July 2019

Newly painted front door

4th of July in Salem with Kari's family

Hanging out at Amazon Pool with Jenna and Ashley

Bike ride on the tandem

Hike up Spencer's Butte with Gena and Vivi

Disneyland 2019

Aria's dance team got permission to perform at Disneyland, so we went down there as a family to support her.

The Guardians of the Galaxy Ride and the Incredicoaster were the kids favorite rides.

Huntington Beach
On Saturday, we hit the beach and the kids had fun in the sand.

Irvine
We found a nice local park in Irvine after attending church in Anaheim.  Aria decided to turn it into a modeling session. The rest of the kids just had fun playing in the sand at the park.

We also swung by the Newport Beach temple

June 2019

Outdoor School
Aria got to go to Outdoor School this week, and as part of that experience she got to go rafting down the McKenzie river, which she thought was awesome.

Breakfast in Bed
Ryzen just celebrated his 6th drip around the sun, and requested breakfast in bed to celebrate it! 

We also celebrated at my parents house. 

Ryzen really enjoyed smashing the pinata of Darth Vader that we got. 

Floor Repairs

Our kitchen floor got destroyed when our fridge leaked and warped all the wood.  We finally got it replaced.  It took a while because we had a hard time finding a tile we could agree on.  Glad to have this issue behind us.  

Service Project
The ward had a service project at Peterson Barn Park where the kids helped re-mulch the trails.  The boys worked really hard. 

Goodbye to Ninja, the Duck

Here's one of the last photos we have of our dear little Rouen duck, which Ryzen named 'Ninja'.  He's the dark colored one on the far left in the photo. 

One morning, I let the ducks out of their cage at around 7:30am, and then only an hour later Tara noticed that Splash, the Welsh Harlequinn duck, was flustered and bleeding badly, and that Ninja was missing.  She took Splash to the vet, who said she had 10 puncture wounds, which appear to be from a fox or coyote.  We were quite surprised by this, as we would've never thought those types of animals would be out at that time of day.  

Ryzen was bummed, but got over it relatively quickly.  With that said, he took one of the few feathers we could find from Ninja and taped it to his wrist all day in honor of his fallen duck.  We'll miss Ninja.  Fortunately, Splash has since recovered and is doing well.  

Welcome 3 more ducks

Someone knocked on our door one day and said they'd found 3 tiny ducklings in the road that had no mother.  They'd asked around if anyone had ducks and had heard that we did, so they wanted to see if we'd help them.  These ones all are mallards, and they're clearly a smaller breed than the ones we have. Tara's large heart couldn't help but say yes, and now our duck family is even larger.  

Garden

Our strawberries have been producing like crazy, which has been a lot of fun.  They're so much sweeter than what we can get in the stores.  Tara made some fantastic freezer jam out of them.  

Attack of Poison Oak

Tara doesn't know where she got it, but she's someone managed to get poison oak all over hear ankles (again). 

Elementary School Graduation

Aria just graduated from Twin Oaks Elementary.  I didn't know elementary schools did graduations, but her school had an celebration that we went to.  

Zade's first official race

Tara asked Zade if he'd be up for doing a 5K, and he agreed.  They did one sponsored by Mother's Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and had a great time.  He even took 2nd in his age division and got a medal, which he was very proud of. 

Stitches

Aria inadvertantly pushed a door into Ryzen, who then tripped and fell onto a glass bowl, which shattered and ripped a huge, deep gash into his knee.  Fortunately I was only a few feet away from Ryzen when it happened so I was able to put pressure on it quickly to stop the bleeding and we got him to urgent care, where he got 7 stitches.  He was a trooper and did a great job of staying calm while the doctor put the stitches in.  

Crawdad hunting

Tara took the kids out to Fern Ridge and let them enjoy one of their favorite summer activities: finding crawdads and frogs.  As always, they did catch and release.