Summer Salem

At the end of August we headed down to Salem for a couple days.  Bryan, Sally and Cheryl then went down to Ashland to the Shakespearean Festival and the kids and I hung out with Uncle Andrew when he wasn't working.

Wednesday we took a beautiful "hike".  It was more of a walk through the woods than a hike.  Quite enjoyable.  Since there were several adults to watch the kids, I meandered behind and enjoyed some fun photography time.

Sally's tree roots.

I was so thankful for my long lens with this one.  A lady tried creeping up to the butterfly to get a picture with her camera but the butterfly flew away before she could get close enough.  My long lens let me take the picture from farther away without scaring it off!

Never seen this kind of bug before!  It had a blue body.

Auntie Cheryl got her work out on the walk back carrying Micah who continually said,
" Faster!  I am going to touch ____'s head."  It was a fun joke, but she had to work to catch up to Bryan who used his long legs to his own advantage.  ;)

Thursday Bryan, Cheryl and Sally took off for Ashland, Andrew went to work, and the kids and I headed to Portland to meet up with Alyssa and the kids.  We had never been to their house in Portland and the boys were having a difficult time understanding why they couldn't play with Raymond, Sam and Mathias anymore.  It was good for them to be able to see the distance problem.  After that, Alyssa and the boys came back to Andrew and Cheryl's place to play in the pool for the afternoon.  Let me tell ya, five boys is A LOT of busy fun in a pool!

These two went from not wanting to get off the steps to jumping and swimming on their own.  It was fun to watch their confidence grow.

Note Brandon's red eyes?  Even after two and a half hours of constant swimming and playing and diving he still didn't want to get out of the water.

Little miss Lisa just loves the water!

Part two coming up.