Back to School for Eddy

I made these cute apple cupcakes to give to friends and the kids. It's our yearly tradition for the first week of school.

Johanna had some friends over for her 14th birthday. We BBQd and they watched movies

Kindergarten Eddy! He was pretty excited for the first day of school. It was just last Monday since Kindergarten starts a week after everyone else here. It's been a little hard for him to get up in the morning, but I think he's been enjoying it. He's in a conjoined classroom-two classrooms headed by one teacher with a conjoining door. Eddy's group is "the blue dolphins".

Eddy's new school, new backpack, and new shoes. With 2 older brothers, Eddy hardly ever gets new clothes, so this outfit is a handmedown. Not that he cares!

Tons of Fun=tons of pictures!

Johanna and Logan ready for their first day at Scenic Middle

Cam at his desk at Jewett Elementary

Eddy earned this "super singer" badge at primary last Sunday-he was Super proud of it and wore it all day

Our church has a huge pear farm here and we have all been asked to work in it to bring in the prolific pear harvest. Blake, Johanna, Logan and I all went last Friday. Hot, dusty work!

Logan with his pear basket. He is so thrilled! He came back with us on Labo day for 3 hours!!

an Andrea in a pear tree

After our planned swimming trip to the Kroc center didn't pan out (it was closed), the kids had a fun afternoon jumping over the sprinklers under Grandma and Grandpa's trampoline.

Logan!

Camden!

Johanna!

We had a great time at the Oregon State Fair. We ended our trip with cotton candy in the shuttle to our car.

Boys in the bumper cars. Poor Cam couldn't figure out how to get his car moving, so was pinned in the corner the whole time.

Johanna and Logan enjoyed the swings. This used to be a favorite ride of mine. Now, being old, it just makes me sick...

The last Blackberry Pie......oh so good!!!

I wish I could say our whole summer went like this-siblings having fun together, doing something creative and constructive....At least I captured this one moment of doing that!

Summer's not over yet!

WE went camping at Jedediah Smith State Park last weekend with a bunch of people from our ward. It was so fun! It was in the redwoods of CA, so very beautiful. We hiked and swam and went to the beach, which isn't far away.
bad pic, but that's Logan on top

Camden and friend Tate playing Monopoly Deal before dinner Friday night.

We went camping with about 100 people from church. We had a potluck dinner, followed by a talent show. The kids and I ressurected our famous "Wishy Washy Washerwoman" song, to much applause.

Plum kutchen baked in my NEW pan from Katy

Saturday was spent at the southern Oregon beach. It was cool, but the kids had a great time, of course!

A grove of Redwood trees was right across from our campsite-it was awesome-the kids were climbing all over the downed trees

What's better then a camping breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon? Especially for Blake who ran 10-12 miles on the boyscout trail that morning.

You can't tell,but Johanna's holding a tiny frog! We had a great time on Friday playing in this river. The boys collected tadpoles, and Johanna and I swam in the perfectly clear and deep water!

Stuff we've done

Here's a lizard we found coming down from hiking-Johanna dubbed it "Gilbert"

After a rocky start (complaining galore), we all had fun hiking to one of two "tablerock" hikes in Medford. It wasn't too far, but it was pretty steep, and hot! So with Eddy, we were kinda slow (plus, Johanna didn't feel great). A pretty view from the top though.

Johanna barely made it! Isn't this tree cool-I don't know what it is, but there were a lot of them with this peeling bark revealing bright green underneath

My birthday bootie-always fun....

The fam in front of the Medford Temple after Cam's baptism. It's right next door to our chapel.

Blake and Cam before the baptism. Poor Blake-the suit was a little too short for him...not too comfortable. We had to baptize Camden twice-his foot was sticking out.

Cabin and Cousins

Johanna and cousin Lindsay are best of friends and had a great two weeks together (Aunt Brooke made them all pretty)

Boys. Water. Mud. Rocks

The Cousin Catch-they all had so much fun fishing with Grandpa, Uncle Blake, Uncle Shane and Uncle Chris

Another hike, sorta. Our first and second choice hikes were washed out, so we followed a little spring until we found a decent spot for our hot dog roast. The kids had fun playing in the spring and picking wildflowers. We enjoyed hot dogs and smores.

Logan's trout was the biggest-he wouldn't touch it, so that's Cam holding it. We enjoyed Log's catch at a fishfry the next day-delicious!

Cam was very proud of his catch. All the cousins caught one!

Go Go Go!!! Here is a team of Thurman's during the "puzzle challenge" We had a game day with lots of fun games prepared by Blake's brother, Shane-with excellent prizes (not)

Cam and cousin Aspen with their prize-a plastic Alien

Grandma and Grandpa's "talent" was sharing stories from Great Grandma Della and Great Grandpa Melvin's lives. That jacket is one Della made for Melvin-it's very well made, and so stylish!

Relaxing on the deck after family pictures

Blake and Eddy workin' hard to keep their egg on that spoon

I was enjoying the afternoon reading on the deck-the surroundings were so beautiful, it was warm and peaceful. I wish I could really capture it.

Johanna and cousin's Sierra andLindsay performed part of Napoleon Dynamite's dance-they looked awesome!

We hiked with the fam up to "Intermittent Springs". It is an easy hike with a beautiful end. The kids could have stayed and played all day in the rocks and water.

Life was a beach

Some of our family met at Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast for a quasi-reunion-we were missing Danielle's family and Johanna. We had such a great time! The weather was fantastic-sunny, warm and no wind! Only rain one day. We played on the beach mostly, but the "boys" had their golf day, the "girls" went shopping (great stuff this time!) and horseback riding, Mo's OF COURSE!, we explored a tide pool, the kids climbed a lighthouse, we played games and ate good food. We had so much fun, we decided to stay another day. It was sad to say goodbye when the time came, but we just hope that next year is just as great and that everyone can be there!
Eddy and all the other kids had a fabuloust time playing in the surf-they did if for hours!

Katy and Jen with their quintuple stuffed Oreo.Mmmmmmm....I wanna piece of that!

Classic Dad-he found a piece of moss during our hike and retrofitted it as a mustache.

I love this picture-one last time on the beach before we had to leave. We missed you Johanna!

Me, riding a horse, on a beach. It really was pretty fun!

There was a cool tide pool close to our house-it was so fun going there and seeing a ton of sea stars, anemones, hermit crabs and other sea life
The ocean was so beautiful-and the weather was unbelievably great...for Oregon.
Mom among the seagrass and driftwood-we were glad she made it down to the beach. It was a gorgeous day.
Jennifer! Always cloing her eyes...You can't see mine either, I guess. Anyway, the hike to the waterfall and over the suspension bridge was awesome! The trip up was very windy and poor Camden tossed his cookies (again-he got carsick on the trip to the coast from Salem too).
Dinner for 16 was lively every night! Thank you Costco!