Camp Harlow for the Boys and I Go back to Work

So . . . my summer is officially over :(

It sure was a GREAT one though (with a few sad points).

The down part being the loss of my wonderful mother-in-law.  She was such a fun, caring lady that we all miss so much.  However, I know she would have loved to see all of the fun things that we did this summer,  like Vegas with my girlfriends, Sacramento Water Park, Knotts Berry Farm, visiting relatives, Great America, Redwood Forrest, Camping, Eagle Crest, Mining (the boys), Mommy-Daughter weekend (Lucy and I), Portland Soccer Tournament, and lots of time spent with family and friends.  It is hard to see such a fun summer come to an end, but the memories that we made were priceless to me!

Sam and Max are BOTH at Camp Harlow overnight camp this week.  I dropped them off there on Sunday afternoon and I will pick them up this Thursday afternoon.  Thats FOUR nights away from home!  This is the first time for both of them.  Max seemed pretty cool and unfazed by the whole thing at drop off.  I got a quick hug and a "bye mom".  Sam, was a little more nervous.  He kept asking me if I would write him a note every day, he told me that he would miss me A LOT, and gave me a long hug and a whispered "I love you Mom, I might want to come home early".  When I left though, he was playing football with all of his bunkmates and had a HUGE smile on his face, and I have not gotten a phone call yet.

Cabin #19

Sam is on the far right and he is good buddies with the 2 boys to his left.  He was so excited to go to camp with Lucas and Ryne.

Cabin #14

Max is in a cabin with all of his buddies.  Half of them are from his soccer team.  In fact, we all drove back from the Portland Soccer Tournament and drove straight to camp.  The other half of the boys are from his class at O'Hara.  This is a tight group, and they should have a lot of fun together!

Lucy is at "Camp Grammy and Papa" this week!  She is having so much fun every day having them all to herself.  My mom has taken her to the library, got her doing crafts, they are reading a chapter book together and more . . .

Pancho is on week two in California.  I took him back to the Portland Airport after the tournament was over so he could fly to Sacramento, then we rushed back to Eugene to get the boys to camp.

Me?  I'm back at work! 

It is so hard to see such a fun summer come to an end, but the minute I walked back into the school and saw all of the faces of the fun people that I LOVE to work with, it got me excited to face a new school year!

I've been working hard on my classroom, I can't wait to see my class list.  I am teaching Max's class this year and I will have a lot of his friends in my class.  I am working on all kinds of fun curriculum ideas for this year too!  I am teaching Science and Social Studies to BOTH 5th grades, and I want to make these subjects FUN!  I just ordered a class simulation game that the whole class can play in groups.  It involves them forming colony groups, studying and playing the parts of famous explorers and creating maps, games and brochures on the computer!  I love all of the fun things that 5th graders can do, I want to give them the chance to try it all! It should be a fun year!

Max's Soccer Tournament

The whole family went to Portland last weekend for Max's soccer tournament.  The kids and I drove up on Saturday morning and watched Max play and win his first game.  Then we went to the Portland Airport and picked up Pancho who is working in California for 2 weeks.  He flew into Portland for the weekend.  We made it back to S.E. Portland in time for Max's second game, which his team  also won!

Max is a very aggressive defensive player.

We finally dropped the $$$ for some sports goggle glasses for Max.  I think they look so funny on him, but he LOVES them!  He has been wearing them even  when he isn't playing sports lately.

The younger siblings had a lot of fun together.

Sam brought his Star Wars figures (which were a big hit), they also spent lots of time playing at a park which just happened to be right next to the field!

Lucy hanging out in the beautiful sunshine, we had great weather!

The "Soccer Moms" :)

My favorite part of all of these sporting events is gabbing witth these fun ladies!

It seemed weird to me. . . but, because we won our first two games, we didn't have ANY games on Saturday.  Since we had a whole day free, the Dad's took some of the boys to Multonomah Falls.  They all hiked to the top of the falls.

The boys with the falls in the background.

They even played in the stream at the top.

While the boys were at the falls, the girls went shopping!

I was so happy that  my cousin Kelly came and met us at Washington Square. 

It was fun to get to spend a little time with her!

Having fun in the hotel room was part of the "fun" of the weekend!

The kids had a blast swimming in the hotel pool, staying up late watching movies, and running from room to room through the hotel (most of Max's team stayed together at the our hotel).

The best part for the adults, was that the kids are old enough to put them all together in the Hakala's and Fulton's connecting hotel rooms with a movie, and head on down to the restaurant in the lobby where we all had a few drinks and talked all evening!  It was really fun!

The whole team and their families went to dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory.

Luckily, they gave us our own room, because we were quite loud.

There was a man making balloon flowers, animals and swords for the kids.

We enjoyed sitting at the "parents table", where Pancho kept us all entertained.

All in all it was a fun weekend with a great group of families.

Max's team ended up playing 2 games on Sunday and they lost the first one and tied the second one which had them ending up tied for third place in their division.  They all seemed pretty happy with the outcome and we were all very proud watching them play so hard.

Boys Weekend 2010 !!!

Last year Pancho took the boys on a "Guys Trip" down to Southeastern Oregon to go mining for sunstones.  They had so much fun and talked about it all year, so this summer, they decided to do it all over again!

This is one trip that I am more than happy to leave up to Pancho.  It is a combination of many of the things I don't like . . .  dirt, sleeping on the ground, intense heat, bugs, dead animals and a long drive.  All of these things add up to the perfect "boys weekend" for the males in our family, they were so excited to go!

The vindictive side of me (yes I admit, there is one) was anticipating watching Pancho have to pack for a "camping like" trip on his own.  I usually do 99% of the packing and unpacking whenever we go  family camping (which adds to my dislike for camping), but this trip was all Pancho.

I watched in awe (and disgust) as Pancho waited until about 10 min. before they were scheduled to leave, and handed each boy a plastic grocery bag.  Then he said, "Boys go put a pair of underwear and a pair of socks in this bag" and they each grabbed a sleeping bag and walked out the door! (change of clothes? sunscreen? bugs spray? toothbrush? medicine? pillow? food? . . . aren't these necessities?)

They always stop at this little store out in the middle of nowhere  for supplies.  Why? because it is full of dead animals of course!  I always get to hear about all of the mounted cougars, deer, elk and even a bear.  They love it!

Pancho says that you see this view for about 4 hours straight!

My poor mini-van. 

Pancho couldn't wait to run it through his car wash when he got home.

Max loves mining.  They brought home about 200 sunstones and 2 of them were quite big.

Sam found this walking stick that he is still walking everywhere  with.

Sam, showing off one of the tiny sunstones that he found.

Pancho and the boys actually sleep in this teepee.

Last year, they had kangaroo rats crawling around in it, this year it was windy, so when they lit a fire, it filled up with smoke!  (There is NO WAY I would ever do this, this is just reaffirmation for me that Dad's serve a  very special purpose in a boys life!)

The boys collecting sunstones off of the conveyor belt with a few of the people who live there and actually do this for a living!

So what DID Lucy and I do on our weekend without our boys?

We had a "Girls Weekend" of course!

I didn't take many pictures other than this one, but Lucy and I had so much fun together.

First, we painted pottery (Lucy painted a cupcake, I painted a purse).

Then we went shopping, then we had lunch together!

Saturday night we got invited to a pool Party at Sheri and Keith's house.  Lucy had a blast swimming in the pool all evening and Natalie and her 7th grade girlfriends were so nice to include Lucy in everything.  She felt like such a big girl.

I enjoyed visiting with Christy, Teesh and the other ladies as the sun went down, looking at Sheri's beautiful view of Eugene from high up on the hill. (I wish I would have taken a picture of the beautiful sunset)  I LOVE summer evenings).  All in all in was a very nice relaxing quiet weekend spent with my favorite girl in the whole world!!!

The best part was when the boys got home on Sunday night, and we all wrapped up in blankets on the couch and shared the stories of our weekend adventures with each other!

Eagle Crest in Central Oregon

 I was so happy when my good friend Brenda called and asked me if we wanted to use their condo in Eagle Crest for a week.  Apparently, the people who were going to stay there backed out.  I couldn't say YES fast enough!  You see, this is MY favorite kind of vacation.  Don't get me wrong, I love road trips and theme parks, but those kind of vacations are also so hectic and a wee bit tiring.  You already know how I feel about camping too.  I grew up with very fond memories of going to Sunriver with my family, and riding bikes, playing tennis, swimming, getting ice cream cones, swimming some more, and staying up late talking and laughing.  Sometimes, I think that what we grew up doing with our families when we were kids, are the memories that we are most excited to pass down to our own children.  To me, Eagle Crest is just perfect!  You can do all of the fun outdoorsy things and still relax and go to sleep in a cozy bed :).

The water guns were a HUGE hit!

I got squirted by them at least 20 times!

Don't get me now Max, I have a camera!

Sam just LOVES snorkeling (see my next post for more background).

It is so much fun to see him doing something he loves so much.  In fact, he tells us all of the time that he is never going to get married OR have kids.  When he grows up,  he is going to be "room buddies" with his friends Colin and Ellie.  He is also going to live in Hawaii and snorkel during the day, play the guitar at night and sell Legos on ebay during his free time!  Ha ha! I can't wait to visit him in Hawaii someday!

 There are about 5 or 6 pools at Eagle Crest.  On the second day, we went to this one with a water park in it!

 Lucy just followed Max around the whole time.  Max is such a good Big Brother to her.  He watches out for her and included her in everything he did.

 still following max

 Sam and his snorkeling gear backpack.

 . . .more fun running through the water park

 The water dumper!

Oh No!

The boys carried around their water guns to each pool that we went to.  They got in huge water gun fights and would even recruit others to join in (I have about 6 water guns).  Between the water guns and the cannonball contests, I am pretty sure that we annoyed people at each and every pool that we went too!

When we went out to eat lunch, the kids spotted a Mama Duck with a bunch a cute little baby ducklings!

They were so cute, and the kids followed them around.

watching the duckies some more . . .

Eagle Crest is just so beautiful!!!

Sam and I played tennis together almost every night!

This picture cracks me up, he is trying so hard, but look at where the ball is . . .

Sam and I took pictures of each other.

Poser!

I was so happy that my friend Steph and her daughter Claire could come over and stay with us for  a few days.  It was so much fun to catch up with her (since I went back to work, I have not had as much time to be a good friend, thank you for sticking with me Steph!)

Claire and Lucy,

Lucy was so happy to have a girl to play with and Claire was so good to her.

Lucy said that "Claire was like her big sister!".

We rented a "car bike" to go on a bike ride.

Steph and I drove, which made for a lot of laughs!  Sam and Lucy rode in the back and Claire and Max rode their own bikes.

All of the kids wanted a chance to drive too!

Max and Claire

Without embarrassing these two too much (I doubt that either one of them are going to read this any time soon)  Steph and I noticed that they both seemed a little more concerned with their hair, and they both got a little sillier when they were around each other this time Hmmmm!

We rode our bikes down to the Town Square to get ice cream.

This was a little pond with a fountain in the middle.  The boys immediately got into a "rock skipping" contest.

Lucy had so much fun rolling down a little hill of grass, but she was pretty itchy later.  Good thing we went for an evening swim!

Lucy and Claire swimming together.

Thank You Claire, for being so good to Lucy.

Goofing around!

The boys teasing the girls. 

 My boys were missing Claire's brother Spencer who was spending the week at his Grandparents house.

One last pic of the kids playing together in the pool!

The kids could not get enough of swimming and they all played very well together.  I am so glad that Steph and Claire could come over and play with us.  Steph and I got a chance to relax too, which was really nice.  I just wish Brenda and her kids could have been there with us as well!  Thank You again to the Franssens who were gracious enough to let us use their condo, for the week.  We had a BLAST!