The Calm Before the Storm

What a week. Tomorrow morning, the entire Powell Clan arrives on our doorstep. We are excited and we've been working like crazy to get ready. I went to the farmer's market this morning and got blackberries, strawberries and rasberries. I made a berry pie this afternoon, and its downstairs in the fridge waiting for the gang. I'm going to make scones in the morning, and coffee.
I don't know what we are doing yet - we may just eat and visit, we may go watch an Ems game or run to the ocean and run quads in the sand. I guess we'll figure it out when they get here.
Had a bit of excitement with childcare things. Went to where we thought we were going to put Emma, and found out it wasn't the place. Sat and watched and visited for an hour. Turns out the little boy with behavioral issues that used to beat up Jakey still goes there, and they put him in with Emma's age group before and after school. Add to it that they have taken in a pretty severely disabled kid that throws blocks and really needs some one-on-one attention, and it didn't look so hot.
Called the childcare at my work and even though they ALWAYS have a wait list, they had an opening. Took Em over in the afternoon to look and we loved it. She'll start in 2 weeks.
Date night tonight, not even sure what we are going to do but at least we are going to go out!

Texas Here I come!

Well I did it, I booked our trip to Texas in the spring. My cousin, whom I've never met, is getting married. I have been close to his mom for years and years - she is probably my all time favorite realative on my side of the family, but we just haven't gotten in the same time zone too often. So off we go, 5 of us on a plane to see the other realatives.
I hope we'll get to catch up with some virtual friends as well, and scope out where my Mom grew up, where my folks got married, and where my Dad taught British pilots during WWII. It should be fun!
Any of you that are familiar with the Dallas area, give me suggestions of what not to miss!

August

Hard to believe its August already. Violet and I took a spin out to our local farm and bought 10 pounds of pickling cukes. They are brine-ing right now in the kitchen. I'd forgotten it takes 4 days to do pickles! I'm anxious for the other fruits to come out so I can put away some preserves and salsa.
We stopped by the bakery overstock store as well, and metioned we were doing pickles. The girl at the register said, 'do people can anymore, isn't that a forgotten art?" I don't think it is, do you? I know a handful of people here that can and freeze and preserve food, and from the web it appears to be pretty widely spread. There is something so good about knowing where you food comes from, and whwat goes into it.
We took the RV over to the dealership and dropped it off to sell it. Hopefully they will have some luck, although I'm not holding my breath as it is a bad market. We expect an invasion of the family in a couple of weeks, so have a few more chores to get done.
Hope you all have a great week! We'll take pictures of our great canning event Tuesday and post.

Photos

Just wanted to link to some pictures - our friend Livia shot the kids out at a vinyard outside of town, thought I should share. http://fremouwphotography.blogspot.com If you are local and you want a great photographer, check her out! Jakey, Vi and Emma are down the page a bit, but its worth a look.

Happy Fourth of July!

Its a 3 day weekend, and it seems wild! Friday we spent the day puttering around doing all the things we'd normally do on a Saturday. We all went and saw Wall-E at the theater in the late afternoon, and then went out to dinner. It was a great movie and we had a lot of fun.
After dinner we came home anbd did a few things here before heading over to campus. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the 2008 Olympic Track Trials are happening in our town. If you turn on NBC tonight or tomorrow night you can see our school. Anyway, as part of the events, they shot off fireworks after the men's 10,000 meter. We parked in employee parking an walked onto campus. We ended up climbing the outside steps to the student union to watch the fireworks. It was really great.
Tonight we are going to set off our own fireworks. Today we have put away berries in the freezer and I've refinished the teak on 'Dory' the boat. Tomorrow I hope to wash and wax it with the kids help.
Overall things are going well. I'll post pictures of the boat as we get it fixed up. It really doesn't 'need' much anyway, but its fun to bring it back to its beginnings and make it pretty again.

More Loon Lake

Loon Lake Camping

This last weekend we went up to Loon Lake, a beautiful alpine lake located about 20 miles from Reedsport along the coast. We took Dory the boat, and we tent camped.
We saw lots of wildlife, Elk, deer, etc. We even saw a few eagles.
We ate smores, we hiked and looked at a beautiful waterfall. We played in the dirt. It was great!

Where or where has my summer gone?

It is Thursday. It is 36 degrees. What is up with our weather? They say that today we'll get to the mid-70s, but I have my doubts!
This week lots of activity around the house. They are painting the exterior, so I can't go out any of the rear doors as everything is taped shut. The sprinkler guys finished last week, and so now all my exterior plants should be in great shape.
Today the kids go to a Pen Pal picnic. They have been corresponding with kids from another local school, and today after a year of writing they get to meet. After work we all pile in the car and drive to the school for the annual carnival.
Next week the twins finish kindergarten, it seems so wild. They have no school Friday and only 2 days next week, and then they are free for the summer. The year has just flown by, its hard to believe.
Yesterday was an odd day for us too, as we got an unusual email. When I got to work I had an email from our adoption agency, the one that two years ago helped us unite with our youngest, Emma.
At the time we made a conscious decision to get out of the NSN line as the wait time for Chinese adoption was horrible and stretching further. We started looking on special needs list and switched, having approval from our agency for Emma around Mother's Day and receiving approval from China on my 40th birthday.
Well, it seems that they forgot to remove us from the list of people whose dossier went over in late January to China. So yesterday, they sent out an email to everyone who was on that list to let them know about any updates they needed to do since referrals for that group should come out in July. That means that the people in my group who didn't switch waited 30 months - 30! I can't imagine having not had Emma for the last 2 years. What a heartache. As she sits here leaning her little head on my shoulder and smiling at me, I know we did the right thing. An early contratulations to all those Moms and Dads who did decide to wait it out!

This is June?

IT is COLD outside, what is up with that? It is june, and we are raining and cold. Not much to talk about lately. We are having sprinklers installed this week at the house and so my yard is all torn up. DH picked up the boat last night, so this weekend maybe I can post entertaining stories about our first voyage out. Hopefully it won't be too hard, we've never launched a boat before so I'm sure if nothing else it will add to our humility.
Back to working out. Just about got rid of the 5 pounds I put on during the weeks before the trip and the weeks we were gone. Want to get rid of lots more.
The kids had an awards assembly today, and Jakey got 'Academic Excellence' award and Vi got a'Respect' award. I'm so proud of them.
Vi is trying to decide if she is ready to do the recital she has next week. It will mean 3 hours of rehersal Monday and 3 more hours Wednesday and a 3 hour performance (mostly waiting in the wings) Friday night. I kinda wnat her to skip it, but of course I can't tell her no. She HATES performing, so I don't see this ending well and I don't really want to spend 9 hours of my life next week waiting on this. Bad Mommy.
More soon.

Home Sweet Home

Well, we made it home, after the world's longest Mother's Day. We got up at 5:30am on Sunday, ate breakfast and headed to the airport. We flew 10.5 hours to Los Angeles, trekked through luggage, customs and immigration, then headed off to a different terminal and caught our flight to Portland. More waiting then finally home to Eugene at 10pm. Midnight before we crashed. For those of you keeping track, you subtract 8 hours from the time in Britian, so we were up basically from 9:30pm Saturday night until midnight Sunday. Harsh.
I think overall the trip was a success, although it sure is hard traveling with the little people.
Looking back, I have the following highlights to share...
In London, the Courtland Gallery. Its such a little gem at Sommerset House on the Thames. Being able to stand up and really look at great art is amazing. So often in the bigger museums you are forced to stand miles from the art and you just can't see how it is put together. While I was there, the kids had a great time playing in the fountains outside.
In Paris, my best memory is kind of a fluke. We took a boat tour on the Seinne one evenning, which took off from the far end of Isle de la Cite' We were walking back to Isle St. Louis where we lived for the week, and we went by Notre Dame. In the courtyard outside there were performers in the dark. We have a movie of it, I'll try to load it this weekend. They juggled fire to rock music and it was simply magnificent.
In Wales the castles all were lovely, but I guess my nicest time was probably not at a castle. We had tried to see Manorbier, and we were hungry. I saw a town called Saundersfoot on the coast, and we drove to it as the newspaper had a lot of restaurants listed there. Saundersfoot has a little harbor and we parked. Dinner was eaten in a restaurant called 'Mermaid's Quay' overlooking the water. The fish had been caught in the harbor that day and cooked that evening, it was magnificent! After dinner we walked along the path and watched a local woman use a 2 liter coca cola bottle to play fetch with her labrador in the surf. We walked by lots of tiny ships, and it was just wonderful.
My other good memory is really of those rides through the countryside down paved sheep trails. It was fun, felt like an adventure and although stressful it was always great to actually arrive somewhere at the other end. DH did a great job on some scary roads!
We are slowly getting back on the schedule here. More when we hae time.

Castle Marathon

Caerphilly Castle
The chapel at Avebury

More castles

Today we went to a HUGE castle, Caerphilly, and then on to one that had been restored into a fairy tale, Castle Coch. I'll post pictures later, but they were grand. They are doing a ton of work on Caerphilly so you couldn't go into very many places, but Castle Coch was just the opposite. I guess someone bought it in the late 1800s and had it redone. They had all kinds of painting done, and they used it as a residence for a while and a hunting lodge. It was beautiful.
Went to Mermaid's Quay tonight for dinner and found a geocache. It was a microcache and it was great fun.
Also drove out to Pernath, and looked at the ocean. I guess James Bond films have been shot here at Cardiff Bay, with him racing a boat out to Penarth.
Have a good night!

Then Anglo Saxons and the Normans

On to Wales

After 2 weeks of big cities, we have slowed down considerably on our last day and wandered off the beaten path to what I can only describe as the wonderful, slow, charming country of Wales. I LOVE this place, I can't say that enough.

We rented a car that dh has been bravely been driving on the wrong side of the road. We find the traffic circles quite amusing, as they are everywhere. We rented a Kia van since there are 5 of us and lots of luggage. I think dh is sorry we did. I don't think I can appropriately display the roads here, but I'll try to explain.

Garmin has been a godsend on this trip. Thank goodness dh bought the European maps.
A roads are faily decent usually a lane in each direction and a dashed white stripe down the middle more then half the time. B roads are mostly single wide, but have ample pull outs. Then there are roads with no names, merely referred to as 'road'. A, B and 'road' roads all have high berms on either side of the road, with fences and underneath years of growth.

In the US, if you go down a road and it narrows to a single lane you are pretty certain that the pavement will end in someone's driveway. In southern Oregon, where we both spent our teen years, it often ended on a property with a rather hairy mountain man holding a shotgun and a rotweiller, so we are both a bit shy to go down those types of roads.

Not so here. As we wandered down the road looking for Gellifawr, our apartment/hotel, we made jokes about how we were on a sheeps trail, etc. Lots of turns, no cell service, and lots of farms in rolling hills.

We passed some bigger cow farms, and then we found it. It was an old blue stone 2 story manor house and the corresponding buildings had been renovated into apartments. We were tired, it was late, and I was wondering if we'd blown it by picking the place.

I foolishly didn't take photos inside, but wow. I walked into the dining room and I was greeted by a man in a tie serving people sitting a beautiful cherry tables with white leather chairs, fine crystal and china. Our apartment was huge, with 3 bedrooms, big white fluffy duvets, clear laquered wood floors, and a state of the art kitchen.

Each morning they fed us a full English breakfast. That means cereal, fruit juice, coffee, a basket of fruit, a poached egg, 2 slices of ham, sausage, potatoes, a stewed tomato, mushrooms, and toast. It was terrific.

We spent our time adventuring around western Wales. The first day turned out to be a 'Bank Holiday' and we headed to Newport Shores in search of a geocache and some stores. As we wandered down an A road into town, we came to something I've never seen before. In town people had parked on the side of the road, in a section that wasn't a full 2 cars wide. It was still a 2 way road. We got stuck. We opened the windows, pulled the mirrors in and made it. I kid you not there was not more then 1" on either side of that van. We definately ran against the plantlife over the stone wall on the one side. I didn't actually believe the van would fit, but DH performed magic and made it. I asked him how he was and he said he needed to go home and lay on the bed and twitch for a while

We tried to find a woolen mill that we saw advertised. It didn't have a street address, and we got lost. We ended up on a very narrow lane with high berms and twists. We rounded a corner and found two women pushing baby carriages going for a walk!

I mentioned this to our hostess this morning, and she said to me that she had moved here from Sweeden. They took her out to show her the sites and she has been baffled, since you can't actually see anything with the high fences!

We journeyed north and saw a castle where a princess was stolen away from her husband, then south to the place where she stayed for a few years. Guess she was busy - she stayed long enough to have 2 kids with the guy before heading home. They said they think she had 21 children with 6 different men, guess she was 'captured' a lot!

Today we drove to Kidwelly on our way to Cardiff, for the last part of our holiday. Kidwelly is well preserved and huge. We'll post more pics as we can.

Paris Photos

May 2nd

We did better today on the museum front. Got up and braved the subway system here in Paris. Not sure what the hangup was for us as we are usually quite the brave travelers. Of course it was fine. Took the subway to The Museum of Science and Industry and let the kids play for a few hours. Emma woke up with a horrid cold, but we dosed her and took her along to spread germs. I hate that honestly, but dh said we are are not spending the week in Paris in the apartment, and that other kids would get sick regardless so we should go. I caved.
We rode the subway over to the Sacre Couer as well. I did my workout for the day, I climbed all those steps (and there are a million of them) carrying Emma. It was sunny and actually hot out there.
Then we subwayed to the Orangerie, and miracle of miracles it was open!!! I finally got to see my Monet's. They are huge, who would have imagined!
Then we came home to the island, ate dinner and walked to Point Neuf. We bought tickets for the boat ride tonight at 9:30, so we could see the city lights at night.
Today a few more museums and maybe a flea market.

May Day

We got up early this morning, unfortunately to the sound that someone had an accident in the bed downstairs. So I put everyone in our bed and while dh tried to sleep I did laundry and started reading. Murder in Montmartre is here, and so I've been reading that. Kinda catches the feel of the places well.
Took Jakey down and bought some eggs and snacks, and then made breakfast. Then we were off to find the 'hop on hop off bus'. We road the batobus (water taxi)down to the center of town. We got off near the Orangerie Museum, which we tried to go to on Tuesday. It has a big display of Monet's water lillies and I'm drying to see it. Anyway, today we were there by 12 (it opens at 12:30) so we hung around and hung around along with a growing crowd.
Turns out they are closed for May Day. So strike 2. Walked in and found the bus, and rode it to the Arc de Triumph. It too was closed. Took photos of the outside, and tried to do another geocache. Did I mention we found a geocache near the Orangerie?
Anyway, tried to find a second geocache near the arc, and then rode the bus to the Eiffel Tower. It was a madhouse. Also saw about 20 police cars/vans going through town earlier. I guess there were big protests.
Rode the batobus back to the house and I just ate the most amazing cake. They make this layer cake that is just fantastic. Glad we are walking a lot, I need it to offset the food here!
More pics later.

European Vacation

Well we are on vacation, after what appears to be a long vacation away from my blog! Thought I'd share some pictures while we are gone.
We went to the Eiffel Tower for lunch and the view, and along the way we met a one legged pigeon that we named 'Peg'. Peg ate more of our lunch then we did (He had a fondness for Baugettes)
In spite of my better judgement, we rode the London Eye. I'm terribly afraid of heghts so this was a big accomplishment. As a bonus I was already sick with a terrible stomach bug, so I spent the time kind of in a haze. Here is a pic near the top.

When we were in London we also went to a lot of other sights, including Westminster Abby. Our theme for this trip is to go to places that are closed or just closed for the day. Here are the kids outside a closed Westminster Abby!

Photos

Christmas Recap

We are back from our Christmas getaway. We had a fabulous time. I so wanted to cut back to something that was more about family and less about stuff, and I think that we succeeded.
We drove over Saturday morning to Sunriver - it was snowing pretty well on the pass but the 4runner (which was literally stuffed to the brim with stuff) did fine. Got there and luckily the place was ready early so we moved in. There was about 4" on the ground, and the kids were simply thrilled. We spent our days playing in the snow and the evenings we did different things - Saturday night we did crafts and made all our own Christmas decorations for the tree. Sunday night we made sugar cookies and decorated them. Then we decorated the tree. Monday night the kids put on their new PJs and we read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' and ran out in the snow in our bare feet (a P family tradition according to dh, who knows) It rained a little on Monday afternoon, but then we got more and more snow and so there was plenty for the kids to play in.
I went to the gym over there each day, boy do I love that gym. It feels so decadent. The locker room is really beautiful - lots of gorgeous stone and the spa room has a waterfall, rocks and a ceiling with 'stars' on it. The showers are individual rooms and everything just smells so good. It was so relaxing each day to go work out and then get ready in their room like a spa.
We had brunch with Santa, Mrs. Santa, Rudolf, a teddy bear and some elves on Christmas Eve. It was terrific. They had it at the great hall. It was so great DeNel, as Emma has really changed. She was SO EXCITED this year - just bursting. She was hugging the critters and smiling and jumping up and down. The elves remembered us from last year and were marveling at how much the kids had changed. It just was so great to have them so excited and happy.
We had dinner delivered on Tuesday and it was great. It felt really weird not to cook much of anything, although I did do the breakfast casserole I always do. The kitchen there wasn't really equiped well so it was a good decision, but still a little strange.
Exercise equipment was the theme this year for me - dh got me a dumbbell set I've been wanting and an exercise ball for the house. He also got me some pampering (facial, massage, etc) I'm excited. I'm going to space it out a little. I have a goal of loosing 45 pounds by 1/1, and so I'll reward myself when I reach that one. Then maybe another one at 50 pounds. We'll see.
Christmas Eve was pretty funny - I have to tell you a story. So we were trying to get the kids to bed, and they were resisting. The house had an open floor plan with a loft upstairs with 3 queen beds where the kids slept. It looked out on the living room (and tree) I went up since they weren't settling, and Jakey was laying with his glasses on still looking downstairs. I turned him around, took his glasses off and told him that Santa wouldn't come if he was awake. We set the alarm for 1am and went to bed.
We crawled out at 1am and had a terrible time finding the presents we had wrapped to hide them and unwrap them for the 'from santa' gifts. I stuffed the stockings in the laundry room and we set them all out on the long bench in the dining room, which was on the far side of the tree.
So in the morning I get up at 6am, not a sound from upstairs. I go back to bed. At 7 I get back up. A little whispering but no one comes out. So I go upstairs and they are awake and looking pretty glum. "Hey guys, do you want to go see what Santa brought?" Jakey very solemnly says, "He didn't come" It seems he had been checking over the railing nad saw nothing changed down by the tree, so they had decided that Santa had skipped us. They became dramatically more animated and happy after I said that I had seen he had and they raced downstairs to see what they got. They were thrilled.