Last Days of Summer

Can you believe summer is almost over?! Where did it go? The girls start school next week and I am having very mixed emotions about the whole thing. This is Abby's first year of "all day" school and Emma will be in preschool 4 afternoons a week. It seems like their childhood is passing before my eyes. I know they're still little but every new phase in their lives seems to bring on a wave of emotions for me.

So we've been trying to get in all the fun we can and enjoy these past few weeks of summer. Last week it was, get this, 104 degrees in Portland. So all of you that think the sun never shines here . . . We had to escape the heat and so we drove to the coast where it looked like this (see below). Yep, cloudy, windy and 60 degrees. I would have settled for a middle ground somewhere around 80 degrees but I wasn't complaining when we got home at 10:30 pm and the thermostat in our apt. still said it was 90 degrees in our house. The girls didn't mind that it was less than sunny. They played all day in the sand and even got in the water a bit. Not me!

The beautiful Oregon coast

Painting - they're practicing to be artists one day

Can I even tell you how much I love the blackberry bushes behind our house! Mmmmm.

Blackberry jam and blackberry-lemon tart - I love summer!

Portland Rose Garden

This has got to be one of my very favorite places. And of course the pictures don't ever do it justice. There are just thousands of roses, every shape and color. It is really so beautiful and the girls love to walk around and smell them and pick out their favorite. Anyone want to come and visit?

The Perfect Exercise for Kids . . .

I just wanted to share a great new discovery I made this week. The perfect way to completely wear out your kids without them even knowing it. Windless Kite-Flying. Let me explain. The girls and I were getting ready for a picnic at the park when Emma asked if we could take the kite. There was absolutely no wind whatsoever. That didn't seem like a good enough excuse to Emma, so in order to avoid the arguement, I told her to bring it just in case. Well, the wind never picked up but of course she wanted to fly it anyway. So for the next 2 hours the girls took turns running as fast as they possibly could in order to keep the kite in the air. They thought it was great, I had a nice rest on the blanket and by the time we left the park they were completely spent. Let's hope for plenty of windless days.