Bits of Random Business

We are continuing to enjoy amazing weather here.  The boys are spending lots of time outside on their bikes and even in the sprinkler.  Seriously.  It's been warm here.  Today is a quiet Monday, so I thought I would catch up on the blogging.  I'll start with something super fun we did a little over a week ago with Dave and Lynne.

Over in northwest Portland something special happens every September.  The swifts migrate through on their way to Central America for the winter.  While they are here in town, the bulk of them, we are talking THOUSANDS of birds, spend the night in a huge chimney that just happens to be attached to Chapman Elementary School, where Erik attended for 4th and 5th grades.  Each evening at dusk they flock together and funnel themselves in for the night.  It is WILD to see.  We went and watched with Dave and Lynne.  The boys loved it, and were actually pretty well behaved.  Here are a few shots.

Grandma brought cake pops!  She's so great.  And Luke's knee is his first case of major road rash from crashing his bike earlier in the day.  He's a tough guy, though, and wouldn't miss the swifts!

We are all pretty enthralled.  Except Paul.  He's probably asking for more food. :-)

If I had a better camera, you might be able to experience how awesome this looked.  LOTS of little bitty birds flying down a chimney!  Trust me.  It was cool.

The next big event in our world involved shoes.  Every fall I notice that the shoes Luke was wearing the previous spring seem to have grown smaller.  Mysterious, huh?  So every fall we buy Luke new shoes.  Paul likes hand-me-downs, but this year was a little different.  I received a coupon for 20% off your entire purchase at Famous Footwear and decided to take Luke over there while Paul was at BSF with Oma on Wednesday.

We walked in the door and I asked Luke, "I hope they have something you like, buddy."

He quickly replied, "Let's see if they still have the Lego shoes!"  Luke had been in this store six months previous when we bought his cleats for football.  Apparently he saw Lego shoes at that time.  The crazy awesome news is that they still had them AND they were on sale.  Love it.  We bought both boys pairs because Mommy is a second born and couldn't bear the thought of Paul not getting a pair.  I had a coupon, people!

The new shoes!

The bottom of the new shoes.  Yes, you can actually attach Legos to the bottom.  Luke has talked about making his shoes taller than the house.  I'll be sure to blog it if it happens.

We also did some academics last week.  Here are a few shots of the fun.

We studied the lungs this week, so then we built one.  It was pretty cool.

 Paul, for whom maps are optional, decided to do "From Rome to Canterbury" tracing the path Augustine might have taken.  Luke is doing the Gupta Empire in India AND the beginnings of Islam from Mecca to Medina.  We fell a little behind in our map work, but both of my children are still destined to be MUCH smarter than their mother.

The boys did their map work on the couch using clipboards last week.  It was fun!

Then we did our Kiwi Crate craft on Friday.  It always comes with two projects.  On Friday the boys "sewed" cutie pieces of fruit out of fabric and then stuffed their creations with cotton balls.  It was great.  Then today (Monday) we decorated the pre-made aprons and they played Farmer's Market.  It was adorable.

Paul starts work on his apple with his pear in the foreground.  He never actually finished his apple because a neighbor dropped by and while I was chatting with her, he snipped the yarn WAY too short.  But he doesn't care, so it's all good!

Apple!

Luke and his fruit.  Cute!

Then came the aprons.  Okay.  Here's the deal.  Neither boy wanted to decorate their aprons.  They just wanted to play with the pretend money.  So I decorated the aprons!  They sent these great fabric crayons and stencils.  I couldn't resist.  Both boys are thrilled with the results.  :-)

The boys look goofy in this shot, but it's the best one of the aprons. ;-)

I think I will finish off with a little something that has nothing to do with anything.

The Oregon Ducks are a really good football team.  I like watching them play.  My father-in-law converted me from a die-hard UW Husky (and we were dying pretty hard at the time) to a Duck.  It wasn't a hard sell.  The Ducks were under Mike Bellotti at the time.  They won more than they lost.  It was fun to cheer with my dad-in-law.  That was about eleven years ago.  I've been a Duck fan for eleven years.  I remember Joey Harrington.  I was sad when Dennis Dixon was injured in 2007.

But NOW folks are saying they can't believe I'm a Ducks fan!  These are people that knew me when I lived closer to Seattle than Eugene.  These folks knew my rather severe devotion to the Huskies at the time.  I think THEY think that I've jumped on board the Ducks train recently and am just a fair weather fan.  Not so, my friends.  I can prove it.  Most of my Ducks t-shirts are size L or XL, and we ALL know that I haven't worn those sizes in years.  ;-)

One more thing.  Why do people hate the Ducks?  Is it because they win or because Chip Kelly gives hilarious interviews right before half time?  Unknown.