Beach Fun and Clam Strips

It was way too hot to stay in town, so since Daddy had Friday off, we decided to go to the beach again. It was a perfect 72 degrees there! We tried again to build a sand castle (we are pitiful at it), and Ryan dug trenches and filled buckets to his heart's content. We ate dinner at Doogers, Mommy's favorite local seafood chain, and Ryan declared he was going to try something different. This is HUGE for Ryan. He had clam strips! He ate almost all of them, and on the drive home threw them up all over the van. We think he just had a coughing spell that caused him to vomit because he really didn't seem sick before or after. Poor guy. Well, our van really needed a good cleaning anyway.

Gymnastics

The children are supposed to sit in tuck position along the red border of the trampoline until it's their turn to jump. Ryan is doing a great job of obeying here!

Wednesdays are favorite days in our house because Ryan and Abby have gymnastics on Wednesday evenings. Ryan's favorite "apparatus" is the trampoline by far! He loves to do the jumps, and he has really improved in the last couple of months. When Abigail fell and hurt herself two weeks ago and we had to leave gymnastics before it even began, Ryan was crushed. Thankfully, Daddy showed up before we left and Ryan got to stay afterall.

Ryan "presenting" after finishing his jumps.

He Did It!

Ryan has never tried cookie dough, except for maybe the slightest little taste one day when I was trying to coerce him into trying it. Today I didn't even bring it up since his answer is always no. My sister-in-law and I were just laughing about his reluctance a couple of days ago. Neither of us can fathom someone not liking chocolate chip cookie dough!

Well, today after mixing our cookies, Ryan said he wanted to try it! Whoo-hoo! He took two pretty decent tastes, said he liked it, but then didn't want anymore. Maybe he will never like it, but I'm so glad he finally tried it. Funny little boy!

Aargh, Matey!

Pirates are pretty popular around our house, partly because Ryan wore eye patches for six months and partly because of some of the books we've read. One of our favorite books is How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long. Adorable book! This evening Ryan and Daddy had a sparring match courtesy of McDonald's Happy Meal Toys.

VBS Closing Ceremony

Ryan had so much fun during VBS, even if he didn't seem to learn too much. Who knows what's rolling around in his heart and mind that might be built upon later though. We attended his last day for their closing performance only to watch Ryan lay on the floor through most of it! Most of the kids sang the songs and did the hand motions, but Ryan just lay on the floor or sat on his teacher's lap. I wasn't surprised, but I had hoped maybe he'd participate this time around.

Big Brother

While I was making lunch today after VBS, Ryan and Abby were unusually quiet. That often spells disaster, but as I sneaked up on them to peek, I found Ryan reading a book to Abby. I don't know why, but he's been such a great big brother today! He's usually good with her, but today he has gone above and beyond what I've seen from him before. I am wondering if it is because he is missing her in the mornings while he's at VBS. Twice this week he's mentioned that he wishes she were a big girl so she could go go VBS too. Whatever the reason, I hope it lasts!

VBS

This year Ryan is old enough to go to vacation Bible school for the first time. He goes from 9:00 to 12:00 every day this week, and it's been taking a toll on him! He has been pretty tired, but he's having a great time. I wish I could say he's been learning a lot about Jesus, but that doesn't seem to be the case. He appears to learn more in Sunday School. Yesterday when I asked him if he listened to the Bible story he said, "I listened, but it didn't come along with me."

I arrived a little early today and took some pictures of him playing tag with some of his friends. He didn't know we were watching, so it was fun to see him in action when I'm not around. I was pleased when he and Jacob (a friend he's been talking about all week) crashed into each other that he didn't make a big fuss about it but he got up by himself and then helped Jacob up. Then this afternoon he's been unusually kind and accomodating to his sister. Hmmm...maybe he's learning something afterall!

10 Commandments

Today I hung our framed copy of the Ten Commandments low enough on the wall that Ryan and Abby could easily see them. Ryan noticed it right away and stood there and read them to Abby. This idea is working better than I thought!

Vista House

We took a drive up the Columbia Gorge on Saturday and enjoyed the cool temperatures and gorgeous views. After hiking Larch Mountain, we stopped at the Vista House. The last time we visited they were doing some renovations and it was closed. It is now open and absolutely beautiful, particularly the stained glass.

The views are spectacular from the Vista House (hence the name). You can see for miles up and down the Columbia River, especially since it was such a gorgeous day. We even had someone offer to take a picture of the four of us (twice in one day!), which is always nice. Ryan was especially excited to watch a long train on the Washington side of the river as it snaked its way along the riverbank. We were up so high that he thought it looked like a model train.

I Can't Do It

I was chatting with a neighbor recently, and the subject of school came up. I ended up telling her that we are homeschooling, and her comment was, "Oh, I could never do that. I know my limitations, and there's no way I'd be able to do that."

I've been thinking about her comment ever since then, and I totally agree! When we first starting thinking about homeschooling and realizing this was the direction the Lord was leading us, I would get a knot in my stomach every time the thought crossed my mind. It is an overwhelming, seemingly impossible task, especially when you consider most homeschool moms (or dads) also have to keep house, cook meals, fulfill church commitments, etc.

Thankfully, the Lord didn't "spring" this idea on us. I have had lots of time to pray and think about it. When the time came to actually implement it, He gave me everything I needed to begin, including tremendous peace. Like a few other aspects of life, I've learned that I truly can't do it...not on my own. I am grateful to know the Lord Jesus Christ and have Him there with me, leading me, enabling me, and giving me peace, blessed peace.

He's still teaching me how to depend on Him, and I must admit to being a slow learner in several areas. But I AM learning. I am learning to give our children, their education, their salvation, and their futures to Him. After all, He loves them even more than I do.

4th of July

This picture was taken at 9:15 pm, and we didn't
even need a flash. Ryan had taken a seat as
far away from the fireworks as he could get,
so Abby joined him there.

I love the 4th of July; however, do-it-yourself fireworks are not my favorite thing. Daddy loves them though! Since it gets dark so very late here (after 10:00pm), we haven't ever braved the crowds and taken the kids to see them. I'm sure we will one year, but this year we just bought a small package of fireworks and set them off in our backyard. Last year the kids were pretty scared, but we thought they'd enjoy them this year. We were half right! Abigail was hesitant at first--mostly I think because of her big brother's protests--but she came around fairly quickly and enjoyed the pretty sparkles.

We finally had to use the flash at 9:40,
though it really wasn't dark enough to see
"real" fireworks for another 20 minutes or so.

The Best Part

On our way home from Long Beach, Daddy asked Ryan what the best part of the day was. He said, "The whole day!" I'm happy he had a day that he enjoyed and made him feel special. We are so blessed to have him.

My favorite part came when we were eating Elephant Ears. Ryan spontaneously looked at his Daddy and said, "I'm glad God put me in this family!" Then he gave Daddy a great big hug. That was by far the best part of the day for me.

Ryan Garner Day

It is time once again to celebrate Ryan Garner Day. Every year we celebrate the day we finalized our kids' adoptions. Ryan's adoption became final in July. In the past we have left Abby with a sitter so he could have a special day alone with Daddy and Mommy, but this year we made it a family celebration.

We gave Ryan a couple of options and let him choose which he wanted to do. He chose going to the beach. Usually when we go to the beach, we go to Seaside, Oregon, but this time we decided to try Long Beach, Washington, instead. It's about the same distance from our home, and there are lots of things to do there.

Holding a fist full of fish food.

We had a yummy breakfast at Hump's, a favorite local restaurant. Then as we were driving, Daddy made an unplanned stop at the Gnat Creek Fish Hatchery. There are tons of hatcheries in the area, but we have never taken the kids to any of them. It turned out to be really fun. They had some huge sturgeon to see and lots of good sized trout too. The best part was feeding them!

We arrived at Long Beach at about 11:30 and approximately 61 degrees...burrrr. It was overcast and a little windy, but actually the cool temperature didn't feel too terribly cold. It didn't faze the kids at all, of course. They dived right in to the sand with their shovels and bulldozer. Daddy built a cool sand castle, with Ryan and Abby's help. The tide was out when we arrived, and it took four hours for it to get to our castle.

We had kept the kids out of the water most of the time (the tide was WAY out there, fortunately), but they got into the water the last half hour, and they had a blast! It was still only about 62 degrees and the wind had picked up. They were shivering and getting goosebumps, but they still didn't want to leave. Ryan was very brave about getting in the water this time. Daddy took them out so they could jump the bigger waves, and they all ended up getting wet up to about their waists.

Finally our sand castle was gone, and though the sun had at last came out, the wind and cool temp sent us back to the van. We changed clothes and went to dinner. We got wonderful clam chowder, along with fish and chips at our favorite local seafood chain, Doogers.

Ryan showing how well he colored
inside the lines of kites coloring page.

Now that we had food in our tummies, we got our second wind and went to play on some rides. Ryan said he wanted to ride the carousel, but after he got in there, he kind of freaked out about getting on the horse. He's terribly afraid of being up high. He managed to make it through the ride, and then we went on the bumper cars, his favorite! Mommy and Abby rode too, so we didn't get any pictures.

Ryan is holding on for dear life,
but Daddy did manage to get a smile out of him.

After the rides, we took a walk and browsed through a couple stores, and one of the store keepers gave both Ryan and Abby their choice of a blue glass decoration. Ryan chose the starfish. Then we walked some more and let Ryan chose dessert. He chose Elephant Ears, so we ate our dessert and headed home. It was a full day, but we all had a wonderful time.

First Crush

Daddy graduated yesterday! We're all so proud of him, and Ryan had great fun yelling "Yeah, Daddy!" as he walked to receive his diploma. As excited as he was for Daddy though, I think the big highlight of Ryan's day was seeing Mrs. Lundy again. Cathy has watched Ryan and Abby for us numerous times over the last several years, and I think Ryan has a crush on her. He gets the goofiest grin on his face whenever we mention her name!

As you can see from this picture (a genuine smile, no less!), he's in heaven being with Mrs. Lundy! She was like Mary Poppins with her bag of tricks. She brought quiet toys and games for the kids to play with, and it was a huge hit. I brought some too, but of course mine were old and boring. I had to laugh when Mr. Lundy looked at Ryan after dinner and solemnly informed Ryan that Cathy was coming home with him!

Farewell to Zoo Trips

As far as Ryan is concerned, the zoo is all about the sandbox and the jungle jeep, so he's not terribly heart-broken that our annual pass expires at the end of this month. Still, he had a good time yesterday as we did our final zoo tour. I asked each one which animal they wanted to be sure to see. Ryan said the meerkats. Sadly, they were the only animals that day who decided to hide, so we didn't get to say goodbye to them.

But to Ryan's delight, we didn't miss playing on the jungle jeep. Fortunately for him, there were no other kids around wanting to play on it too, so they played for about 20 minutes uninterrupted! I don't know why exactly, but he loves this jeep.

The stork was very visible today, and we got a good look at him. Who in the world had the bright idea to say that this ugly creature delivered babies?! It's got to be one of the ugliest birds I've ever seen.

New Chores

Ryan has a few chores he does every day. He must get dressed, hang up jammies, make his bed and clean his room before breakfast (usually it's clean when he goes to bed, so there's not much to do really). He also used to put away the clean silverware, but not long after we moved to our new house we passed the silverware chore to Abby and Ryan began sweeping the dining room after breakfast and lunch.

At first he was delighted at this task, but soon enough the novelty wore off. I noticed today, however, that he's actually doing a pretty good job! My expectations haven't been very high, but I have been training him how to do it correctly. I told him that once he masters this job we can maybe find a different one for him to do, so perhaps he is motivated to perfect it so he doesn't have to do it anymore. At any rate, he did a great job today!

School in the Great Outdoors

We have been plugging along pretty steadily with school the last month. We have gotten into a routine, and it suits us all pretty well. Keeping Abigail busy can still be a bit of a challenge, but she has really lengthened her attention span, thankfully. Ryan pretty much does his school by himself, except for reading to me. I give him math flashcards or a math worksheet, and he does those by himself. I am nearby listening to make sure he is actually doing them though. Then he does the writing assignment I gave him.

We're currently working on addition and subtraction up to 6, and he is practicing his alphabet and numbers still. Last week he had fun practicing writing Happy Father's Day, I Love You, Ryan. I know Daddy will treasure his handwritten card!


We took our first break since we began this two months ago. We went camping, and though we did do school one day while we were there, we took a break the rest other days and the rest of the week that Daddy was home from work. I wondered how much a week break would effect Ryan's reading and math, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well he did that first day back.


We also had lots of learning opportunities on our camping trip. Both kids learned a little about lichen, aka Spanish Moss, (it was everywhere). We saw deer, ground squirrels, Stellar Jays, frogs, ospreys, and several different kinds of ducks. Daddy gave some lessons on fishing gear, which really grabbed their attention! It was fun, tiring trip, and we're looking forward to our next one.

Cars

Ever since Ryan saw the first preview for the movie Cars, he has been dying to go see it. Since Daddy was on vacation opening day, we took the kids to see it. Ryan absolutely loved it! His favorite character is Mater, and he was thrilled yesterday when he got a toy Mater in his Happy Meal at McDonald's today.

Little Fisherman

Last year (or was it the year before?) Ryan received his very own fishing rod, though he hasn't had too many opportunities to use it. On our camping trip last week, he got to use it several times. Though he didn't catch anything (the bank fishing was terrible), he told us his favorite part of camping was fishing. This made Daddy pretty happy! As I was getting dinner ready on our last evening camping, Ryan asked to put his rod in the water. So Daddy got him rigged up and told him to go have fun. He walked to the campsite across the way to the lake shore and sat there fishing all by himself for about 30 minutes. It was really cute! We hope to take him to a local fishing hole soon so he can actually catch some fish.

Timothy Lake Camping

Ryan has been asking to go camping for over a year now. We took him once when he was six months old, but we haven't been since. So this year we wanted to make sure and go at least once. I wasn't very confident that he would enjoy it because he is more of a homebody than I am, but the only way to find out was to go. So we made reservations for three nights and four days, and headed to Timothy Lake in the foothills of Mt. Hood.

Overall we had a good time, but there were some rough patches, especially at bedtime. Ryan did ask to go home several times, but then an hour later would say he never wanted to go home. We took a three-mile hike to another part of the lake, and the kids splashed in the water, which was a highlight for them both. Ryan got to watch them put a boat in the water and take one out, which was exciting for him. He got a blister on the hike home (time for new shoes) and was a little grumpy, but for such a long hike, both kids did great! Once we got home, they both forgot how tired they were and began playing around our campsite.

Since we had the entire campground to ourselves, with the exception of the camp hosts, the kids were able to run around and play at the other nearby campsites, climbing on rocks, jumping off of picnic tables and finding hiding places. Except for the rain the first day, we had a near perfect conditions...sunshine though not too hot, and no other people around!

We are already planning at least one more camping trip this summer, so it turned out more positive than negative. We were all tired and worn out (not to mention unbelievably filthy) by the time we piled into the van to leave. Ryan tried to stay awake, but he only lasted about 20 minutes before falling asleep for most of the ride home.

One Ride

It was Family Day at the Portland Rose Festival today, and that meant free admission and $1 kiddie rides. The kids were really excited to ride on some rides, even Ryan! Unfortunately, the $1 kiddie rides ended at 2:00pm, and we missed them. Big bummer since the regular price is $3. We explained our mistake and let them each ride one ride, and then left the midway. They both chose to ride the same ride, and they had fun and were pretty good sports about the whole thing. Ryan especially felt better when the owners of this cute little race car let him sit in a real race car and pretend to drive!

Tall Ships

The Portland Rose Festival began this month, and one of the fun things they offer annually is a tour of tall ships. The Lady Washington and The Hawaiian Chieftain were open for free dockside tours, and we took the kids aboard. It was educational and very fun.

Ryan really wasn't that excited by the tour, but Mommy, Daddy, and Abby had a great time. He was terrified to get near the cannon (or let Abby get near it), but we finally convinced him it wasn't "loaded" or dangerous! Once he was convinced it was safe, he wanted to have his picture taken sitting on the cannon, though he only reluctantly let Daddy take this picture of Mommy and him with a "pirate."

As a fun side note for my Disney-loving readers, The Lady Washington was The Interceptor in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. There is a piece of the Interceptor's name plate tacked up on the galley wall that is signed by members of the cast and crew.

Side Trip

We took a drive up to Mt. St. Helens last Sunday, and before we got there, Daddy spotted this beaver lodge. We pulled over and hiked down to this pond. The beavers had dammed up a small creek with several tiers and built this big lodge. It was a neat side trip to our outing, even though we didn't get to see any of the beavers.

King of the Hill

We are trying to rake up all the rocks in our yard so we can lay down topsoil and sod soon. It is beginning to seem like an unending task. However, the kids love being out in the dirt and hauling rocks in the dumptrucks. Ryan isn't quite as helpful as Abby in actually helping us move the rocks to the big pile, but he loves making roads and piles of his own in the dirt. This is our first of what's likely to be many large piles of rocks in our yard! They love to climb on it, but of course I couldn't get them to look at me while I took a picture.

Sprinkler Fun

We went to visit some friends of ours yesterday, and it was warm enough finally to let them play in the water. Gramie sent new swimsuits for the kids, so they suited up and ran through the sprinklers. All four of the kids took a while to really get into the water because it was so cold. Oregon ground water is freezing, even in the dead of summer! I think it took Ryan the longest, but he finally got into the game and ended up having a blast.

Little Gentleman

My family took me to tea for Mother's Day at The Windsor House of Tea in Astoria. We stayed all dressed up from church and drove to the coast. Ryan looked like such a little gentleman, and for the most part he behaved like one too during our luncheon. The tea house has a special children's tea, and Ryan thought it was the neatest thing that they cut the crust off of his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (and cheese sandwiches too)! Now he wants to go to tea all the time...no crusts! He also enjoyed his hot chocolate, though it was about 80 plus degrees outside.

After tea we walked along the boardwalk and browsed the local outdoor Sunday Market. We watched the ships come and go from the ocean to the Columbia River, and saw the trolley taking people up and down the boardwalk. It was a beautiful day, with just the right amount of breeze to cool us off.

Finished Reviewing!

Today we finished reviewing 100 Easy Lessons, and I am amazed at how quickly we went through that book the second time. It took four weeks instead of the 16 or 17 it is supposed to take. He is reading so well, and he keeps taking his book and teaching Sprinkles (his stuffed baby hippo) to read when he can't convince Abby to sit still and learn!

Trackho Driver

We made some money by having a yard sale, so we hired someone to come level out our yard and haul away piles of rocks in preparation for laying top soil and grass. Ryan was in heaven watching this guy move his pretty orange trackho all over our yard! The driver, Lars, has a three-year-old son and knew how cool it was for Ryan, and at one point he let Ryan get up in the seat to see what it would be like to drive it!