day two hundred forty-three: happy birthday to me!

Sushi for lunch, Nostrana for dinner, homemade chocolate mousse cake (courtesy of my mom & the kids) for dessert. Excuse me while I slip into a food-induced coma now. My definition of a good day.

(not 6 candles, rather 3 and 3)

day two hundred forty-two: back-to-school haircut time!

day two hundred forty-one: carrots

day two hundred forty: subtle shadow

day two hundred thirty-nine: how you know you're in the right spot

day two hundred thirty-eight: dive

day two hundred thirty-seven: summer can end now

Our summer-long quest has come to an end: we have seen a license plate from every state in the union. Plus several Canadian provinces and Mexico.

day two hundred thirty-six: stars & stripes

day two hundred thirty-five: one last peek before heading home

day two hundred thirty-four: mother/daughter book club beach retreat

Whew, that's a mouthful! Avery & I had the pleasure of joining the rest of our mother/daughter book club for the first day of the beach retreat (sad when you can't find time to fully retreat, isn't it?). The weather was phenomenal and the girls had a blast playing in the waves at sunset.

day two hundred thirty-three: camp

I have no idea why I love this picture so much.

day two hundred thirty-two: sushi!

All in one bite!

day two hundred thirty-one: hives?

Any doctors in this house who might know what this rash on Cayden's cheek is? If it had been Monday or Tuesday, I would have guessed some kind of heat rash... but it was relatively cool today. He's been using the same sunscreen all week too, so I'm not thinking it's a reaction to that.

day two hundred thirty: rays

day two hundred twenty-nine: soccer camp

Cayden's at a soccer day camp this week, just in time for the biggest heat wave of the year so far. I'd feel bad if he wasn't having so much fun. Toady they had a huge industrial-size slip & slide down the hill at the park.

day two hundred twenty-eight: chinese garden

day two hundred twenty-seven: miserably sad, miserably hot little sis

day two hundred twenty-six: "daddy...," by josie

"...but not my Daddy. Someone else's Daddy."

day two hundred twenty-five: perseid meteor shower

When we heard there was going to be a meteor shower while we were in Sunriver, I knew I'd have to drag Avery & Cayden out of bed at 2 am to take a look. Cayden walked out onto the deck, looked around (not up, mind you) for a second and said, "this is boring, I'm going back to bed." Avery, on the other hand, could have sat out there all night. She chatted my ear off (and then some) about this, that and the other until she finally saw a shooting star and I sent her back to bed. I spotted a few of the meteors as well, but it looks like we missed the peak by a couple of hours.

I took the above photo with a whopping 30-second shutter speed, in an effort to catch some sort of movement. If you look closely, you can see some streaks across the sky, but not quite the stunning shot that I was going for. Oh well, there's always next August.

day two hundred twenty-four: can't this vacation last forever?

Josie was out cold at 6:54 pm.

Avery & Cayden were thrilled to watch Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune and Wipeout (yep, count 'em up... that's TWO HOURS of tv, consecutively).

I could seriously get used to this.

day two hundred twenty-three: up a tree

Enjoying some much (much, much) needed downtime in Sunriver.

day two hundred twenty-two: josie and zinnia

My kids are totally smitten with their new cousin. So much so, in fact, that I'm thinking I might have to sneak in a visit by myself sometime so I can actually have a chance to hold her!

day two hundred twenty-one: housesitting

Avery's been housesitting for some friends of ours for the past few weeks. Watering plants, gathering mail, turning random lights on and off each day, normal stuff. It never fails to amaze me that people will ask us to take care of their plants for them (clearly they don't know us very well).

Lo and behold, look what we found this evening! Signs of plant life!

day two hundred twenty: bear, retro-style

day two hundred nineteen: multi-multi-cultural

I tried to get a better picture of this sign, but they turned the light off before I had a chance. I'm hoping they just happened to be closing.

day two hundred eighteen: bunches o' bees

Every morning & evening, we notice this whole gaggle of bees on one of the plants in our yard strip. They're always on the same plant, on the same stem, and appear to be either sleeping or dead. Since they disappear each day and return each night, we've ruled out dead. Beyond that, we're stumped.

This picture kind of freaks me out. Apologies if it does the same to you.

day two hundred seventeen: are you looking at me?

day two hundred sixteen: day one

Nine pounds, ten ounces of beautiful chunky baby goodness.

day two hundred fifteen: fire engine red

day two hundred fourteen: wish i could bottle it up

(The Daily Shoot, assignment # 260.)

day two hundred thirteen: homeward bound