The last few weeks

This is a random rundown of happenings in the Porter home over the last few weeks.

Vancouver Springtime

 The weather has been nice - occasional rainstorms which don't last forever and are followed up by some magnificent rainbows.

Aubrey's new morning routine

Aubrey has decided that she wants to exercise at 6 am to help re-set her sleep schedule in preparation for early morning Seminary next year.  She has also decided that she kind of likes running. She found an app which guides her through run/walk intervals until she is jogging for the entire time. Most of the time she goes with her friend Laura, but sometimes she and I go around the neighborhood in the morning after I get Dan and Bailey off to Seminary. However, my bad knees don't let me run so I walk while she jogs around me in circles. Luckily, my long legs help me walk almost as fast as a slow jog!

Done with AP Tests - woot woot!

Two weeks ago Bailey took her last (of four) AP tests!  She feels like all the tests went pretty well. In other academic news, she was recognized for being on the Honor Roll again.  To celebrate the end of the big tests, as soon as she walked out of her last test at 11:30 a.m. we took off to celebrate.  First stop, Panera for lunch. We sat outside to really enjoy the 80 degree day.

Then we were off to Portland's famous and uber-trendy ice cream shop, Salt & Straw. They have the most unusual flavors and delicious ice cream! We lucked out and didn't wait for service, but many times people wait for over an hour.

We sampled quite a few of these flavors after settling on scoops of Honey Lavender and Rhubarb Crumble with  Toasted Anise (for me) and Almond Brittle with Salted Ganache and Cinnamon Snickerdoodle (Bailey).

Gardening Fever

For the last 3 or 4 weeks I have spent every free moment gardening. The weather has been beautiful and the flowers and plants in the garden centers are simply irresistible to me.  Planting flowers and veggies always feels like to me like the embodiment of hope. Every May I succumb to the vision of possible beauty and I am wooed by the promises of blooms on flower tags. I feel giddy as I try out a new variety and new combinations in areas of the yard. I wish I could say that I'm as good at follow-through for the rest of the summer as I am with enthusiasm in May.  Once summer hits there are so many fun places to go and things to do that my plants get somewhat neglected, but the hardiest of the bunch still make it through.

My trunk looked like this after just about every trip to the store. (In fact, this trunk kind of sums up the last few weeks with few words. Lots of flowers, a few groceries, and football and soccer balls mixed inbetween.

This year Bailey's AP Environmental class has ignited her interest in gardening, healthy eating, and being environmentally conscious. She scrutinizes every label on food we buy and eats more fruits and veggies a day than any kid I have ever met. She helped me plant our herb pot and garden as part of a project for that class on planting, buying, and preparing locally grown produce.

Sisterly Love

Bailey has a lifelong habit of pinching Aubrey's cheeks and cooing at her. Aubrey tolerates it.

Dan the DeeJay 

Dan reprised his role as the coolest deejay in Vancouver with a performance at our Stake's Dance in May. He was up on the stage with all his paraphrenalia, including the big screen and projector with which he showed some funny video clips and played Just Dance songs on the Wii. The large crowd of kids (including Bailey, Aubrey, and two of Aubrey's friends from school) all seemed to have a great time!

Football and baby watching

It's always fun to watch Joseph play flag football or soccer. He is on a flag football team this spring with two of his best buddies. It has been a good experience for them to learn the sport. Who knew that football was so complicated? It always looked pretty simple to me. Players tackle eachother and someone grabs the ball and runs until he, too, is tackled. It turns out there are things called plays and there is a lot of strategy involved.

Bailey and Aubrey are especially entertained at the games when they can hold the coach's 1 year old daughter Tilly. Tilly has five siblings, the oldest of whom is 7 years old. The youngest is a newborn baby brother. Her amazing pioneer-stock mother goes to almost every game and practice (including the one which was 4 days after she gave birth) with the newborn in a front pack, Tilly in a backpack, and holding the 2 year old's hand. Wow. Makes me tired just talking about it.

Absentminded or losing my mind?

On one particularly busy day I was running around like a crazy woman all day and misplaced both pairs of sunglasses. Finally, after running into several stores I looked in my mirror and found them . . . .

Not sure why I'm including this, except that it makes me smile

Joseph and Alex have been best friends since they were 2, and we are always so happy to have him and his brothers hang out with us.  Mason is the cutest redhead I know.

Third annual Bailey Birthday Shopping Day

Once again, this year Bailey chose to spend a day shopping with me so she could pick out gifts for her birthday. Now that the girls mostly like clothes for their birthdays, it's impossible for me to pick out the clothes without them in attendance.

This year we started the Saturday at the Vancouver Farmers Market so Bailey could pick up some locally grown produce for her AP Environ. Science class. It was delightful and oh-so-Northwestern.  Look at the descriptions on these signs:

We live in a very health- and environmentally-conscious corner of the world!  I especially like where it says "organic, raw, alive, loved."  Hee hee.

While there we discovered that Hood Strawberries were ripe!  What - you mean you have never tried Hood Strawberries??  They have a really soft texture, taste like pure sunshine and literally explode with flavor in your mouth. Nothing like any of the strawberries you can buy in the store.  They are only ripe for two weeks a year and are in great demand.  So what did we do when we saw them at the Farmer's Market?  Yep, we bought a whole delectable flat.

The only problem? We were on our way to Portland to shop all day, which would leave our precious strawberries in a warm car. It was quite a problem. We had a few ice packs and a small cooler, so we put as many strawberries as possible in the cooler and ran back to the car about every 20 minutes during our shopping trip to check on our "babies" and let some cool air into the car.  I'm happy to report that most of the strawberries made it through unscathed and were happily consumed by the Porter family.

Here Bailey is carrying our awesome organic finds at the market.

Next we were off to Hillsboro to go to Charming Charlie, the super fun jewelry and accessory store. Bailey found a necklace I dared her to buy (she didn't): "Single . . . Ready to Mingle"

Later, at Ross, she also found a giraffe shirt which she thought was very appropriate because of her height. Nope, didn't buy that one either.

And I had a "told you so" moment when we saw overalls in literally every store. I still have a pair of overalls from the last time they were in still (circa 2001).  I told Bailey that eventually they would come back in style. She swore they wouldn't.  Ha!

For lunch we got burritos at Qdobas and later we got Jamba Juice smoothies. Bailey, my very health conscious girl, chose two very healthy green drinks (filled with kale, greek yogurt, chia seeds, etc).

But we had to follow up all that healthiness with some Dulce de Leche cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory - pure scrumptiousness!

We had a fantastic day being together. We looked at lots and lots of stores and were able to find Bailey a skirt, a dress, a sweater, a few shirts, and some jewelry and accessories. It was a great beginning to her birthday celebration!

And finally, a few more things I've been up to

Mostly, between doing kid stuff, keeping up the house stuff, and gardening stuff, I've been working hard on wedding stuff.  I have a long to-do list for the wedding and it will be very busy for the next month, but things are falling into place. 

In addition, here a few iphone shots of other things I did.  Yesterday I met my friend Rachel at a Portland food cart pod. It was fun to visit and always so fun to try the fabulous food from Portland's eclectic and unique food carts.

I also played DIY-er and helped two friends prepare their houses to sell. I painted the front door at one house and helped the other friend spackle holes in the wall and replace the screen in their patio screen door. We were pretty proud of ourselves for this do-it-yourself wizardry.  It was so easy and the screen looks good as new!

And now, off to a long list of Saturday commitments and projects!