BBQ

Camping

Posted by Lisa Eirene

We were supposed to go camping at the beginning of summer. I don’t know how it is in your neck of the woods, but here in the NW you book your campgrounds/yurts/cabins 9 months in advance. That’s the window. It’s always a crap shoot. Like, will the weather be good “this weekend” in 9 months? Who knows! Last summer we had a bunch of camping weekends booked and then we sold our house, bought a new house and were moving. I remember we were camping in Eastern Oregon this time last year when we got the phone call from our realtor that our old house had closed!

How could we predict a global pandemic would cancel our camping plans for this year?!

Anyways. I was bummed. I had booked a super awesome cabin at Fort Stevens near Astoria, OR. I went there a bunch of times with my family when I was a kid. I remember it being very fun and cool and my brother and I would just take off riding our bikes on the trails. And there’s a shipwreck on the beach. It’s a cool place. I was so excited to take Logan! Needless to say, huge disappointment when it closed at the beginning of this pandemic.

As campgrounds started opening up in July on a limited basis, and reservations were now 2 weeks in advance only, I thought maybe we could do something. But it wasn’t in the cards. Michael got a new job (which is good) but there was no vacation time. Then Stevie got sick and until this weekend he’s been on a lot medications and I didn’t want to leave him.

Well, we decided to camp in our backyard!

We kept it a secret and then when Logan got up from his nap Saturday afternoon the boys started putting up the tent!

Logan was OVER THE MOON! He was so excited. And you know what? It was good to be outside. He had a lot of screen time when this pandemic started and it was nice to just get outside for many many hours.

He played outside with his toys. We listened to music and had hot dogs for dinner! Plus the most amazing hummus I’ve ever had that we bought that morning at the local farmer’s market.

Logan was so excited about camping he said “let’s go to sleep now!” When it was still light out. LOL We explained we had to wait until dark and that meant he got to stay up past his bedtime.

One thing missing from our campout was a fire pit and s’mores. I’ve wanted a fire pit in our yard for 10+ years. We still haven’t gotten one, hopefully soon! Instead we had yummy popsicles (Logan’s first). And we did some music:

It was finally getting dark. Logan was so excited he went inside and put his PJs on all by himself. He was ready!

We tried to get Bella to go in tent with us (she’s camped with us before) but she didn’t want to do it this time. So she went back in the house with the cats. πŸ˜‰

Camping was a blast. Logan said he wants to do it every day now. hahaha. I’m thinking we’ll do it again before summer is over. Maybe Labor Day weekend! And hopefully we’ll have our fire pit by then.

Weekend

Posted by Lisa Eirene

I took it easy for a few days after my cortisone injection in my knee. Thursday afternoon it started to swell a bit and it was hard to walk or bend my knee. I went home early and iced my knee. Thankfully I could work from home on Friday and I spent the day on the couch with my laptop and an ice pack. After that it was a lot better!

Saturday I wasn’t able to do cardio or lower body workouts yet but I did go to the gym and do an upper body weight workout and ab workout. It felt nice to be able to do something after a few days off.

I went to see the Downton Abbey movie with a friend and it was really good! Granny is the best character :). The movie was good and I felt satisfied with the ending and how they kind of wrapped things up. It was funny, too. Loved it!


I sure do miss that TV show!

After the movie I came home and we had some friends over for dinner. Michael smoked a chicken. We had some steamed broccoli with it and they brought fresh sourdough from the bakery our friend works at it. It was all so good!

Sunday I was able to go swimming. I took it easy with my knee. My doctor had said that I could swim on Sunday and it should be fine (after two days of rest). But I still wanted to be careful. So I alternated between swimming with my buoy a lot more than I usually do (to rest my knees) and then swimming normally kicking my legs. I was pleased there was no discomfort but glad I took it easy still.

After Logan’s nap, we went to Liepold Farms in Boring, Oregon to go to the pumpkin patch.

I was happy our friends could join us, too. It was a lot more fun with friends! I was surprised at how crowded it was, especially for a Sunday afternoon. Last year when Logan and I went it wasn’t very crowded. But this time there were long lines. Oh well, the kids still had fun.

They played in the kids area, ran around, we got mini donuts to share, they went on the carousel. We went for a hayride and then picked out pumpkins. The pumpkins were reasonably priced too!

We had a blast! But man, I was pretty tired by Sunday night.