Bill's Berry Farm

This is the 6th year we've come since we moved here. We only missed the year 2013, as I looked back on our blog posts. Still love this place! Kadlec offers an employee pass that saved us $8.

Olin still is reluctant to get his photo taken. He agreed only after I promised this was the only picture today. I told him this was the only picture I would ask him to be in today. :)

Both Christian and Dae wanted to filter the juice a second time, but putting the filter between the funnel and jug was too slow so Leelee suggested putting the filter on top of the funnel and that worked much faster.

3 jugs of the delicious stuff! And UW won over BYU 35-7!

End of September

Chicken hat at Sausage Fest

Pacific Science Center

Saw this photo on CNN and it totally reminded me of....

apples on chest!

Normally spelling tests start in 2nd grade, but Olin said his teacher is allowing anyone who wants to participate in spelling tests to participate, so he participated and we've been practicing at home.  These practice tests at home are so funny. He writes in all these extra tidbits like "3rd grade spelling" because I guess his teacher said these are 3rd grade words. He then wrote in himself (below) that he got 16/16 on his practice test, even though he actually got two wrong and had to correct himself.

This morning on his practice test at home he legitimately got 16/16 and so he wrote "with no help" just so we wouldn't forget (shouldn't an accurate score always be without help? haha). I am very curious to see if he gets 100% on the test at school. It's possible, but these are pretty hard words and he definitely struggled with country, area, and formula. Mostly country. He's a good speller though.

Morning Activities & Bartering

When I came downstairs this morning, Olin was trying on Christian's old house slippers. Christian said "Olin's feet were really cold because he was outside checking on our red bell peppers, and plus these slippers don't fit me anymore". It was cute.

It's also funny to me because they randomly planted red bell pepper seeds (like the actual seeds from a bell pepper), I have no idea where they planted them or if they watered them, and I don't have the heart to tell them the chances of bell peppers growing out of those seeds are slim to none.

Later in the morning, Olin told me he and Christian had made a deal. Apparently the terms of the deal were that if Olin cut Christian's bell peppers for him (for lunch), Christian would help Olin change his clothes. Hilarious deal. Cutting a bell pepper, for a kid, is way harder than changing clothes, in my opinion! And then to top it off, once he had cut Christian's bell pepper, he realized he had already changed in to "new" clothes last night and didn't even need his clothes changed!!!

Pendleton Round-Up 2018

Great seats right next to one of the chutes where the horses come out of! We were fascinated by the "pick-up men" who round up the cowboys and the bronc-ing horses after the rides. Ev did tons of research on them throughout the weekend. They are extremely skilled!!!

Of all the available seats in the Highlander the kids chose to squeeze in to 3rd row. Side note - UW football won against Utah. woohoo!

Wore my bull shirt and Ev wore her Pendleton homemade shorts, although neither are on display here. 

Olin's 3 Rivers game. He says "mom, my team is not so good" and he's not wrong. haha. I told him that's why his team needs him so badly. So far they are 0-2 but not for lack of effort!

Asleep. Didn't even know he had a bloody nose until I checked up on them upstairs and found he had taken care of it himself with these tidy little cotton pellets....

Auntie Ev was starving and we were searching for lunch spots so she said "what's Fujiyama?" and after I told her, we made a straight beeline for it, since Didi had never experienced teppanyaki style dinner. My kids were SO excited for an unexpected trip to Fujiyama.

Not that I looked a whole lot better at that age, but holy smokes, these photos of Dae and Sung (that Sung sent over from his mom) are SO funny.

Head size, roundness, and huge hair were absolutely hilarious.

Trees, Shrubs, Kids

Reading at Onnie's house while Olin had his lesson. Sometimes I see a photo of him and think it's me for a very split second!( I  did resemble a boy when young. hahaha.)

Really funny what the kids deem worthy enough to place on the wall. Christian LOVES this custom jersey the baseball coach made as end-of-season gifts. After he wore it a couple of times he pinned it to the wall. (First thing he's actually pinned to the wall). Then, randomly, he pinned this Boeing 50 year anniversary poster! 

I'd like to remember that I saved my family $200 by putting this stuff on our trees myself. Very proud.

School Bday Celebration

Olin said his Bday celebration at school was "awesome". I was working that day but Dae was able to get some video. They walk around the candle 7 times, and then they describe the photos they have brought in from every year of their life. Olin picked the funniest photos, in my opinion. We were like "some of these don't even have you in them" and he didn't care, he just wanted what he wanted.

Funny that he describes being a newborn at the hospital as "I am naping". I guess that's not inaccurate.

Kids had a good time entertaining themselves the other day doing slow motion videos while whacking water balloons and such. The videos were actually pretty good!

Back in to the Swing of Things

It has been really nice to be back in to the swing of school. Also, I have picked up a couple new offices so I am working 2x/week, which I am excited about. I think 2x/week is my sweet spot! Both offices seem really nice. I am still filling in per diem at my other two offices but those dates were never consistent and I am feeling urges to work more.

Randomest things the kids have said:

Olin: "I'd like to either live in a junkyard, or a Korean house". (I think he wants to live in a junkyard because he can get all sorts of metal for battle bots, which they love)

Christian: "Today at sunday school my teacher looked exactly like one of the professors from Harry Potter in the movie. Maybe she was an actor before....."

Christian had a Ropes Course team-building day at Columbia Park on Wednesday. This photo is so funny - he is hanging so limply.

This is how high Olin can make it on the bead-free rope now.

I took out their 5-point harnesses for a couple days (ha! still in 5-point harnesses) and they were living like kings in their little captain's chairs. They reclined and had a grand time back there. 

Happy 7th Birthday Olin!!!

We love you, your laughing, your tongue clicking, your stubbornness, your 'hands', your pouching and your missing teeth so much!!!

We had:

• piroshki breakfast
• mac & cheese + tuna fish lunch
• lots of afternoon Lego making
• Fujiyama Dinner
• BR cake (rainbow sherbet + vanilla cake)

Keep a careful eye on this sign. It has been re-purposed.

My Neighbor Totoro (Book 3 - he only the full set for two days  - present from puo puo - before he lost Book 3 so he got it again for a second birthday gift), and a Build Your Own Battle Bot

Legos!

Still loves Fujiyama. Caught the chicken in his mouth this time!

Funny Insta that Danielle made

Bday squad polished off this cake with no problemo!

We celebrated my 41st birthday yesterday and the family treated me quite right. It was such a nice birthday:

• Quaffle breakfast + chai tea latte
• Whole Foods
• Shilshole Bay Marina to check out the crabbing possibilities: turns out people do throw lots of ring nets and cages out there. They catch both Dungeness and Red Rock Crab. When we left, Olin said "Please don't bring me there again unless we are going to catch crab, because I get too excited to go crabbing".....
• Ballard Farmers' Market for lunch
• 2.5 hour nap
• Le Pichet for dinner
• BR cake with Cookies & Cream, and vanilla cake

Ballard Farmers' Market. We went to a Ramen/Taco stand for lunch. 

Tooth cake. "Book of Mom" from Leelee. He worked a long time to pick the photos he wanted to print, and then asked me to print them. haha. The napping photo on the cover cracks me up.

Sign look familiar? I laughed so hard when I saw this. The "mom" covers up "Babz" from two weeks ago. Scotchmallows from See's are always appreciated, and eaten.

I was impressed that Dae brought the little banner from Richland and strung it up.

Le Pichet! Love this place.

The tables are chalkboard so we played HangMan. Cute that they chose happy birthday as a phrase.

This lady passing asked if we wanted her to take a photo for us and she took a few and then positioned us and everything. haha.

Nice night!

Back at home, got treated very nice to a LuLu lunch with Kelly as an early bday celebration.

Other September Miscellanea:

We made this random craft one day. Olin's spelling of Cwofl for quaffle and "mac in chees" is funny. I didn't know he thought it was "in"

He hung here by only arms for 18 seconds. I was impressed!

I was all proud that I'm making the kids make their own lunches (finally).  Come to find out several people's kids at school have been doing it for years, like since the kids were 4 and 5 years old.....

Still doing sourdough and I'm expanding my repertoire. I did this loaf with white flour, whole wheat flour, and rye flour and followed the instructions to a T. I even got a thermometer and measured my water (90 F) and the final dough temp (78 F) and the final bread temp (210 F). However, the final product was less than impressive! The 'crumb' or whatever the inside is called wasn't as holey as I wanted. I wanted lots of nice big holes and it was just normal. Which makes me want to just go back to my regular loaves which are much less regulated and easier. I forgot to take a photo of the crumb.