Family Fun

Okay, so all of you will have to bear with my long blog this week. Last week, part of my family came up to Oregon to visit. My mom and dad, my sister Melissa and her husband Jared along with the rest of the troop: Preston, Rye, Ashlyn and Megan. We had such a fun time, I only wish it wouldn't have gone by so fast. They flew into Portland airport Tuesday morning and we came back down to Salem. We had a quick lunch and then took the kids to the Enchanted Forest here in Salem. I think the kids enjoyed this and they seemed to have a fun time. Preston, Rye and I rode the log ride, and they were very excited about it. I could tell on the ride that Rye was getting a little nervous, but he even thought it was a lot of fun.

This is Ashlyn and I cruisin down one of the fun slides at the Enchanted Forest.

This is Preston, Rye and I going down the log slide and the next picture is our big splash which the boys thought was pretty awesome.

The next day we went to the Oregon Coast, which was the kids' first trip to see the ocean. Since the water is freezing, we spent the day playing in the sand, which I guess the kids thought was pretty fun.

This is Megan digging a hole in the sand. She loved playing in the sand! I got the biggest kick out of this, she is pushing her foot down on the shovel. (She knows what she is doing.)

Preston, Rye and I in front of the sand castle that Preston built.

Poor Grandma Hurst was freezing at the Oregon Coast. For starters it was not the warmest day, but mom was freezing. She had on one long sleeve shirt, two sweaters and a blanket. But she was a good sport and sacrificed a lot so that the kids could have a fun day on the beach.

The next day we spent the morning at The Gilbert House, which is a children's museum. After that we took everyone to see Silver Falls.

Thank you Dad and Mom for making this trip a possibility!!! Thank you Melissa and Jared for coming!!! I had so much fun, and it was so great to have some family around, we don't get too many visitors, so this was so great!

Book Tag II

No offense to the person that came up with the "Book Tag," but that makes for a pretty lame blog entry. The book that was actually closer to Marjean when she wrote the post below was the phone book, which happens to be the only book that could possibly have a more boring sentence than the sentences I've seen quoted in these book tag entries. (Page 123, line 5 of the Salem phonebook: Hertz Equipment Rental 3640 Cherry Ave NE .............................KZR 97303 503 390-1945) To make it a little more fun and interesting, how about going to the book shelf and choosing the strangest book there and then finding a sentence that is funny or applicable in some way instead of a random boring sentence.

So, looking at our bookshelf, the clear winner for strangest book is "Rabbits for Dummies" written by Audrey Pavia, the acclaimed writer of "Horses for Dummies," the first book I would buy if I spent thousands on a flippin' horse. I'm gonna go with sentence 4 from page 126: "Rabbits develop a form of syphilis caused by a bacteria, but it's not the same disease as seen in humans." Well thank goodness its not the same, because Cooper, our cute little French Lop, just happens to have rabbit syphilis. (Insert obvious French joke here.) I'm sure he has a good excuse; he was young and naive, found some catnip, peer pressure, just did what rabbits do, etc.; and getting him fixed was probably punishment enough for any youthful sins, so we try not to hold it against him now.

Just look at that innocent face.

So, now I am going to tag Juan, Pablo, Jorge and, uh, Ringo; and anyone else who wants to.

P.S. No one tell Marjean that everyone dies at the end of Hunchback, she seems to have high hopes for a happy ending.

Tagged again

Book tag. I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, so we will see.

1. Get the closest book you can find: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

2. Find page #123: Done.

3. Type the fifth sentence: The block extended to the very water's edge.


So I have to say, I bought this book, but haven't had a chance to really delve into it. The little tiny portion of what I have read, has in fact, bored me to tears. However, I shall press on. Victor Hugo wrote this book along with a more well known classic, at least to us Americans. Can you guess it? Of course you can, and if you can't, you really, REALLY, need to take a literature class!! Lets discuss Les Miserables for a minute shall we? A large portion of the beginning of that book was very difficult to get through; it was all about the priest, and Victor Hugo went on and on about him and I kept wondering when the good part of the book would come in or if it ever would. I was bored to tears at the beginning of that book as well. Well, then it picked up and I can't say enough about it! It is a beautiful story that eventually gave me tears, but for another reason besides boredom. (And can I just get on my soapbox for just a minute?? Javert in the book, the real story, is not the bad guy he is portrayed to be in the musical. He is just misunderstood and misguided, but I do not think that he is a bad guy!) Anyways, I shall press on with The Hunchback of Notre Dame, hoping for a wonderful outcome like Les Miserables.

I tag Julie, Jessica, Jaclyn and Christina.

Berry Picking

So, I know it has been a long time since I have posted. I just haven't had anything to post for quite awhile. It has been so crazy trying to come back from vacation and deal with the messes that were waiting for me at work, plus I just couldn't think of anything to possibly blog about. (Not that this will be a very exciting blog.) So, Aaron and I like to watch the food network channel. Aaron had been watching the other day and found a recipe he wanted us to try. So we got online and printed the recipe. Lucky for us, we live in berry country, because the recipe called for a lot of strawberries, rasberries, and blueberries. It was a very expensive recipe. So yesterday afternoon we decided to go a berry farm and pick berries. We went to a farm close by and did the U-pick thing, so we could get the berries for super cheap.

This is me in the raspberry patch.

This is Aaron in the newly planted strawberry patch. Even though the plants are tiny, they still had strawberries, but we were not allowed to pick these.

View of Mt. Hood from one of the Strawberry patches. I don't think Mt. Hood shows up well on the camera, but you could see it really well in real life. (Guess you had to be there).

This is me in front of the blueberry patch. I'd never seen a blueberry bush before, but blueberries were very easy to pick, and I really liked that part of it, especially since I am crazy for blueberries. (I picked a lot of extra blueberries)

Our goods we left with. It was a great deal. We paid only $3.00 for these berries; if we had bought these in a store, it would have easily been around $15.00.

Last night about 11:30, Aaron decides we needed to make the dessert right then. So we stayed up until almost 1:00 am, making a berry dessert. I would have taken a picture of the dessert, but it's not a pretty dessert, though it tastes good.

Here's the recipe for Summer Berry Pudding.