A Quick Visit

We had a great weekend with the Jensen family.  It was so fun seeing them.  Here are some fun adventures.

We went to the park for a barbecue Friday night.  Magnus and Whitney hit it off immediately.  They followed each other all over the playground while waiting for the meat to cook.

Rachel enjoyed her hot dog and doritos.  She thought the soda pop tasted a little funny.

We went to the fish ladder right next to the dam after our tasty dinner.  The last two times we only saw a couple of fish, but this time there were a ton of fish.  All the kids were super excited to see the fish swimming around.  They kept laughing and jumping around.

On Saturday, we went to see Hat Rock.  It is a rock shaped like a hat that was found by Lewis and Clark in their famous expedition.  We were able to climb a little hill to see the rock closer.  It was cool.

There was a little pond at the park next to the big Hat Rock.  The kids loved throwing grass into the stream to watch it flow down.

There were a lot of hungry geese at the pond.  We even got to see some cute baby ducks and some funny looking adolescent geese.  The geese would hiss at us if we got too close to the babies.

That afternoon, we went to Walla Walla to see the Whitman Mission.  There was a visitor center where we were able to watch a video about the Whitman mission and see some ancient Cayuse artifacts.  So that was really neat.

The kids liked going inside the tepee and didn't want to leave their new "home".  

There was a big wagon on the settlement to represent the Oregon Trail.  There were even ruts in the road where the wagons would have crossed.  So that was really neat.

Will and Dana climbed to the top of the mountain to see the Memorial made for the Whitman massacre.  So it was a good trip.

We did fun things around the house too.  One of the kids favorite was "the wagon", which was really pushing and pulling Magnus around in the empty cooler.

Will got out the bubbles for the kids.  They had so much fun chasing them.

Everyone is looking and mostly smiling at the camera, that is all we can hope for.  Thanks for coming to visit us Ruth and Dana and Magnus.  Whitney no longer wants to name the new baby Rachel, or Rachel the Boy. She now wants to name the new baby Magnus.  So she definitely made a new friend over the weekend.

Back for graduation

We went back to Pasco this last weekend to see my little sister, Kylee, graduate from high school.

My family had an awesome party for Kylee with lots of yummy food and some fun games.  Whitney tries her hand at throwing a dart at a balloon.  All the high school kids really liked this game.

Whitney met a new friend named Emma who jumped on the trampoline for awhile.

Because the weather was so nice, a lot of time was spent outdoors.  Whitney really liked playing on a scooter.  Everyone really liked my parents' swing.

The question is, can you find Kylee in this crowd?  There were over 400 graduates, so it took us awhile to find her.  Good luck!

Kylee right after getting her diploma.  The picture isn't great, but she was doing some kind of cool hand sign. Congratulations Kylee!

Rachel wasn't impressed with all the fanfare.  She was impressed, however, with all the cheese puffs that we brought.  She had a very orange face.

And trying to stuff another one in whole.  What an accomplishment.

We went down to the stadium field after the graduation to congratulate Kylee.  Whitney got to try on the cap for a minute.  You have just like another 15 years to go little girl.

We went  out to eat after the graduation.  Whitney and Rachel got to be cows.  Anyway, it was a really fun trip.  Good job Kylee making your way through high school.

Memorial Day Fun

We had a good, relaxing Memorial Day.  We didn't go anywhere because we had to speak in church, so we decided to just stay at home for the three day weekend.  But we did go to a big fun park in Hermiston to play and have a picnic.

Whitney is really good at climbing.  She wanted to be at the top of the tractor so she could "drive" it around.

We spent a lot of time in this rocket.  Whitney and I went to the store and church and the doctor's and zoo and all over in our rocket.

This big swing was a hit by both Whitney and Rachel.  Whitney called it her car seat.

Whitney gets a ride down the watermelon train slide.

The park is like a great big castle.

Rachel did enjoy the tire swing, even if she does look grumpy.

Cute Whitney coming down one of the many slides.

Later that day was spent with balloons.  Rachel and Whitney tried to rub balloons on Will's head to create some static electricity.  But the balloons wouldn't stick to the wall.  Oh well.  It was still a fun Memorial Day.

Our First Garden

So we have lived quite a few places since we have been married and this is our first home that has the potential for a garden.  We decided to take advantage of it and try our hand at gardening.

This is our garden space in our backyard.  It doesn't look like much, but we are going to make it great.

We started digging out all the weeds and rocks.  It really isn't the best place for a garden.  Our neighbors said that it used to be a rock garden, so there really were lots of rocks that made it much harder to dig.  But it became a good family project.

Will bought little shovels for Rachel and Whitney to use.  Rachel could only handle using the shovel for a couple minutes and then she would just start throwing dirt around - quite entertaining.

Continuing to dig and making it bigger.

Will has some work gloves that have been great for all the rocks and thorny weeds, so Whitney wanted gloves too.  She doesn't have any work gloves, but insisted on using her winter ones.  It didn't take long before she decided the gloves were too dirty and not useful.

This is our final garden space.

My mom gave us some seeds that we could use for our garden.  We planted two kinds of lettuce, corn, pumpkin, cantaloupe, onion, and sunflowers.  I hope that something grows with all the work we have put into it so far.  We will keep you posted on what happens.

Thanks for all the gardening advice from our parents who have a lot more experience with growing vegetables.  I hope we will get some fresh veggies in a couple of months.

Oh What a Mess...

...That a toddler can make in a short time.  This post is dedicated to the amazing way toddlers can make messes when you aren't paying attention.

We had a veggie side tray for dinner and Rachel was not content with just eating the veggies - not when everyone else was dipping them into ranch dressing.  I don't know how much carrot made it into her mouth, but she did get a lot of dressing.

Rachel wants to feed herself and I know it is an important skill, so I, sometimes, let her go at it with a spoon and a mostly empty yogurt container.  And what good would yogurt be without a magazine to go with it.

Apples and peanut butter.

Need I say more.  If you look closely, you can see a peanut butter moustache and very peanut buttery hands.

The girls both had a fever one day this last week.  I am not sure what could have caused it, but they both felt miserable.  So I let them watch lots of Full House and eat popsicles.  The red one for Rachel was a bad choice because it dripped all over her legs and I kept thinking her lips were bleeding because they were stained red for the rest of the day.

There managed to be a crayon and block explosion while I was otherwise occupied.  She doesn't look too guilty though.

We were working outside and ended up talking to our neighbors for a little while.  That left Rachel to her own devices, which consisted of throwing dirt in the air and giggling when it landed on her leg.  She was a mess when we got to her.

So those are some of our messes of the last couple weeks.  Now if our toddlers could only do more cleaning up.