2009 Family Photos

During the two days we had everyone home in August we had our yearly family photo taken.

Of course there was some grumbling - "Didn't we just do this?"

My amazingly talented friend Meg (who is my partner on Homebased Portland) took them for me. She is also the one that took the beautiful photos of Tessa earlier this summer.

We went to downtown Beaverton and literally wandered up and down the street looking for fun places to pose. (Even in front of a dumpster!)

My favorite are the ones on the train tracks. Meg is a master of light.

They are not your "typical" family photos and Jim had to adjust to that a bit. They are much more "artsy" then he is use to but I love them!!

There were too many great shots to share them all so here are a few of our favorites....






























After Meg took the photos of Jim and I she turned around and this is exactly how the kids looked - I love this photo!

So many fun ones - don't know how I will ever choose!!!

Family Night Fun - Vaux Swifts

For the last several years we have been making a visit to watch the Swifts over at Chapman School each September. There are 20-40,000 Swifts that roost in the chimney of a local elementary school during the month of September.

For more of the story read my post over at Homebased Portland

We decided it was a perfect Family Night activity this week. We invited our friends the Ellsworths to go with us since they had never seen it before.

The Ellsworth boys had fun sliding down the hill on cardboard with the rest of the kids there while the grownups watched the bird show!

We ran into our friends the Watts who were there with their bird watching friends. They are serious bird watchers and had all the right equipment. Binoculars and telescopes which they shared with us.

Tessa and Kelsi enjoyed visiting and doing their homework together.

Our friend Merrill - I loved this picture I snapped of him!

And then Tessa got a hold of the camera and snapped away!

It was a fun evening, beautiful weather and visiting with friends - oh and there were the cool birds too!!

Weekend at the Beach

On Thursday we noticed that no one had the beach house rented this weekend and since we had nothing on the calendar we decided to head on down. It was suppose to be in the 90's in Portland and the 80's at the beach.

Tessa did a great job of driving all the way to the beach! We got there in time to enjoy a beautiful sunset on the beach.


It was a perfect evening on the beach - no wind!

Even though the weather didn't turn out as the weather man said - it was in the 60's, overcast and even a little drizzly at times we had a great time relaxing.

We played a new card game we had gotten - Legretto, watched Casablanca (Tessa had never seen it), Tessa did some homework, Jim watched the BYU game in the local tavern and Leigh Anne and Tessa went into the quilt shop in Wheeler and picked up some fabric for some Christmas gift projects!

We did enjoy some more time on the beach too. The tide was incredibly high - all the way up to the rocks right before the beach ends! The waves were huge and crashing!

There was a ton of foam on the beach - probably from the huge crashing waves. Tessa told us that one of her siblings had told her that the foam was whale pee. Our bets are on Clark! What do you think??

Sunday morning we went to church at the Neahkahnie Branch in Rockaway and since it was cool and rainy we packed up and headed home.

We are always sad to leave the beach....