Portland Troll

I convinced my parents to go to Portland on a day I wasn't working and we went and saw Ole Bolle.  This will be my third of the six giant trolls and probably my favorite so far.  

I brought a few kids along for the ride.  It was another long day and a very long car drive but we managed ok. We actually had fun and even got donuts and Costco pizza!

After the troll we headed to a nearby park.  It was a pretty cool park.  I would recommend it to anyone with kids in Portland.

Only three more to go!

Dungeness Spit

Just before school started we went with Talitha to hike the Dungeness Spit.  It's over five miles long and the United States longest sand spit.  It is even one of the longest in the world.  That's over ten miles we hiked on the sand.

The hike starts at the parking lot as you head down to the beach.

It was basically lots of walking on the sand.

I'm surprised any of my big kids wanted to go, but Leon and Scarlett surprised me.  Calista and Beatrix wanted to go but I wouldn't let them.  They complain on much much shorter hikes.  There is a lighthouse at the end that you can go up.

This next picture is a view of the spit going from the lighthouse heading back.

We stopped for lunch and a bathroom break and then headed back.

I was originally planning on getting in the water at the end, but it wasn't really hot enough for that.  The weather was pretty good.  I was worried we would be sun burned and really hot, but we weren't at all.  Leon did start to feel sick about halfway back but he was able to feel better after a few minute break.

It took the entire day, but we had fun and I'm glad we went.

Penelope's 15

Penelope is 15!

She is doing great in school and church.  She plays soccer and has friends. I'd say she is really thriving this year.

She is really starting to make the shift from kid to adult and I can see that in her personality.

Penelope is thoughtful and cares about other's feelings more than most.  It might be more accurate to say that she is observant and has a good sense of other's feelings.  She doesn't like to leave anyone out and is really good at reading people. 

I love that Penelope really knows who she is and doesn't change to be like her friends or the people at school.  

While she has started to care more about her clothes and dressing similar to the other kids I would say it is only a slight shift.  She is not interested in make up or many of the trends she sees the other kids doing.

This year Penelope had a family birthday party and one with friends.  She didn't want to leave anyone out and we ended up with 22 girls at our house!  They first played ultimate frisbee at the school and then we transported them to our house for pizza and a movie.  She choose "High School Musical," which neither of us have seen.  It was a ton of people but I think it went well.  She did say that next year she would invite less people because she was having a hard time hanging out/pleasing everyone.  Several of the girls did not know the other girls and Penelope wanted everyone to feel comfortable.

This water bottle was top of her list and now that it has been a few weeks she is still really happy with it.  I guess it is important to teens to have a good water bottle.  

Beatrix's First Day of Kindergarten

Beatrix was so excited to start kindergarten!  She could not understand why everyone else got to start a couple of days before she did.  I don't think she was scared at all, she was counting down the days and kept talking about how excited she was.

We went to her classroom about a week before she started and saw the school and her desk.  Then she went again to talk to the teacher without all the other kids there.  It is why she started a couple days later.  They like to do a slow start kindergarten where all the teachers meet one on one with their kids and parents before the first day of school.  I think it helped Beatrix.  It was so nice to send a child off to school who wasn't scared.  I've had kids excited to go and I've had kids crying hysterically that I had to pull off my leg, and a couple in between.

After school she had nothing but good things to say about her first day.  I'm glad it went well for her, and just a little sad that I don't have anymore kids at home.