Ju’s blog

How do you justify spending $20 on a glorified bounce house?

Since we’re going to Minnesota for a family reunion we don’t get to go to the Deschutes County Fair, and that’s how I justified it.  But, the boys played for almost two hours on these inflatables and had a great time.  Jim is gone for the annual DOG open golf tournament, so the boys and I headed downtown to Munch-N-Music last night.  We got there early and that’s when they got full use of their unlimited pass.  They were hot and tired and we spent an obscene amount of money on drinks, but it was fun.  It was a great night in the park, but I also realized (once again) that Bend is changing.  I didn’t talk to one single person that I knew.  Sure, I saw a few familiar faces, but not one person who I would stop to chat with.  But, we still live in a beautiful place where I felt safe to go downtown by myself with the kids and hang out for two hours.  And we didn’t have to park too far away (side street across the river).  And then we stopped at Goody’s for ice cream on the way home.  So momma’s summer camp continues…today we have a tee time at 11:30 and then we’ll probably be so hot we’ll have to jump in the pool.  Tomorrow we fly to Minnesota and Jim meets us there on Monday.  Minnesota really is like summer camp- boating, swimming, fishing, eating, eating, eating, waterskiing, with Jim’s family at their house on the lake.  I think there will be 21 of us and it will be a great week I’m sure!  This is definately the good kind of family reunion!

Do you know what to do if you have flames in your electric oven?  I am sure I learned it in junior high Home EC, but that was a long time ago.  So when my oven starting flaming the other day, I began to panic and thankfully my husband was home and he says, “Do you have any baking soda?”  Of course it was sitting on the counter, so he just threw a handful of it on the flames and they were extinguished.  I decided that was a good trick to know and to share, so there it is.  Also, if you slow-cook ribs in your oven you might want to clean out the spilled fat before you cook in the oven again.  That’s my tip of the day.

Everytime I type the word Summer I think of a certain friend and it makes me smile. :)  Summer is really flying and lots has happened since my last blog entry.  We’ve had two family birthdays and went on our annual Lake Shasta camping trip.  Jim’s birthday was July 1st, then we spent the fourth doing exactly what we do every year- first we watch the pet parade, then we wander down to the park, then we go home for a couple hours, and then we head to my mom’s for dinner and our own fireworks, and then we watch the fireworks from Pilot Butte (and watch the butte catch on fire).  I love the fourth of July- it’s just a happy day.  This year we also managed to squeeze in some girlfriend time, since our friend from NJ made a surprise trip to Bend.  So a group of us got up at o’dark thirty to have coffee before the pet parade.  Then it was off to Lake Shasta for a week where it was a perfect 95 degrees.  The big news there was that both boys learned to kneeboard.  Then the next day, Jamison was doing one-handed turns on the kneeboard and Jayden completed three 360’s.  I think it took me a couple years to learn how to do a 360.    Jamison has also spent the last couple weeks with his nose buried in Harry Potter books.   He started book one on July 1st, and he is now on book five.  He’s looking forward to getting the new book that comes out on Saturday.  The day after we got home, it was Jamison’s 9th birthday- unbelievable to me that he is that old.   He had his birthday party yesterday, and I think it was a success.  He had three friends come.  It was a rainforest theme and thankfully the threatening thunderstorms never came.  The boys caught bugs and had bug races, went on a bug search in the rainforest (Jim hid rubber bugs/critters in the backyard and then we turned on the sprinklers and slip-n-slide), had a water bucket brigade (they took turns relay-style, filling up a cup from one bucket and transfering the water to another bucket, and we timed them), and then just played and swam in the hot tub.  We also had a pinata, and I decided there are a lot of things not to like about a pinata.  I think from now on, I’ll just give them candy.   I stole some of the ideas from Family Fun magazine- I love that magazine and website.  Anyway, that’s a quick update on what we’ve been doing.    My favorite part about blogging so far is reading the comments, so please comment or send me an e-mail. 

                                                                At the pet parade, my sister, mom & Jayden

                                                          Jamison

                                                              Jim doing what we do at Shasta

                                                      Jamison, Jayden, Libby, Jenny, my Dad

                                                             Bug races.  The spider won.

                                                            Nine years old!

                                                                                                                    My three boys

 Jayden’s 360 (I started taping a little late)

The glory summer continues…