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!

Life at the beach

Emma worked very hard to carve out a foot pool for herself and her sea creature toys.  By the smile on her face, I think she thought it was well worth the effort.  We all enjoyed a beautiful day at the beach in Newport!

A gymnasts meditation

Emma learning the basics of he cartwheel with coach Andrea at gymnastics class, and then reflecting on her technique!

Starlight Run!

Each year Portland celebrates the Rose Festival during the first week of June.  To get the festivities kicked off, the city hosts a 5K Starlight run, followed by the Startlight Parade.  Ken ran in this years race...dressed as Freddy Mercury, with some friends from work.  Emma and I joined him after the race to watch a bit of the Starlight Parade with John and John.  We had a bit of a 5K race ourselves...trying to find parking downtown, and then make it to see daddy running by in the race.