Toketee Falls & The North Umpqua Trail

The adventures continue here in Southwest Oregon.  Hannah and I had a great time touring a vineyard...for more on that adventure check out my recipe blog: www.simplyspicedrecipes.blogspot.com

Today the whole crew headed to the Cascades for a grand hike to Toketee Falls.  Toketee is a Chinook word for graceful and the Umpqua River falls beautifully down columnar basalt.  It is gorgeous and the perfect hike with three kids (less than a mile round trip).  The forest is beautiful with moss and ferns growing everywhere.  Our boys loved finding bugs, sticks and downed trees to investigate.  We sang many, many, many rounds of "The Ants Go Marching" and "Down By the Bay"...the boys make up the funniest improv rhymes for our songs.

As a cool side note,  at the trail head there is an amazing 12 foot wide pipeline made of wood that feeds a powerhouse down stream.

After the falls we ate a wonderful picnic in the car and headed to the North Umpqua trail for some more hiking.  The bridge to the trail was recently built and really cool.  The trail was very peaceful and the weather was perfect.  It never really rained but it always seemed on the verge.  But as Caleb declared on the car ride home "That's what Oregon is all about--rain" and we felt fortunate it held off till we got home :)

Celebrate "The Dot" and F is for fog

Happy International Dot Day!...what is this, you may ask?  On September 15th they have International Celebrate "The Dot" day.  "The Dot" is a book by Peter H. Reynold that we first discovered at the Public Library in Nebraska and its so cool it even has its own holiday, really.  It really is the coolest thing ever...even astronauts in space celebrate "The Dot", how cool is that! So we celebrated "The Dot" all week long.
The book is all about encouraging creativity and making your own mark.  So I gave the boys a small piece of paper, told them they had 5 seconds to make their mark on the page.  I counted to five and they made their marks.  Big brother's mark didn't surprise me at all, when he was 18 months old he was already drawing circles all over his art work.  It just fit.  (Next time I won't let little brother see older brother's mark before he does his own as he just copied him...lesson learned)
We then took their marks and did a few other projects expanding on their original idea.  We used crayons, markers and paint and set up this little art display for dad to see when he got back from his business trip.

This past week we also focused on the letters F, L and T (Fall, Leaf and Tree).  We went on a nature walk and collected leaves with different colors and shapes.  We came home and examined them, traced over them and did comparisons (putting them in different groups based on size, then color and then shape)
We made the shape of our letters and associated Leaves Falling from Trees with some art.  One morning there was fog outside and I mentioned that fog started with the letter F...strangely they remembered that better than anything else this week.  When I would ask "what letter starts with F" (wanting them to say "fall") they would proudly declare "FOG!"  Oh well, that is correct.  We ended the week with a science experiment dealing with Paper Chromatography.  We collected leaves and the boys cut them up into little pieces with some plastic knives.  We put them in alcohol and placed a strip of coffee filter paper in the water and attempted to pull the separate pigments from the leaves.  This was the website that I used for the lab:

http://www.education.com/activity/article/Leaves_Change_fifth/?cid=50.200

We were only able to pull chlorophyll a and b from the leaves we didn't see Xanthophyll or Carotene...next time we try I will blend up the leaves to get a better pulp.  It was a fun project though.

Look what I can do Ma!

Nothing like being in a new town and not knowing any body and having your husband gone on business to motivate you to bottle up some peaches.  Yeah, I did it all by myself for the first time and they actually sealed...hope they taste good.

As a side note: There is this heavenly spot in our new town where we love to escape when ever we feel overwhelmed with adjusting to a new place.  The kiddos and I load up and go to Kruse Farms and when we are there the world seems better and we always leave a bit happier (and with loads of fresh produce).  And that is where I got these wonderful (very cheap) peaches.  Such a magical place...and I may have got a little carried away when I bought TWO boxes of peaches...so I made peach syrup...and peach strawberry jam...and there are two big bags of frozen peaches in my freezer...and I still have more.

Anyone have a good recipe with peaches???

Our big, big, very grand Chair Project!

Way back last winter I noticed our neighbor (Santa Claus--no really, Santa was our neighbor), anyway I saw Santa putting some seatless chairs out in the alley for the garbage man.  So I ran out and asked if I could have them...took an outline of the seat back to Idaho and my sweet angel father cut us out some pressed wood seats.  Then this summer Evus got a sander for his birthday (did I have my own sinister purposes in getting him this gift?  yes I did)  and we began sanding down each chair...and months and months later, piles of sand paper later...stiff hand joints later we stained and lacquered them.  One of our first projects in our new apartment was putting some material and padding on these bad boys and now they are a finished project (love that!)  Presenting our dining room chairs...and for any of our friends who regularly visited our dining room in North Platte--you know what a great improvement these are from our old ones :-)

To our Nebraska Family...

{This is really late} In my defense, I had planned on revealing this with great dramatic effect at a celebration for Evan being done with his Thesis and us moving on and all...and then my sweet husband came home and said "Honey, I've accepted a job and we are moving in week!"  No party.  And then we spent a wild week packing, two wild weeks getting in as much family time in Idaho as is humanly possible, then there is the week spent waiting in a hotel for our apartment to be ready (that was fun...sigh) and then the week of unpacking into our new home.  And now I am presenting (with less dramatic effect), our time in Nebraska.  We miss you Nebraska family and we think of you all the time.

Adventure to the Pacific Ocean

We couldn't really feel like we had fully arrived in Oregon without making it to the Pacific Ocean.  That was the selling point when we told the kids we were moving here.  So after a few last unpacking tasks this Saturday we loaded up in Evan's new pickup and headed to the coast...it was pretty light-hearted...aka we weren't super prepared and yet it turned out to be one of those perfect days that you hope you (and your kids) will always remember.  We headed to Sunset Bay and spent a long time just wiggling our toes in the sand, and catching the waves in our McDonald's cups (note to self--bring shovels and sand buckets next time).  Caleb and Joshi diverted themselves grandly collecting what they called the (death collection)...aka bits and pieces of dead crabs.  It was grand.
Having only packed some extra sweaters we found ourselves in a predicament...I got my shoes soaked and the boys pants were soaked (note to self--take extra clothes next time) .  Did that stop our adventure, oh no...we just found a local garage sale and bought some pants and flip flops for a couple quarters and headed off to find some sea lions.  And we found them! The sound they make in that mass hoard is amazing and the boys loved that...though they wanted to see whales too...we have to save some adventures for another day though.
We had planned to build a fire by the  beach and have a hot dog roast but it was misting something fierce so we scratched that plan and headed to town to find a fantastic "hole-in-the-ground" type spot where we could get some great seafood.  We stopped and bought some fresh salmon and saw huge piles of oyster shells too.  When we passed a sweet little restaurant named "Captain's Choice" we declared "this is the place" and parked  (Caleb wanted to know what happened to the whole "eating in a hole" idea because he liked that plan)  The boys enjoyed their first fish 'n chips and Evan and I enjoyed some fish too (just for the "halibut")...actually I had some AMAZING clam chowder and Cod, Evan had Halibut.  We headed home and had a lovely drive along the Umpqua river and saw a bunch of elk (the biggest bull elk I've ever seen) and we were all exhausted when we arrived back home.
We had so much fun and look forward to doing an adventure revisit any time anyone wants to come see us :)

Our First week of Preschool at Home: Poppies...Poppies will make them sleep.

Yesterday we began Preschool.  We started reading "The Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum.  (FYI the book is different from the Movie...who knew :)  We decided to study Poppies after reading the first seven chapters.  We ate Poppyseed Chicken for dinner last night and learned that Poppy's seeds are edible...the boys also decided they were sleepy after eating them :)

Today we learned about Poppies on the Internet and studied pictures.  The boys painted their own poppies.  Because today is September 11th we talked about Red Poppies as a symbol of remembrance for those who fight/fought to keep our country free.  We read "In Flanders Field" together.  Here are some pictures of our art project today and I also wanted to post "In Flanders Field", a poem I have loved ever since I did a scholarship program with the VFW:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Flanders_Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
   That mark our place; and in the sky
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
   Loved and were loved, and now we lie
         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.