Kids versus Parents!

This year Cynfor's soccer team parents felt it would be worth the effort to have a game with the kids. Although the game was all in fun, I think the parents were worse for wear afterwards. One of the parents had been injured on the Monday night trial game, so Friday's game was a couple of parents short.

I attempted to get out, although the other parents did most of the work, we all had a great time. I think if the team stays together - it may become a regular event!

Christmas 2008 House Lights

So, now that Thanksgiving 2008 is over, we have decorated the house for Christmas, which is just around the corner. Below are some pictures of the house after this years effort. We have added a couple of items to the group this year, it does help when the houses are lit up for the spirit.

Cynfor's Soccer Final

What is there to say, other than we watched Cynfor and his team win their tournament. It was amazing to watch. The kids played extremely well, and applied pressure through the whole game. It was a fun filled weekend, and we are all proud of what all the kids did.


Below are some pictures of the day - started cold and foggy, but when the sun came out, turned out to be a lovely morning.


All those early weekend wakeups are all worth it when your team wins!

Getting ready for Halloween

Only two weeks left until Halloween, so we figured it was time for us to ensure that we got into the swing. We already had our pumpkins sitting near the front door, so it was time to get some spooky spiders webs up and happening, just to scare off those who want to trick or treat!

Anyhow - here is our albeit simple attempt at putting up some spiders webs. Cynfor appears to be scared ...

October already?!

Well, another year heading toward the end in a real hurry. We are not quite sure what happened to summer, but it did appear to sneak past in a hurry. Here we are in Autumn, and getting ready for Halloween - again! 

This will be our 3rd Halloween, so we are pretty much aware of what happens now. The kids still enjoy it, as do we getting prepared for it. This weekend just gone, we headed out to the pumpkin patch and got ourselves two nice pumpkins to carve in preparation for the one night where we trick or treat. 

Here are some pictures of our day. 

Some pictures from things that have happened in the past few months...

Unfortunately we have not been too good at making sure we uploaded all our pictures of things we have been doing. So, below are a few pictures of things we have been up to.




We had a BBQ at our house, with friends from Seattle and other friends from Portland. Here are some pictures from that night - which ended up also being a little bit of a surprise for Darren to help celebrate his birthday!




Autumn has arrived here in the pacific northwest, and here is Jessie outside of the school they have Chinese lessons in just showing off the colour. 


This was at Jenny's 40th Birthday Party. The birthday girl and Tara! (Like the tiara?) 

Although the boys did not win their soccer game, they still had a lot of fun eating Pizza and hanging around after the game! GO IRON! 

Our ripened tomatoes.

So, previously we had pictures of our GREEN TOMATOES, but here we have the ripened version, and lots of them. They are very sweet, and full of flavor. Nice job by Kylie planing them with the kids when they were here, and look at them now. Grown from SEED!

Cynfor's 11th Birthday

Cynfor chose to head out to Skyline Restaurant - which is an old American style "burger" Diner. It is something he has wanted to do for a while, but Jessie was not very happy when she heard. Anyhow, we ended up having a great night - even Jessie enjoyed it. Below are the pictures of our food, and check out the Burger's they were 6 inches (13.5cm) big! Huge! They were great, and we definitely enjoyed them. 

Tuesday was Cynfor's actual Birthday - which as you can see below, he was quite spoiled! The gifts came from everyone. He is still very excited about getting his new stuff out so he can play. He has already used his new boots - and looks forward to using his other things!

Check out out plants...

The plants below started from SEED and are now fully grown tomato plants. We are waiting for the fruit to ripen, but they are close. We have had one ripen already, and they are nice and sweet. Hopefully the rest are just as good. With the warmer weather staying a little longer, it has meant that the fruit has begun to ripen more. Sadly because the plants are not in the ideal position for the afternoon sun - they have taken longer than normal. We are looking forward to trying them out. (I think we will have more tomatoes that we will know what to do with!)

The travellers return...

Cynfor and Jessie have returned home safely after a long stay (all Summer) in China. They were both excited to be home, as well as enjoying their while they were away.



Here is a couple of pictures of them (after a shower!)

Showing off the new TV

Our trip to Vegas

Tara and I have just returned from Las Vegas. We left Portland on Monday night August 4th, and returned back to Portland the night of August 9th. We had a great time, and below are the pictures we took.

We stayed at "Treasure Island" which was very central to the things we wanted to do in the strip. We had tickets to both Blue Man Group and Love - the Cirque du Soleil tribute show to the Beatles. Both were amazing shows, and our hotel was next to both of the hotels where the shows were on. (So no need to walk to far in the Las Vegas summer heat! - YES it get's HOT!)

We spent a day at the Grand Canyon and seeing Hoover Dam on the way. This was pretty spectacular, and walked the Sky Walk - which is pretty amazing. Sadly, we were not alowed to take cameras onto the Sky Walk - so we did not get any pictures that we were able to post on the blog. (I will scan the picture that we had taken of us on the walkway though - and post it later.)

We tried our luck on the tables, we won some, and lost some - but all in all we had a great time. Both Tara and I did not want to return to Portland - but sadly all trips must come to an end at some point - and if we had stayed - we would have probably run out of money pretty quickly.

The buffets were amazing - most times we only ate once during the day - we would head out around 10am - 11am, stuff ourselves with the food from the buffets, and never need to eat again that day. Worked out well. The best buffet would have to have been The Wynn, Treasure Island was a close second, and the Mirage a strong third. We had also tried the MGM Grand buffet - but sadly that was not as good as the others.

If we kept eating the way we could for the Buffet we would end up the size of houses. There was A LOT of food. (AND very good selections)

Anyhow - take a look at the pictures.

Out on a Summers Day!

Today we headed out to Hood River to get some fresh cherries, as it is cherry season here now. Sadly the cherries are late this year, but we did get a nice drive in on a day which was around 35C. 

Below are some pictures taken of Mount Hood on the trip, plus some pictures of the flowers in the garden this year. We have been meaning to take pictures, but had not gotten around to it until now. The garden is looking pretty good. We also have several tomato plants that we planted from seed, and hope to have a good number of tomatoes off - so, when they get closer to giving us fruit - we will take more pictures. 

Back from Hawaii...

Well, it has been a great week for us spending time in Hawaii. We were on Oahu, the most common island as part of the grouping of the 8 major islands. There is surprisingly a lot to do there. There is a fantastic Polynesian cultural centre, which was amazing - where we had a Luau, watched a show, and were introduced to six different Polynesian cultures from New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, Hawaii, Fiji and Tahiti.

We arrived back this morning to an overcast Portland morning, after being treated to sunshine for the most part in Hawaii - it was a little depressing. We have also confirmed the kids arrived safely in China - where they will spend their summer with their dad, and Tara's mum arrived safely back in Melbourne albeit delayed by 1 hour because of a delay in Hawaii.

Anyhow, below are some pictures from our trip!

Cynfor and Jessie - Piano Recital

On June 1st, 2008 - Cynfor and Jessie performed at their Piano Recital.

Here is the video of that recital.