FHE, Valerie's, bikes at the lake!

Ahh, it's been a nice relief to be done with the marathon. Time to turn my attention and efforts to other things. Having the stress of long distance runs off my shoulders makes me feel so much lighter! Now I can focus on getting my knee healthy and running for pleasure and to stay in shape rather than to train for a 26 mile run!

Another beautiful week here in the Northwest! On Monday evening, we met up with the Lenzes and Shattucks at the part to do a combined Family Home Evening lesson. We discussed the Jaredites and how the Lord prepared a way for them to travel across the ocean in the barges without windows. For our activity, we painted smooth stones with glow-in-the-dark paint. It was fun, and of course, a little bit messy when letting the littles do the painting.

FHE at the park

Painting the stones!

This weekend saw more soccer action. It was picture day for the boys, so we all went together at the same time and tried to keep the boys from getting their shorts and shirts dirty before getting their pictures. Logan was really cute and did a nice job smiling for the camera. I should post a picture of the actual prints once I have them in hand. For now, though, here's a pic I snapped of them before game time.

A couple of handsome Holdaway soccer players!

After their games, we decided to celebrate a little as a family and go to breakfast. We had heard that Breakfast at Valerie's over by I-205 was supposed to be really good. Well, if the wait time and number of people on the sign-yourself-in waiting list was any indication, it was going to be a good experience! We sat in the waiting area for probably 30-45 minutes (for breakfast!) before getting called back. There were some auto classified magazines along with this cool Concours d'Elegance poster on the wall. It totally reminded me of Dad and made me want to find a good car show to visit with the boys.

Concours d'Elegance (French for Competition of Elegance)

By the time we sat down, ordered, and then finally got our food, the kids had been sufficiently nutso and wild that we had all switched seats at least once, it seemed. Suzanna and I were a little batty, as you can tell from the pictures below.

Starting to get a little silly while waiting for our food!

I eventually moved to the other side of the table to separate the two funny boys.

What a bunch of colorful shirts!

All the soccer playing and food eating wore us out. Both boys passed out in the car while we drove across the bridge to Jantzen Beach in Portland to pay a quick trip to Children's Place.

Logan with his blanket over his face to block the sun.

Luke catching a cat nap as well.

Later on that day, I told Luke to get his shoes on and get his bike ready so we could go on a little bike ride. He's done so well at riding a bike that I figured he'd do pretty well on the very tame trail by Lacamas Lake. We loaded up and headed down. I told him that we'd ride a mile or two up the trail but to keep in mind that however far we rode up the trail, we'd have to ride back down to the car. I was pleasantly surprised at how enthusiastic and excited he was as he kept on riding til we had gone over three miles up the trail, turning into a total ride of over six miles! That's a long way for a little dude.

Map of Lacamas Lake. We rode along the south west side of the long, skinny lake

Luke on the trail by Lacamas Lake

Part way through the ride Luke yelled to me, "Hey Dad! This is actually really fun! We should do this every morning!" Haha, I had a good laugh out of that and hoped in my heart that he would have a good attitude about it in the future and maybe want to do this often (though probably not every morning!).

Taking a short break for a drink from the water bottle

Here are a few more pictures from the ride.

He wanted to be sure I got a good photo of the scorpion on the side of his helmet

A beautiful day for a ride!

An action shot!

I captured a few videos along the way as well. Some of them came out sideways (probably because I was holding my phone portrait rather than landscape), but at least one of them came out pretty nicely. Here's a link to that video, which is hosted on Vimeo.

msh