Raymond Family Gathering

A visit from family turned into a small reunion of sorts and we had a great time. My grandfather's brother Willard and his son and daughter-in-law were in town for a quick visit and word spread. A BBQ turned into a good sized gathering with many of my dad's extended family in house. It was the perfect day for a BBQ, not a cloud in the sky. Everyone got to hangout outside. The kids had fun in the sand box and the kiddy pool. We had salmon, brisket and chicken so it's safe to say that no one went hungry. Our group included my parents, our boys, James and I, Neal, Evelyn, Travis, Grandma (Sybil) Raymond, JoAnn, Jody, Brett, Brooke, Teresa and daughter, Connie, Karen and daughter, Don, Doris, Willard, Steve, and Ruth.

A Day At The Fair

Nana and I decided to brave the Linn County Fair with the boys today. It was their first time to a fair so they thought it was pretty cool. We saw all of the animals in the livestock barn. The sheep were the boys favorite even though they were making horsey noises at them. They even had some exotic animals at the fair this year including a bobcat, lion cub, tiger cub, python, turtles, and an alligator just to name a few. The boys liked one of the big cats from Africa best. In kiddy land they enjoyed the bounce house and were even brave enough to feed the animals in the petting zoo! We ended the day splitting big scoops of ice-cream. This is definitely a must do again for next year.

Texas Time

Another fun evening with family. My uncle Glenn and cousins Teddy and Phil flew in today from Texas. It was a long day of traveling but they made it down to my parents house for BBQ and cousin time. It's always fun to see them we just wish we could do it more often!

2 Year Doctor Appointment

Well we finally got the boys in for their 2 year doctor appointment and guess what...they're Perfect! They are 35" tall and are still 50% for height. Mason is 28.6 lbs and in the 50% for weight while Brock is closer to the 25% for weight at 27.2 lbs. James always says he wants them lean and mean :)They are growing great and continually amaze us with the amount of food that they eat. The other night they ate half of a Costco Tri-tip before we made them stop so that we could have some. That was after eating a whole baked potato each and they were still hungry so they followed it up with grapes, wheat toast, cheese and crackers! And as you can see that darn cousin Kiley is still sneaking into the pictures.

Smith Rock Run

I am very excited to say that I ran my first 10K race! This is the first time that I've tried to run that far without stopping at all. It may not seem like as big of a deal as the half marathons that I've done but it felt like a big deal because we ran the entire thing. My coworker Carmen and I chose the Smith Rock Run for our first full out 10K because we thought it would be a pretty area to visit and we weren't disappointed. Luckily it started early in the morning before it got too hot out. We ran it in exactly 1 hour and we placed 80th out of 165 runners. We felt like we kept a pretty good pace and I guess we were right. We were smack dab in the middle of the pack and ran 9:50 minute miles. We might just have to make this an annual event.

Crooked River Ranch

Another weekend, another new campground to try out. I never thought I'd say this about camping but we felt a little out of place without the golf clubs. It seemed like we were the only people there that didn't come to golf. This was our first trip to Crooked River Ranch and we had a great time. We chose it because it was only 5 minutes away from Smith Rock where I was running a 10K. It was a gorgeous area to visit. The campground is in the bottom of a canyon with a beautiful golf course and swimming pool. The boys did better in the pool this time than they did in Hawaii. They didn't seem as nervous and had fun playing in the water. Brock had a cold though and eventually felt too sick to care about the pool. It was clear blue skies and hot, hot, hot outside. The boys had fun exploring the area on foot and driving their gator. They are getting really good at steering and were a crowd favorite tooting around in their green machine. They also got to play with Nana and Papa who were staying in Redmond. They thought that they were pretty hot stuff even after Papa made fun of their floppy red hats. I also included a couple of photos of Smith Rock above.

4th of July 2010

This year we opted for a quiet evening at home for the 4th of July which felt totally weird since I think this was our second time ever staying in town for the holiday. After an exciting morning at the Harrisburg parade and a rejuvenating nap we headed outside to BBQ. Arien, Rae, and Kiley joined us for dinner. While Grandpa Dodge and Javon showed up for play time afterward. The lawn mower seemed to be the hot toy of the day...it's the simple things. James drug the kids around in the wagon behind the mower and they took turns hanging from the basketball hoop. Silly kids and they thought this was actually cool! The boys hated all of the fireworks except for the sparklers. They LOVED the sparklers though! Being the creative idiots that they are James and Arien found a way to shoot lighted spinners into the air using a crossbow. It's all about safety at our house. Overall we had a great evening and the boys were totally tuckered out by sunset.

First Parade

The boys got to go to their first parade today. Mama, Dada, and Nana took them to Harrisburg's 4th of July parade. It was perfect weather and they loved collecting all the candy that the floats tossed. It was kind of like Easter egg hunting but easier. i think they had more candy in one morning than they've had totally the last two years. We got to hang out with the Reese and Currey families too. We're already looking forward to it next year.