July Round-Up

 I think that so far this summer we've struck a nice balance between doing lots of fun activities and also being relaxed. While it would have been nice to have Henry utilizing the free summer days for classes, it also has been really great to have lots of free days where we can just do whatever strikes our fancy. Just like Henry is doing in this first picture! Taking a break from running through the sprinkler at Gigi's house.

 His preschool has scheduled a couple playdates each month during the summer so that the kids can stay in contact with each other. One such event was at Oaks Park - here's Henry on the Tilt-O-Whirl. Last summer when I took him on it he cried...this summer he begged to go on it again and again. I could only handle going twice. I offered to find someone else to ride it with him, but he decided not to. Next time we'll take someone with us who can share in the dizzy-duty!

 We've only gone to the beach once so far this summer. Hopefully we'll go more in the second half of the summer because Henry does love it. We went to Cannon Beach for the day with mom and, as you can see from this picture, the weather was less than ideal. Oh well - Henry had fun regardless!

One place we are spending a lot of time in this summer, are the various Portland area pools...especially the Sellwood and Wilson pools. This picture is at the Wilson pool. Henry's swimming has improved so, so, so much this year and I can't wait for him to take his swimming lessons (coming up in August) to see if we can get him actually swimming on his own.A bunch of his preschool classmates' birthdays took place this month which was another great opportunity for him to see his classmates. Here are some of them at Pump-It-Up for a birthday party.

Finally, just for fun, Henry with Batman and Superman at the mall. :)

4th of July

 After about a week of excitement building up to the big day, the 4th of July finally arrived.  We had set off a couple fireworks each night since about the first of July...so Henry was all set and ready to go when the 4th finally arrived.


We had a BBQ at Uncle Scott's house and did our fireworks there before it even got dark out! Here's Henry having a sparkler lightsaber battle with Daniel. Clearly, as the next picture shows, he was quite excited for the fireworks.

 Then we went downtown to see the fireworks which Henry was once again very excited to see. Last year he wasn't that impressed by fireworks in general and there's no way he would have enjoyed the downtown ones because of how loud they are...but this year he definitely loved them.  We watched them from the east side of the river, which was cool because we had the backdrop of downtown behind them.

And, finally, the hot weather has arrived! Here is Henry at Jamison Square in the Pearl yesterday. He's doing what has become his signature move...

Camping

 Last weekend we went camping at a camp site in Welches, Oregon, called Mt. Hood RV Village. It was a huge camp site with spaces for RVs, tent camping and cabins. We wisely booked a cabin and, as it rained on and off all weekend long, were so happy we had the cabin. Especially because the cabin had a porch which allowed us to still cook our food without getting wet. The cabins are called "rustic cabins" for a reason. They are basically wooden rooms with a couple cots and a ratty old couch. But it also had electricity so that was an added bonus. The bathrooms were next door and we had our own picnic table, fire pit and bbq. We borrowed a camp stove from Joan and Bill so we were pretty well set. We made chicken and vegetable skewers the first night. Pancakes and sausage for breakfast, hot dogs for lunch, and steak and beans for dinner the next night. When it wasn't raining we went on walks/bike rides and Henry spent a lot of time cooking over the campfire. He cooked just about anything we would let him...including melons! When it was raining we went to the indoor pool, the game room and even took a trip up to Timberline Lodge.

 On Saturday we went to the Rainbow Trout farm where Henry and Brett fished. They caught four fish in about 30 minutes...which actually was longer than I thought it would take because usually you get a bite as soon as you put your line in but we had to cast about 5 or 6 times before we caught one - which was good...it stretched out the time we spent there a little bit longer.

On Saturday night we went to the lodge and played a few rounds of Bingo. I think Henry liked it, but he started to get a stomach ache that got progressively worse as the evening wore on so we left Bingo after about a half an hour. Poor guy kept feeling worse and worse and it even woke him up in the middle of the night. He seemed feverish too so we gave him some Tylenol and then he was able to sleep through the rest of the night.

All in all it was a great experience but next time we go I'll plan it for August so we will get some warm weather!!