2009 Aumsville Corn Festival

Time for another parade! Just like nearby Stayton's 4th of July parade, we entered the Aumsville Corn Festival Parade on Saturday to promote the new Aumsville dental office. Can you guess the theme?


Time to go, Dr. Ben!


Dr. Travis standing by, ready to toss candy and floss.


In honor of the corn festival, Ben even found a ear of corn costume. None of the adults would wear it, but Avery and his cousin Alli each took a turn!


For the entire parade route Emmett hung out with Joey, the Salem office receptionist. He's so good natured and she just like his fuzzy noggin. Why does Emmett sit so nicely for everyone but his parents?


Carson was just glad to be off the float when it was over. He's very nervous about loud things and especially being on something loud that moves.


This kid cracks me up. He was making these Mr. Magoo looking faces and thought he was very funny!


Then he just wanted the camera.

First Lost Tooth

Today was a very full, weird and crazy day, but I'll keep the story to Avery's big excitement:
His first lost tooth!

He's been miserable the last few days because his two bottom central incisors have been lose for a few months, but all of a sudden the top left central got really loose too and it's been killing him to eat. So tonight Daddy offered to yank it and Avery readily agreed.

Not the best looking shot of the poor kid, but I think it does the best
job of getting across how grey that top tooth is. Time to come out!


Tied on and braced!


And... it's out!


First toothless grin!


Whoa ho ho! There's a hole in my mouth!


Checking out the new look


Back to check out the tooth


This was my special homemade pillow to keep my lost teeth safe until the Tooth Fairy could
come, so I got it out for Avery and his excitement about the whole matter knew no bounds!


Congratulations Avery on your first lost tooth!

House Tour Benefits

Apparently I should have posted the house tour long ago because it proved to be just enough motivation to get some things done.

Today the top of my dryer is clean for the first time since we've been here!

And we also finally got the rest of our pictures hung today!

Camping for a Fish

For Father's Day all the kids got a 12 hour tuna charter for Travis' dad and, of course, all the guys wanted to go too. They scheduled the trip for Sat. Aug. 22nd and since they had to be in Newport by 5:30 am I had the brilliant idea that we should all go camping so they would already be in the area that morning and could just relax (and cook fish for dinner!) when they were done.

The day before we left we found out the tuna charter boat broke. Bummer. All tuna charters were booked, but they were able to get on a 5 hour bottom fishing charter. When they arrived they found out the water temperatures had dropped 10 degrees (from 58 to 48) in the last day or so and the tuna were gone. In fact, the day before some charters weren't even heading out it was so bad, so in the end everything turned out for the best!

Travis caught the first fish on the boat, they all maxed out their take home of fish and the crab pots they dropped more than maxed out! It was a good trip for them. While they fished, the girls drug the kids to the outlet mall in Lincoln City and we all had a good trip there too! :)

I was happy with the switch to a 5 hour fishing trip because that meant the guys could go play in the afternoon with the rest of us. We headed to South Beach at the jetty.

On the way Kevin and Avery crashed.

Sad/Ew


Emmett loves walking down the beach with Daddy since
he spends most of his time in the pack-n-play at the beach


Travis' parents take a walk


There's a sandbar that cuts from the jetty and when the tide is out a pool
is created. When we got there the sand bar was just beginning to uncover.


There was no way I was wading through the 48 degree pool, I went around. I think Ben and
Travis found it deeper than they expected and had to flash some blindingly white thighs!


When the sandbar is so saturated with water
the sand is really mushy and fun to walk in.

I love this shot!


This is only 20 minutes after that first picture of the sandbar; the tide really moves out fast!


This dungeness crab was in the pool and Travis pulled him out for the
kids to see. When they're on the sand they dig in and hide for protection.
This one just covered its legs. Maybe he was going for the rock look?


After a while Travis took him over to the moving water by the rocks.
This is slightly funny to me because "animal conservationist" is not
exactly a phrase that comes to mind when thinking of Travis...


I love seeing all the life around the jetty rocks. If you look closely, there's
a lot more than barnacles on them. I almost got Avery to touch one of the
anemones, and he scared away the red rock crab right after I got that shot.


Don't these clouds look painted?


Before we left on our last day, we took the kids to the campground dock on the Siletz
river where we were staying for a little dockside fishing. It was my boys' first time!


Kevin caught the first monster.


Avery caught the second one, some sort of ugly bull head
apparently. He was very excited about his first fish!


Up close with Avery's fish. Feeling threatened, it stuck up
those things on the side of his head and they're pokey!


Everyone caught a fish, and Travis even showed Carson how to hold his to throw it back in.
I can't believe Carson was willing to shove his thumb down that fish's mouth like that!


There are lots of these old pylons sticking out of the river.


What a fun trip! It was also a good chance to test the boys' camping tolerance
since we have the Reno Air Races coming up mid September and the distance
from home won't exactly allow us to abandon camp with miserable kids there!

House Tour, Finally

We've been here just days over 3 months now, but I'm finally getting the house tour up! I had good intentions, some of these pictures were taken the first of June. I tried again by adding a few more pictures the first of July, again July 31st and Aug 12th, and finally took the last ones today. Needless to say, there's some range in these pics...

House front. So nice to have an attached garage so you don't have to go out in
the elements to get to your car! Right? Except the idiot who designed the place
put tiny single doors on instead of a double and the van wouldn't fit in even if
there was room. No room inside is the hazard of losing a basement for storage.

looking up our walkway

the view from the front door

And just to illustrate, since the first of June, this how much
the tree has grown since then. Time to prune I think!

My mess of a kitchen (where some of my least favorite aspects of this house are)

eat-in kitchen/dining room (love all the light from the
sliding glass doors, not a fan of the curtains already there)

living room from the dining room

to the left is the front door, strait is the hallway, right is kitchen

down the hallway is Emmett's room/playroom (it's SO
nice to have the mess of toys out of the living room!)

Avery and Carson's room. Avery graduated up to his Dad's old
childhood bed and Carson graduated up to Avery's old bed from the crib.
That's right, Emmett actually has a crib now instead of the pack-n-play!

I love having the laundry out of the basement. I can actually hear when it's done!
The door goes to the garage. Travis' pile on my dryer has been
there since moving in, and it's STILL there. I'm getting ready to
unceremoniously dump them in the garage... right in his way.

One of my favorite aspects of the house - our closet!
No picture of our room, but it's probably double the
space of any of our previous small bedrooms - yea!

Out the backdoor. I had this post all ready and suddenly realized I was missing the backyard,
which I have to share since it's a little strange. It looks promising just looking out the door...

...but then you see the rest and realize there's no grass! The large deck is great,
and really it's perfect for the boys with the bark, rocks and lots of flat surface to
drive cars on, but still... Also, those two trees at the end of the deck cut off about
a third of the yard and make the place feel smaller than it is. One bonus is that
it takes 3 minutes max to mow all our grass with just the little patch in front.

And, because it seems appropriate for this post, I had to share the lengths we go for our technology. Turns out the only plug in the house that accesses the cable for internet is in the living room. With the computer at the opposite corner of the house in our room, a line had to be run. We wanted to run an ethernet cable to the entertainment center anyway, so Travis had the pleasure of enjoying the crawl space under the house. At least it wasn't the worst one he'd ever been in, but he took a spiderweb eliminator (see the stick) anyway.

And that's our house. With only 8 months left on
the lease I'm feeling very belated in giving the tour!

Jeeps and Climbing

This is the boys' Jeep walker. When we moved here we couldn't find the bolts that attach the legs. By the time we found them Emmett was way beyond needing the walker. But he LOVES 'going for a drive' anyway




And here's some of Emmett's latest climbing escapades.

He can get up and down.


He's been climbing onto Carson's bed for a long time now, but here he just finished climbing straight up over the railing.


And as of today he can now climb onto the high chair with the tray on! Seriously? *sigh*


Jeeps and lots of climbing. Hmm. Sounds like this kid is preparing for a future of playing on rocks!