Dust baths up at the property.

"It's all fun and games until someone gets ..."

I bet you're looking at these pictures and wishing you could have joined in the fun of hucking dirt clods.   To assuage your jealousy, in the interest of full disclosure, the above merriment did end in supreme anger and tears from more than one participant.

Enter: The World's Best Swim Instructor

This guy is Curtis.  He just retired from teaching elementary school his whole career.  During the summers for the past several decades he been teaching swim lessons at a nearby HOA pool.  In this shot, he's doing "Wishy-washy" with Clara, helping her get used to the water by sticking her in his washing machine.  When she laughs, he muses out loud that somebody added Giggle Detergent to the wash.   The girls thought they were just having fun all month, but Curtis tricked them and taught them swimming skills at the same time.  This seems like an excellent skill to have -- joking around with your kids but at the same time you're tricking them into doing, say, chores or practicing the piano.

"We hold these truths ..." PART TWO

For the record, we hiked Oneata Gorge in the afternoon with the Cuz's and friends.  And the rest of Portland.  Then BBQ'd at Heidi's.   Below shots are leftover sparklers that we lit the next night:

"By power of Greyskull"

Hare cuts

"We hold these truths ..." PART ONE.

Settling in for the Hillsboro July 4th Parade.
Grandpa K, Clara, Talmage, Miles.
Where is Sydney?
Stay tuned.

The kids aren't so much attentive to the politics as they are to the candy.  This year, we were at the end of the route, and I tell you what, that is the place to be:  candy gets DUMPED at the end.  Oh, yeah.

The City of Roses float upped Hillsboro's credibility rating as far as legit July 4th Parades go (at least in my book).

And there she is.  Sydney walked, i.e. cartwheeled the parade route with her team.

Newport, Take Two.

We took the kids to Newport the weekend after the marathon.

It almost didn't happen because the van broke down on Thursday night.   That sort of set the tone and theme of the trip:  lucky breaks.  That is, thank goodness the van broke down in Hillsboro before our trip instead of during it.  We'll call that LB#1.

LB#2:  State Park Day -- our second night of camping was free.

 

LB#3:  World Ocean Day -- tons of extra demos and activities at the aquarium.  It felt like we were at Sea World.  Except smaller.  And no killer whales.  Or water-skiing. Or dolphins.  Or high-diving acrobatics choreographed to sea lions.  Actually, it wasn't like Sea World at all. 

• LB #4.  Got in for even cheaper than planned because of the staff's savvy splitting of the bill; plus, we had coupons from the marathon

• LB#5.  Aquarium logistics -- super smooth -- got to hit all the awesome classes without back-tracking or waiting and we didn't even really plan it that way.  We just happened to be in the right spot at the right time for Lucky Breaks #5a-z: e.g. clam cooking/dissection class ...

  

  Clam presentation at the Newport Aquarium.  She's showing us the siphon.
  
  .... the lancet fish dissection demo (it had a fish and a squid inside it's stomach)   

• ;  a musical show; seeing the scuba divers in the shark tank; pelican tricks; the crab races ...



Miles learns first-claw what life is like under the sea.



• Met June who gave us insider tips about Otter Crest, which we ended up going to the next day.

That's June, in the blue shirt.

•  But the hit of hits was watching the kids watch the sharks.  Talmage is interested in sharks, of late, and he couldn't believe his good fortune.

• 
  

Sydney's got a real shark tooth.

LB#etc:

• Visitor's Center was right there, right when we needed it for directions to Nana's Irish Pub
• Miles had his huge diarrhea fest at the restaurant instead of anywhere else where it would have been more inconvenient.

• "A" Parking -- right in front of Nana's, on a crowded street.
• Discovered that bacon, corned beef, red onions, cheddar cheese and sour cream make a GREAT combination when served on French Fries.

• There were seals and even a baby one sunning on the rocks in the tide pools.
• Miles only threw up on himself, when we were stopped -- instead of all over the car and I could       get to him super fast with a towel that I whipped out from under a car seat.  AND we happened to have a change of clothes.

The walk-through cave at Devil's Punchbowl was accessible because low-tide was low enough.  Some guy said that only happens once every five years.  We saw ancient fossils.  Pretty sure.

*Goofing around on the slack-line: