Almost Famous

On Tuesday, I received a thrilling phone call. I had been chosen to be an extra on the show Portlandia. You can imagine my excitement! A month or so before, I had sent in a picture after I had heard that they were looking for extras, but figured I'd be one of thousands doing the same and my chances were slim. But no - they wanted me! The frantic search for a babysitter began and I finally found someone on Wednesday afternoon, as I was expected on set on Thursday morning. I had sent my measurements to the wardrobe department and had confirmed things with the casting intern. I would sit and wait for my location and call time to be emailed to me late Wednesday evening.

The email never came. I was up until 1am, waiting to find out what time I needed to be up and out the door. I got up at 5am to check again. No email. Up again at 6am. No email. I gave up. Obviously, something had happened and I was not going to be spending the morning as I had expected. I received a text message at 7am from the casting director, asking if I was one of the people who didn't get an email. Yep, that would be me. He asked if I would be able to make it in 30 minutes if he quickly sent me the location info. Even if I had been dressed and ready to hop in my car at THAT moment (which I was not - I was in bed in my PJs), it was going to take me more than 30 minutes to make it into Portland during rush hour. I had to say no.

While it was a mistake on their end and not mine, I still felt frustrated and disappointed. I had really been looking forward to this very different experience, not to mention potentially meeting some very cool actors. But it wasn't going to change anything being frustrated about it, so I assume that what was supposed to happen, happened. Maybe I would have gotten into a car accident, or my purse would have been stolen while I was on set, or maybe something would have happened with the boys while they were with their babysitter. The on-set experience would have been fun, but oh well. There's always the chance they'll ask again since it was their fault, but even if they don't, the fact that they thought I looked Portland-enough to be on the show is awesome in itself.

Even if I didn't end up (sort of) famous, the boys made it this week. About two years after a "photo shoot" at the zoo with their Uncle Kevin during his internship, the boys' picture made it to the Oregon Zoo website. You can check it out here: West African Pygmy Goats.

You can just call us the photogenic, show biz Minthornes. :^)

A Moment

I would like to take a moment to ask my readers to keep some very dear friends of mine in prayer today. My friends, Liz and Rusty, lost their dad, Jerry Sugden, this morning. He went to Jesus peacefully in his sleep, but I know we all feel that it was way too soon. I have known their family well since I was very little - long enough that I can't remember ever NOT knowing them. I know their family so well and for so long, that I truly feel as though I've lost a member of my own family. My memories of him are filled with joy. He was a great support whenever I was struggling, and I struggled much as a teenager. I will never forget him taking me aside and telling me that he was proud to watch me grow from a tiny little girl into a beautiful adult. It was an honor to have him be proud of me.

I know the whole family's pain and sense of loss is great today. They've lost a wonderful husband, father, and grandfather. Heaven received a wonderful addition today.

As an additional prayer request, please keep Liz, her husband, and their new baby in prayer as they need to quickly obtain a passport for the baby and make emergency international travel arrangements, as they are living abroad at the moment.

Tumble Bugs

As much as it might simplify our schedules to have Aiden and Nathan choose one particular activity to get involved with and stay with, they tend to like to hop around and try everything once. Since they're still quite young, I don't mind this so much. This is where the parks and rec dept comes in very handy. Right now, they're taking a trampoline and tumbling class. Aiden loves it. Nathan refuses to participate for the first 30 minutes of class. This is typical of Nathan, but since he does eventually participate, we still sign him up for things. He'll probably grow out of it - he's just scared of everything for now.

Thankfully their classes are on the same afternoon, back to back. Nathan goes first.

There he is. Just sitting. Away from the rest of the children. Ugh.

Finally, one of the instructors tried talking him into actually doing something.

Then he just kind of made Nathan sit down and he flipped him over. And guess what? Nathan loved it. Go figure! But he still refused to do anything for the first 30 minutes of the following week's class.

Next class is Aiden's. Aiden throws himself into anything and everything full force. No fear, no anxiety. He goes into every activity with the assumption that it WILL be the most fun he's ever had. What a fantastic way of living life!

Look at all that joy and happiness on his face! And this was only two minutes into class!

Aiden certainly wasn't afraid to do everything on his own. No instructor needed!

Yep, that's Aiden standing on his hands. Again, no instructor needed.

And here's Aiden gleefully tossing himself through the air down the 40 ft trampoline. Hopefully this video works for all of you - I realized that I've never actually tried to upload a video to the blog before!

So what can I say? I have two very different children. But each activity will benefit both of them in their own way, I'm sure. Next up....another round of swimming classes!

Oneonta, Horsetail, and Scaring New Yorkers

Well, scaring one New Yorker anyway. Pardon the lack of blogging over the past week. Our friend Charlie has been in town from New York all week and we've been having lots of Oregonian-type fun with him. Charlie and John went to UPenn together and since I spent a great deal of time with the theatre crowd at UPenn, I got to know Charlie as well. He has visited us every July for the past three years and we look forward to it every year.

This year, we decided to up our activities a little bit and take him on a serious Oregon hike. He had never been hiking before, so naturally we chose a nearly 5 mile hike to wear him out for his time. We were going to hike up Oneonta Gorge (John's favorite hike), but the weather decided to cool down significantly and we decided that it just wasn't warm enough to go hiking up a creek where we would get quite soaked. Instead, we hiked up to Triple Falls and all around that way, then over to Ponytail Falls and down to Horsetail Falls. We ended the day with devouring Thai food at our favorite Thai restaurant in Lake Oswego.

The triple falls were quite pretty. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you'll see that there were people having a little snack on the edge of the falls! My acrophobia says a big NO THANK YOU.

If you look closely, you can see Oneonta Gorge in the middle where we would have hiked if it had been about 15-20 degrees warmer.

Mmmm, pretty. This is where we freaked Charlie out. Apparently New Yorkers aren't accustomed to standing on edges of cliffs to take pictures. And I thought I was afraid of heights!

The view from behind Ponytail Falls. 

We did take him over the Multnomah Falls to see it, but the place was again packed to the gills. We referred to it as the Disneyland of the Gorge. Charlie said it was impressive, but he definitely preferred the more hidden falls.

Later in the week, we had our annual dinner with Charlie and the boys (they were at grandma and grandpa's for the hike) at McMenamins Imbrie Hall, where we fill ourselves with yummy food and drink and then let the boys climb the crab apple trees towards the back of the property. The boys LOVE Charlie.

We've decided that we need to up the ante next year and take him target shooting. He also hasn't seen the Oregon Coast yet, so that's another activity that we must plan on. Having Charlie visit gives us the opportunity to see our beautiful state like a visitor might. But we also enjoy discussing our east coast living experience and comparing it to here - a conversation that we can really only have with an east-coaster. At some point, we're going to have to return all the visits and haul the family out to New York!

Into the Dark Ages

I may be exaggerating with the title a bit. We canceled our cable yesterday. Our rates had gone up AGAIN and suddenly we were paying nearly $200 per month for internet, home phone, and cable (with HBO). How they think it's ok to increase our rate from $120 per month to $190 per month is beyond me. That the trouble when they have no competitors, I suppose.

Anyway, while the kids don't watch TV except for once or twice per week, that's what I do to unwind at night after homework. We're not really movie people much, so Redbox and Netflix wouldn't be good substitutions for what we watch. Netflix doesn't seem to carry a lot of my favorites, although they do have some but they're behind on the seasons. Although the upside to Netflix is that they carry some shows that we wanted to watch with cable, but didn't get the channel.

After some stressing out about losing my entertainment source, we decided that we could probably get what we usually watch with a combination of Netflix and Hulu Plus, along with a little streaming box called Roku (tons of free channels including Pandora Music Channel and some exercise channels, you can hook up your Netflix and Hulu Plus accounts through it, and the box is a one-time cost of $49.99 for the original box - the new one with games included is $99.99).

While it's not going to be a total cable replacement, I think it will all work out just fine. We also canceled our home phone, so now we're just paying for internet along with the monthly subscriptions to Netflix and Hulu Plus which total $15.98 for both. And let's face it, I can't deny that saving $130 per month is really, really great.

Extreme Makeover: Backyard Edition

For those of you who have been here and seen it, our backyard has needed a desperate amount of help from the day we moved in. Weeds, overgrown plants just like the front yard, trees that were too big for the small space, and tons of dirt mixed in with rocks over the paving stones that were meant to be decorative. Obviously, a lot to be done. We've been slowly removing plants and trees and have finally gotten to the point where we can begin working on the landscaping portion of our makeover.

Now, because of the way the property is sloped, grass is a no-go for the back. There's way too much rain run-off and erosion happening, so all landscaping needs to be stone and rock based. Also because we have dogs, we're not planning on really growing anything back there. All veggies are growing out front. I do have some plans for hanging planters on the fence, but those are still just thoughts and would be the last thing to be put in.

We are taking the landscaping one section at a time. Here is the section we started with (click on any picture to enlarge):

 As you can see, weeds galore and a massive amount of dirt covering the paving stones. I started with just a pointed shovel and then decided I needed to buy a pick axe. Yes, me with a pick axe. It definitely helped get through the matted mud and rocks, although the whole still required good old elbow grease and sweat.

It took me a few weekends to get out the weeds and dig out all of the matted mud to create grooves in between all of the stones.

After that was done, we bought a few bags of decorative river rocks to pour in between the paving stones and around the tree:

 It's a little dark as I had just sprayed it down with the hose to remove extra river dirt from the rocks.

So there's the first little portion done. Our plan for the whole backyard is just to make it pretty and functional. A place for the boys to play in their sandbox, a place for us to sit in deck chairs around a fire pit. We'll get it there - a little bit at a time.

Elowah Falls

Yesterday we took advantage of the hot weather (91 degrees) to go play in a waterfall in the Columbia Gorge. We knew the area would be a little busy, so the night before we researched some of the various trails leading to waterfalls that would be kid friendly but not massively crowded. We came across Elowah Falls - a 1.3 mile hike round trip to a gorgeous water fall. So the plan was set. We packed a backpack and drove about an hour, 2 miles past Multnomah Falls (which was PACKED) to a little trailhead off of Frontage Road.

There were about 15 cars, but there are a few trails that begin at this trailhead, so we figured everyone wouldn't be on the exact same trail. And we were right. We passed a group of people maybe three times on the hike and there was one other group swimming at the falls when we got there. Not bad at all!

It was quite muggy, so we were thankful to be in the shade and out of the sunshine for the duration of the hike.

The trail was easy for a while, although you gain some elevation for the first half and then you begin going down again for the second half, then the trail becomes steep and rocky with quite a few switchbacks. I held Nathan's hand in case he hit some loose rock - and there was lots of it - but in general the boys were able to hike this one easily.

We found a tiny waterfall and decided that it was a shower for fairies.

Some of the scenery leading up to the waterfall.

You're still quite close to the freeway on this hike, but once you hit the switchbacks, the freeway sound dies away and it's replaced by the sound of the waterfall. It was a gorgeous sight.

That tiny thing at the bottom of the picture is Aiden.

These falls are strong. The spray and wind coming off of it was hefty, but it felt perfect in the muggy weather. I didn't want to walk away from it!

We played in the stream under the walking bridge and had a snack.

This is seriously a beautiful place and possibly my favorite waterfall yet. I think I'm going to have to start keeping a list of all the waterfall hikes we've done.

As you can see, the boys had a wonderful time exploring the falls. I loved that this one was a great hike for the kids, even if it did get a little steep and rocky at times. We can't wait to do more hikes throughout the summer!

Camp Invention

Last week, Aiden had the opportunity to attend Camp Invention at his school. We had signed him up for it as soon as we received the flyer back in March. He's done at least one day camp each summer since he was three and we knew this one would be right up his alley.

Here's a description of the program from the Camp Invention website:

 "In each Camp Invention program, children rotate through four modules each day, each of which encourages working in diverse teams, engaging in investigations, experiments, and engineering challenges that combine science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in fun, hands-on activities."

At the end of the week, all parents were invited to the "Invention Showcase" where the kids got to show off all of their inventions from the week. Aiden's InventNow group had created a balloon popper, which they demonstrated for us.

Aiden's individual invention was created out of recycled items. It was a household robot (to perform basic household tasks like laundry and dishes), but Aiden would like me to mention that he didn't get a chance to finish it. He was given a mock patent certificate with his name on it.

Aiden's Magnetropolis group created an island out of recycled items. They had to plan and build the whole island together and find a way to link wires and magnets throughout the island so that the lights would turn on.

Aiden built the school for the island. He told me that he believed they needed a school so that all of the children on the island could learn about science and technology.

It looks like they were successful with the magnets because the lights all over the island were shining brightly!

While those were five very long days for him (he's not used to 9-3:30 days away from home), he said that he loved the experience and wants to do it again next year. He was able to learn teamwork, use his imagination, learn some new things about science and technology, and get a little taste as to how long his school days in 1st grade are going to be. I packed him a lunch in an actual lunchbox every day last week and honestly, it made me a little sad. How my baby Aiden could be old enough to need a lunch box is beyond me. But I am happy that he enjoyed himself. Now to keep him adequately occupied for the rest of the summer!

The 4th

As we do every year, we spent the 4th at John's parents house. We celebrated with a yummy BBQ, lighting off our own fireworks, and watching the big fireworks show that they set off over at the high school. We've got a great view from the neighborhood there and it's nice to not have to battle a huge crowd to watch fireworks.

The boys got to help with lighting some this year, although Nathan was ready to make it run for it as soon as his was lit! I don't mind that he's a tad cautious!

Speaking of being cautious, Laura ran out into the road before one of the fireworks was done going off (it had paused and we all thought it was done) and she did a nice little dance when it began exploding again. We laughed and screamed and gave her a good-natured scolding for being a bad example to the boys, but we were all happy that she didn't actually get hurt!

It's hard to believe it's been almost a year since Laura and Kevin's wedding!

As careful as Nathan can be, he did start waving one of his sparklers around and threw some sparks towards his great-grandfather.  Yikes!

At the end of the night, two firetrucks drove through the neighborhood and when they saw the boys waving at them, they turned on the lights as they drove past, waving and smiling at Aiden and Nathan. My camera had been put away at that point, so I sadly didn't get a picture.

We had a slightly eventful drive home. John reached over to pat me on the leg at one point and stuck his hand right into the layered bean dip I was holding in my lap. We had no napkin available, so he had to eat as much as he could off of his hand and then go through the rest of the drive with a slightly gooey hand. It gave me a good laugh.

Aiden bit into the glow bracelet he was wearing and ended up with some of the glow stuff in his mouth. He said it made his mouth feel "waxy". Luckily it was just a drop, so we gave him some milk when we got home and he was fine.

It was a very fun and relaxing 4th. We always enjoy family time and we were all the right amount of tired by the time we got home at almost midnight. For those of you who weren't there to join us, you were missed.

Berries Galore

While Aiden was busy at Camp Invention this week, Nathan and I got a lot done. We took part in quite a few fun activities and one of those was berry picking. We wanted to get some strawberries before the u-pick season ended, so we headed out armed with a Groupon for 50% off berries at a local farm. One of the very great things about living in the Portland area (especially on the west side) is that we are only 10-15 minutes away from more farms than we could possibly count. We have our favorites for sure, but it's always fun to check out a new one. This time we were headed to Hoffman Farms and we definitely loaded up on berries!

We were there during a bit of a lull, so there weren't very many people (and at one point it was just Nathan and I in the strawberry field). It was quiet, warm, and I took a few minutes to admire the beautiful valley that we live in. Ahhh....

Strawberries!

When it was all done, we had 8 1/2 lbs of strawberries and 1 lb of raspberries and 1 lb of blueberries. We now have three jars of raspberry jam and ten jars of strawberry. We ate the blueberries. Sorry, let me rephrase: Aiden ate the blueberries.

I still had some strawberries left over (more than I wanted to freeze for later use), so I decided to give homemade fruit leather a try. It was so amazingly easy and it's SOOOO good. It takes quite a bit of time in the oven, so you have to be prepared to give up your oven for most of a day, but it's worth it.

I put 1 1/2 lbs of strawberries and a 1/2 cup of sugar in the food processor and pureed it for one minute. I did add about a tsp of lime juice just for an added kick, but it's probably fine without it.

After pureeing, I poured it all into a saucepan and brought it to a boil. Warning: it does tend to foam up a bit, so you may want to opt for a large saucepan. Once it was boiling, I simmered it for 10-12 minutes to let it thicken.

Once it was thickened, I poured it onto a cookie sheet and spread it all out evenly with a spatula.

I then put it in the oven around 175-ish degrees (it was the "warm" setting on my oven) for about 6 hours. Basically until it's no longer massively sticky and it looks like your standard fruit leather. Let it cool all the way and then eat it as your heart desires. You will notice that there are no "after" pictures here. Yeah. It's that good.

Now we can't wait for boysenberries, marionberries, and blackberries!