July Fourth Weekend

 Happy BIrthday America!

We had a fun weekend celebrating our nation's birth. Cannon ended up spending the weekend with us and we did lots of fun stuff. 

Mom and Doug had us over for dinner Saturday, 

Matthew and Cannon played cornhole

Hungry kids...

Doug the grill master. We had a lovely time with good food and good conversation.

We got home and had a rousing game of Life. 

LOTS of laughter for sure. 

Sunday (the 4th) we had a chill morning then the kids swam most of the afternoon.

Then it was off to In and Out down in Keizer for dinner! Depending if we are in town or not, this may become a tradition in the coming years.

Love these faces. 

We left around 3:45 knowing there would probably be a long wait in the drive thru line. We were suprised to get there and only had to wait about 15-20 minutes! We had our food by 4:45 and headed to a local park in Keizer to eat. 

We got home and the kids got back in the pool again for some evening swimming.

Due to the heat and dry land around us, we didn't get any fireworks this year. But there were plenty of them going off around us. The kids went outside to watch. The lighing wasn't great so I lack good photos, but there was SO much sillines!

Monday was a super fun boat day. Juliet and Cannon joined us and we headed out to West Linn to a new boat ramp, Bernert Landing.

Off we go! Doug actually bought a used "buddy seat" to install in front so we can take two extra kids. It worked great!

Why, yes.. that IS four people on our three person tube! They wanted to try it and for some odd reason I allowed it..haha! They got tossed off good a couple of times and decided it probably wasn't the best idea, but they had so much fun!

Ice cream to end our day was necessary 😀

Thankful for our country, thankful for sunshine, and thankful for a super fun weekend!

Boat Night #3

We headed out on the boat tonight. The weather was beautiful and we brought dinner along for our evening ride. 

 We are having so much fun with the boat and are so grateful for time together!!💓

Bye Bye Fir Grove/Matthew's Last Day

 Today marks a big day for our family. Matthew's last day of school AND our family's last day at Fir Grove Elementary. The past nine years there have been so wonderful, and I couldn't have asked for a better school for our kids to grow and learn. Saying good bye is bittersweet for sure, but we made one last trek to the sign where I have taken every single "first day of school" photo for a final photo op.

You were so, so good to us, Fir Grove. Thank you for loving our family so well. We will miss you!

Evelyn's Last Day

Today was Evelyn's last day of in-person school for the year. SO thankful she got to be in the building for the past 8 weeks, even if it was only a couple of days a week. Her cohort is a great group of kids and they decided to dress in Hawaiian themed clothes to end their time together.

Great job kids! 🌴🌴💓💓

Eighth Grade Celebration

How is Evelyn DONE with middle school? It seemed to go by SO fast, mostly due to COVID. But here we are... the end of her time at Highland Park. 

The school had their 8th grade celebration tonight after Matthew's party. We met Ellie and her mom there and Evelyn and Ellie enjoyed the "walk thru" event together and had time with friends who congregated to chat and look at yearbooks, etc.

Love these girls!!

Evelyn is smart, kind, and oh, so funny.. and every year of middle school we have received an email (sometimes two) from teachers telling us what an amazing young lady she is. High School awaits for our baby girl... and I can't wait to watch her shine!

Fifth Grade Send Off

Today was a BIG day for Matthew and such a busy day for me, I haven't really had a chance to process it all, but be assured I will be in a puddle of tears tomorrow as remember how amazing today was!!😂

Matthew is finishing up elementary school and I helped put together a big neighborhood celebration parade (which Evelyn and the middle school marching band marched in!) and gave them an outdoor party at Fir Grove afterwards. The kids loved it and they all seemed to have so much fun being all together after 15 months!

Mrs. Burton, the HPMS band teacher, had a marching band shirt design contest.. and Evelyn won!! We love our artistic girl and were so excited for her! This is the shirt and the kids wore them during the parade. 

The kids met on the bluff near Highland and the band got all assembled down in the parking lot. 

Evelyn getting ready. 

Doug graciously agreed to wear the Furry Grover mascot costume to lead the parade. His Dad agreed to drive the truck while Doug, in costume, would be out the sunroof waving to the crowd. 

We had these banners made for each side of the truck.

We even had a police escort.. so cool!!

The 5th graders, in matching tshirts, followed Doug...

... followed by the band, who gave a super performance for never marching before! So proud of Evelyn and her band mates!

Our party after the parade was done as socially distanced as possible. Since none of these 5th graders are vaccinated yet, we wanted to keep them as safe as possible. They were all so glad to just be together after so much time that they didn't care one bit and enjoyed a snack, photos, and an amazing swag bag we put together for each of them. 

Doug also brought music and a speaker set up to provide a cool party vibe for the kids.

He also was pretty popular with the younger kids! Poor guy was SO hot in that costume but he was such a good sport. I could NOT have done it without him!

There aren't enough words to say how much we love Mrs. Serrao. Matthew was blessed to have her as his teacher for two years, and we couldn't have asked for anyone better. She loved our boy so well and became a good friend to me. She worked hard to make sure kids were learning and growing this crazy year, and Matthew loved being in her class, albeit virually. We will be forever grateful for her!

Matthew is a good friend and a good student and I was told by so many people today how much they love him and what a strong leader he is. We are so proud of our boy and know he is ready for middle school!

I have more photos to post from the professional photographe who took some great shots but I need to resize them to have them fit on the website. But it was such a fun and special day and I am so thankful to be able to celebrate our Matthew so well!!

Onto middle school for our boy!!