Morning Wedding in the Gorge

Lovely friends of our were wed at the top of the Columbia Gorge on a glorious Saturday morning. Beautiful family photo opportunities!

After the wedding ceremony, everyone got on their bicycles and cruised down a several mile hill to the bottom of the gorge to the waterfalls. The bride and groom led the way on their tandem. Mr. Man and I had an amazing ride down through beautiful lush forests and curvy, curvy roads.

At the bottom of course, were climbing opportunities.

See if you can find the speck that is Mr. Man!

26 Mile Ride

Mr. Man and I did our first 26 mile ride to benefit diabetes research. The ride was in the hilly rural community to our west. We had beautiful sunny weather and a wonderful ride. The hard climbs all happened at the beginning and Mr. Man and I powered through them.

At the rest stop just six miles before the finish line, he took a photo opp to make a watermelon frown in front of the Oreo cookies.

Here we are, smiling after 20 miles! Love Mr. Man's helmet-head!

Animation at OMSI

One of Mr. Man's favorite summer camps is clay animation. This summer was his third year. Here are the recent additions to his clay characters.

Climbing inside the OMSI O is necessary at the end of camp!

At the Sea

The Oregon coast is one of Mr. Man's favorite places to be.

Four Eyes for Reading

Mr. Man got reading glasses. He was not happy to show them off...

By the Numbers

Mr. Man went to the doctor recently for his "well-child visit." Naturally, he had a cold that day. Nevertheless, at the end of the appointment the nurse handed me a tiny scrap of paper with the following information. I suppose I am meant to put this in his scrapbook. Accordingly:

Height: 55.5 inches (That's 4 feet 7.5 inches, meaning he is now taller than his Nana and soon will be taller than his Aunt.)
Weight: 76 lbs

He's more small-person-sized than child-sized now. He's fantastic.

World News Today

This morning I told Mr. Man that while he was sleeping, President Obama had announced that Osama bin Laden was dead, killed during a raid of his secret compound by US troops. He asked a few questions but mostly just accepted the information quietly before asking for his daily briefing on the war in Libya which has been occupying his attention as of late.

Tonight, as we snuggled on the couch, he asked me what I thought about bin Laden being killed. I said I had been thinking about it a lot during the day and we discussed some of my reaction and the realities of the situation. Mr. Man related that a child in his class had announced Osama bin Laden's death to the class this morning and "everyone cheered but mostly I just felt sad."

Stunt Videos

New Decade, New Bike

Cousin Time!

A recent trip to the great city to our north allowed Mr. Man to spend time with his 2 year-old cousin.

There was swinging.


And hat switching.



There was the kiddy motor car.





There was time spent by the fire. And later another fire complete with marshmallow roasting.



There was time spent snuggling, watching Mary Poppins.



There was bedtime story reading.


There was hand-holding and posing at the aquarium.



There was frustration with picture taking, complete with fishy face paint.

Yule Tree

Since we are not traveling over the holidays this year, we took the opportunity to get a living yule tree. There's a small business here that delivers potted trees to your house and then picks them up after the holidays to be planted.

Our tree came yesterday and we quickly got around to decorating. Since we don't generally have a yule tree, we don't actually have many decorations. However, that didn't stop Mr. Man from making lego ornaments.

We can't be the only family with Yoda on their holiday tree, right?



He quickly got his presents from his hiding places and put them under the tree.

The Dark Lord

At the last minute, Mr. Man decided he wanted to go Trick or Treating on Halloween Night. Given his Star Wars fanaticism, it wasn't surprising when he quickly mocked up an impressive costume, complete with makeup he did entirely himself.

Off to Camp

In October Mr. Man had his first long trip away from home with his elementary class. He went to Opal Creek for four days and three nights for an intense outdoor educational adventure.

He seemed ambivalent about the trip in the weeks leading up to it, but on the morning of departure, he was ready to go!


There was plenty of time for photo ops with friends as we waited for the bus to arrive to take the kids on the 2-hour drive.


There was much cheering as the tour bus pulled into the parking lot!


The three nights without him seemed so long! By the second night it was hard to adapt to the fact he wasn't coming home.

When we picked him up on Friday, we hugged him and asked him how it was. In a very exasperated voice, he said, "They only fed us three times a day!"

We've heard many stories from him about camp after the fact and these are the things he enjoyed:

• Tending a wood stove in your cabin is really cool. He was apparently the expert fire tender for his cabin. He's convinced we need one in the house we haven't yet bought.


• His entire class could not link arms around a 2000 year old tree. He's amazed by the idea that the ancient trees have been around since Roman times.


• Playing poker is fun. He and the boys in his cabin (18 of them) played poker at rec time, in the evening until lights out at 10pm and from 5-7am in the morning. As you can imagine, there was a lot of Lady Gaga "Pokerface" being sung.


• Despite waterproof boots, it's still possible to walk in the river and get your feet totally soaked. When we picked him up his feet were all wrinkly from being wet and we imagine they were like that most of the week.


• He saw the remains of the old mine that used to exist on the property and enjoyed going inside.

We thought he'd be tired from a long week of wilderness education, but alas, when asked what he wanted to do he opted to go to Multnomah Falls.

We started at the Vista House, which overlooks the Columbia Gorge:


He dorked around in an old rotted out tree:



We saw beautiful waterfalls:


We drove back home and piled our tired boy into bed.

Multnomah Falls on a Hot Day

We got in a car, turned on the air conditioning and got out of town today. We moved to the Pacific Northwest so we wouldn't be hot. Late in the day, when we were grumpy and hot, we drove the 30 minutes to Multnomah Falls, where a waterfall cascades down a sheer rock face. Welcome to the Columbia Gorge.



A quarter mile up a switchback trail is an observation bridge. If you hike a mile up you can get to the top, but Mama was not up for that in flip flops.



This is the view looking up from the observation bridge.



This is the view looking down from the observation bridge.



A snow cone was required, of course.



As was a self portrait in which Mr. Man doesn't smile.



Getting our toes wet in the shallow river at the bottom was essential.





No, he's not pooping in the river. He's sitting on a big rock in the middle of the current.



He was a much mellower kid--at least for a few moments.



Until a freight train came barreling down the tracks and over an exposed bridge that you could look up through. Mr. Man is the orange dot. He's standing under the bridge with his hands over his ears.