Hiking

The warmer, less rainy weather is creeping in slowly and the state restrictions have been lifted on households intermingling...or at least now you can have one other household over.  So it's been nice to get together with cousins more than before.  One weekend Scott's brother and family drove up from Oregon and we did a little hike near our house.  The hike was maybe a little under 3 miles and all the kids were great hikers.  Here we are by Potholes Falls at Lacamas Creek.  I forgot to take many pictures - all of us were on vigilant kid watch since there are some drop offs on this hike - but we had a nice time.  It was fun to see them.

Another day I had taken John and Emma on a little hike - only about a mile.

John liked it...

Emma was afraid of the large waters and marveled and worried about how the bridge was staying up with only a couple of supports underneath.  Now whenever we cross this bridge she sings to keep her mind off the scariness.  Poor Emma.

John likes the bridge

I'm trying to get the kids accustomed to longer hikes, but they don't seem to enjoy it as much as I do.

Another day, Scott, kids and I met up with my brother-in-law and our nephews for some hiking fun.  My sister was 8ish months pregnant at the time and we were all happy to have her stay home and rest, even though it would have been fun to see her.

Anna stayed home because she wasn't feeling well, but was a truly tortured when we told her all the cute thighs Axel did (our two-ish year old nephew/cousin).  She was sorry she didn't get to hike with him.  Here is Axel trying to throw some rock or stick into far away water.

There were so many fun rocks to climb on.  Grant kept making me nervous since he liked to go right up too the most terrifying looking edges.

There were many cool and beautiful sights.  

This was in the Moulton Falls/Lucia Falls area, 30ish minutes from home

Lots of fun cousin times.

The abundance of natural beauty here in the Pacific Northwest is very great.  I love just walking through forests or by lakes near our house.  And there is lots of water and many waterfalls.  So hiking to see a waterfall is a thing.  I even find myself on my lone hikes thinking, "I better go see this (or that) waterfall today. " To make sure it is getting along alright.  Here is a nice one we saw on our cousin adventures.

Birthdays!

for Matthew and Scott 

We celebrated Matthew's birthday (back in February) by going out to eat at Olive Garden.  At the time there were restrictions on how many people could be at one table (the max was 6 but has since been increased to 10).  So we had to split up into two tables.  Scott was with the older kids at their table.

And I was with John and Emma at the younger kids table.

Matthew got a piece of cake, gratis, and a second piece was ordered for the rest of us to share.

For part of his birthday celebration he had to put in order the birthday "themes" or something we did from each of his birthdays for the past 14 years.  He easily got the more recent ones, but had to make educated guesses on some of the earlier years.  This was inspired by final challenges on the Amazing Race TV show, where contestants have to complete some puzzle about all the places they had traveled on the show.

Anna was the most helpful

Eventually the puzzle was solved and we continued with cake and presents.

Scott made a cheesecake from scratch which was loved by all

Matthew had a method for blowing out all the candles at once.

Happy 14th Birthday Matthew!

And a few days later was Scott's birthday.  Emma made this cup castle in his honor.

We had yellow cake with chocolate frosting, per Scott's request.

Hooray!

Happy Birthday Scott/Dad!

Developing Talents

Matthew has never had piano lessons.  He has learned a little bit of music theory and the basics of reading music when he was in the school band last year.  I've helped him a little bit and encouraged frequent piano exploration since we've moved.  But he has picked his way through several songs and is doing pretty well.  I try to help a little and he's still working on his songs but I've been impressed with how far he has gotten on learning some of these songs - again - with no real piano lessons.  This video is a little long - he is working his way through My Favorite Things.  He then taught Anna how to play the right hand of the song and Anna taught Grant how to play just the beginning of the right hand of the song.  So the blind leading the blind.  :).   We're working on it. 

Anna struggled with how to complete an optical illusion drawing assignment for school.  There was much frustration and a few tears and I=in the end she came up with this.  I thought it looked nice.

And Grant has had a little guitar for a while but we haven't done anything to try and actually learn how to play it.  I don't play guitar but I know a little bit and can pick out a few chords.  I mean, I hardly know anything, so it is the blind leading the blind again, but I've been sitting down with Grant and helping him learn a few things recently.  This is a song he's been working on.  He also sings with it, but has a hard time figuring out what key to start in (with the singing) since the chord is lots of notes together I know its a little tricky to figure that out with guitar.  He was also feeling shy so had me sing for him while he played - so please excuse my weird singing. This is a full size guitar that he was using - we also have a small one -  and he has trouble holding the guitar upright while playing since it is so big for him, so that's why its laying down as he plays.  We told him we could get him one that's an appropriate size for him if he continues playing.

Another piano song John is working on. Now we are to the point where we are trying to learn the notes on the staff - so that's a little tricky.

This is a video Anna made with John and Emma.  So this might be more of an Anna talent.  Anna made an escape room last year during quarantine and then made a little video to introduce the escape room and lay out the rules.  This was after we had gone to an escape room in Salt Lake for Matthew's birthday (last year) and Emma had been frightened by a skeleton (which was intended to be silly) in the intro video we watched prior to doing the escape room.  So they made a non-frightening escape room video.  Good job guys!!

The Big Snow

So, just like most of America we got a big snow this past week.  Luckily we didn't get a lot of ice and didn't lose power.  We had two days of school canceled on either end of an already long (4 day) weekend.  So we ended up with a 6 day weekend - Thursday through Tuesday.  The kids had lots of fun playing in the snow over the weekend.  Some days they were out in the snow from nearly sun up to sun down.  Here are some pictures.  The snow drifted up in places in the yard.

Lots of snow on the street.  We saw several big trucks get struck in the snow just backing out of their driveways.  We didn't go anywhere for several days.

Just behind their house is a wild space with a great sledding hill.  The kids had fun sledding there.

Woohoo!

Walking back up took a little while.

 

Scott helped John do some sledding and they did a few runs together

I made the kids come in for dinner each night.

They were so excited to have snow!

There were a few little sad moments.  John took a snow ball to the face (the snow ball thrower insists it was an accident).  John had to relax inside for a while.

Emma had a little cold rash on her cheeks after one long day out in the cold.

We have a little slope at the back of our yard that was just big enough for lots of gentle sledding.

Snow ball fights

Snow caves

Matthew got a couple sticks and used them to pull himself around the yard on a sled on his belly.

Snow persons were built

Here is Grant's snowman

Snow angels were attempted

A tiny snowman

More sledding

More snowmen

Emma said this one was a "snow mermaid"

New snow caves/tunnels.  I dug this one with John and Emma.

It was big enough for kids to climb in but not me

Some little Valentine's Day goodies

It was a fun weekend - kind of snowed in

And here are a few non-snow pics

Anna working on her violin skills

and working on piano skills.  We've all been working on music skills lately.

Several of the kids worked on cardboard cars

Batman matchers

Lots of bread being baked.  We made our favorite multigrain bread several times.  And Anna baked these little buns one day.  This next week everyone starts going too full day school two days a week.  So more new adventures to come.