Apple Tasting Festival

Last Saturday afternoon we attended Portland Nursery's Apple Tasting Festival. It was so yummy. We were able to taste dozens of different types of apples and pears. Check out the list here.

I had no idea there are that many different types of apples. It was a fun fall activity and it was free. A few weeks earilier we had checked out a book for the kids from the library called "Apples to Oregon" that taked all about how the first apple trees in OR were brought from Iowa on wagons around 1847. It was neat to know the history before we attended the festival. It is definatly apples season around here and I am getting in the apple mood. I had to go to the stand next door to us to get some apples to make some apple pie today!!

Grandma Mackey and Aunt Becca Visit

We loved having Mom and Becca come to visit us during the first weekend in October! Wow can't believe that it is already October. We left to go to Arizona during the summer and came back to fall!! I have always loved this time of year but it is extra beautiful here where the leaves change and you actually have a fall. On the way home from the airport after we picked up Mom and Becca we stopped by Orrin's school to say Hi to him and get a tour. We took a way, the back way up "the hill", that I have never taken before so after a few detours we finally made it. But we got to see lots of the hill that I have never seen before or even knew existed. We watched conference together and went to one of my favorite places the Beaverton Farmers Market.

We loved having them around and being able to spend some good quality time with them. Mom is always so sweet to bring little surprises for the kids that she brought out at different times during her trip. We had to laugh a this toy she brought for Wes. Check out what it says on the package...

can unmp up and can send out the light
see who fly light turning long

1. Please dismantle after unloading hadorwould keep to plastic distance child.
2. Packing need adult take apart. and at adult guide use. The small accessories of the product inside, 3. please not to swallow the food


What??? Too funny!!!

Wes had so much fun playing with Becca and spending time with Grandma. On the day they had to leave he kept saying that he wanted Becca to come and live with us. We had a great time with them. Come back soon!

Our summer trip home to AZ

We were able to go back to AZ during Orrin's summer break. He gets off the end of August through September so really to me an early fall break. We had two weeks to spend down in AZ and we filled it up with so much fun. We mainly spent all our time with our families. We got to meet new babies and were also able to be there for the birth of our newest niece Paige. She is so cute. We ate at our favorite mexican food places that I have been craving for months. I got to take sometime to pamper my self and go get my hair cut. I cut off 8 inches!! I really needed a hair cut. Orrin was able to hike two mountains in AZ in two days - Escudilla & Mt. Baldy. Brad spent the time meeting and feeling more comfortable around all his extended family. Wes had a blast swimming and playing with all is cousins, aunts, and uncles. We are so blessed to have the family we have. We love and miss you guys!

We finally found some sand in Portland!!!

After a few weeks of living here in Portland Wesley asked if we could go to a park that had sand. He loved playing hours ( and I mean hours) in Grandma and Grandpa's sand box. The five different parks that we had been too around our home didn't have any sand. Which didn't bother me much because I am not the biggest fan of sand. But since then I have been looking for a place besides the beach for Wes to play in the sand. We finally found it!! It is called the Piarte Ship Park and is one of the coolest parks I have seen . The play equiment is in the shape of piarte ships and they have a little play area of sand. They also had this little river system that you could turn on to make a river in the sand. Wesley loved it!!! I think I am going to add that to my dream house list for a back yard sand box.

Wesley's First Day of Preschool!!

This was not just Wesley's first day of Preschool but his first day of any type of school. He was so excited he was big enough to go to school! We had visited Valley Christian Preschool back in January to take a tour and Wesley didn't want to leave ( I literally had to pick him up and carry him out). He started at the beginning of September. He loves it. He gets up everyday and asks if it is a preschool day. His teacher is Mrs. Broome and we absolutely love her. She is so good with the kids and so sweet. The classroom looks like so much fun I even want to stay and play. I love everything about this preschool. (thanks tasha for the suggestion)

P.S- I also love that I have a little time to get some things done while he is at preschool too.

Beaverton Ward Campout #2

This was our 2nd time going to the Beaverton 3rd Ward campout so we were really excited! It was forcasted to rain all weekend but, I think we are turning into true Portlanders, and won't let a little rain stop us. We were able to have dinner, a campfire fireside, look for a missing child (not ours but still scary!), sing campfire songs, and eat smores before it really started to rain. I loved sleeping in our tent while it rained all night and into the morning. It was fun being able to spend some fun time out of church with the members of our ward.

Journey to Jerome, ID

Orrin will often tell Wes about the fun times he had growing up and a lot of them were when he was at his Aunt Debbie and Uncle Garth's house in Jerome, Idaho. I had heard many stories of their home and was really excited to go and visit. Living here in Oregon it is only an 8 hour trip so we decided to go while Orrin had some time off. Orrin's sister Mandy also met up with us there which was an extra treat! After getting there I knew why Orrin had so much fun there while growing up. It is a place every boy dreams about and Wesley quickly fell in love. There were new toys, a big back yard with a sandbox and swing set

and cousins to play with.

We even found a snake in the backyard and Wes had a blast playing with it and wanted to bring it home.

Brad loved playing in all the grass and eating some of it too. It was also lots of fun for Orrin and I. We got to see Shoshone Falls which was so beautiful.

It is taller than even Niagara Falls. I had no idea that something like this existed in Idaho. As we traveled along we saw many natural springs just coming out of mountains. Orrin's Aunt Debbie also took us to see Niagara Springs.

It is a beautiful spring that shoots out of a mountain and flows down into the Snake River. So beautiful !

Aunt Debbie and Uncle Garth also have a huge garden with everything you can think of in it. While we were there Orrin and Debbie picked five buckets of tomatoes and then Debbie taught me how to can stewed tomatoes in her pressure canner.

She has a pantry that I can only dream about! It was so nice to be able to spend some time with them. They were so kind and we appreciate all they did to make us feel welcome.

Wes had a hard time leaving. He came up to me and said that he loved being at the Binghams and that he wanted to move there. I told him that we had to live in Oregon because daddy has to go to school there. He then said "Daddy can come and visit us."

p.s Brad did way better than I thought on the trip we only had a few hours of screaming and the rest of the time he slept. He does not like his carseat and I expected screaming the whole way.