Obama Love

Random Summer

Amber tagged me for 6 random things at the beginning of the summer. So 3 months later... I thought I do 6 random 2008 summer things. Feel free to reminisce your summer and play along.



1. The memories of our summer marshmallow fight will last a lifetime. Did you know that if you throw the same marshmallow over and over its gooey goodness becomes the perfect projectile?

2. After Gray was born I developed several new allergies. Summertime is the hardest and I miss fresh juicy tomatoes, nectarines and cherries.



3. Jet Boat rides down the Rogue River are really really fun and the 360 turns are even better.

4. We didn't take the kids on a REAL camping trip this summer and I'm feeling extremely guilty.



5. Caring a 10 foot surf board in the wind is actually harder than standing up on one.

6. Here's the simple Raspberry Cheesecake recipe that my mom and grandma taught me to make one summer when I was a girl. This summer I passed it on to Bryn.

Raspberry Cheesecake
1 8oz. cream cheese softened
1 14oz. sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 tsp. vanilla
raspberries & cornstarch (or other fruit)
1 graham cracker crust (baked & cooled)

*In a bowl beat cream cheese until light & fluffy.
*Add condensed milk and blend.
*Stir in lemon juice and vanilla.
*Pour into pie crust.
*Refrigerate 3 hours.
*Top with desired fruit topping.
*Raspberry topping may need to be thickened.
*Refrigerate

End of summer... I'm not ready

So much to do before school starts in 7 days....
Last summer trip to the Pool

Last preschool park playdate

Last art class for Hunter and Bryn

2-night trip to Mt. Hood

Set up new piano time

Find Faber Fine Tip Felt Pen (from Hunter's class list)

Art in the Pearl

Mom's birthday

Grayson's birthday

Preschool parent's meeting

Party at the Walcotts'

End of summer play dates with friends we haven't seen all summer.

Free... is a very good price.

Check out what I found at the beach this week. A Grayson! How could I be so lucky?

The Big Read

Here's The Big Read list. Rachel posted that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. I've read 24 books. 17 more I'd like to read. 10 books I've never even heard of. The others? Well, I really don't know.

I've got a lot of reading to do.

1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you love.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or for whatever reason loathe.

5) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 The Harry Potter Series
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Otherwise known as One Hundred Years of Snoozitude)
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (LOVED)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

**UPDATE - Meegan reminded me of 2 others (9 & 56) that I had read. That makes 26 books so I'm over 25% literate. Yipee!!!

Underwater Adventures

Thanks Tom. Looks like a fun night with the kids.

Hey Hunter.... feet first on the slide.

Does he get the girl?

The last one I promise. The love sick evil scientist just melts my heart.

Dr. Horrible - Laundry Day

The awkward Dr. Horrible singing on Laundry Day.

The Sing-Along

While embroidering today (pictures to come) I watched the web exclusive superhero spoof Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog produced by Joss Whedon on Hulu. Neal Patrick Harris is perfect for the role of Dr. Horrible and Nathan Fillion (of Firefly who popped up in Lost and Desperate Housewives this past year) is great as the self absorbed hero.

Here's a clip of Dr. Horrible singing the song "Brand New Day".


I'm not a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan but I love Joss Whedon. After my month of young adult vampire stories I started watching Angel which turned out to be adult enough and perfect to watch (or listen to) while crafting. Hands down Firefly and Serenity are my favorite Joss Whedon creations.

Breaking Dawn...

fini - not sure what else to say - enjoy

Stern Grove

Rosalie Stern was a visionary who has recently made my life a more colorful enjoyable place to be. In 1931 she bought a piece of land now called Stern Grove in honor of her late husband to be preserved as a park where the public could enjoy high quality admission free music. 71 years later the people of San Francisco are still enjoying her vision.


We kicked back and even grooved a little to Sambada and Voices of Latin Rock.


Gray's advice....
1. Music starts at 2pm. You must get there at least by noon or you're in the trees on the hill with the pot smokers.

2. Bring warm blankets and coats (because it's San Francisco).

3. Bring yummy picnic food. We envied the ladies who were eating their three-layered chocolate cake in the trees on the hill.

4. It may be the only place in North America where there is only 1 men's bathroom stall and 10 women's stalls. So plan ahead.

It's a must if you're in San Francisco on a Sunday in the summer. A great place to people watch and feel like a local.

AHHHHHHHH!

Ummmmm Bryn…… it’s only the test seat.

My new rule. Hit the fast and scary rides first. One hour into our day and Gray's anticipation of scary rides put him in complete panic mode. Here he is on Six Flags version of the teacup ride.

One of our last rides was the White Water Safari and he was drenched and smiling. Ready for more. Unfortunately, the day was almost over.

Bryn says that next time she's going to ride all the scary rides.

Turning 10.

The FEARLESS 3.


Fumi, Maki and Hunter were sited all over Six Flags for over 8 hours riding Kong, Boomerang, Roar, Monsoon Falls,Vertical Velocity, White Water Safari and their favorite...


MEDUSA!