Fancier Than Usual

Saturday night we attended the beautiful wedding of Erik's cousin in Sonoma, CA.  It was a blessing to spend time together and with family.  And it was fun to be fancy.  As we were dancing at the reception, we found ourselves beside the happy couple.  I leaned over and said my wedding wish for them was that in fourteen years, when they had some crazy kids of their own, a young couple would throw a stunningly beautiful wedding in wine country, affording them the opportunity to escape their lives and re-connect.  :-)

And now some fancy pics.

The Happy Couple - Chris and Jaclyn

 The Other Happy Couple!

Lynne, Dave, Krista, Amy, and Erik

Fancy Together!

Dear Luke and Paul

We are in Sonoma, CA for Daddy's cousin's wedding. It is beautiful here, but there are no legos and no corn dogs that we've seen. There are lots of grapevines and lots of grown ups. It's probably best that you are home with Oma. We will be home tomorrow, and we can't wait to see you!

Here is a picture of us in front of a pretty fountain.

Love,

Mommy and Daddy

Calvin and Hobbes in My Basement

This is happening right now. I am in the basement watching college football. Meanwhile, the boys have invented the following game.

Each boy stands on one side of the room with a blue pool floaty tube dividing the room in the middle. A small red foam bowling ball is kicked in turns and wherever it lands, the boy who kicks it turns that area into an area with points attached. So far there is a scoring area worth one point, a goal area worth three points for Luke and six points for Paul, and a touchdown area worth six points for Luke only, and a bonus area worth twelve points. Clear? Good. Because once these rules are stated and debated, they are in stone, people.

Apple Day 2013

Every fall, we journey down the Columbia River Gorge to the scenic Hood River Fruit Loop to celebrate Bangsund Family Apple Day.  It's a minor holiday, but much anticipated by our people for a number of reasons.

They like the drive.  This year we saw three different freight trains, a barge, and LOTS of fall beauty.  I didn't catch any pictures of the trains or barge, but here's some beauty for you.

 We love The Gorge.  The jutting rocks, the trees, the river.  It's all awesome.

Okay, it's not Vermont, but the colors are still beautiful.

I like this yellow tree.

Finally, I have always been a Mt. Rainier girl, but this mountain is growing on me.  It reminds me of the Matterhorn in this picture.  And it's part of many of my memories with Erik and the boys.  So that makes it more special.

Upon arriving at Mt. Hood Organic Farms, we were greeted by the sweetest dog alive.  He came right up to the car, and we actually had to stop.  But once he had made eye contact with Erik, the driver, he raced off ahead of us toward the Apple House.  Such a hospitable welcome.

I remembered to take pictures of the Apple House this year!  I love this place.  It is so charming and lovely.

There are lots of places to buy fruit in Hood River at this time of year.  But this is my very favorite.  It's the vibe of the place.  It feels elegant and homegrown at the same time.

We spent the next forty minutes picking our apples, enjoying the scenery, and chatting with John, the amiable, forklift-driving owner who remembered us from last year.  He thinks his prices are too high but that's because he hasn't recently purchased organic apples in Portland.  And the guy needs to keep this farm.  So I'm happy to pay $0.80 a pound for school boy Galas and $1.50 for Ambrosias (YUM!) and $3.00 a pound for Honey Crisp.  Well, we only bought four Honey Crisp as a special treat cuz I'm cheap.  But we got 40 pounds of Gala seconds for applesauce at $0.75 a pound.  All organic.  And my boys got to watch John move some boxes of pears with his forklift.  That's money right there, people!

 The forklift in action

The drive home is always delicious as we say, "Happy Apple Day" to each other while consuming our Honey Crisp apples.  I love family traditions, not because they bind us to events or activities but because, when done well, they bind us to each other.

So Much Random Stuff

Wow.  It's been awhile, huh?  Sorry about that.  No excuses.  Just some catch up.

September was full of homeschooling, BSFing and other bits of fun.  I don't think I'm going to try to remember it all.  Instead, I think I'll upload a bunch of random pics from the last month and let them tell the stories.

This is WAY overdue, because this actually happened on August 17th.  Paul lost both of us bottom teeth.  It was the day I was at my area workshop for BSF, but he was thrilled to tell me the story and pose for this picture.  He's so cute.

Speaking of cute...

 We went to a mustache themed birthday party.  Paul won the game, "Pin the Mustache on the Face" and the prize was this epically awesome t-shirt.  Here he is posing with the birthday boy.

 We got new chairs for the school table.  I love them and so do the boys.

Luke started piano lessons!  What does this picture have to do with that?  I'll tell you.

 Paul and I have about 25 minutes to burn while Luke has his lesson each Monday afternoon.  So, we have gone on some dates!  This is Paul pretending he just drank all my Americano himself.

Luke is learning all the linking verbs and how they work.  I made up a fat stack of index cards with subjects and adjectives.  He got to create sentences.  This was my favorite.  For obvious reasons.

 Anyone disagree?  I didn't think so.

Our awesome neighbors retired and traveled to Norway to celebrate.  Then Mr. Tim came over and did an amazing lesson for the boys that included some Norwegian history, an awesome map, very cool pictures of their trip, and an art appreciation lesson that pointed to the grace of Jesus Christ.  I'm not even kidding.  It was rad.

 These boys sat at this table with this map, a globe and an iPad for a little over an hour listening intently and asking questions.  I drank coffee.  Is God good and amazing?  Yes.  Yes He is.

In science we are doing Astronomy this year.  Our first unit was an overview of the solar system.  So we made one using balloons and string and a lot of butcher paper.  Below the boys are coloring the sun.  It took three of these to make it seem big enough.  We talked about how we couldn't actually make it big enough because the sun can hold 1 million earths.  One. Million.  Dang.

Here are a few shots of the finished product.  The distances are NOT to scale, but the sizes of the planets are relatively accurate.  Jupiter is biggest, Uranus and Neptune are about the same size, etc.

And now, lest you think that everything we do is educationally inspiring, a reality check:

 They spend much of their time building stuff like this.  And I think it's cool.  Over and over again I feel like I am preserving their childhood, giving them time to be creative and imaginative.  They come up with crazy ideas and then they figure out how to do them.  It might actually be a marketable skill someday, people.

These next pictures are so beautiful and lovely to me that I cannot resist posting them.  Sometime in September, the boys cleaned their rooms.  Isn't it beautiful?

 This picture might actually serve as a good before shot.  Like many things these days, Luke's bed is getting downsized.  He doesn't need that much bed and it takes up valuable LEGO space.  We thought of doing a loft bed, but he's just too little still.  Getting up and using the bathroom at night would be treacherous at best.

Carpet picnics became a regular thing in September after Erik was given some large gift certificates from one of his regular caterers.  These box lunches are simple, but they gave me Fridays without cooking or dishes for a few weeks.  Awesome.  That's what that is.

Paul likes to go outside and battle the wind.  Yep.  When he notices the wind whipping our trees, he grabs these shields and runs the length of the yard over and over again, sometimes growling as he goes.

Finally, on what was probably the last blue sky day of the year, we hosted two German exchange students for a day of sight seeing and fun.  Oddly, and sadly, I don't have any pictures of the girls, but here are the boys at the top of Rocky Butte.

Well, people, that is the most random collection of business I've ever posted.  It's actually a pretty good representation of life here in BangsundLand.  Random, smiley, and thunderously loud.  Right?