The Garlic Festival

After our Saturday morning trip to the Beaverton Farmer's Market we came home to do some "chores". Jim worked in the yard, I cleaned the house, Tessa worked on her Health Home Study and Cali did some work on the computer for a friend.

In the afternoon we drove out to the big town of North Plains (just about 10 minutes down the freeway) to their annual Garlic Festival.

There is a big sign along the side of the freeway that advertises the festival. It says, "Fun Stinks" and it is a big huge elephant. We have driven by that sign for the last 15 years I think everytime we did Jim would say, "We should go to that some time."

Well this was the year. We invited our friends the Jensens' to go with us.

I had heard that they served garlic ice cream so of course we had to try it! I bought one small scoop and we all had a taste - that is really all we needed! It tasted like cold garlic - I prefer my garlic warm!

Tessa had to smell it first and then she wasn't too sure....

Everyone decided they much preferred the garlic mashed potatoes, garlic green beans and garlic chicken!
We got some free samples of Elephant Garlic and learned a little about the different types of garlic there are.

We even met the Garlic Queen. Jim thought I should find out how to try out for the role next year! Ha ha!!


They had a used book sale for the library where Jim found a few books to read and they had arts and crafts booths. There was also a baseball throwing booth where they tracked how fast you could throw the ball.



I showed them my stuff!

It really helps you throw faster when you close your eyes! I think I hit an all time high of 26 mph. Then Larry showed us how to do it!
He threw it twice as fast as I did. Then Matthew Jensen, who is on the high school baseball team showed us all up and threw the fastest pitch of the day! The fastest pitch of the day won $25.00 - unfortunately about an hour later someone threw one faster!

Here we are watching Matthew show us how to do it -

Everyone who threw got a free inflatable bat - we ended up with 3!

There was also roasted garlic and warm bread, parmesan and garlic popcorn, and a lot more garlic infused food items!

Fun Stinks!

Eastside Esplanade Bike Ride

At the beginning of the summer Cali and her friend Kat made quite an extensive list of things they wanted to do this summer. Everything from dancing on top of a mountain (which they did on our trip to the beach) to going roller skating which they did last night and wait until you see the pictures from that!!

Another thing on their list was to go biking along the waterfront downtown. They decided that Thursday this last week was the day to do it. Tessa and I were lucky enough to be invited along.

Maybe it's because they knew I would buy them lunch at our favorite pizza place before hand....

But I prefer to think they actually enjoy my company!

We drove the bikes down to the waterfront right near OMSI.

The Esplanade goes for several miles along the river with great views of all the bridges, crosses over the river and then runs along the waterfront on the west side.

We even had a little visit with the former mayor of Portland - Vera Katz!

There was only one slight injury for the day - and it was me! We had stopped along the Esplanade before crossing the bridge over to the west side and my foot got stuck on the peddle as I tried to get off the bike. This caused me to fall over - in slow motion - trying to protect the camera that was hanging from my neck. I finally landed on the ground with the bike on top of me.

All three girls remained on their bikes laughing at me - not one of them offered to help me! I managed to untangle myself without their help!

I did incur an injury too.

It looked a lot worse in person and it HURT! I wasn't able to put my shoe back on and rode the rest of the way with it off.

Cali was very resourceful though and saw some Park and Rec guys working along the waterfront and asked them if they had a band aid - fortunately they had a first aid kit in their truck so I was able to patch up my wound!

We also were able to witness an exciting rescue by the Coast Guard. As we crossed over one of the bridges to get to the Esplanade we saw a motorcycle police officer standing looking over the side of the bridge. His lights were going on his bike.

I casually mentioned - "Oh, someone must have jumped"

When we got down to the esplanade sure enough there was the coastguard on a jet ski with someone laying on the back of it. There were additional paramedics waiting on the dock with warming blankets - I was right - someone had jumped! It looked like he was fine though.

Cross that one off the list!

Cali Goes Camping

Last week while Jim and I were out of town Cali went on her first solo camping trip with two friends.

This only made me slightly nervous because I remember all too well Logan's first solo camping trip with buddies when they were almost killed!! Cali promised me they would not camp in any logging areas - I felt so much better!

We were able to find them a camping spot at Silver Falls State Park at the last minute. It was an RV camp spot but there was enough room for them to set up a tent.

They had a great time - they found a "watering hole" and did some fishing. Yes, the girls went to the store and bought their own bait, and baited their own hooks - what women! I am not sure what would have happened if they had actually caught something but they are pretty tough girls!

And when they didn't catch any fish they did a little swimming and jumping off the rope swing.

They went on a hike and did a little bird watching...

They checked out a few of the beautiful water falls in the park

They cooked their own meals including foil dinners and a dutch oven cake!

And then they played a few games of cards.

They had a great time and all three of them came home in one piece!

The Coolest Girl

It is official.

Cali came home from work yesterday and announced that she is officially the Coolest Girl to work at the UPS store.

She earned this prestigious honor by eating a peanut. No, not the legume variety but the packaging variety.

Yes - did you know that there are eatable packaging peanuts?!

I guess the ones they use at the UPS store are made out of some type of starch.

So for entertainment at work yesterday, Cali, Craig the owner and another male employee all munched down on a peanut!

Isn't she cool!!! It just makes a mother proud!!

EFY - Tessa

Last week Tessa attended EFY for the first time. She went with her friend Kristin and they attended in Tacoma. They loved it!

Kristin's family has a cabin up in Washington so they left Sunday evening so they could spend Monday morning on the lake. They rented a jet ski and had a blast. They pulled a tube behind it and Tessa even got a chance to drive it!

In fact they had such a great time they arrived late to EFY. I got a call about 3:00 Monday afternoon from EFY asking if Tessa was coming! They arrived soon thereafter. They left straight from the lake and drove to EFY arriving in with their lake covered bodies and hair.

If you know Tessa you will understand how traumatizing this was for her!!

They very quickly checked into their rooms and took a shower!

She and Kristin had a great time together - aren't they both cuties!

They made lots of new friends.It was a hot week up in Tacoma too so Kristin and Tessa walked around all week with a camelback straped to their back - at least they were well hydrated.

They really liked all the kids in their group.

And of course there were boys!

Prior to going to EFY Tessa and Kristin had prepared a skit for the talent show. They had to audition and were picked to perform. Their skit was from SNL and was pretty funny. They were suppose to be cheerleaders so we went to Goodwill and bought t hem some white sweaters and I sewed red S's on them because they were the Spartans.

I will try and upload the video so you can see them.

They said they got rave reviews!

Leigh Anne Goes to Disneyland

There has been lots going on around our house or rather away from our house!

Last week Jim spent the entire week in Mobile Alabama at the home office. He picked a good week to be gone as it was in the 100's almost all week!!! One day my car said 109 but I think that was a bit high! Needless to say I spent most of my time that week watering the garden trying to keep it alive.

Tessa left on Sunday to head up to Tacoma for EFY - I'll do a separate post on the fun times she had!

Logan spent the week playing golf, hiking and seeing shows in St. George with two buddies. They also made a day trip to Las Vegas He is trying to squeeze in as much fun and as much golf as he can before he starts working the end of the month.

Check out Clark's updates over at his blog - http://www.clarktheshark.blogspot.com/ He continues to have many amazing experiences and is working very hard!!!

Cali was home all week working and playing and keeping me company until I left on Wednesday for Disneyland! She and a few girlfriends enjoyed their first solo camping trip over the weekend.

CM was having a Regional Showcase in Anaheim so I went down a day early so I could spend Thursday playing with a few friends at Disneyland and California Adventure!

It was nice to get a break from our hot temperatures in California where it was only in the eighties!

I think this is the first time I had been to Disneyland without kids or a husband - it was fun!!

We spent the first two days at the Disneyland Hotel. My friend, Karyn, who I stayed with is a Disney Property owner so she had lots of perks!

We had a great view of the Matterhorn from our room.

We were able to get into the park an hour early so we hit all the big rides first - Indiana Jones, Thunder Mountain, Star Tours, Haunted Mansion, Pirates. Matterhorn, etc. In fact by 10:00 we had pretty much ridden all the main rides! It was great.

Of course we had to go to It's a Small World for old times sake!

And then of course there was the carousel!

It was fun running into lots of my team members in the park that day!

I got left holding all the bags while they all went to have their picture taken with some car named Rustee or something from the movies Cars!

We enjoyed dinner each night in Downtown Disney and the fun entertainment.

After two days at the Disneyland Hotel we moved across the street to the Hilton where the convention was held. I had a beautiful suite compliments of CM with another amazing view of the park. We could see the beautiful fireworks every night from my room.

The convention went well and we had some good training and great new products. My plane was delayed Sunday evening so I didn't get home until after midnight but it was good to be home. Jim was home from Alabama, Tessa from EFY and Cali from her weekend camping trip with some girlfriends!

A fun week!