Oregon Adventures III

A new job for Ben and back to school for the Wiglets!  In Ohio, we had to stop doing school a little early to pack for our move to Oregon.  Now that we are halfway settled, we are back at it most days until we finish what we need to. 

Monday: the older ones take turns tutoring Phoebe while I work one on one with the other older one.

Tuesday, we went CHERRY PICKING with our friends, the Linds.  

The scenery by the orchard reminded me of the rolling hills of Eastern Ohio.

The cherry hoarding chipmunk

My messy Bessy.

20 pounds for $12!  We will be going back!

                                                 

I'm not sure where to start with this pic.  We were shopping for a propane tank and turned around and, "Awww, it's my sweet little, propane tank?"

Wednesday, we found THE house. (We also did school, delivered cherries to our new friends and shopped at the farmer's market).

Thursday, we bid on THE house after scoping out the neighborhood a second time.

Homeschool Park Day. We are making friends, yay!

Friday, we just did school then stayed home.  Ezra likes to ride his bike down the road to the neighborhood park about a hundred times a day.  Juni and Phoebe do each other's hair and make "soup" out of flower petals and leaves from the yard.  Daddy and Mommy eat quite a bit of "soup" every day actually.

The kids like to make nests out of bedding, this is Phoebe in one of her nests after the kids destroyed our bed wrestling in it.

Saturday was Ezra's birthday and we had already planned to take him to a trampoline park when we found out Salem's annual World Beat Festival was happening the same day.  So, we went early before it got hot. The weather had been quite dreamy before this week.  It was fine in the seventies all morning, then it sprinkled for five minutes (our first rain since arriving) then it was suddenly 100 degrees!  We had a lot of hot days this past week.

Native Americans taught the crowd some dances that they eventually joined in.

Oregon State's Defense Force Pipe Band got two new students when our crew arrived.  In the Fall, Ben will fulfill one of his lifelong dreams:  To learn to play the bag pipes.  Ezra chose the drums.  That will be on Saturday mornings.

Here's Juni with her new parasol from the festival watching the pipers and drummers in action.

Thank you, Elizabeth Sebree, for offering to take our picture and for sharing part of our birthday celebration!  She knitted a really cool hat for Ezra's gift with a hole in the front that you put a head lamp through.  He's been wearing the hat to bed every night since his birthday.  :-)

The birthday boy in downtown Salem.  Now THAT is a big boy bike! :-)

We totally went home and rested before round two of birthday bonanza.  On our way to the trampoline park, the realtor texted to let us know that the sellers counter-offered our offer on their house accepting all our terms.  We decided to accept their counter offer and e-signed the paperwork at Air Salem.  It felt like a WAY grown up thing to be doing in between jumping into foam pits and sliding down trampoline walls.  

That blur our big boy nine year old!!  I had Ben do like 5 flips so I could get his picture mid-air and somehow missed everytime (still sorry about that, Honey!).  He had a headache and foam in his eyes afterwards and I felt really bad.  From now on, occasional family shots, but otherwise, candids or nothing!

My innovative hubby made a candle out of a toothpick and some paper wadded up as we hadn't unpacked the candles yet.  Happy Birthday, Buddy!!  

Our last house in Ohio was my first time living in the country.  I learned that fireflies come up out of the ground in the evening and that if you avoid the patches of clover flowers you can be barefoot in the back yard and not get stung by a bee.  This is my first time living in a bigger city and already I have learned something new!  You can turn left at a red light onto a one-way road (going left, of course).  It makes total sense, it's just new to me!  I stopped freaking out while Ben was driving after about the third time he did it and reminded me that it was ok to do.

Overall, driving in Salem has been a relief.  It's not as fun during rush hour, but most of the city has a speed limit of 35mph and it just feels like a really really big Dover or New Philadelphia, Ohio.   The amount of traffic is similar (except during rush hour) and it's been fine.  We left one lovely area for another.  We miss our friends so much, but the charm of the area is making the transition a little easier.