A Post About Our Saturday

I wrote this letter for one of my swaps but wanted to post part of it here because it was a good account of our day on Saturday.

Last night was one of those nights where I am reminded that a double bed really isn’t big enough. It was an ever changing mix of bodies. With our houseguest in the kids room they are sleeping on the floor in our room. Bad dreams, wet beds, and just plain being a kid resulted in me waking this morning at 6:00 when Ruby climbed back into a bed already full of three people and then complained that she was falling out of bed. Gee, I can’t imagine why. It’s not like Judy and Ephraim had anywhere to go except to fall out of bed on the other side. So I took her downstairs for a snuggle and a movie. As we got all cozy in our blankets and watched the current installment of the Bernstein Bears from the video store, I’m pretty sure I snored through the whole thing. After Ephraim woke up I confess I started the video over again and snuck back upstairs to the now fairly empty bed and sucked up every last snooze to be had. Hunger triumphed over the Bears and I was needed to rectify the situation.

I made blueberry pancakes and as fast as I could cook them there were more being requested. It’s so hit and miss with them. One day they eat 2 pancakes a piece and yesterday I lost count at 6. After everyone was fed we loaded ourselves into the car and got the day started. We went over to our favorite donut shop to get some “birthday” donuts. It’s tradition in our family to have donuts for breakfast on your day. Judy’s birthday is Tuesday and since we don’t have the kids on that day we celebrated early. The kids were thrilled with their donuts covered in baby m&m’s, two treats in one. We tried some of the other flavors and Judy has added the Captain Crunch donut to her list of favorites. I added the grape donut to the “that’s disgusting” list. There is always something new and interesting to try.

We then went over to the local Bi-Mart to get the kids some new rubber boots. Everyone has outgrown their old ones and after taking them through the horrible muddy Corn Maze the night before I really didn’t want to have to clean up another pair of shoes if we encountered more mud. The kids found little rubber boots that look like cowboy boots. Pink for Ruby and Black and Red for Ephraim. They were so excited and wanted to wear them out of the store. We picked out some snacks for Mr. I’m Hungry and we are finally on the road.

We drove up the scenic highway to Crown Point and the Vista House. It’s a great place to be able to look out and see the Columbia River, The George, the fields over on the Washington side all green and all the fall trees changing colors. We left there and drove down to Multnomah Falls.

It occurred to me that the kids and I had been here a year earlier almost to the day. They’ve grown so much this last year. We got hot chocolates and walked up to the bridge. It’s one of those places where no matter how many times you’ve been it never stops amazing me with its beauty. We waved down to Judy who stayed at the bottom since she wasn’t in the mood to conquer her fear of heights. Along the trail there was a really cool little pool of water in the base of a tree that was covered with moss and beautiful red and gold leaves. The kids noticed tadpoles swimming in it when they were checking it out. They wanted to bring one down to Judy but I vetoed adding to our home frog collection and advocated for their extended life by remaining in the tree. I am such a spoil sport. We lured Ephraim back to the car with the promise of another snack to curb his perpetual hunger and headed on to the Fish Hatchery.

I haven’t been to the hatchery in years and forgot how cool it is. It’s so fun to see all the fish that you know are in the rivers but you just can’t see them. The adult Salmon were in and so we were able to watch them trying to jump up into the pools where there friends were. When you looked out into the holding ponds you saw so many fins sticking out of the water. I don’t remember ever seeing so many. The kids were thrilled with them and would laugh and squeal when the fish would jump. We then walked up to the ponds where you can feed the trout and the home of “Herman the Sturgeon”. He’s about 70 years old, weighs 400+ pounds, and is around 10 feet long. For a fish he has a pretty cute face. I love doing things like this with them because you get to experience something as it’s being seen for the very first time. It puts such a fresh cool perspective on things. After wandering around the Hatchery and letting them run off some of that energy it was back into the car.

We headed onto Hood River for a stop at one of the local pumpkin and apple farms. Rasmussen’s has a fun little corn maze that you read the story as you walk through. It’s much different than the one from the night before which I think the corn is just a bonus and it’s grown for the maze. This is a regular old corn patch with a path and this year a Cinderella story and diorama’s to follow as you go. Ephraim amazes me with his reading skills as he read us the story at each stop. There are so few words he actually needs any help with anymore. After the maze we went over to a dark little hay house thing they had for the kids to run in and out of. I supervised them from the outside as Judy went in search of a wagon to help us with our Pumpkins. Then it was off to the Pumpkin Patch. We started walking out into the field and picking the perfect pumpkin is so hard. I had a certain shape in mind and apparently none of those grew this year. Judy found her pumpkin first. The kids ran off after being told to stay close and I wandered in yet another direction to attempt to prove a point. I figured as long as I could hear them their actual safety wasn’t at risk. I was hoping they’d get scared and then I could revisit the importance of staying close. Nope, they found me on their own and could have cared less. So much for the teachable moment. Dragging that wagon back out of the patch with the two of them sitting on it, keeping the pumpkins from rolling away and playing with the worms stuck to the dirt of my pumpkin was HARD work. Even with the two of us. I recommend smaller pumpkins or something next year because really that was nuts. Ephraim asked for a new worm because his broke in half. I distracted him with the need to weigh our pumpkins. 33 pounds for the two of them. We picked up some brussel sprouts, some apples, and some pears. The kids got popcorn and caramel apples and it was time to get back in the car. All the sugar and fresh air caught up with them and they were both sound asleep in minutes. We let them sleep and woke them up as we got back into town.