Horses, birthdays and ice cream.....

The summer has been busy as usual! We're still working around the house as much as possible. The property sometimes feels like one BIG weed! My garden is looking pretty good. A couple weekends ago we spent about 6 hours pulling out every single weed, big or small. I do mean every! With our two main camping events pretty close together and all this beautiful weather we've had the weeds went crazy! 

We had a great Father's Day camping trip with Uncle Jim and Aunt Maggie. We took Mom and Ed's quads and had a blast on the sand dunes. 4th of July camping was also a lot of fun. Ashlyn had a lot more freedom this year than years previous. She was allowed to go the park with the other kids as long as she checked in periodically. They all did great and were always where they said they would be. We went to the lake a few times because it was warm at the coast! Ashlyn (in her life jacket) swam out to the dock (its a pretty good distance) three times this year with little to no assistance. We were very proud of her! She didn't like jumping off the dock though. Maybe next year. 

We did some backyard camping at Grandma G's the other weekend. It was Grandpa's 83rd birthday. Ashlyn was excited to play with her cousins Grace and Gwen. We lit a fire in the fire pit and roasted marshmallows (of course!) 

Grandpa's garden looks amazing! All of his veggies are twice the size of mine. He told me his secret is chicken poop and high nitrogen fertilizer rototilled in before planting. So next year we'll definitely be spreading chicken poop! I'm planning to do some canning soon with some of our haul from the garden. I'm pretty excited for that, it will be my first time doing it on my own. I'm hoping for green beans, carrots, pickles, salsa and probably tomato sauce and juice. Neither Jered or Ashlyn likes tomatoes (crazy! I know) and I don't think I'll be able to eat them all on my own. 

What's up next for us? Ashlyn will be spending the first few days of Aug with two nieces and Mom at the fair. Bailey and Macy are showing rabbits this year. We have two weddings this year and one of them is coming up in Aug. I bought a really cute dress last weekend when we were in Woodburn Grandpa's birthday! :) We are helping out at Forest Grove Uncorked again. Our good friends Gary and Dawn spear head the whole thing with Dawn's parents. Jered and I are the set-up crew. So we'll be setting up tables, chairs, tents etc. Its the middle August so there's a pretty good chance it will be super hot! Its a very fun event and for sweating through three hours of set up we earn ourselves free entry and a wine glass. Jered is running in the Hood to Coast relay race again. That will be Aug 22-24. He'll be gone all weekend so Ashlyn and I will have to come up with something more fun than yard work to do! 

Ashlyn starts school on Aug 25. Yikes! I'm not ready!!! This is going to be such a big change for all of us. Both Jered and I are having to rearrange our schedules a bit. I'm now working 7am-330pm. Ashlyn will go to school from 750am-330pm and be off on Fridays. Jered will do drop off and I will do pick up. That will be a big change for Jered because he's used to being able to go into work when ever he wants. Its not unusual for him to go in at 4am. We have an appt with an at home daycare on Mon. Hopefully it goes well because its in Corbett and Ashlyn would ride the bus to and from the daycare and would be there on Fridays as well. Ashlyn is excited but I think a little nervous too. Obviously a big change for her, since she's been at WeeCare since she was 3 months old. 

A few pics from the last few weeks for your viewing pleasure: 

 I bought a groupon for two horse riding lessons. Ashlyn

was super excited. She got to ride a big horse. 

 She loved riding!

 Steering

 Father's Day camping. Roasted marshmallows are a necessity! 

 Ashlyn and Nolan playing in the sand

Daddy giving them rides on the quad around the camp site

 Making cute faces with Paisley

 Ashlyn's friend Gemma (middle, back in turquoise dress) is

moving to Arizon so her Mom had a "Popsicles in the Park" party.

Ashlyn and Gemma have been together at WeeCare since they

were tiny little infants. They started just a couple weeks apart.The

little boy in front, Rory, has been with them since the beginning as well.

The little girl on the right is Elsie. She is one of Ashlyn's best friends. Ashlyn

is always so excited when Elsie is at school. 

4th of July bike parade

 Jered and I tried Salt & Straw ice cream a few 

weeks ago. OMG!!! Delicious!! Ashlyn I needed 

to burn some time before going to a co-workers

birthday party so I took her S&S. She agrees with

us, its delicious!

 Grandpa and Caleb's birthday

The second horse riding lesson. She said her favorite

part of the day was riding the horse! 

Family Party

Ashlyn's school had a family party a few weeks ago and both Jered and I were able to go. She was so excited to show us around, even though we've seen it all before. The kids sang songs to us, showed us their garden, read us a story. It was all very cute! The most special part, according to all the kids, was at the end of the party they got to have popsicles!! They rarely get to have sweets like that at school, occasionally if its someones birthday the parents will bring cupcakes or cookies, so this was really special for the kids. 

 Picture of a picture of when the class went to the fire station

 Pic of a pic of most of the class, Ashlyn front and center

 This is one of  Ashlyn's bff's, Elsie

 This is Evita, another of her bff's

 and this is Gemma, another bff. Her and Gemma have 

been at WeeCare together since the very beginning. Gemma

started about 3 weeks after Ashlyn.

Ashlyn showing us her playground. 

Homebodies

I know I haven't posted in a long while. Its just that we don't do anything anymore, except work at the house! We have been doing so much outside and no matter how much we do, there is still a ton that needs done. We've been trimming, weeding, mowing and planting. We've got the rose beds looking 100% better than when we moved in. Jered has trimmed up quite a few of the trees and those are looking a lot better. We've got some though that need cut down completely. We got our garden planted and already have some sprouts. Ashlyn is very excited about the cantaloupe and pumpkins (cross your fingers)! Jered set us up with a soaker hose for the garden with a timer so we don't have to worry so much about watering or for us its more like not watering. The bathroom remodel got put on pause because we've been doing so much outside. We've had such beautiful weather this spring, we've really taken advantage.

Also I've been working a lot of overtime. A few weekends. a few late nights, working on my day off. I'm tired! There is a light at the end of this overtime tunnel though! We've hired a couple of new people to cover the shifts we're all working OT for and I'm switching my hours at the end of the month. I will be working 5 days a week 7am-330pm. I needed to switch hours when Ashlyn starts school but I'm really looking forward to getting off those couple hours earlier through the summer as well. Right now we usually get home about 6pm and we like to do stuff outside for a bit before it gets dark. Before we know it, its after 8pm, we haven't eaten dinner and Ashlyn needs to be in bed. Needless to say, most nights she's been up a little later than usual and she's been eating a lot of peanut butter sandwiches, cereal and/or yogurt for dinner! :)

Most of you probably saw the huge surprise we gave her the other weekend. My friend at work was selling her step-sons quad because he had outgrown it. She asked me if we wanted it for Ashlyn and she gave us a super good deal so we went for it! My friend and her husband were able to bring it over a couple of weeks ago and we kept it hidden for about a week before we showed it to her. She was SO surprised!! Jered took her for a ride first and then when we put her on it for her first solo ride....oh boy! She took off with the throttle pushed all the way in and almost ran over Jered! Thank goodness my friends husband Craig had put a governor on the throttle so all we had to do was tighten the little screw so she couldn't go so fast. She's been riding a bit in the driveway, learning to turn and how to do slow down, how to start it etc. Her hands are too little to reach the brake and be able to squeeze it hard enough to slow down but letting off the throttle is working for now. She asked me, "Mommy did you ever wreck when you were little?" I told her "yes I did, many many times because I was going way too fast!" She has no fear though and I didn't either. I can remember riding for so long my thumb would hurt from pushing in the throttle. My cousin Traci and I would ride and ride and ride when we were growing up. Except we were only on 3 wheels, with no helmets and we'd be gone for hours at a time riding all over the farm. There were quite a few times we came home a little bruised and bloody, more afraid of getting in trouble for doing something to the 3-wheeler than we were for ourselves. My brother ran me over once and made me promise never to tell Mom. The scratches and bruises on my back were a pretty big clue though! :) How did we survive? :)

We just got back from our annual Father's Day camping trip. We had the best time! So relaxing and fun. After our first ride out to the sand dunes and to the beach, when we got back to camp Ashlyn said, "THAT WAS AMAZING!!!" Sums up the whole weekend. We didn't make it home till 11pm Sunday so we're all a bit tired and there's lots of clean up to do but it was all worth it!

Ashlyn will be going to Vacation Bible School again at my mom's church the week of June 23rd. So Jered and I will be footloose and fancy free for a week!! :) We'll miss her like crazy of course but we're both looking forward to it too. We'll go to a few restaurants we've been wanting to try but aren't exactly kid friendly.  Maybe even stop for a drink after work. No plans really but I'm sure we'll find something to do! :)

Of course we have the 45th (?) annual Ballard family campout/reunion for the 4th of July coming up in a couple of weeks. So we'll be headed down to Florence again. No quads though, just lots of family and fun. Our friends Justin and Steph and their two kids have come with us the last couple of years. They're coming again this year too. After a couple years in a row you're a regular! The kids have a great time, the adults do too! ;)

Just two short months and Ashlyn will be in kindergarten. I'm not ready! I'm not ready!! Stop the clock!!! I asked her the other day if she would just stay 5 forever. She told me she couldn't because she's gonna be 6 soon.

Summer is here and we plan to make the most of it!

 I think she was a little surprised :)

 Pure joy

I think this face is excited shock!

Such a big girl these days

First solo ride, she's feeling pretty good!

New haircut and a crazy face

 Playing in the ocean. Its impossible to keep a 5 year old 

out of the ocean, no matter how cold the water is. And really, 

why would you want to?

 Nolan finally arrived at camp on Saturday afternoon. These

two play so well together and always have so much fun.

Getting to ride together on the same quad. They both really

wanted to ride together, so Jered put-putted them around camp

 a few laps.

EASTER

We had a wonderful, relaxing Easter weekend. We were hoping for more sunshine on Saturday but only got a little in the morning and then rain, rain, rain for the rest of the day. So not much yard work completed, though I did get both back decks swept off. Of course after only one day, there's more pine needles, my nemesis!

Saturday afternoon we colored Easter eggs. We did Volcano and Tie-dye eggs. For the volcano eggs we made a paste with baking soda and a little water then added bright neon yellow food color. We painted the paste onto the boiled egg then dropped one drop of two or three other colors of food color. Next we dripped vinegar over the egg and watched the reaction of the baking soda with the vinegar. After letting them sit for a minute or so, we just rinsed them in water.They came out great! Our new favorite way to dye eggs! For the tie-dye eggs we soaked the boiled eggs in vinegar for about 5 minutes, put the egg in a colander, dropped one drop of color on the egg then rolled it around in the colander. We did two to three colors per egg, one color at a time, then rinsed with water. They were ok. We did them last year too but we liked the volcano eggs best. I had also bought a bunch of plastic eggs and candy. Ashlyn had a great time stuffing as much candy as possible into each egg and then trying to get them to close.

The Easter bunny was very nice to Ashlyn this year. He brought her some headbands and barrettes for her hair, a jump rope, some side walk chalk, a chocolate bunny and The Frozen CD. She loved the CD and listened to the whole thing before we left for Grandma's. She walks around singing those songs constantly! She knows all the words too which is just amazing. She's going to be much better at the "Who sings this?" game Jered loves to play than I am, for sure!
At Grandma's house she got a new watering can, new gardening gloves, money, more chalk and lots of candy! As soon as we got home Sunday afternoon she was filling her watering can and watering all of the plants outside.

Easter pics:

Jered and I spent his birthday weekend at 

Grand Lodge. Lots of fun!

Our pretty little poser

 hunting

 look at my haul!

 O M G....its $$

 I love $$

 family pic, but Ashlyn said it was way too bright

 cousins

 eating candy

 being silly with my cousin Grace

watch out Mom, here we come

 helping Daddy mow the lawn. Look at all those dandelions!

Big thanks to Grandpa Eddie for the riding lawn mower!

I compromised with Daddy. I wanted to sleep in my

castle tent from Grammy, he wanted me to sleep in my bed.

our volcano eggs

April showers bring May flowers....right?

This sun has been so awesome! I've heard rain is on the way but I'm going to enjoy the next couple of days of sunshine! We're already loving all the daffodils and cherry blossoms. I've been a little disappointed in the lack of spring flowers at our house. But this just means I'll be planting lots of bulbs in the fall. We want to give the yard at least one year to show us what its made of. So far: lots of trees, maple trees already blooming (ugh, leafs and raking) and not many flowering plants. Although there is a little rose garden on the side of the house. They looked a little rough so I trimmed them back quite a bit when we first moved in and now they are starting to bud. I'm hoping they all do well this summer. I've got lots of landscaping ideas saved on Pinterest and lots of ideas of where I want to plant things. It has to be a work in progress, we do not have the time or money to landscape the whole place in one summer! I have plans for a couple of raised garden beds, I want a vegetable garden this year! I'm also hoping we'll get the chicken coop and composting system up this summer. I have lots and lots of plans (if only I had lots and lots of time and $$)!!

We spent a lot of time working at the house last month but we also managed to do some fun stuff. We went to a Winterhawks game, we checked out opening night of the new arena football team: the Portland Thunder, we did the Shamrock Run for Eli's birthday. We spent a weekend in Washington for cousin Grace's birthday. Hockey is always a good time and if time and money allowed we'd probably go to a lot more games. Ashlyn loves it because she usually gets a popcorn, cotton candy or red rope. This time she shared a cotton candy with my friends' son Drayton. The Portland Thunder game was interesting. It was a lot of fun and I'd go again but NFL its not. Ashlyn, McKenzie and Brady did the Leprechaun Lap at the Shamrock run. Steph and I chased after the three of them. It was a lof of fun and though the kids had to do a lot of waiting around they had a great time and they got a free t-shirt. Definitely something I'd do again if she wants to.

Last week we took Ashlyn for "Kindergarten Round-up" at the grade school. How did this happen? If I could stop time, I would! Our big girl is excited for school but is still thinking her friends from WeeCare will be going to the same school with her. I'm hoping she will adjust easily and the round-up gave her a chance to meet some new kids. Corbett has a 4-day school week. The class hours per day is a bit longer, but they don't go on Fridays. If there is a Monday holiday, then they go on Friday. Ashlyn should have no problem because she's used to being in daycare. I'm going to have to change my hours when she starts school though. I have LOVED working 4-10's and having that one week day off. Ashlyn and I get some one on one time and I'm able to do so many things that would have to be done on the weekends otherwise. BUT going back to 5-8's will work better with Ashlyn's school schedule.

We celebrated Jered's birthday this last weekend. We had such a good time! We had reservations at Grand Lodge in Forest Grove Saturday night and we managed to get 12 new stamps on our passports.We drank some wine, we ate some good food, we soaked in the soaking pool. It was just nice to have a weekend to ourselves. Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma G for keeping Ashlyn over night. She had a blast! They made rice krispy treats with frosting and sprinkles and a birthday cake for Jered.

We checked out Grandpa's green house when we were there yesterday afternoon and OMG! It is overflowing! There's tomatoes and onions and peppers and flowers and baskets oh my! Grandpa is going to give us some tomato and pepper plants to plant in my garden. I'm so excited! Hopefully Jered and I can get the garden spot cleared out this weekend.

A few pics from our lunch date to Hood River a few weekends ago:

 I love this sweet face <3 p="">

 looking too cool for school in Daddy's sunglasses

We found this cheese at Costco, she was pretty excited! :)

House and Fun

We have been working on our house little by little. Working full time and trying to do home projects makes it hard to get things done. Slowly but surely we will get things finished though. We finished painting the kitchen the other night and I love it! It looks great! We had our new carpets put in a few weeks ago and it makes such a huge difference! So much cleaner and the color is more suited to our tastes. Downstairs in the theater room there is not one inch left of anything even remotely related to the Blazers! The red trim and doors are gone gone gone! The dark blue color we picked looks awesome. I painted the bookcases and the doors back to white and now we just need to put up all the trim. At first we thought we'd do white trim, but I have found that I greatly dislike white trim! It shows everything, ugh! We have two dogs, two big shedding black dogs. Black dogs and white trim? Not a good match. So we're going to go with a stained wood trim instead. Most of the upstairs is stained wood trim and its so much better than the white. 

We haven't done much to the outside because we have been having a lot of WIND! Apparently this has been an unusually super windy winter. Welcome to Corbett! :) There is not much point in doing too much yard work when all it takes is one windy night and the yards are covered in leaves and limbs. So far I haven't minded the wind too much but the other morning as we were leaving for work, I looked up at the trees and boy were they swaying! I crossed my fingers and prayed we wouldn't come home to a tree on our house! We were safe, those trees have been there for many years and not come down yet, at least that's what I always tell myself.

Here's what else we've been up to:

I chaperoned Ashlyn's class trip to OMSI earlier this month. This is her class singing space songs while waiting to go into the Planetarium. We watched Perfect Little Planet. It was pretty cute but boy did I get dizzy and nauseous. It didn't seem to bother any of the kiddos though. It was a lot of fun and Ashlyn was super excited I was able to go with her and her class. I have to say a big Thank You! to my friend Jason for covering me at work so I could.

 Nice night for a campfire and campfire = marshmallows!

Ashlyn's friend Gemma from school had her birthday party at Mt Hood Ski Bowl and the kids all got to go tubing. I wasn't able to go but both Jered and Ashlyn had a blast! Ashlyn's ready to go back asap!

 Making silly faces

My brother's wrestling team. That's him standing front left. Jered and I love to go and support him and his team. Ashlyn loves it too. She gets really excited when we tell her we're going to a tournament. They have been doing really great these last few years and this has been the best year yet. District Champs, Dual-meet Champs, 11 kids going to state (the most ever) and 8 of those took first at the District meet. Plus Keith was named Coach of the Year for the third straight year. Monroe Wrestling is a real Ballard family affair. Two of the assistant coaches are my cousins, two of my other cousins have run the little kids program for the last 8 years or so and help out coaching the high school kids as well. My cousin's wife calls them the "Wrestling Mafia" :) There are always a handful of my cousins on the team as well. The State tournament starts tomorrow. We've purchased our tickets, we are ready!