Larkin 

Asleep at the table

Wings...in space?

So the kids have been Lego maniacs for the last little while, and admittedly so have I.  

We started out with space ships with cool wings and lasers and what not.  The same sort of post Star Wars stuff I'd build as a kid.  But somehow the kids decided that aerodynamics don't make any sense in space.  Noah started the box design and all the kids had to have one.  It's hard to tell from the picture but the big one is BIG.  We did some major scrapping of the bottom of the Lego bin to finish it...even had to cannibalize one of Arwen's space ships.

Backyard Campout

Noah and Joshua are wizards with their smoke rings.

Yes, the tree house is still unfinished.

First (And Third) Day of School

Noah loves school...

...he never know's what he learned...

...but he loves school.

Arni-B 2nd Grader

She loves teaching Noah all about school.

Noah's video with his current favorite song.

Aaron's birthday fell on Labor day this year so we went up to the Mount Hood area to play.  We decided to go to Little Crater Lake.  So we packed up snacks, water, dropped by the store to get 3 pairs of new tennis shoes and then set off!

The kids really liked this fallen tree and played on it for a long time on the way to the lake.

Larkin pretending to be so awfully sweet!

We told the kids to sit down and be quiet so we could all listen to the sounds of nature.  They weren't very good at it :)

Larkin and Josh went off by themselves and were pointing out all the shapes they saw in the sky.  Larkin saw lots of babies and Josh saw little animals.  It was funny though, because when I looked up, I didn't even see any clouds.  Silly kids.

The water was an amazing color!  There was nothing living in it...it just had a bunch of trees that had fallen down.

The kids (mostly Joshua) told me that this hike to the this lake with a whale in it (huh??) was totally lame. 

 Smiles all around, despite the lameness of it all!

The water was so beautiful!  The kids just wanted to throw rocks in.  Larkin even put part of herself in it.

Overall, it was a really fun time.  It wasn't much of a hike, so much as a drive to a pretty lake.  We went to Timberline lodge after that and then out for dinner...which was like out of the Twilight Zone...but more on that later.

 What do you do when your husband is away on a business trip?  Prepare and eat fine dinners?  No way!  Not around here.  We made blackberry pie, brownies, no-bake cookies...and donuts.  Donuts were a first for me.  The kids were a big help...and no one ended up a burn victim with hot oil around.   Always a plus!

Arwen was a goofball for all her pictures.  But she sure enjoyed her sprinkled donut.

I like this picture because it really shows off the half-bangs Noah cut for her a few weeks ago.  Whew, Noah!  Thanks.  I was really looking for ways to save a few bucks. 

Joshua eats his toast like this too...upside down.  And really, think about it.  This way, the good sugary sweet stuff is the first thing that touches his tongue. 

Noah always enjoys himself a yummy treat or ten! 

While driving home from the airport, the kids told Dad we got him some donuts from Krispy Kreme.  He came in and saw the plate and totally believed us!  Ha Ha!  And...lest you be worried about all those empty calories we ate while Aaron was gone, these donuts were made from a secret ingredient from the garden...that makes them healthy!  Can you guess the ingredient??

Fenton's

You know the movie, "Up?"  The old man and the little boy scout end up at Fenton's Ice Creamery at the end of the movie.  That's a real place down in Berkley and we LOVE it!  My favorite thing to order is the toasted almond ice cream with jersey topping (malt, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce) and a side order of caramel.  Sooo yummy!  Well, Fenton's is obviously quite the drive from our little house so the kids and I figured out a recipe for toasted almond ice cream.  And let me tell you...it was delicious!  The kids had a blast using the ice cream maker and we all had fun devouring our treat.

Hot Day at the River

Lu Lu cheesing it up for the camera.

It was hot enough that no one really complained about a stray shot of water from the kids.  Actually few of the shots went stray...the kids aimed for anyone within range.

Lu Lu had fun getting Sarah wet. 

Arni takes the big jump...she did it a few times...and perforated her ear drum on one of the jumps.

If Arwen's going to do it I had to too.

We had lots of fun!  Matthew and Bethany and the cousins came too along with our friends the Dickinson's.  That and about half of the drunk young adults in Portland.  We had ourselves a few really good laughs at people so wasted I'm pretty sure they won't even remember.  Good times!

Hood To Coast 2010

I just finished the worlds largest (not longest) relay.  Some 12,000 people ran the relay.  Hood to Coast is a 197 mile relay from The top of Mount Hood to the ocean at Seaside.  We had a 12 man team and each ran 3 legs.

See how good I am at pretending I'm not terribly tired and sore?

Team "We Eat Dust"

There was another team we followed for a while in the van named "Eat Our Dust".  I thought that was pretty funny.

 I told Arwen I'll probably never run this race again until she talks me into it.  So she strapped on my bib number and started training.  Registration for next years run starts in 3 weeks.  I guess that's time enough to forget the pain.  I hope so.

 I had 3 shirts I ran in on each leg...one from Intel, they payed for my run and gave me a nice dry fit shirt to do a littl advertising, one they gave me at HTC, and my real one "TEAM SARAH"  Who was my real supporter for this event.

We had 31 hours to do the run to qualify, we came in at just shy of 30.  The top team came in around 17 hours.  The record is 15:44:55 hours (that's a crazy 5.19 min/mile).  We had a few guys on the team get lost (other van)  and after my last leg I came into the finish line and the other van was not there.  It felt like I was waiting for ever but the whole thing only cost us 6 min. I guess.  All in all the race went smooth and most of us met or exceeded our goals.  Though I think I did have a goal of a little sleep that I wasn't able to meet.  I was up a lot of the night before we left for the mountain at 4:00 AM, then over the next 30 hours I got about 2 hours of sleep out in some field.  No sleep added a lot to the difficulty of the relay.

We also took Road Kill stats in our vans.  A Road Kill is anyone you pass on your leg.  It got me running faster than I probably would have, especially on my first run.  I got 9 kills in the first 4 miles then chased some guy for the next 3.4 miles before passing him just before the finish line.  He heard me coming (I had an annoying rock stuck in the tread of one of my shoes) and kept looking over his shoulder and speeding up.  I just had to out run him in the end.  I was a tick mark on two of the vans out there.  The first guy that passed me was on my night run.  The cars driving by would cast my shadow on the road in front of me and then all of a sudden there was two shadows.  I tried my best to keep in front of him but with each car his shadow got taller, then I could hear him and he made a break for it.  I tailed him for a while but he was just too fast for me.

My Road Kill stats:

Leg1 Kills 10

Leg2 Kills 4  Killed 1

Leg3 Kills 6  Killed 1