June

Some years I get mad at June for being rainy when it's supposed to be hot and sunny for my birthday. Not this year though. We had lots of dry days and some were way too hot for my taste.

We had T. over one more time before his family moved. They weren't sure where they were going when they had to leave, but thankfully they ended up just on the other side of town.

Enjoying dry, green grass and sunshine!

Since Spencer was only going to school every other day and Alan had a free morning between track meets, I got everyone to help me pick strawberries this year. They are the first berries to come on so everyone is pretty happy to help pick and eat. We wound up with over 30 lbs. really fast so we only picked them once this year.

The joys of bubble wrap and next door neighbor friends.

Once track season started to slow down, we had time for another family adventure challenge. Bowling to get the lowest score proved to be our favorite one so far. We all had to have the bumpers up and had to choose a different bowling method (between your legs, knees, together, one footed, etc) each round. I stink at bowling so it was super fun to just be silly with it this time. And, I actually won for once! 

I think Mason earned this cool Lego set for not sucking his fingers for 5 weeks. 

This picture was just to document that Spencer actually ate a green salad for dinner. Pretty sure it was his first one ever!

I typically run on the treadmill during the week and just go outside for my longer run on Saturdays, but I really wanted to get outdoors early in the morning on my birthday. It was a gorgeous morning and the sun looked so pretty coming up over these roses.

It was a school day and Mason had already finished his math curriculum so we just played Make n' Break. He's not to shabby at that game.

After Spencer left for school, I found this mostly already eaten package of Red Vines on my night stand. Red Vines were my favorites for years, but I had no idea where Spencer got them. Turned out that his friend's Mom had given the package to Spencer. He ate most of them and then decided to save the rest for me. :)

Alan made my apricot upside down cake again this year, but we ate most of it the Sunday before my birthday so we could share it with Debbie. There was only a little left by the time my actual birthday came around. 39 years old - yikes!

We reseeded a patch of our front lawn in June. It came up, but it was really too hot and dry for new grass to grow well and we'll need to put down more seed in the fall.

My roses liked the warm weather though.

Mason's last day of kindergarten was on June 14th. The days were long, but the year was short. And just like that, my special year at home with him was over. There were a few downsides to this homeschool year, but mostly it was really amazing and I will always cherish the bonus year I had with this awesome, little boy. In many ways, I wish I could keep homeschooling him forever, but Alan and I both feel that he really needs the experience of going to school with a different teacher and being around lots more kids his age. 

Our last day consisted of writing, counting all of our days of school, trading money for prizes, and getting a special present from mom. 

"My favorite part of kindergarten was measuring the ice cream cones." He really loved the measuring unit we did at the end of his math book.

I made him change shirts and comb his hair for pictures. :)

Such a cute and awesome kiddo!

Mason really wanted to go on a nature walk to search for animals and have donuts to celebrate so that's what we did. We didn't see many animals at The Refuge, but it was still a nice walk. 

Cherries are one of my favorite things about June. I bought 20 lbs. of them this year. We ate as many as we could fresh and then I froze the rest. They were from a farm in the Gorge and are SO much better than the kind you can buy at the store.

Spencer had been saving his birthday money for months until mid-June when this new Harry Potter Lego set finally came out. He was a happy kid when it finally came in the mail and built the whole thing super fast. 

Spencer's last day of 7th grade was on the 17th. He was bummed to have it end just two months after he finally got to go back in-person (every other day), but I wasn't sad. Good riddance to a long and tedious 15 months of distance learning and asynchronous classes! Hopefully we never have to do that again. But man, Spencer's looking so grown up! He is about six inches taller than me now!

I love these brother pictures so much!

We celebrated Spencer's last day with a bike ride to Menchies for ice cream. They love it, I don't. Happy summer!!!

May

I got my garden starts in on May 1st this year. Those big plants were chard and leeks left over from last summer. I was surprised they survived the whole winter. It took my leeks a whole years to get big enough to harvest. We ate this chard a couple of times, but then pulled it out to plant new seeds. Sadly the new seeds didn't do well so that was the only chard we've had this year.

Spencer likes Kiki way more than Alan and I do and she lets him do all kinds of crazy things to her.

The temple grounds finally opened when our temple opened for weddings and live ordinances! These two were just as excited as I was to be able to walk around the beautiful and sacred gardens.

Mother's Day is never my favorite, but my boys made me a yummy dinner and participated willingly in a few pictures. Can't ask for more than that! I love these handsome boys who are growing up so fast!

I had tons of irises this year. These and my daisies are transplants from the home Darwin and Debbie built and raised their kids in in Sherwood so they are extra special.

On one of Spencer's asynchronous (just some online assignments instead of actually going to class) school days, I convinced the boys to go on a picnic to Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden in Portland. The rhododendrons and azaleas were in full bloom and it was a gorgeous day. Spencer borrowed my phone and took lots of pictures and some of these are his. I think he enjoyed doing that. Mason's favorite part was hanging out with a gaggle of geese on one of the lawns in the park.

Alan turned 41 on the 20th. Covid numbers had improved enough that we were able to celebrate him with his parents on the Sunday before his birthday. This was his last time sharing a cake with his Dad whose birthday was two weeks previous because Darwin and Debbie are moving to Idaho. :( It's a good move for them, but we will REALLY miss having family close. 

Anyway, back to this awesome guy. He requested biscuits and gravy for his birthday breakfast. Hot breakfasts are rare around here so this was notable. ;) After opening presents, he took some well-deserved time off work and took a nap.  

Since we had already finished the shared birthday cake, Mason helped me make some birthday brownies for Alan in the afternoon. Then we ate at Red Robin for dinner and went bowling at Langer's. Spencer, Mason and I are super blessed to have Alan. He works so hard to support us so I can stay home and never takes life too seriously. He is very driven in his work and running goals and is a great sounding board for all of my problems and ideas. Happy birthday honey!

Alan and I were already vaccinated against Covid and Spencer was able to get fully vaccinated in May. Hooray for the medical miracles that allowed a vaccine to be created so quickly!

Sunday afternoon nap. Alan worked 80ish hour weeks all through April and May and he was tired.

I organized a Relief Society supply drive to benefit the community of Otis in May. Over 1,500 citizens of Otis lost their homes during a wildfire last September. The vast majority of those were uninsured adults. Some amazing people set up a distribution center to collect and distribute supplies to the victims. I didn't collect as many supplies as I was hoping, but it was enough to cram the back of our CRV and all four of us made the drive out to the coast to deliver them. The amazing lady who runs the distribution center gave us a tour and told us stories of the people they've been able to help. It was so inspiring and heartwarming to know of all of the good being done. Also humbling, since we have so much compared to the people who lost everything. It was a really great experience for our family.

Our homeschool PE co-op ended at the end of May. Mason never connected with the group like I hoped he would, but it was still a good experience for him. It got him out of the house, moving his body, and interacting with other kids - all the biggest downfalls of homeschooling during Covid. It was a fun group and I loved getting to know the kids and their moms. Since I helped teach every other week, it was also a social time for me.

Spring yard work!

Happy 18 years to us!! No getaways for us this year, but we did get to go on a nice trail run in Camas together - thanks to our friends the Holdens for letting Spencer and Mason play while we ran. Then we took a picnic to Jergens park and played Alan's new cornhole game in the evening. It was a simple and relaxing anniversary.

And, more cornhole for our Memorial Day bbq with Darwin and Debbie. Debbie surprised everyone with her skills and beat both Spencer and Alan!! Hahaha! I was too afraid to play her. 

 

We found a new hike to do on Memorial Day: Mount Talbert Nature Park in Clackamas. Alan printed off a nature scavenger hunt to keep Mason occupied and it worked really well. Either that or Mason is finally learning how to walk more than a block without complaining. ;) It turned out to be the perfect level of hike for us and was really pretty and peaceful even though it was in the middle of a city. I would definitely like to do it again someday. 

May was a month of small track meets for Spencer. All of them were just small meets in Sherwood which was nice. Spencer ran really well and set a new PR in the 1500 every time he ran it! His best time was 5:17. We were so grateful that he had this time to be with kids his age and to strengthen his running skills. It was such a great experience that he's now planning to run cross country and track when he gets to high school .