Week One: Adventures Around Town and Emigrant Park

Ever since we've moved to Pendleton, just about every day has been a fun-filled adventure for us and especially for our kids.  We have been taking them around to all these wonderful places and they have been getting a great introduction to life in a rural community.

Peter started working last week at his new job at Pendleton Family Medicine.  That whole week, I took the kids for a long walk every morning so they could explore the neighborhood and play in the nearby parks.  We visited the Children's Museum on Tuesday (free admission on Tuesdays!) and I took Solomon to the Aquatic Center on Wednesday while Micah was taking a nap (it's SO GREAT to have grandparents around to watch my kids!).  It only cost $7.50 for both me and Solomon to get in, and Micah would have gotten in for free.  I am amazed at how many cheap things there are to do with kids around here!

Friday was our 11th wedding anniversary, so Peter and I went out to the Hamley Steakhouse for a special dinner.  It was, by far, the best meal I have had in years.  I can't even put into words how great it was.  Steak.  Potatoes.  Green beans that tasted alternately of butter and bacon.  Oh. My. Goodness.

Here I am, all gussied up for our anniversary date.

On Saturday, we decided to take the kids "to the mountains."  We had told them that we now lived close to several mountains, and they were very excited to go there.  So we headed up to Emigrant Springs Park on Cabbage Hill in the Blue Mountains.  And oh my, did we have fun!

It was such a great feeling to set my boys loose in a wild area (okay, the area is pretty tame by Eastern Oregon standards, but these are very small children we're talking about here).  They played in the dirt, threw rocks and pinecones, ate wild huckleberries, looked for animal tracks and wildflowers, and just generally did all the things you'd want a boy to do outdoors.

Those are my kids, frolicking in the woods.  This picture makes my heart happy.

We encountered a lady riding horseback on the trails up there.  Having lived in Salem for the last ten years, I was expecting her to just kind of smile at us and go on her way.  I had forgotten that when you're in a sparsely populated area, encountering another human being is kind of a special occurrence.  She called hello to us, stopped, and asked if we would like to meet her horse.  Did we ever!  The horse, whose name was Keno, was very gentle and well-behaved, and the lady, whose name was Bev, invited the boys to sit up in the saddle with her.

Here are Solomon, Bev, and Micah.  Unfortunately, I cut Keno's head off in this picture.  You'll just have to take my word that she was a very nice-looking horse.

Now, if we had been in Salem and a complete stranger had ridden up on a horse and asked me if I wanted to put my kids up there with her, I would have declined, thank you very much.  But somehow, I had no fears about this lady's intentions.  We chatted with her for a few minutes, and it turned out that we kind of knew each other (we at least recognized each other's names, which is common in a small town).

After we had explored the trails for a while, we stopped in a meadow and ate a picnic lunch.  We found a bunch of huckleberries that were ripe enough to eat, and we dined hugely upon them (Micah especially).

Here are the guys, foraging like bears.

Micah displays a choice huckleberry.

Micah, puttin' em down like a MAN.

Our picnic lunch consisted of turkey sandwiches, chips, grapes, yogurt, and mint Oreos.

We added huckleberries to our very appropriately named "Northwest Berry Patch" yogurt.

After our picnic, as we were headed back to the car, Micah spontaneously said to me, "Thank you Mommy for taking me to the mountains!"  That made my heart just about explode with happiness.