Jokes, Tea Parties, and S'more!

As alluded to earlier in the blogosphere, Luis took the kids camping last Monday, just the 3 of them. Not only did I have to work, but camping isn't my top choice for ways to spend my free time so I was more than happy to let them go have the fun without me. So while I was sitting at home, sipping wine and eating pizza, here's what the family was up to.

Here's the campsite the crew stayed at. I should note that aside from the car and the cooler, noting you see in this picture is actually ours. It's a bit of a borrow your way to camping trip. Thanks Junior!

This tent is bigger than houses in many small countries, complete with windows. Note that even the sleeping bags are borrowed. The kids are ours though!
The kids got to experience one of life's biggest pleasures - smores! Turns out Mason wasn't a fan (he doesn't really like chocolate) and Siena just ate the marshmellows.

Fun in the dark with lanterns.

The wild beast!

Technicolor camping.

Saturday the kids did a sleepover at Yaya and Papa Ron's while Luis and I celebrated our anniversary by going out to dinner and catching a comedy show afterward featuring my favorite podcaster Jimmy Pardo! I've been listening to Jimmy's podcast for 4 years and Luis and I went to the live show back in May (as you may remember from the blog). This was my first time seeing him live doing standup though and he was awesome! Plus I got a picture taken with him after. Yup, I was thrilled!

This morning was Fantasy Football draft day at Buffalo Wild Wings. We'll see how we did once the season starts. Our starting lineup looks like this:

QB - Eli Manning

RB - Rashard Mendenhall

RB - Arian Foster

WR - Brandon Marshall

WR - Steve Smith (Giants)

TE - Celek

K - Bironas

D - Dolphins

Our league commissioner Kip is pictured below with the completed draft board. Being a new team to the league, we drafted last so we're the last column on the right - team name: Bonnie and Clyde.

And if that isn't enough excitement for one week, after the draft Mom, Siena and I went to a bi-annual tea party at my dad's cousin Sharon's house. This is th first time we have been able to attend the tea party and we had a great time!

The first thing each guest does upon arrival at the tea party is to choose a hat. This is not as easy as it sounds as Sharon has hundreds to choose from!

Here's mom sampling a crazy blue/green contraption.

There was also my favorite: BAKLAVA! Cousin Sharon's is the BEST!

Group photo in Sharon's yard, with our hats.

Siena enjoyed the food - especially the chocolate covered strawberries.

And the flowers from Sharon's garden that you can eat! I don't remember what they were called but they tasted somewhat minty/peppery. Interesting experience. Yes, I did tell Siena those were the only flowers she could eat.

Sharon has a beautiful garden. Here's just one small sample.

To top things off, there was a pinata! Siena got a few good swipes in...

...and along with the other kids scored plenty of candy which she was kind enough to share with her brother when we got home.

This was a super fun weekend, even though it seemed to fly by too fast!

Run Cruzer Run!

I said we were going to do a lot this weekend but I guess that's not entirely true. The interesting part should be when Luis takes the kids camping for a night next week. I told him he needs to take a lot of pictures. I'm sure there will be stories.

Saturday night we went out to dinner with our friends Chris and Sharon. We met them at Deschutes Brewery downtown. Sharon and I partook in a beer flight in which we got to choose 6 beers to sample in cute little 4 oz increments. My favorite proved to be the Graveyard Stout - bottom left.

Deschutes has very good food, especially for a brewpub. I had a pasta dish with homemade pasta which was incredible. I'll definitely be back for more of that.

Here's Sharon and Chris. Their daughter was at a pajama party at her daycare. Our kids were playing at McDonalds with Jose and Gloria.

I signed up for a challenge at the gym to run 100 miles between 8/16 - 9/24. In that spirit, I ran 11 miles this weekend, 17 on the week. I think I need to average around 20 per week to make this happen but I'll do 3 weekdays next day which should make the numbers work. This is assuming I can drag my rear out of bed to do these runs. As it is now, I'm just hungry all the time.

Hot Town

This weekend represented the once or twice a year hot spell we get in Oregon. Despite good intentions of taking the Waverunner out for some action in the heat, general laziness won out and we stayed in the cool AC instead.

Siena and I went to watch Ramona and Beezus on Saturday. Mason and Luis had little interest in this chick flick but us gals had a good time. Siena liked Ramona because they look a little alike. I enjoyed seeing all of the stories I used to read about as a kid. The Beverly Cleary books were my FAVORITE. Luis and Mason met up with us after and we had a nice dinner at our family's favorite place...Sushiland!

We were equally unexciting on Sunday. I braved the heat with a waterbottle of Gatorade in tow and did my 4.2 mile run. Yes, it was hot.

We went up to Yaya and Papa Rons for dinner last night, and for the kids fun in the wading pool and slip and slide. A good time was had by all.

Apologies for the lack of pictures and wholly uninteresting content. We can't have thrilling adventures EVERY week. We have more on our plate for the next couple of weekends so never fear. More exciting posts will be here.

Tommy D and the Block Party

I went to pick up the kids from Gloria's on Monday, the only thing on my mind what we're going to have for dinner and having a relaxing evening. Life has a way of throwing the unexpected at you once in a while though and that's what happened to us.

Somehow Gloria had come in the possession of a kitten (I never got the full story) and was looking for a home for him. When she asked me if we wanted him, I of course said "NO!" Then I made the mistake of looking at him and petting him. It was all over at that point. We were going to be taking home a new little kitty.

Meet Tommy Dakota Cruz:

He is a little sweetie who loves snuggling, playing, and has been 100% perfect in using his litter box.
Needless to say, the kids adore him. We've had to set some rules and make them take turns. There has also had to be some learning about the proper ways to handle a kitten.

The kids are learning though and Tommy has been a great addition to our family.

Oh yeah, and Mason lost another tooth - hence the whole in his mouth.

Luis made a wonderful German pancake breakfast for us this morning. This one was his best specimen. He took a picture of it.

This afternoon was the annual Fairoaks block party. In prior years, we've been out of town or have had other plans and hadn't been able to attend. Since we didn't have anything going on today, we thought it would be fun to go check it out. We loaded up the wagon with our chairs and headed down the street.

Unbeknownst to us, our street takes its block party very seriously. It started out with a parade, complete with bagpipes. As you can see, decorations and people were a-plenty. So was food and music.

The parade participants were quite festive.

And our neighborhood Elvis was on hand. He performs weekly at the Portland Parks Movies in the Park most Friday nights so I think we're going to try to catch him there in a couple of weeks.

Siena and I participated in the water balloon toss. We didn't win but we did well and advanced several rounds before our little balloon exploded in a wet blaze of glory.

This is the neighborhood map where all party-goers live in the neighborhood. Our sticker is the blue one at the far right...just before the street dead ends.

The kids' favorite part may have been the sidewalk chalk. And the candy.

Mason did a beautiful flower.

We're getting antsy for football season to start but it was still a nice weekend.