Commence Summer

I really hope Summer is here to stay in Oregon for the next many months. The rain always seems to linger on and on and on at the end of Winter and through most of Spring.

Yesterday I joined the "Grandpa Day" fun and went strawberry picking with Hunter and Mark. Once a week Mark takes Hunter for the day to do pretty much whatever she wants. It's a fine line of her being spoiled rotten and enjoying some amazing time with her amazing Grandpa. :) Aunt Erin joins in the fun most weeks and they go to so many fun places that I wish I could join in on. But today they stayed close to home to let me join them for strawberry picking.

It was a gorgeous day at Koch Family Farm, just a few minutes from our house. We picked over 16 pints of strawberries and a few pints of raspberries. We were only there for an hour too.

Hunter joined in on the picture taking and took some good pictures herself with my camera. I think it's time to get her her own camera, my SLR camera is a bit heavy for her still, but I think she's figuring it all out pretty well.

Note the helicopter above my head that she was trying to get a picture of. I'm taking a picture of her with my iPhone to post on Facebook. :)

Grandpa displaying an amazing looking strawberry for her to capture.

She got a nice tilted shot of the fields. This picture doesn't do the area justice, so many acres of berries. The rows of berries after the strawberries and before the trees are all raspberries. They just opened up that area for picking yesterday, we got first dibs!

I had never picked Raspberries before, it was pretty cool to see their whole inside came out when you picked it.

Here is part our loot at the end of the day.

Freezing the strawberries is a bit time consuming, but it'll be fun to use them in the future for smoothies and such. Hopefully finding time to make a pie or jam today before the fresh ones go bad. If they do, I'll just hop in the car and get some more. :)

Never a dull moment

Today is our four year wedding anniversary. We started dating five years ago and we moved pretty fast into building our own family, but it already seems like we've spent a lifetime together. In a good way. We may have our ups and downs like every young married couple, but I still believe in the bond we formed in the beginning and know it'll see us through whatever comes our way.

I found Brandon's blog post with our official wedding ceremony vows. They are so cheesy, but still get me teary eyed. I call them official wedding vows, because we had different vows a year later at our wedding celebration. Can't seem to locate those though...

I wasn't sure what one is supposed to get their spouse for the four year mark, but Brandon has been having annoying issues with one of his computer monitors (yes, yes, he has multiple) so I went for the geeky anniversary gift, a new monitor!

I get my gift tomorrow. Better late than never!

I'll leave this post with a photo montage of our first five years! Love you Brandon!

(As I looked through my thousands of pictures tonight, it is clear I need more recent family shots of all of us together. Brandon, Hunter and Leo, watch out, I'm getting out the tripod!)

Howard and Hughes

Hunter's preschool teacher found four little ducklings on the side of a highway in a wire cage about a month ago. And then of course somehow we ended up with two of them.

After much online research reading about caring for ducks I figured we could take on these little ducklings. We were hoping that they were going to be girls because I read that boy ducks (drakes) can possibly try to mate hens and cause damage to their lady bits. But with even more online reading now that the ducklings a few weeks older, I am pretty sure they are boys. At the moment, they are named Howard and Hughes. We weren't planning on keeping them if they were boys, but I'm getting a wee bit attached so we'll see how the transition to living outside with the hens goes. So far they are more afraid of the hens than anything so I can't imagine them trying to mate them.

Retro pic of the ducks!

In the midst of the duckling arrival, we had been building a large enclosure for our chickens. Brandon has been pushing for them to be confined to one area of the yard ever since we got chickens over three years ago. I love the idea of happy free range chickens so I have been pushing back, but I've finally had enough chicken poop to last me a lifetime. Our covered patio in the winter time becomes a home for the hens and it's chicken poop central! Not to mention I can't keep the ladies out of my garden areas and I battle with them eating my plants. It'll be nice to have them confined to one large area and then I'm sure I'll let them roam the yard more often than Brandon will want. :)

Here is our chicken/duck pen in all it's glory! It was a true labor of love that had me rethink why I have all these birds and end up appreciating them even more for their entertainment and of course, their eggs. And as a side note, I never want to use a post hole digger again.

The ducks are temporarily sleeping in a dogloo at night until we see if they will sleep with the hens in the coop or ultimately need their own coop. We slowly opened the ducks up to the hens and the first day we had a few bitchy hen moments but otherwise the ducks just get up and move when the hens come near them. We also clipped the hens wings so they can't fly over the fence, the first day we had a few escapees. Again though, I'll let them free range the whole yard often so they'll still be happy spoiled ladies.

This chicken pen/duck adventure is just a small piece of what we've been doing in our backyard lately. We've also had a complete office building built in the backyard for my new office space!

We had a local shed building company come out and build the shell of the building as you see above. It's 10ft x 12ft with a cute little 4ft porch on it. In the next few months we'll add electricity and internet, then insulate and drywall, then flooring and give it some finishing touches before I move out there. I am excited to have my own space outside of the house and Hunter is super excited to take over my office inside the house as her own bedroom. An almost four year old little girl really needs her own space. :)

I love that I'll look out my new office window and watch all the birds. Now I just need a koi pond and some goats and I'll be in heaven!

And thankfully we have our gardener taking care of the lawn too!

Time flies when you're having fun!

Yes, it has been way too long since I've done a family blog post (many people keep reminding me!). Facebook makes it way too easy to just pop up some pictures of what is going on. But I will try to get back into updating the blog to have more of a storyline to our adventures.

Try to. :)

So because it's easy, I will kick off this new uprising of Battlestar Newberg with a little photo montage of the kids and all their adorableness in the last few months.

Hunter and Grandpa Mark

Even in winter with cold weather it doesn't keep these two from the outdoors.

Grandpa and Aunt Erin have been taking Hunter roller skating weekly to the skating rink at Oaks Park in Portland. Oaks Park is a little amuesment park as well. Even though the park is closed during the winter, you can still wander around the place.

We had some fun running around last week.

I wish I could take off work once a week to join these guys. But I am very thankful that Hunter gets to take a break from pre-school every week to have a fun filled day with Gramps. I know she loves it!

Happy Holidays!

More fun times from Grandpa John's visit

While my Dad and his friend Theresa were visiting last month we had a whirlwind of a trip and were away from the house from sun up to sun down. I think we all needed a vacation from our vacation but everything we did was a complete blast. We hit up Mt St Helens, OMSI, Wings and Waves Waterpark, Multnomah Falls, the ocean, a pumpkin patch and much more, even the hotel pool! And many lovely lunches and dinners at Red Robin, Denny's and other 'american' places. My Dad really needs to branch out his food tastes. :) Just saying.

The day we went to Mt. St. Helens was a dreary day and we didn't get to see much of the crater. But Hunter was sponging up all the history about the explosion and the valley, it was really great to see her learning. She still talks about it almost daily.

On the way back down the mountain we stopped to take a picture with Bigfoot. A 28 foot tall Bigfoot!

It was a nice and sunny when we went to Baggenstos Farm in Sherwood. While we didn't make it on the tractor ride to the actual pumpkin patch we played in the hay maze and on their play structure.

I see rock climbing in the future for these two.

Multnomah Falls is a must see for friends and family visiting. We forgot Leo's backpack carrier and we ended up carrying him the mile up to the top of the falls. We also ended up carrying Hunter most of the time too. We got a good workout that day!

This picture of my Dad and Hunter cracks me up.



See, sweaty from the workout!



But the view is well worth the hike and sweat. 

Hunter also discovered cheetos on the way home from the falls and had her first cheeto hand experience.



OMSI is the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. It's got too much stuff to list and if you have kids, you need to spend a day here. Hunter and Leo didn't want to leave.

Such a fun trip, can't wait for Grandpa John to visit again!