Linda, George and the perfect night

My mom's cousins, Linda and George, stopped by on Sunday night for a quick overnight.   George is a pilot, so they landed their little Cessna at the airport here in Walla Walla.  A quick, "we've landed!" call and off I go to pick them up.  The airport is about 7 minutes from the house.  In the we've landed call they asked what kind of car I drove because they had a lot of stuff.  I wondered to myself what they could have that was so big for just staying overnight.

When I got to the plane...WOW!  VEGGIES.  67 ears of corn, 3 boxes of tomatoes, and 2 gallons of green beans.  Plus their luggage and best of all George's accordion.  Home we went with a car full of veggies.  We processed and ate at least 47 ears of corn in the last 2 days. YUM.  Lot's went in the freezer for winter soups and lot's went to our bellies!

Sunday Dinner = locavore feast
Grilled Zucchini and Summer Squash (From our garden)
Garlic, Sesame, Ginger Green Beans (Beans from Linda and George's Garden and Garlic from our garden in Tennessee, harvested before we left)
Salt Potatoes (From Welcome Table Farm)
Cucumber, Tomato Basil Salad (From our garden and Welcome Table Farm)
Grilled Corn (From Linda and George's Garden)

Dessert
Blueberry Peach Crisp (Blueberries picked at local U-Pick farm, Peaches from an orchard that comes to the farmer's market each week from about 1 hour away)
Homemade Ice Cream (From local milk and cream)

Here is the dinner scene with George playing accordion in the background.  We spent a lovely afternoon cooking together in the kitchen enjoying the garden bounty.  After an amazing summer meal, George pulled out his accordion and serenaded us for the next 3 hours while we ate dessert, cleaned up the kitchen and put the boys to bed.  I felt like I was taken to a little french alps farm for the evening. 

This morning we got up and sent the boys to school.  Stuart had worked all weekend so he took the morning off and did a downtown walk with Linda, George, and I.  We stopped at the Walla Walla Bread Company for second breakfast of croissants and bread pudding.  Getting back to the house around 9:30 we loaded up the car and headed for the airplane.  Off they went, headed up to Couer d' Alane, ID to visit with some more cousins.  


Here we are in the bakery.

Here we are stopped on our walk to look at a cool way of using old wine barrel stays as a wall/bar.  Plus our reflection in the mirror behind the counter made a neat picture.

Grandma, Grandpa and Soccer

 Off to the game.  Soccer season has started and if I had any hesitation about being labeled a "soccer mom"  I think that I better throw those out because the league here is all about soccer momming.  And it is full on.  So, we are fully embracing the experience.   Wren is playing in the U12 league and having a great time.  He is playing with full enthusiasm for the game as well as during practice. My Mom and Peter arrived on Friday to stay for a long weekend and have been enjoying getting to know Walla Walla.  We enjoyed watching the soccer game while sitting in the shade of a little tree visiting.  Lovely morning.  After the game we headed down to the farmer's market to pick up some veggies.  Lots of yummy farmer's dinners this weekend. 

"OP" Potluck

We hosted our first "OP" Potluck tonight with outstanding results.  We served Dutch Oven Scalloped Potatoes, Lemonade, Chocolate Zucchini Cake and of course, Homemade Ice Cream.  YUM.  Stuart invited all the student trip leaders from the Outdoor Program.  Twenty student leaders came and brought wonderful dishes ranging from yummy salads, grains, appetizers, and some sweet desserts.  Here are a few shots from the evening. 

Pre-Dinner activity while the ice cream was being cranked:

The energy level of college students is particularly wonderful.  One of the students, Claire, had challenged the boys to a light saber duel a few weeks ago.  As the back porch filled up with students, Dakota came out feeling a little shy.  Claire piped up, in an effort to bring him out of his shell,  "Hey what about our light saber battle?"  Well, Dakota jumped out of my arms just as quick as he could and went running for the light sabers...that turned into an epic battle with as many as 10 students at any one time running around the back yard creating magical energy for the boys.  There were magical healing soccer balls, magical nets, multiple swords and light sabers, magical healing watermelon and much much much more.   It was a beautiful thing. 

County Fair

In a rural county you find funny traditions.  So on labor day weekend, we have a GIANT county fair.  Demolition Derby, Rodeo, 3 hour parade with over 120 entries, carnival, 10 barns full of prize winning animals, and another large building with the prize winning vegetables...the complete works when it comes to county fairs.  But the funny tradition part is that the Walla Walla Public Schools closes school on Friday of the fair weekend for Kid's Day at the Fair.  Kid's Day at the fair is fabulous if you are looking for the real deal county fair, which we were. 

We did not partake in all of the events because many were sold out!  The Demolition Derby which the whole family really wanted to go see is especially hard to get tickets at the gate when you show up.  So we missed it.  Not next year...we are already planning on buying tickets early.

But Friday at the fair was great!   We spent most of our time in the animal barns just looking at, petting and being close to all the animals.  Then it was off to the carnival where we spent lots of our time waiting in line for really fun rides.  I was sucked in to riding one with the boys and of course felt sick for a while afterwards.  Silly me just had to try one.  I was doing fine when it was going forward but when it went backwards that was the end for me.  After all our tickets were gone, we ended our  day with some carmel kettle corn and cotton candy and headed for home!

Here are some of the photos from the day.

Watching horse and rider participate in skills contest.

Playing in a pool of wheat.  Yes a whole pool!

More Wheat Play!

Dakota working on his lasso technique.

Got it!

In the animal barn.

With the Goats!

Tractor demolition derby!

Pony rides!

Carnival!

Harvesting at West End Farm

Friday was set to be a fabulous day.  No school which I will explain further in the next post.  To start the morning (because the fair does not open until 11 am), we headed down to West End Farm.  A small farm run by recently graduated college students investigating their path's in life and feeling a need to get a connection to agriculture.  The farm is owned by a Whitman staff who also hosts the Organic Garden on campus.  Jessie and Sarah, 2 of the folks on the farm had invited us over for a wonderful farm dinner earlier in the week and we decided to come back for harvest day.  

Wren is in love with chickens.  We have nick-named him the chicken whisperer.  He would have spent our whole time in the chicken coop catching, petting and just watching the chickens.  Dakota also liked being in the chicken coop but had a harder time understanding the rules about which doors needed to stay closed all the way.  I asked Alice, one of the farmers, if it was okay if the boys just hung out in the coop because I was worried that they were harassing the chickens but she said that it was good for the chickens to get socialized to people and she was happy to have them in there chasing and catching them.

About 20 minutes into the coop time, one of the doors got pushed open by a lot of chicken flapping and about 15 teen-ager chickens got into the adult pen.  We had a great time catching them all and putting them back in their pen.  Compete silly chaos.  Super fun!  Heidi's secret: I really like chickens too.  I just have to build the coop in the back yard, order some chicks and convince Stuart that we should have some. 

We were there to help with the harvest and chicken coop time was fun but time for some work.  Here we are picking tomatoes.  In Walla Walla, you can grow tomatoes like a ground vine because it is so dry they don't mold.  It is amazing just stick them in the ground and let them go.  Harvesting is like a treasure hunt because the vines grow all over the ground like a big giant mess.  I also learned that tomatoes sometimes produce more if they are distressed during the growing process so "be rough" not gentle. We just picked up the whole big mess of vines and throw it over to find the tomatoes underneath.

These next two photos are taken by Dakota.  Sweet Dakota.  Harvesting for him really was just about being on the farm enjoying the freedom and fun of being there.

Next we headed down to pick green and purple beans and then potatoes.  The beans were beautiful, especially the purple ones.  But potatoes are fun!  It really is like a giant treasure hunt when you are digging for potatoes.  There is just this big mound of dirt and you stick your hand in the dirt wiggle your fingers through the until you feel something round and then dig some more until you reveal your treasures.  And when you are digging for ruby red russets you really feel like you have found rubies when you are pull one out of the dirt.   Sorry no pictures of the potato harvest as it was too fun to stop and remember to take photos.  Here are the potatoes we received in trade for our hard work.

Lovely morning!  Home for lunch and then the FAIR! (See the next post!)

Kayak Touring on the Palouse River

 Last weekend, we had an amazing overnight adventure.  We loaded up 2 tandem sea kayaks.  Headed north to the Palouse River.  We unloaded the boats and packed them full of our gear.  Then with a parent in back and a son in front, we headed upstream.  The Palouse River is part of a "lake" sitting behind a dam.  This allows for easy travel with little to no current in either direction.  The temperatures were very hot, probably 95 degrees.  But the slight breeze, the cool water, and the shade offered by the steep cliffs made for a lovely afternoon of paddling.  We moved at a nice pace moving about 3 1/2 miles upstream in about 3 hours.  We of course stopped for some lunch, chased fish, gathered floating sticks and rescuing drowning dragonflies along the way.  Below you will see some of our favorite images from the weekend with some explanatory captions.  We did not have the camera out until we got to our campsite in the evening of the first day.


Here is Stuart returning from scouting for our camp.  

Dakota and Wren spent the time while Stuart was scouting for camp, finding endless forts, sticks (swords, guns and bows) and enjoying using their imagination for extended camp play.

Stuart and Heidi (really Stuart) were determined to try a tandem role in one of the kayaks.  We were amazingly successful when we had a plan!  So we did that twice... Then we tried pretending that we did not have a plan and Heidi swam after 2 tries.  But that left Stuart in to role the boat by himself.  So success all around because Heidi could easily have just hoisted herself back in.

Here is Heidi drying off after swimming out of the kayak.  It stayed hot until very late in the evening so it was easy to dry off. 

As the sun sets, we made dinner of yummy tortellini and pesto and set up camp under the stars.  This was Dakota's first time to sleep out with no tent.  He really enjoyed seeing the stars as he fell asleep.
It did finally get cold and so in the morning we were happy to have hot chocolate.  Here is Dakota enjoying his morning hot chocolate as the sun rises on the cliffs behind.

  Here the Stuart and Wren are relaxing in the kitchen.  Altogether spectacular.

Here is the morning sun rising on the cliffs behind our wondrous boats.

The boys really wanted some bows and arrows.  So, we made them from some sticks and cord found in camp.  These bows and arrows occupied the boys all morning as we packed up the camp and the boats.  Practicing Leave No Trace (LNT), we did not take them with us but rather broke them down, left the sticks and packed out the "trash" (i.e. the cord).  The boys are learning a ton about being great LNT campers.  If you are really interested, ask us about Blue Poop Bags. 

Wren really enjoyed learning about kayaking and paddling with his dad.

Dakota and Mom really enjoyed exploring and making up so many wonderful stories.  Often the stories were based on our guesses on what was floating in the water up ahead.  (Could be hippo, alligator, stick, fish, dragonfly...who knows?)  Here Wren jumps off a cliff into the water.

Altogether a wonderful trip.  Something that would be fun for ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE TO VISIT and go overnight camping.  After paddling back to the car, we unloaded, and headed up to see the Palouse Falls, a 180 ft. waterfall just a mile or so upstream of where we paddled but needed to drive around in order to get a chance to see it.  Next time we will try to stay 2 nights and day hike up to the falls on the middle day.   FUN FOR ALL !!!!!

Dakota Goes to School

Dakota goes to Kid's Place on Monday, Thursday and Friday mornings.  He is "falling into friends" with a few kids there each day and really enjoying his time.  Though it is hard to get him to leave in the morning, when I pick him up at 12:45 he is never ready to leave.

Method of Transport for Dakota to and from school:

Stuart hooks up the trailer and takes Dakota to school.  I go down to Kid's Place, pick up Dakota and the trailer.  Lucky for us Stuart's work and Kid's Place are right next door so the transition is pretty easy. 

Here is Dakota's Sweet Ride!