Just for clarification, the cabin we stayed in was similar to a yurt, however, it was completely enclosed. It had electricity and lights and a TV and VCR, couch and coffee table and heater. It did not have a bathroom, but it was next door to the bathroom, which was fine.

Camping Fun.

We got back yesterday from our camping trip. We had a great time. The kids had a blast. We stayed in a very tiny cabin up at Mt. Hood Village Resort. The cabin was just big enough for us and our things, but that was about it. It was quaint and cute. The first day we went we unloaded some things and then walked around the camp ground a bit, it is really big and just beautiful out there. Then we went over to the pool. The kids loved the pool! The first time we went we didn't bring any of the floaties that we bought because we weren't sure exactly how it was going to work out of if the kids would even want to stay for very long. We should have just brought them. The kids wanted to spend the rest of our trip either in the pool or hot tub. Alex gave us a scare the first 1/2 hour or so because he just decided he wanted to jump in the middle of the pool. It was 5 feet deep max, but he's not 5 feet. I had Samantha and Jon was playing with Austin. I couldn't get to Alex without dropping Sam, and Jon didn't hear me at first tell him that Alex was drowning, so Alex just sank. Jon did get to him after a couple of seconds, and then Alex was scared to death the rest of the time we were there in the pool, except the second day we brought an inner tube bathing suit for him to play in and some arm floaties, which meant he could roam around by himself and feel like he was swimming, which he finally really enjoyed. Scared us to death though. Austin actually kind of taught himself how to swim and as long as he had floaties on he could go all over the pool with them and his doggie paddle swim. It was funny. Sam pretty much wanted Jon to hold her the whole time...maybe because he was warmer? Regardless, she wanted Jon the whole time and had a shivering good time.

We came back to the cabin after our several hour swim and then made hamburgers for dinner complete with avacado, tomatoe, sprouts, cheese and all the other fixings. It was really good, there's nothing like a campfire burger. The rest of the night the boys played on their scooters and Sam roamed around all over and then we have some hot chocolate and smores and called it a night. The boys slept on the bunk beds and Jon and Sam slept on the double bed in that room with Jon and I slept on the sleeper sofa. It was ok and we managed fine. Sam kept Jon awake becuase she got sick that morning and was only getting progressively worse as the day went on, and was coughing something fierce throughout the night. It was hands down a better night camping than our first attempt.

The next day we made bacon, eggs and waffles for breakfast. It was very good. We then cleaned up a bit and then we went to the Rainbow Trout farm about 5 miles down the road/mountain. It is nestled a ways down into the valley, and we kept thinking we had missed the sign, but we finally got there. It is so beautiful there. Very family friendly. They provide the poles and bait and buckets and nets, and anything else you need to catch some fish. Since I have never caught a fish, he told us to fish from Pond 6, which had the biggest fish so apparently I would feel more satisfaction from catching one. We all ended up fishing from that pond only. Austin caught the first fish and it was an 18 incher. Alex was right after him and he caught another 18 incher. I caught the third fish, expect it pulled my line so hard and I ended up just getting my hook back with no bait. I cast again and then caught another 18incher, except mine was super fat, thus bigger than the other fishes. Then Jon caught one that was 16inches. We stopped at that. We brought our fish back and they cleaned and gutted the fish for us and then packed the fish on ice for us. It was a very good time and it only took 15 minutes to catch our fish. I'm glad it didn't take any longer to be honest because Sam was a handful and miserable all at the same time because she had a pretty high fever and was not feeling very well.

We got back to the camp and then went into the pool again. After that we came back to the site to have one of our fish roasted on the fire and it tasted very good...the kids had hot dogs. Then the boys wanted to play with the only other family in our area of the park, so they played and rode their scooters around for about 4 hours or so until it was very dark. Then they came back and watched some TV before surrounding the campfire and eating marshmellows and smores. Sam at that point had her fever break, so she was more pleasant to be around. I'm sure a lot of poeople thought I was crazy for just letting her hang out in her pull up, but she was just so darn hot and it was warm already outside. I think it helped emencely considering she wouldn't just sit and rest at any point.

That night the boys and Sam went to sleep in the room by themselves and Sam slept through the hole night and we woke her up around 8am. Jon and I were able to sleep in the front room on teh sleeper sofa without the kids or specifically Sam wandering around. It was a solid night sleep for me...Jon got crowded a bit because I tend to do that when I sleep. :)

We just a simple breakfast the next day of pop tarts and then headed home. That was it, but we had a grat time and the boys made some new friends and had a blast and we enjoyed ourselves too. Oh and the starry sky was absolutely beautiful and I saw a shooting star for the first time in my life! It was very cool. Austin asked me if I had made a wish, but I just couldn't believe that I had seen one that I forgot all about the formalities. It was very cool.

Here's some pictures of our trip.

Busy day

A friend of mine, who has boys the same ages as mine, had the boys over to her house for a couple of hours today, which left me to get things done with only Sam in tow! :) It was very nice.

First and foremost, we went to Great Clips and Sam got her first actual hair cut...I've cut her bangs about 4 or 5 times, but she's never actually had her hair cut all the way around. It is quite a bit shorter than I expected it to be, but it is just hair and it will grow back. It looks very cute just the same. She was very good and it only took about 10 minutes or so. Every time the hairdresser checked her hair in the front, Sam would say, "hi"...like it was the first time she had ever seen her. It was funny. Afterwords, when we got into the car, Sam kept saying owie and touching her hair trying to find where the rest of it was. Cracks me up.

We plan on going camping tomorrow for a couple of days and Andrea will be house/dog sitting for us. I'm so excited because it's not like camping on the ground this time because we'll be in a cabin with beds and lights and a heater even! So, I'm really looking forward to it. One thing I did without the boys hanging around us all the time is pick out a couple of swimming suits for myself and Sam. We got 2 each and spent $32.00 total because they were on clearance...one of the suits I picked out was over $32.00! Anyway, we got the suits because they have an indoor pool and sauna and hot tub, so I thought it would be nice to spend some time there and play. Jon will probably go golfing at least once while he is there too. We plan on visiting the trout farm as well, so that should be loads of fun.

I've got to get going, I've go so many things to get done before tomorrow.

There's a picture of Alex because he thought he needed to show off too. :)

Yesterday was Alex's 4th Birthday. We are going to have his birthday party on Saturday and he has quite a few of his little friends who will be coming, which will be nice for him. We went to dinner and it was really good, except Sam was in rare form and was completely horrible. She is normally fine when we go out to eat, but this time she just whined and groaned the entire time. It was stinky.

Alex got Incredible Hulk gloves. He's so darn cute, they go nearly up to his elbows and one makes noise when you hit it. He went around punching everyone one and then hitting the ground with brute force...it's a good thing they are significantly padded. hehe

Austin is going to be gone a couple of hours today to a skate party for a friend of his, Rachel. He made her a birthday card and got her a poster kit with glitter pens, etc. I think that she should really like it. I didn't know what else to suggest he get her because she is well advanced for her age (age 6 or 7) and is just a little genius. I remember teaching his class in Sunday school a while back and she seemed to like coloring and was really pretty good at it. Who knows.

So, since I'll have one less kid today I was thinking of going to Old Navy and picking up the last little things we need for school this year. I have a 20% off coupon and want to put it to good use. :) We already have most everything we need so far though, so it won't hurt if I have to get something for myself. (Hey, I know I have everything I need too, but it won't hurt, right?)

Another plan I have for today is to organize my food storage stuff, I plan on a garage sale sometime soon and have to have things ready so I can pick through it and sell what I don't need or want.

Enough for now.

yummy donut

Isn't she darling? I just love it.

I'm getting ready to do some more dictation....it's never ending actually. Anyway...Vickie and I made Fig Jam today and put some more figs on the dehydrators. I've never done it before, but it actually wasn't really too hard, just time consuming. My feet are sore from standing and stirring and standing and stirring and standing some more. I picked up some Strawberries and we'll do a strawberry fig jam tomorrow.

Anyway, the best part...beside the fact that they are absolutely beautiful to look at, I put some of the fresh jam on some toast with butter and it was so wonderful. I mean to tell you it was hands down the best jam I've ever tasted...ok..maybe not the best but close to it. I can't wait to see what the strawberry fig and blueberry fig is going to taste like. :)

Also did some shopping and got 130 yoplait yogurts for $1.50. Also, I got 40 boxes of Macronie Grill Entree Chicken dishes for $16.85 or something like that instead of 5.99each!...not bad...ok, got to get some work done.

We have FIGS! :) I ate four of them tonight and they were so sweet and wonderful. I'm going to access the situation tomorrow and post more then, but yum. Not all of them are ripe from what I can tell, but quite a few are. :)

Nothing really new to post these days. I went to the doctor today because of techinical difficulties, so hopefully I hear the results of my tests by tomorrow or Thursday. My friend watched the kids so that I wouldn't have to drag them along.

I'll be working tomorrow, which means I have to get all my coupons in order so I can do my deals in the evening tonight and tomorrow after work.

I'll be posting pictures of the downstairs soon and I'm sure you'd all be surprised at how nice it looks. It looks like a new home and smells like one too down there. The rest of the house, unfortunately, still smells like old man. I'm hoping that once the carpet is cleaned it will improve things a lot. Jon's done some really nice work.

Gotta run, I've got to start some dinner in a bit.

So tonight I went to Safeway to do some deals, this is what I got.

10 packages of Always maxi pads
12 packages of Stayfree maxi pads
17 packages of Oscar Meyer hot dogs
11 20 count packages of Electrolsol gel pack dishwashing tablets
2 gallons milk
15 boxes of the Betty Crocker Supreme brownie mixes (variety)

Kind of a light order tonight, I meant to do more, but I think the cashiers got tired of me coming through their lines...so I should have spent exactly $275.00 on all of that, however, I spent....OH Wait a minutes...they paid me $9.60!

That's a good deal if ever I saw one! I was kind of bummed though because I was planning on doing the Windex deal, but they were out and the deal ended today so a rain check wouldn't have worked, but the deal was to get 26 bottles of Windex for 37 cents!..bummer I didn't get that one.

Tomorrow night I'll work the new ad and see what I can get from that and then get the rest of my groceries for the next month. I'll be going pretty much every night until the $10.00 off $50.00 expire next Tuesday. What I've been doing is getting my shopping done each month at the first of the month so that I can utilize the $10.00 off $50.00 at Safeway. Unless there is a screaming hot deal the rest of the weeks in between I don't go to the store. It worked out pretty well last month and my grocery bill for the entire month was about $120.00. Not too shabby considering I got food storage with that budget as well. With my totals tonight I'll get gas tomorrow at the Safeway gas station and get 30 cents off/gallon. That will be nice....every little bit helps.

Camping

Man, what a rough night. We camped at Vernonia's Anderson Park yesterday and then the high tailed it out of there first thing this morning right after breakfast. It turned out to be a great day yesterday once we got out there, Jon set up our tent while the kids and I went down to the river and skipped rocks and waded in and out. We saw some craw fish and it was really very pleasant. Sam got a little more wet than she intended because she throws like a girl and inadvertantly swung a rock around that was a bit bigger than she estimated, thus throwing herself down into the water with the rock. She never did get her hair wet, just wet from the neck down and that was enough for her. Austin went right in and had no reservations. Alex, had no intentions of going in past knee deep, but the current had other plans. I think the comment he made was something like, "This is such a dumb water!"

We brought hot dogs to eat for dinner, but as it turns out they don't have campfires, persay at each site, so we ended up using the Carter's little gas grills and it turned out nice. We camped right next to them, which was good because Andrew and Austin and Landon and Alex were tied together all day yesterday and this morning. Sam just kind of wandered everywhere, poked her hand in things she shouldn't have and made herself known as the Aloha 1st Ward Pest.

When it was time to sleep, it was actually going smoother than I anticipated and Sam curled up next to me and feel asleep. She was pretty exhausted. Somewhere around 11pm-12am or so, Alex woke up startled because he found himself trapped in his sleeping bag down at the bottom and he couldn't get out. Austin then woke up and found himself in the same prediciment. Unfortunately, Austin carried on a bit worse than Alex did and woke Sam up. I can only describe what happened next as something seen on America's Funniest home videos or some comedic movie, but Austin stood nearly straight up with his sleeping bag over his head grunting. This grunting was what broke the camel's back and Sam woke up. She sat up saw a monster in the tent, yelled, "Monster!", began shaking uncontrollably and screaming hysterically. If that wasn't bad enough, Austin wouldn't shut his trap. So, Jon got up (I was trying to coax Sam back over to lay down next to me but she was trying to claw her way out of the darn tent), went over and grabbed Austin by the legs and began "dumping" him out of the sleeping bag, he repeated the procedure with Alex. By then, I couldn't even help myself, I was cracking up so bad that I nearly wet myself!

That was the beginning of the end. From that point on, no matter what Jon or I did, Sam was convinced the darn monster was hanging around our tent and was going to get her. Man, do I ever feel bad for the people sleeping next to us! She cried on and off, and each time we got her calm down enough to almost fall asleep, she would sit straight up and whip her head in all directions looking for that pesky monster. Several times she would get up quitely, when Jon and I were in a state of zombiness/sleep, she would walk around the tent and rip the boys sleeping bags off of them looking for that darn monster, which would make the boys whine because they were cold and bothered and woken from a dead sleep.

That went on until 4:45am, at which point I was certain that our neighbors were just as tired as we were so I got Sam up and took her to the bathroom and then stuck her in her car seat and got in the front seat. At least if she was going to be noisy she could do it in the car and it would make less noise. I thought that maybe if she was in her own seat she would fall asleep, but no. She kept watch until morning while I drifted off to sleep, finally.

What a night. I'll tell you about breakfast later, Sam just came in her and wants me to hold her...I'm sure so that she can finally get some sleep.