One final hoorah

For the last weekend of summer, we took a Clark family road trip to Southern Oregon.  It was the only weekend of the summer when I didn't have work commitments, and I just wanted to GET AWAY.  We splurged a little and stayed at a little house on the Rogue River in Gold Hill, Oregon.  I say splurged, but it wasn't much more than a hotel would have cost and we had the luxury of a kitchen and living area.  It was also a great central location to all of the wine tasting and other places we wanted to visit.

When we arrived in Southern Oregon, the sky was blue and the weather was great, as you can see from the picture below.  By the time we left, you couldn't see much to the left or right of you because of the forest fires that were happening across the state and polluting the atmosphere.

Our first stop was a winery right off the freeway.  We were antsy to get out of the car, stretch our legs, and taste some wine from this region of the state.

Blue sky at Del Rio Vineyards

Wine for us and peanut butter for Trey

Trey taking his first photo of us...didn't do too bad of a job, huh?

Trey beginning his love affair with selfies

Trey playing with his toys while I sat on the couch and read my book...

perfect vacation in my book!

The next day we headed out for some wine tasting.  I had a few on my list that I wanted to try after drinking their wine at a southern Oregon wine festival in Portland a few years before.  First we went to Kriselle Cellars.  The wine was okay, but not as wonderful as I remembered.

When people ask how we manage to take Trey wine tasting, we say, "Toys, snacks, and iPad."

I'm sure this view is beautiful on a clear day.

Later that day we went to a brewpub in Ashland and then went to the Scienceworks Museum in Ashland.  It was a great hands-on museum and we all had fun.  After that we went to meet Dora and her husband at Caldera Brewing for dinner.  It was a full and fun day!

Ginormous bubbles!

Human kaleidoscope!

The sky - a little different than when we arrived.

We decided to take a spontaneous roadtrip to see the Redwoods.  While I'm glad we went, it was a long drive for a short visit, and I wish we would have planned it a little better (opposite of spontaneity, I guess).  Also, some of our routes were shut down due to the fires, so that part we could not have expected.

Randy looking under rocks, as he always does when we are near a river

Back at our little house on the river...Trey and Randy did some fishing and I did some reading.  It was a glorious end to our trip, and I think we all enjoyed it.

Last weeks of summer

Conveniently, summer school ended on my birthday weekend.  I put in a lot of time in the 10 days leading up to finals (A LOT) and was able to turn in my last final exam on Saturday morning.  I don't even want to know how many pages I read and wrote in those last two weeks.  Randy and I celebrated by going to buy a new car!!!

Trey likes our new car too.  It was a great decision for us with all of the miles I commute for work.  On a drive I took last week I got 47.5 average miles per gallon on the drive which is over double what I got in the Subaru.

Our brand new Prius had ONE MILE on it when we got it!

On the Saturday night after I turned in my last final, Trey's karate school was having a Parents' Night Out event where we could drop him off to play for two hours.  He was really excited about the bounce house, so he was game to try it out.  We dropped him off and went to Decarli for a celebratory dinner - we decided we were celebrating the end of summer school, buying a new car, my birthday, and our anniversary all at once.

Trey and his favorite - the bounce house

One of our favorite brewfests is the Organic Brew Fest that is usually at the end of June.  This year it got rescheduled for my birthday weekend, so we met some friends there on Sunday afternoon.  Somehow I walked away with zero pictures!

That night Kris and John came over for dinner and we grilled up short ribs from Gartner's, one of my favorites.  We proceeded to drink a lot of delicious wine and play a lot of Yahtzee and Uno after Trey went to bed.  It was the perfect night.

The following week was my last real week of summer, and I wanted to live it up.  Trey and I were very busy and did a lot of fun things which included Pump It Up Jr, going to see Inside Out again, the Children's Museum, Oaks Park with Mindy and Camille, and lots of other fun things.

Trey at Pump It Up Jr.

Fun at the Children's Museum

Swimming with Daddy at Dave's pool

This is our third summer of going to preschool days at Oaks Park Amusement Park.  Trey was way more adventurous this year than last and even went on several of the rides alone with Camille.  No parents!  Even the roller coaster!  I was so impressed.

Unfortunately, the one ride he wanted me to join him on was the Tilt-a-Whirl.
As we were finishing up, I was telling the ride operator, "Anytime..." and "I'm ready to get off," because I was afraid I was going to throw up.  I don't know if he heard me or not, but the ride eventually stopped.  Thank God.

Trey and Camille in the red car of the roller coaster

All by themselves!!

I took a Collaborative Problem Solving class in the week before school started and was relieved that the class was really good.  It always sucks when you give up summer days for a crappy class.  I took a walk during my lunch break and got to enjoy some pretty scenery.

Last weekend we had the Kopplins over for dinner and the boys enjoyed making s'mores on the grill after dinner was done.

Trey has joined a soccer team that has boys who are going into kindergarten at his school.  We have learned that three of the boys are going to be in his class, so we are both excited about that.  I primarily had him join this team so I could meet some parents from his school, and so far that has been a success.  Trey's not a huge fan of soccer, so I don't see this becoming a life long sport for him.

On Friday night Randy and I went to see Kid Rock in concert.  I love Kid Rock!!!  The show was great, and I loved seeing him up there performing.  I also think it may be the only concert in our lives that we were both excited to see.

One last summer popsicle shot... love these three blondies.

Summer Randomness

Because I didn't blog all summer long, I have been trying to group my pics into logical blog posts that aren't freakishly long.  These pictures are kind of the leftovers, so I thought I'd put them in one post.  I'm not sure of the timing on some of them, but oh well...

Trey loves the playground at the Tualatin Hills Parks and Rec Center on 158th and Walker, so we often went there after soccer class at the beginning of the summer.  Sometimes Randy would come meet us for lunch which was a special treat.  

One hot day Randy met us at Baskin and Robbins after work for a special treat and then we headed up to Bimart to buy a new inflatable pool for the backyard.

We spent a lot of summer afternoons with Grady and Case, and they often ended up in these seats with their mini popsicles.

One afternoon I was really tired of doing coursework, so Trey and I ventured out on our park project.  We were not very successful at hitting all of the parks in Beaverton, partially because of the excessive late afternoon heat this summer and partially because of my coursework.  On this afternoon, we tried about five different parks that did not have playgrounds until we finally ended up at Sexton Mt. Elementary School's playground.

Love this pic because my cautious little guy is finally taking some risks on the playground.  Not many, but a few.

More popsicles

My dad came up for a few days and had some summer fun with us.  He has stopped working after over 50 years of being one of the hardest workers I know.  We are so proud of him and glad that he has more time to spend with us!

Trey has become my new movie buddy, and we had fun going to see movies like Inside Out and Minions this summer.  We took Grandpa Gerts to see Home at the cheap movie theater, and I'm glad it was cheap because the movie was terrible.

Watching a movie and an awful one at that

Guess what?  More popsicles!

In mid-July we went to the annual Drink Pink festival at Patton Valley Vineyards.  Kris wasn't feeling well and couldn't go, and Sarah had to man the Imbue table with Neil, so Julie and I enjoyed a lot of pink wine on our own.  It was a really hot day which diminished the fun just a little bit, but we still had a good time.

Sarah and Neil, serving Imbue cocktails

Delicious paella, one of the main reasons we go

This is where Julie and I spent most of our time, 

enjoying the shade and the view

Randy took Trey on a boys' campout with Jason and Declan.  Their big one that was scheduled for August got cancelled, but they luckily had already gone on a shorter trip in July.  They went to Hideaway Lake up the Clackamas River drainage and, by all accounts, they had a great time. 

Trey, Declan and Jason

One evening we headed back to our 'hood to stop by Breakside on our way to pick up Dan and Isi at the airport.  Randy and I really miss our old neighborhood, which we talk about at length every time we are back over there.

My old Evaluation Center friends and I got together a few times this summer to see each other and catch up.  I hope these reunions continue because I still really miss everyone.

Summer isn't really summer without a lot of ice cream.  Trey has finally expanded his horizons beyond vanilla and orange sherbet...although he's not as big of a fan of the chocolate as I would have expected.

Have you heard of Blue Apron?  My friend Kerry gave me a free shipment, so we checked it out.  I will say that all of the meals I have made from Blue Apron have been delicious and I have really enjoyed not having to do meal planning or grocery shopping, but it is a little out of our price range for weekly at-home eating (comes out to $10 a person per meal with no leftovers) and the amount of packaging really bugs me.  Nevertheless, the food and recipes were great.  I highly recommend if it is something you are interested in.

When we were at the beach in August, our dogsitter took some really great photos of Bailey and left them around the house for us.  These are two of them, and we are so happy she took these pictures because Bailey kind of gets the short end of the stick with picture taking (kind of like your second born who does not have nearly as many pictures taken as your first?).