Mushroom Picking

From Sunday, October 17th:

It was a beautiful fall day, and we skipped church...one of the reasons being that Synnove was sick with a fever the day before. So, instead of spending a lazy day at home, Adam decided he wanted to take the kids out hunting for chanterelles. Adam and the kids got started mushroom hunting when my Dad took them out last fall. Adam has always been interested in mushrooms, but never found the time to start a new hobby (imagine that). Adam and the kids went out with the kids a few weeks prior and found quite a few, so he wanted to try his luck again.

I had never been, and had a great time on our little treasure hunt. I snapped quite a few pictures and found quite a few species of mushrooms. They are all so interesting and different. Of course, we stuck to what we knew, and only picked the chanterelles. We could have picked for hours, but decided that two bucket-fulls was MORE than enough. Thank goodness they are tasty, because we were drowning in mushrooms for over a week!

Adam let each of the kids have a semi-dull knife to cut their plunder. More mushrooms will grow if you leave part of the stem...and they are easier to clean!

Adam cleaned mushrooms for a looooong time. Below is only 2/3 of a bucket-full and we had TWO buckets! Thankfully, we found lots of takers.

First Glimpse of Summer

Our first beautiful day since mid-May...

We raced home from Hillsboro on Saturday to enjoy our first mow of the field and splash in the pool of the summer.

Synnove and Soren go "Hunting"

Adam is always thinking up fun things for the kids to do outdoors. Even though he has TONS to do around the house, he takes the time to relax with the kids. They really enjoy their little adventures, and I enjoy a few moments of peace. On the day after we got home from camping, Adam took the kids "hunting" for whatever animals they could find. He had gone woodcutting that morning and stopped at the store on the way home to purchase a couple of play cap-rifles and some spice drops. Apparently, spice drops are a necessary hunting treat. As soon as the kids were up from nap, they were off to the woods. They hiked up some nearby mountain to a place where they could see the river. Adam said it was quite a hike for the kids, but they never once asked to be carried. Adam got some great pictures of the kids, below are just a few. By the way, they only saw a chipmunk :)

Shooting their guns

There is more than one pic of Synnove looking like this...ha ha! (See view!)

Stopping for a snack...

Hams

The Wild Blackberry Pirate...

...pillaged our field last weekend. I caught him "red-handed" but he destroyed the evidence with the hose.

(Suspect: "Soren P. Brown")

However, he was unaware of what was all over his face.

"Arrrr Matey!"

4th of July Slideshow

Here's the photos of our latest camping trip. The weather was awesome...and I think we all had a great time!

Just click on it if you want to see full-screen or download any of them.

Camping Slideshow

Our camping trip this Memorial weekend was awesome...NO RAIN! This year, we had more quads than ever and we made good use of the trails. Even Synnove got to ride with some of the big boys =) Since the weather was decent, we had two movie nights around the campfire (thanks Doug and Sherri) and we played a few games. Tons of fun was had by all! I can't wait till our 4th of July trip!!

There have been lots of requests for the photos I took, so I tried to put them in a slideshow/album. I hope it works! Just click on the slideshow to view pics larger or individually. You should even be able to copy/save them for yourselves =)



I hope to post the videos I took on the trail soon (it takes me a while to shrink/upload them)

Making the Most Out of Mother's Day Weekend

We got started early on Saturday. We needed to make the garden more level and the dozer had done all it could do. I got out the roto-tiller to till up stiff soil so it could be easily dug out, while Adam used the tractor to shovel up the soil I tilled. It was a pretty good system! Then, we laid down some of our fancy underlayment (thanks GP!) and started building our walls/raised beds. It's gonna take us a while to get it all done...but it's a start! My mom and dad stopped by to give me a new plant for mother's day and watched us work for a while (both recovering from bad colds). Once we laid an entire pallet of cinder blocks, we headed back to Home Depot for another. While we were there, Adam and the kids let me pick out 3 new plants for the flower beds for Mother's Day! I picked a rose, a gardenia, and a pink flowering shrub (don't know the name).

Since it was nice, we let the bunnies out one at a time to play in the dog kennel. Charlie thought that Bunny-Him's cage looked cozy. He slept like this for quite a while! His neck is pink from Synnove's sidewalk chalk.

On Sunday, we all decided to show up at my parents' church for Mother's day. All of us were there, except dad (sick) so we went out to lunch and made plans for a spontaneously fun day at our house! We went to Chinese and had some really great food! They even gave out little crystal "Happy Mother's Day" figurines that lit up! It was sweet. Anyway, everyone had to go home to change clothes and get a few things and they all met at our house later.

The weather was decent so we set fire to our smaller burn pile. We also took a sledge hammer to the old goat shed (in pieces below).

While waiting for the fire to burn down to a reasonable hot-dog roasting fire, we split some wood. Dad and Adam split, while Mom and I stacked.

This is Synnove "helping"

The kids were good all day, despite a weekend with no naps.

The fire finally burned down enough, but it was still really hot! Mom found a unique way of roasting with out setting her pants on fire.

In the midst of all the fun, Synnove wanted to show off her 4-wheelin' skills...

After hot dogs, we all went up to the house to have ice cream sundaes! We had all kinds of candy toppings, chocolate syrup, caramel syrup, whipped cream, and bananas. We were all watching Bedtime Stories so I let the kids eat in the living room...Soren in his chair, and Novie on a towel. What a treat!

After ice cream, bath, and movie...

Hope your Mother's Day was as awesome as mine!!

Things We Do "In The Sticks"

We check mole traps in the rain while skipping...

We create our own version of Ax Men logging episodes...

Just look at those three Stihls in action (Adam, Uncle Don, and Dad)! Henry's (far right) Husqvarna broke earlier in the day...ha ha ha!
Ax Men groupies playing in the dirt...

And we go trout fishing with Papa...and still have fun even though we didn't catch anything.

Picture Spree and Hot Dogs

So, I went to download some of the pictures I took of the kids today when I discovered that the kids had gone on a picture spree of their own a few days ago. They took, not one, not 50, but 120 pictures!! It was quite comical. All of the pictures were taken downstairs, and every one of them is of something different. Synnove took pictures of her closet, books, her stereo, my stereo, things on the desk, toys, Soren's room, etc, etc. Synnove even managed to capture Soren's bare buns when he was trying to change out of his jammies and diaper on his own. The entire event must have happened while I was in the shower or something...how funny =)

Anyway, we spent the entire day outside doing work around the house. We split some wood and did some more clearing of the alder that was cut down a few weeks ago. We got it all clear and decided to try to burn the stump out. It was a decent day so we planned on having family over for a weenie roast. The weather sorta turned, and most everyone was busy doing other things anyway. So, it was just us. The weather stayed decent until we came in at about 7. Here's a few shots of my grubby munchies...