August in Review

Now on to August...a fun month in which Whitney finished up her 16 performances as a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz and celebrated her 9th birthday. Olivia started Kindergarten! And all three kids began the routine of school! With all three older kids in school, Carter has figured out that he can be extremely mobile and has developed his own unique crawl. Last but not least, Marc is in his last semester of grad school!! We also took a day and went to Lava Hot Springs. And our family enjoyed our first experience picking Huckleberries!


Olivia standing outside the school -- she loves to ride the bus with Whitney and Bryce!







While taking a lunchbreak from picking berries, the bees started to swarm. Bryce ended up with Carter because the bees seemed to especially love him!




The Winkies took a fancy to Carter after the show!





Here's where we went to pick huckleberries...a fun experience for a tasty treat.





Carter enjoying the day in Lava Hot Springs, at the pool.





With the Olympics going on, Whitney requested a swimming pool cake. The kids loved watching Michael Phelps and are striving to be great swimmers.




Technically it was July when Grandma and Grandpa Johnson came to visit and went to see Whitney perform.






Then in August, Grandma and Grandpa Torgesen stopped in to see the local star as well!





The pool in Lava Hot Springs...a great way to spend a warm day!

A Few Days Later...

So here it is "a few days later" as I mentioned in our last post, well, okay, so it's more like a few months (two to be exact) later, but later does come, just not always as soon as we plan or expect it to!

Alright, a brief synopsis of the rest of July...



We had a great opportunity to go to Oregon and visit with Marc's brother, Jeff, and his family! Thanks to Jeff, Terri and kids for letting us hang out with you for a few days! Our kids were able to spend quality time with their cousins and were also able to see the Pacific Ocean. We hadn't been to the coast since Whitney was almost two, a few months before Bryce was born. We also took in the free University Aquarium/museum, a picnic at the beach and Oregon Salt Water Taffy. We decided to do a scenic loop, starting in Eugene, north to Corvallis, west to Newport, south down the Coast Highway, turning East at Florence to head back to Eugene.


Bryce and Whitney checking out the sea anemones!






Here are "the cousins" trying to feed the ducks...apparently the kids weren't feeding them fast enough, thus getting chased, finding safety on the picnic table.




Carter had fun with one of his older cousins, protected from the crazy water fowl!











The trip was fun with a stop at Multnomah Falls (sorry if I misspelled that) just east of Portland on the way back home. Enjoy the pictures!