Outdoor Fun!

We are finally beginning to get out and enjoy more of beautiful Oregon. I guess it's starting to occur to us that we only have one year left here and there is still a lot to see. Towards the end of April, we made it out to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival in Woodburn. Obviously, I love flowers so this was especially wonderful. So gorgeous and so many amazing different varieties in every color (except blue that is). Here are a few pics of the fields-








After walking through the fields, we went over to the kid's area for Cee to have some fun. She loved this horse tire swing and the rubber duck races (although she couldn't quite get the hang of the pump) and she went down a big slide with Mark. There was a really cute cow train that goes around the fields, but she kept saying that she didn't want to do that when we would ask her. Maybe next year.


For Memorial Day, we went down to Silver Falls State Park with our good friends, the Darringtons. There is a hike with several different waterfalls - two of which you can walk underneath. So cool. It was a lot of fun, but after 5 miles we were definitely ready to relax a little, especially Mark who had to carry Miss Chubs Ceci on his back. It had been rainy all weekend, but luckily it didn't rain on our hike until about the the last 1/2 mile when it started to drizzle a little.




Since Mark was off from school the following day, we reserved a camp site and brought our little propane grill to cook up some hot dogs and hamburgers. It was my first time grilling and it turned out pretty good - although hopefully someday we can get a real grill so I can get some skills in that area of cooking. After dinner, we wanted to make smores so Mark and Brian set out to build a fire. This was no easy task because everything was soggy and it took quite a while to finally get one going. We also ran into another family from our ward who were staying that night also so they joined us for smores. It was a lot of fun.



By the end of the day, Cee was super muddy. Like caked on. That was not a fun part, but to be expected in Oregon I guess.


After smores, the Darringtons left and we headed into our tent shortly after. We didn't own much camping equipment before this outing, so we had to get quite a few things. Our REI tent was a little pricey, but lived up to it's reputation. It started pouring rain in the middle of the night and the tent didn't leak one bit. I was a little worried how Cee would do, but she slept really good and didn't even wake up to the rain.

Just after Cee woke up

Mr. Camper

Cee on our walk around the campsite while Mark took the tent down

Mark took a few shots with his Holga camera while on the hike and this one turned out amazing. I absolutely love it!

Lastly, I've updated my recipe blog and I'm trying something new. I've posted 5 days worth of meal ideas for you to try and give feedback on. There is even a shopping list included. I hope people try it out (even if it sounds like something you wouldn't normally cook) and maybe find something new that they like. Please check it out!