Camping and other updates

Like Dust, I've jumped off the bridge. As most of everyone knows by now, I'm on Facebook. Please bare with me while I try and figure out all that Facebook offers. I must say that I was pretty surprised to see nearly everyone I know on it. Friends in Iowa, Kansas, and Oregon are all on it. Everyone I know seems to have "jumped off the bridge."
I guess I like "user friendliness" of blogger, but Facebook offers a lot more. I particularly like the music section "social tunes." What a great way to talk to others about music and rate your albums.

In other news, I turned in my two weeks at Trillium today. It was a tough decision. I usually haven't been given much of a choice on leaving a job. Either I'm told to leave or I have to relocate. I really can't understand why some people job hop so much. So in two weeks, I'll start at Albetina Kerr as a Foster Care Case Manager----wow.

Last weekend was our big camping trip with our home group from church. I guess everyone knows by now, that I'm not a big camper. In fact, my camping trip with Dash, Dust, Dar, and A Forest was my first camping trip. This last camping trip had it's ups and downs however.
First off, the camp site was a 1/4 of a mile away from the cars. I arrived late when it was dark and wandered through the woods for a while until I found it. Anyway, being far from the car made dragging the gear a real pain.
My second problem was that the site had a no camp fire sign. How can you camp without a camp fire?
For Wah-Wah's early birthday present, I brought her a inflatable kayak. Unfortunately, we didn't have a pump that would work on it (one minor mistake). Luckily, Wah-Wah found a guy with the kind of pump we needed and we were able to inflate the kayak.
Here's some pictures of our camping weekend:



This was our camp site at Oxbow Park, just 15 minutes outside of Portland. The bigger tent on the right is ours. It was suppose to be a 4 person tent, but it was awfully tight. I guess it could hold 4 really small people or 4 regular people if they slept on top of each other.
Here is a picture of the Sandy River where we camped at. I think Wah-Wah took this picture since no one else was up this early. I spent Saturday afternoon just laying and relaxing in the river. Sure it was cold, but very refreshing.
Here are some of our fellow campers playing in the river.

Here's Wah-Wah bringing in her kayak after it's maiden voyage down the river. She took Nibbles down the river about a 1/4 of a mile. Apparently Nibbles hated it and screamed the whole time. I guess the kids will sit out on our next kayak adventure. We had to carry that kayak all the way back to the campsite so others could use it. Without a pump, we couldn't deflate it to carry it. I got to go down the river finally at the end of the day.

After getting back from camping, I went to go see Neil Halstead at the Doug Fir. Neil is a great singer song writer whose warm (yet often humorous lyrics) sounded nicely in the "log cabin" atmosphere of the Doug Fir. Neil's sound was pretty stripped down to just the basics. He even played a few tunes from his band- Mojave 3.

McKinley Cup 08

" Imago Dei Community has a long and deep-seated history with kickball. We play to create unity and have fun, not to battle out grievances. Kickball is a complex game consisting of two teams, bases, and a big red ball. There is to be no bounces, bunts, tantrums, or hollering at the opposing team. This is a civilized game."

That was taken from the Imago Dei website signally the start of Imago's annual kickball tournament that was held last Saturday. This year, my Weds night home group got together and we decided to go this year as Team Mario (If you have never played "Super Mario" on the old Nintendo, you may not know who "Mario" is). Everyone (including yours truly) came dressed in overalls, with red hats and mustaches. We even made props such as mushrooms, stars, coins, and bricks. To top it off, someone downloaded the old Mario music and put it on repeated play. Sadly, I didn't have the camera this year (Wah-Wah was taking pictures on her hike), but I hope someone will send some that I could post.

I thought we all looked pretty good, and we won best custom beating out "The Scots" (they were dressed like Braveheart) and the "Spartans" (got their inspiration from "300"). This was our second year in a row of winning best custom. The prize is a pink bath robe with plastic flowers on it.

Unfortunately, we didn't when the prized McKinley Cup(which is pictured above on our pastor's head). We did make it pretty far by winning 4 out of 6 games. Why Imago chooses to play the annual tournament in the middle of July on a field with no shade is perplexing. After playing 6 games of kickball, by the afternoon, you are pretty tired and don't really care about winning. It is all pretty fun though and I look forward to playing again next year.

Oaks Park

My birthday turned out to be a beautiful day in Portland. To celebrate my birthday, we took the family to Portland's only amusement park--Oaks Park, because nothing helps you remember your age better than going to an amusement park.
Anyway, Oaks Park is no Disney World or Worlds Of Fun for that matter. It is however a great deal. For $11 to $14 dollars you get a bracelet to unlimited rides. No admission price, no parking price, and you can bring whatever food you want. For under $50, we entertained a family of 4 for the afternoon.

Here's Woogy on the kiddie coaster there. It was a pretty bumpy kiddie coaster and it scared the heck out of Nibbles. Woogy, however seemed to really enjoy it and must have rode in 6 times. I was pretty impressed with some of the rides he decided to go on. Who knows, when he's older maybe he will be one of those roller coaster enthusiast who travels the country for the ultimate thrill.

Nibbles doesn't like speed or bumps, but apparently doesn't mind altitude. Here's her and Wah-Wah getting on the Ferris wheel.

Here's Woogy and Nibbles in one of those kiddie rides. I would have gone with them, but I would need the "jaws of life" to get back out.

Here's Nibbles on the Merry Go Round.

Here's Wah-Wah in the Rock-o-plane. This is like a Ferris wheel only the cage you are in spins around. Much to my surprise, the kids went on this with us. It kind of freaked them out. I should have trusted my gut and not allowed them to go.

X-mas at the Zoo

Last Friday night, we took advantage of the break in the rain and went to the Portland Zoo for their annual X-mas lights festival. It was a little chilly, but that didn't bother me much (I've concluded that I have skin as thick as a polar bear), but Wah-Wah and the kids got a little cold. This is a pretty big event in Portland. All the animals in the zoo are put away, and X-mas lights are put up through out the park.

The main attraction here is the Zoo train that is decked out in lights. The train will take you for a ride around the zoo and to some other light displays you can't see unless you are on the train. It was a forty five minute wait for us to ride. Nibbles had one of her infamous "meltdowns" while we were waiting. She kept shouting "Choo-Choo" every time the train went by. She couldn't understand that we had to wait in line like everyone else. Generally, I don't like to give out candy to my kids, but in this case I made an exception. It worked for a little while.

Shortly after the train ride, Wah-Wah and the kids couldn't take the cold any longer so they went home while I stayed around and took a few pictures.

Personally, I kind of like the Grotto's displays better. They were much more about X-mas story and why we celebrate the holiday. It really put me in more of the X-mas spirit than the zoo lights. Still, they were pretty.