Hee Haw....Happy Halloween!

Cowgirl Emma was out on the town wrangling in as many treats as she could get her hands on this Halloween!  She ventured down a couple more blocks this year, and had a "system" in place...she followed all the "big kids"!  It seemed to work for her, as when we were heading home, she told me she was glad to be done trick or treating because her treat bucket was getting too heavy!

The "new" scooter

Emma has been a little obsessed with scooters this summer, so when one of the older kids was selling their old scooter for $2 at our garage sale this summer...it was right within her budget!  Emma bought the very loved scooter, and we bought her two favorite colors--orange and blue--to freshen it up a bit!  This is the before picture, and I don't have an after picture unfortunately, but Emma has enjoyed many fine "scoots" down to the park on her fine new scooter!

Grandma and Grandpa Thier's visit

Grandma and Grandpa drove all the way from MN to visit us this summer.  We had a grand time during their visit.  We took a trip out to the Columbia River Goerge to see the Bonneville Dam, to the fish hatchery to catch a glimpse of some salmon making their way up stream, and of course the beautiful waterfalls.  We also enjoyed the time we got to spend with them around the house.  Emma especially enjoyed making apple pies with Grandma, and having about 100 books read to her by both Grandpa and Grandma!

Mt Adams camping and Huckleberry picking

We ventured back to Mt Adams again this year for our annual Huckleberry picking.  This year, John and John joined us camping.  We had a long drive on Saturday looking for the perfect berry fields, only to find great picking a short distance from our camp site on our way back home the next day.  We did come away with about a gallon of huckleberries though, and some good memories from camping with the Johns!

Camping trip in Southern Oregon

We headed a bit further than our usual camping trips this year...but for good reason.  We met up with our best camping buddies...John, Angela, and Marty, who now reside in California.  The trip to southern Oregon was quite worth the drive, with the rugged beaches, warm sun, sand dunes, and great friends!  Emma was even able to venture into the water...which is usually much, MUCH too cold to bear anything more than a dip of the toes!  We stopped to see some Sand dunes on the way back home.  It was a bit cool and windy though, so we will have to explore more of that area on our next trip.

Fourth of July

We had a pretty low key Fourth of July celebration this year...lighting some small fireworks in our driveway.  It had been a long day with Emma asking when it was going to be time to watch fireworks-- we prolonged it as long as we could, but couldn't hold out until night fall!  Here's the tail end of one of her sparkler runs to our neighbors house and back!

Cookin' up something good

Emma took a Winnie the Pooh cooking class, and learned how to make Alphabet soup, buttermilk biscuits with honey, and no bake peanut butter cookies.  It was delicious!