Yes, We Are Still Here...

A breakfast table game of peek-a-boo.

The boys all dressed up for my birthday

Eli doing some modeling for me, unleashing his wild side.

The two cutest little guys ever!

Sorry for the long-time-no-write folks. Busy as usual. Feels like summer has finally arrived, and I'm loving the sun and the heat. I would rather be lovin it on the river though! But, we're getting some good play time in and the boys are growing as fast as the garden and the chickens. Elias got his first tooth today and he has been sitting up really good for a while. He is really trying hard to scoot along, probably won't be long before he's roaming the house in four-wheel drive. Isaac is talking sooo much, although nearly impossible to understand by all but me. He surprises me every day with a new word, sentence, or by recognizing a new letter or telling me a memory from when he was "much younger."
We are trying hard to gather up the bits and pieces we need to start on the big bus project and are hoping to at least get a jump on it this summer. For now, the ole 40 footer is doing greenhouse duty though in our pathetic attempt to extend the unpredictable growing season around here. Hopefully we can not freeze our tomatoes this year.
Speaking of unpredictability, Trav's job is on shaky ground so we have started tentatively "job hunting" to test the waters out there. Things are getting a bit scary! Options on the table mostly involve leaving the house, which would be fine in another year perhaps, but we just aren't set up for that yet. So, its entirely possible that our young fam will be doing time apart for a while. We'll just have to wait and see, as always.

The Ghetto Chickens...

Isaac helping Mommy and Daddy build the chicken tractor.
For those of you who don't know, a chicken tractor is a
portable chicken coop so you can let them eat away at
various parts of your yard (jungle?) and fertilize it too.

Happy bird in their summer house.

Oh Hail!

The yard covered in hail. Note the chicken house hiding
behind the tree in the center of the picture.

Well, we spent last weekend building a "chicken tractor" for our ladies to spend the summer in, and they've been enjoying their days out there this week, and I've been enjoying having them out of the garage at least most of the time. Today was almost disastrous however as a crazy hail storm came along and I had to run out to the coop getting pelted by nickel sized hail stones to rescue the dumb birds. They didn't know to get into their house so they were all piled up at the end of the "tractor" trying to get shelter from the hail. I was able to scoop them all up and get them into their house without any of them escaping, and without getting struck by lightning. When the crazy down pour ended I went back out to get them and they were just happy as clams poking around in their straw bedding, no worse for the wear. Its supposed to continue with thunder storms and showers all week, so I hope they learn to get themselves into their house because I don't really want to repeat today's misadventure. Thankfully I think the garden survived the beating, except for the two cucumber starts I just put out yesterday. They ended up buried under a layer of ice. You gotta love spring in Oregon.

Back To The Woods...

The view at the end of the trail after an afternoon of hiking.

Oh so good to be back in the woods!

An amazing root wad. This is as tall as a person!

As a native Oregonian, I find it kind of sad how excited I get over
big trees. But this old guy is impressive!

Unfortunately, this is what you find more often.

It was so nice to spend an afternoon hiking in the woods and it reminded me how easy it is to get out there. Since my car really does get nearly 40 miles to the gallon I've got no excuses for getting the boys out in the woods more often! Thanks Phil for the great idea, and thanks to you and Aunt "Hammie" for playing in the woods with us!