Junior Mythbusters

We're big fans of Mythbusters around here.  In fact, over the past several months, Friday night has become our traditional Mythbusters & panini night (thank you, Amazon instant video, for feeding our habit.)  Heaven forbid we plan anything else on a Friday.

One of the Mythbusters' taglines is "don't try this at home".  However, there's one myth we've always wanted to test: Diet Coke and Mentos.  Around Christmastime, I discovered a kit that contained a roll of Mentos and a plastic tube designed to let you drop several mints into a bottle of Coke at one time.

The setup

A plastic pin holds the mints in place until you're ready to pull the cord and release them all at once, and there's a hole in the top for the resulting geyser of Coke.  Of course I had to buy it.  We've had the kit since then, but haven't gotten around to using it.

Until this weekend.

Uncle Blaine and Aunt Mel came to visit us from Seattle.  Blaine is a big Mythbusters fan, too, and it was finally not raining, so Saturday seemed like the perfect day to try out this experiment for ourselves.

We headed over to the park and set up in the grass.  The girls took turns dropping the mints into the tube, and then we all stood back.

Vicki somehow managed to score the role of
cord-puller without a fight

I think it's safe to say we had a blast.

The Swing

I'm cross-posting this from my other blog, so most of you have probably already seen it, but I've loved this poem since I was little, and the picture of Ellie just personifies it for me.  So now you can enjoy it twice!

How do you like to go up in a swing,

   Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

   Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

   Till I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and cattle and all

   Over the countryside—

Till I look down on the garden green,

   Down on the roof so brown—

Up in the air I go flying again,

   Up in the air and down!

-Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verses

Memorial Day 2009

I wish I was more creative with titles...maybe if it weren't past my bedtime...

We had a blast on Monday. I wish I'd been able to post these pictures sooner, but it has been crazy and will continue to be until school is out, I think. Nobody look at the time this was posted. I should be in bed.

Anyway, we tossed around all kinds of ideas about how to spend Memorial Day and finally settled on Frisbee golfing at Dabney State Park along the Sandy River. None of us possess any particular Frisbee skills, but we had a good time throwing the discs around anyway (and we didn't lose any!) We were easily the least talented people there, but quite possibly the most entertaining. Ellie didn't throw her Frisbee much (mostly she left it laying in random places and then panicking when we reached the hole and she didn't have it) but when she did throw it, she threw it overhand straight at the ground and shoted "Ka-pow!"

The next picture has nothing to do with Frisbees, golfing, or any combination of the two, but I love it and think maybe I should get it framed to remind them that they really do get along most of the time.

After we'd had our fill of frisbees (the rest of the pictures from that part of the day are "action shots", meaning the background is in perfect focus, but we golfers are all blurry), we went for a nature walk along one of the many paths in the park. I don't know why, but I love shots like this one:
And yes, it is really that green here. It's breathtaking.

Vicki found "buckwheat" and makes a cute farmer girl, don't you think?

Then we found...the beach! Or close to it - the Sandy River (now I know why it's called sandy.) If we'd known about it, we would have brought the girls' swimsuits, but they didn't seem to mind. We just rolled up their jeans and said, halfheartedly, "Try not to get too wet."

Yeah, right.

Look, Ma! Dirty hands!

Vicki spent forever working on this "warm water pool".

Ellie didn't want her picture taken.

The car is still full of sand. It was a great day.

A surprise visit

Grandma and Grandpa E. came up this weekend for a whirlwind visit. We decided not to tell the girls and let it be a surprise. They got in late Friday night, so Saturday morning we told the girls we'd decided to go out to breakfast as a special treat. We never, ever go out to breakfast, so if they'd been any older this probably would have set off their "something's up" radars, but they just thought it was a great excuse not to do their Saturday jobs. We went to the "Pig & Pancake", a name that has made me laugh for four years, and imagine our shock when we walked in and discovered Grandma and Grandpa sitting there! Chris and I got a surprise as well - his brother Scotty came up, too. He's leaving for his mission in Georgia in about a month and managed to convince his parents that they needed to bring him along, because he wasn't going to get to see the girls for at least two years.
The girls loved having him here to play with. Ellie especially. She decided Scotty was her own personal buddy, to boss around as she pleased. And being the awesome uncle that he is, he did anything and everything she commanded. It was a win-win situation.

After breakfast we put together a picnic lunch and headed to Washington Park. The playground there is enormous and we hardly ever go, so it was another special treat. The twisty slide was my favorite part. Not going down it, mind you, just watching the kids. It was one of those older metal slides, and it's nice and slick from all the use. This is what all the kids looked like as they started down it:
But they all came out looking like this:
There's a big sandbox, which ended up being the highlight for all the girls (and I have my suspicions about Grandma, too.) They built a pretty impressive sandcastle, complete with tunnels:

After we were all sufficiently worn out from the park, we came home and grilled burgers and watched Hook.

Church is at 1:00 for us, so on Sunday Chris and I fixed a big brunch of lemon pancakes with raspberry syrup and baked eggs. We got a breakfast cookbook and have been trying something new each week. These definitely passed the test. After church the weather was absolutely beautiful, so we changed clothes and went to the park by our garden. We threw frisbees and played and had a great time. Grandpa coached Vicki on how to catch a frisbee (like a crocodile) Lexi demonstrated her gymnastics skills, and Ellie picked flowers she wasn't supposed to ("but Mommy, they're for you!")

Monday morning Grandma and Grandpa went to help out in Vicki and Lexi's classrooms for a little while, and then they came and got Ellie and took her swimming at the hotel. And I got to run some errands all by myself. This was another win-win situation. After we picked the girls up from school we went to Round Table Pizza for an early dinner, and then, sadly, Grandma & Grandpa and Scotty had to leave.

We had a great time and only wish they could have stayed longer. (and I wish I had taken the camera with me more places!)

Oh, and now they'll believe us when we tell them that it's not always raining here!

Fun Run and sunshine!

The sun finally managed to break through all the clouds we're so used to here in the Northwest, and boy did it make its presence known! On Friday it nearly hit 100 degrees! We made the most of it with a really busy weekend, which kicked off on Thursday with the annual Fun Run at the girls' school. Ellie and our friends Katie and Violet and I headed over to the high school to watch the big kids run.

Vicki and Lexi both seem to have inherited my, um, love for running. They ran full speed every time they got to the side of the track where all the grown ups were watching, and then walked the rest of the way. But despite that they still managed to do 6 laps in 15 minutes, which they are both quick to tell anyone who will listen is a mile and a half. Yay girls!!!

After school that day we discovered that we had no popsicles or ice cream anywhere in the house, so we turned the sprinkler on the driveway (we love our townhouse but lament the lack of yard in front or back on a regular basis) and let the girls get soaked. Ellie spent pretty much the whole time with her tongue out, trying to catch the water.

Friday was the really hot day, so we just tried to stay inside as much as possible, although we did walk home from school. I had been to the store for popsicles by then, so we were okay.

Saturday Vicki, Lexi, and I walked in a local parade with the Girl Scouts and had a blast. Chris and Ellie sat on the sidelines and waved at us, and Lexi decided that she wants to be a princess when she grows up. This decision came after seeing the Rose Festival Princesses and learning that they each got to ride on the back of their own Corvette for the parade. She's 100% serious about this ambition. Heaven help us all.

The parade was great, but Chris wasn't able to see through the camera past the glare of the sun well enough to get any pictures of us, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

That afternoon we went to our garden, which is definitely benefitting from the sunshine. I got this cute picture of Ellie I just had to share.

That evening we went over to the church for what we thought was going to be a Dutch oven cookoff, but what turned out to be more of a potluck picnic. Only one other family did Dutch oven, so we both won the prize (a soup ladle). We still had a great time, but we're really grateful that next Saturday we have no plans at all, and we intend to keep it that way!

Sometimes the sun shines in Oregon

And we make the most of it!

Saturday was a gorgeous day, the nicest day of the year so far. So we took full advantage. We’ve rented a garden plot at our local Community Garden, so we spent the morning pulling weeds and planting a few more things. So far we have planted peas, radishes, lettuce, potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, parsley, turnips (because Lexi wanted them), onions, and probably something else I’m forgetting. Here’s a shot of the garden, not from the best angle, but you can see how big it is (the plan is that the fence in the frontish will eventually be covered in peas). We were expecting something no bigger than 4’ x 6’, sort of like the garden plots at the University Village, and wound up with a 20 square foot garden!

Vicki spent the morning planting the little plot we’ve given her. She planted carrots, broccoli (good girl!) and sunflowers.
Lexi and Ellie mostly played in the rocks, but they had a good time and think it’s really fun going to the garden, so that’s all that matters.
Surprisingly, despite the beautiful weather, we were the only people there all morning long. In a way that’s nice, but we’re kind of hoping to meet a few of our fellow gardeners, especially the ones with the plot that looks like they’ve been cultivating it for years! We need some tips!

In the afternoon we decided to run over to the high school and shoot off the rockets the girls gave Chris for Christmas. We invited our friends the Humphreys to come with us, and the kids had a great time. We managed to only lose one of the four rockets we shot off, the smallest one, whose fluorescent green color stood out great in the snow at Christmastime, but didn’t work so well in the green grass of the football field. We found the motor, but the rocket is apparently gone forever. Vicki shot off her rocket that Uncle Blaine gave her…

…and Chris shot off the two that he painted himself (the colors in the kits are pretty cheesy, especially for a design-minded person). We call this one The Black Widow.
Everyone had a great time, and we’re really glad we spent most of the day outside, since by Sunday night it was raining and cold again. However, the good news is that after living here for nearly three years, we know that the sun will come out again!

Here are some more random pictures from the day:

Lexi posing for the camera (this is what comes naturally for her whenever there’s a camera around. What am I going to do with her?)
Ellie peeking through the fence. I know she looks like a jailbird, but it’s a cute picture!
Ellie and her very best friend Anna. I finally got a shot of them hugging!
By the way, if the pictures all look a little blue, it's because the light setting on the camera was somehow set for incandescent light, which, not surprisingly, doesn't work so well outside in full sunshine. So I fixed them on Photoshop the best I could, but I know they still don't look quite right.