Independence Day 2012 and an Oregon Visit

* July 2, 2012
We started our Independence Day week off with a bang! Ha! Monday night, for a big, multi-family, combined FHE we set off fireworks at the Colemans house. In true Pacific Northwest fashion, it was freezing!! In fact, we got a little sprinkling at the end. No worries, we all bundled up and the kiddos all had a blast.

* July 3, 2012
Piano recital... See post below. And then {awesome hubby and daddy that he is!} Sean insisted that Ethan and I get fireworks to take with us down to Oregon, even though he wouldn't be able to enjoy them himself.

* July 4, 2012
Sean had to work {ALL DAY and the rest of the week!!} so Ethan and I headed down to Oregon to spend some time with my family and also my aunt, uncle and cousins who were in town from Utah. First up, a big family BBQ lunch where I was in charge of dessert. Check out this little beauty...

My friend's amazing lemon bar recipe baked in a tart pan and fresh raspberries and blueberries to make the start design. The raspberries, especially, were delicious with the tart/sweet lemon bars.

And then the rest of the spread... With burgers and hot dogs fresh off the grill outside.

It was so great to see and chat with family and spend some time with my cousins, Niki and Sarah, that I don't get to see very often!

Later, after everyone had left and it had gotten dark, we broke out the fireworks!! Including the legal ones from Washington... which may not be quite so legal in Oregon!

 

Let me tell you, that "100 SHOT" one was a total dud!! But we loved the "Mighty Python" one, which we almost didn't get - Sean picked it out, though, so he gets all the credit! Besides the Roman Candles (which freaked my family out because everyone we know just holds them in their hand!) and the artillery shells, the rest were good ol', stay-on-the-ground fountain fireworks.

And, of course, some sparklers. Growing up, we always did morning glories, but in the last couple years I've discovered I really like just the plain gold sparklers.

* July 5, 2012

Ethan and I stuck around in Oregon for a few days and on Thursday we went to the lake w/ Lizzy... and her friends. Nothing like the 14-year age difference between us to make me feel really old!! The teeny-boppers hung around at the dock and my Mom, Ethan and I lounged in the sun on the shore. [Tragic side story: We found out when we got there that earlier in the day there had been a drowning. I think the kid had jumped in, but hit his head on the way down, so never resurfaced. He was finally found 54 feet down, about 5 hours after he had jumped.]

 Ethan stuck a toe in the water to test it out...

 Yep! It was a little chilly!!

 Better warm up in the sun with the Doritos chip bag that's as big as he is!

 And then spend a good chunk of time balancing on the log near us. {I apologize for the musical stylings of P!NK in the background we may have been rocking out to!}

 Bum shot!!

Digging in the sand.

Back at my parents' house we had my aunt and cousins over to play games for a while. And then I had to attempt this layered, patriotic drink. A little trickier than I thought it'd be, but we got it to work!

 * July 6, 2012
Christine's 24th Birthday!!
On Friday we kept it pretty laid back, slept in and had a leisurely morning. We went and saw the movie Brave. Yeah... That was kind of a mistake!! *Spoiler alert!* As soon as a certain family member turned into a bear (which is pretty close to the beginning of the movie) Ethan was done. He really, really didn't like that this family member had been changed. I don't think the huge bear scared him so much as the idea of this family member being changed into the bear. Like, it really bothered him. It was all I could do to keep him in the theater for the whole movie!

* July 7, 2012

After some errands and hanging out with my family for one more day, Ethan and I headed home to Washington and to finally see Sean, who we had missed a lot!

Piano Recital 2012

The first week of July was the piano recital for all of Sean's piano students. If you'll recall from last year, Sean had 6 students for most of the year, but 5 by the recital. It was a quick recital. This year, he nearly tripled his numbers!! Fourteen students most of the year and thirteen by the recital. Add in Ethan for his first recital and it's back up to fourteen. And, don't forget, Sean also has one vocal student.

Anyway, last year we had the recital at someone's house. This year, with so many new students, there had to be a change in venue. Luckily, you can have musical performances at the church, so we were able to have it there. We had 40+ people, including students, parents, siblings and grandparents show up for a great performance! All the kids did 2 songs each and it was awesome to hear the improvement of the beginners from last year, the newbies from this year and then also the more advanced students that switched over to take lessons from Sean.

Ethan, the youngest and most beginner-est of the group, started it all off... He had a little trouble at first, but (with a little coaching from Daddy) played on...

 Followed by the rest of the beginners, intermediate and more advanced players...

Group shot! The littlest girl in the front (with the binkie) is not one of Sean's students... just to clarify!!

Afterwards there was refreshments, mingling and much praise given to these fine, young musicians!

Olympic Track & Field Trials - June 2012

The second to last weekend in June we were able to go down to Oregon to visit BOTH Sean and I's families! Sean's family was up from SoCal to help his Grandma with her recent move. With Sean's work schedule we were only able to go down for one day (drove down Saturday night and stayed on Sunday) but we made the most of our time there! Sunday, after church (and before Sean's B-day BBQ), Lizzy, Ethan and I went to the UofO campus for the Olympic Track & Field Trials. They have a whole festival outside Hayward Field (that's free to get in) with a big set-up from Nike, food booths, a mini 5-event Olympics for kids, jumbo-trons to watch the action from outside the field, etc. We took Ethan four years ago and had a great time...

 

Track Town 2008

Look at how little he is!!

One of the first things we came across was the mini-Olympics for kids. Ethan can sometimes be very shy about participating in things like that, but he was very excited to try out all the events so that's what we did first! There was a long jump, standing long jump, vertical leap, 40m dash and 40m hurdles. Ethan did them all and had a great time... even if he couldn't run the fastest or jump the highest. They also had a very small track-time obstacle course for just the little kids. Ethan did that, too.

The look on the other kid's face cracks. me. up!! He wanted a "real" race and was less than happy when Ethan took the advice of the people running the event and just ran around the hurdles!! Ethan was just happy to give it a try!

At the start of the 40m dash WITH the starting blocks... even with flip flops that he had to fling off, Ethan won this race hands down!

After all was said and done, Ethan got to show his completed event card for a prize. I don't remember what... something cheesy. But he got a lanyard with a holder for his event card, so he thought that was pretty cool.

The rest of the time we just walked around the rest of the festival...

Took a cheesy cut-out shot....

Got a free Chobani yogurt (any flavor!)....

Admired Ashton Eaton's new world record in the Decathlon....

Watched some of the events on the jumbo-trons and listened to the roar of the crowd at the stadium...

Went through all of the Nike's displays... this light one was pretty cool, as long as you're not prone to seizures! It showed real-time of how fast the runners were going...

Checked out the UofO Track booth and took some pictures next to the giant, golden "O"...

And then Ethan ran around the little track they had on the floor...

Admired the hype they had for the Olympic games being in London...

And had a camera-guy take our picture as we were getting ready to leave...

We were only there a couple hours, but it was fun to feel like we were part of history-in-the-making and I like that Ethan has been to BOTH of the trials in his lifetime.... A tradition I hope to continue.

Portland Ensign Choir & Orchestra Summer Concert

Sean's summer concert for the Portland Ensign Choir and Orchestra was in June, right after school got out. The concert featured Jenny Oaks Baker on violin and was all Disney and movie music. Of course, curse of the camera, I remembered to have a fully charged battery and then left the SD card in the computer! So I only had the minimal internal camera battery to catch a few shots and a short video. This was from the Mary Poppins medley they performed. Other highlights included an acapella Mission Impossible theme, an Aladdin tango and a lively "Happy Working Song" from Enchanted. 

April Recap

Hard to believe there could possibly be anything else to write about for April after so much was already covered. I mean, April was a pretty busy month for us...

- California
- Disneyland
- Easter
- Ethan's 5th Birthday
- Ethan's birthday party
- Fire truck park
- Ethan's swim lessons

But, I think I can still find a couple new things to write about...

* Spring has sprung! Well, by now we are nearing summer, but in April all the flowers and trees were blooming...

Our bluebells.

The neighbor's apple tree.

The neighbor's dogwood tree. I really caught this one just barely before all the blooms were gone. For three Springs now I've been meaning to get some good pictures of that tree and I always miss it!

* Playdates. Since I am not working right now, I try and help out our friends if they need a kid or two watched for a couple hours during the day every once in a while. One day in April we had 2 kids in the morning and 3 kids in the afternoon with about a 1/2 hour overlap between the p.m. kids being dropped off and the a.m. kids being picked up! Ethan plays well with all of them, so it usually works out pretty well.This little cutie is Emily (almost 2) and it was one the first times she was at our house, so she was very quiet but super sweet. I couldn't resist this picture because of her cute little ponytail sticking up from the helmet!!
{Notice the jungle we call a yard behind her?! Yeah, we were pretty happy when our landlord's guys finally came to mow it in April! Not for our lack of trying to do it on our own (long story)- we just don't have our own mower.}

* YM/YW ward talent show. Since Sean is in the YM presidency, he got to participate and then it just happened that the Activity Day girls that I work with went to the show so I was able to video this little gem showing off the YM leaders that are oozing with talent!

 

* Geo-Trax. We love our Geo-Trax in this house, but since they take up quite a bit of room to make a full track, they usually make an appearance once a month or so and then stay up for a few days. This track was from April and Ethan and I thought we were pretty clever for being able to engineer a 2-story hill and some cool zig-zags/switch-backs underneath.

* First trip to Klineline of the season!! We had some AWESOME weather the 3rd weekend of April and ended up at our fave summer hang-out Saturday evening with several other friends and family. We had a picnic dinner, dipped our toes in the cold water, kids fished, kids played at the playground and adults played some frisbee in the squishy, soggy grass. Good times. :)

* Oh, and in case you're wondering... no date-night-movie-of-the-month. We were too busy with everything else all the other weekends. I did, however, finally rent and watch Thor in preparation for The Avengers coming out. We also re-watched Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Captain America! We got movie night in May, though - any guesses what we saw?!

* Random picture of my boys... Of course, they're sleeping. Snuggling together one Sunday after church.