because when the kids are done they can just go play. Both kiddos really enjoy being outside and thus they entertain themselves pretty well, so we were able to relax around the table.

On Wed we went over to Kim & Ben's for a joint birthday dinner for me and mom. Kim made us this fabulous dinner (of course) and a scrumptious birthday cake. Here are some pictures of Hannah enjoying the trampoline.

And here's mom with our birthday cake. It was super tasty!! Or, as Hannah would say, super-duper tasty! (I taught her that :-D)

Another fun event at Kim and Ben's house was watching my dad and Peter play this walking game. Peter would bang the spoon against the bench, then throw it into the grass. My dad would then pick it up and place it at the other end of the bench. Peter would walk over, grab the spoon, and repeat the process. But after a while, Peter figured it out. And so as soon as he threw the spoon on the grass, he would start walking towards the other end. Then he took it one step further, as you will see in this video.




On Thursday, my mom's birthday, we went strawberry picking. Yum! It was fun and tasty too. Luckily it wasn't as hot as it had been on Tuesday or Wednesday, but the sun was still out. Hannah actually picked quite a few strawberries. Peter picked a couple, but there is a good chance he ate more dirt than berries. I also saw him with a green berry once or twice. I think raspberry picking will work better for him because they are higher off the ground. We'll find out.

Well, those are the highlights from my birthday week. Thanks to all who called and sent me birthday wishes. And if you forgot, that's cool - you can just comment on this post...but you better remember next year cause it's a big one... :-D