Summer Is….

• U-pick berries and peaches—lots and lots and lots!
• Beautiful boutiques all from your own yard!
• Sewing two quilts in two weeks during the many TV hours of the Olympics (one for a wedding gift, and one for a house warming gift).
• Did I mention the Summer Olympics? Yes! WAY more TV than usual watching women’s beach vball and gymnastics and swimming and anything Olympics!
• Having so much produce you don’t know what to do with it.
• Little boys that only wear underwear all day, thus creating the cutest tan lines ever.
• Building a shed with daddy in the backyard.
• Picnics dinners to parks and the rose garden.
• Eating almost every dinner outside (with a fly swatter ready to kill yellow jackets).
• Canning peaches with a dear friend in 100 degree weather; praise the Lord for air conditioning! (and a pool for the kids!)
• BBQ’s with friends; sitting and chatting while the kids play happily in the yard.
• Dirty, dirty, dirty boys from playing in the dirt. “Baths” in the pool.
• Never turning on the oven and bbqing everything (meat, pizza, tatortots, you name it, we’ve tried it!).
• Being thankful as all the hard work you put into the flower beds in the spring reaps amazing results!
• Lots and lots of hours spent in the car to visit family, go camping, visit friends, find a hike or a park or a river…
• Watching hummingbirds feast on your flowers.
• Hating the bull frog that lives in the pond behind your house as he croaks SO LOUD all night, but you have to have your windows open because it’s so hot!
• Blowing up your air mattress in the living room because your house is SO hot and that’s where the AC is. (and discovering that all movies should be watched that way, much more comfortable than the couch.)
• A great excuse to go get frozen yogurt.
• Going by way too quickly!
• Refreshing…
• Fabulous!

Even as I hold on tightly to the last bit on summer, I feel excitement as fall approaches (my favorite season!). God, you knew we would need seasons and crave change every three months. Thank you!

  The next three boutiques are all from our garden!

Next pictures from the Portland Rose Garden, one of our favorite places in the world!  

Seth, Sam

The BIG 3-0

Not me, thank goodness: Ben. Yep, Ben turned 30 this last weekend. We made lots of jokes about his last days in the 20’s and then even more jokes about being an “old 30 year old.” It is an odd thing to say goodbye to the 20s; what an amazing decade! Graduated college, got married, traveled to many places (BVI’s, Turkey, Canada, Germany, Paris, Venice, Austria, Japan, Hawaii), bought first house, became a father of twins…and many things in between. What an amazing husband God has given me, and I look forward to the decade of the 30s with him (I’ll join him next June, but until then I’ll make sure to live it up in my 20s).

I asked Ben if I could surprise him and plan his day. He complied, mostly I think because he was sure I couldn’t keep a secret for that long. But I did it! I planned a family hike to Mirror Lake up by Mt. Hood and even surprised him by having Nate and Holly meet us there. It was a wonderful day! The boys worked SO hard on their cards for their daddy! (Seth, Sam)

Uncle Nay-Nay was a sucker and carried Sam when his feet were tired (and all our food in his heavy backpack!)  LOVE this picture of Seth and Ben; Seth was so tickled to be carried by his daddy… The boys were so thrilled to get to play in the lake when we arrived Seth loves his water! Mt. Hood in the background reflecting onto the lake…hence the name, Mirror Lake Not bad for a Morris family picture, 3 out of 4 smiling A much needed rest on the way down. The boys were troopers, as the hike was a bit steeper than anticipated. Although we had to carry them quite a bit on the way down, they were great adventurers and we look forward to many more hikes as a family! LOVE this picture! (Seth, Sam)

Journey to Spray, Oregon (and food allergies).

I’m thankful that God knows what we need without us even asking. If you would have asked me, going to Spray for the weekend—especially that weekend—was the last thing I wanted to do. Truth be told, I had had quite the week, make that month, with my health. For a myriad of reasons, we decided to finally get me tested by a naturopath for food allergies. The past couple of years I’ve realized that wheat really bothers my stomach, which eventually turned into me avoiding it and most gluten. However, even with that, and prescription antacid medicine, I have horrible heartburn and multiple other allergy symptoms. Anyways, we decided to get me officially tested, which meant that I had to eat wheat, something I hadn’t even had a bite of for 6+ months. The first bite was scary and scrumptious: it was a Starbucks cake pop. Exactly 24 hours later, the symptoms started. I was anticipating the extra heart burn. I did not predict my throat swelling, itchy eyes, extreme fatigue, out-of-control emotions, a weird taste in my mouth, and a temperature. Safe to say, even without the test, I’m allergic to wheat.

Then the question with the official test became: what else am I allergic to? Apparently I hit the lottery: not only wheat, but dairy, eggs, sugar, yeast, pineapple and pumpkin. Jackpot! It’s easy to understand why traveling to someone elses house two days after this diagnosis might cause a wee bit of anxiety. (I’m sure I’ll get around to writing a post on my thoughts on food allergies, but seeming that I’ve been trying to write this post since Monday—and it’s Thursday—I’ll just skip most the details for now).

So with all that said, a weekend away was just what I needed! Lacy was awesome about my new food needs; in fact, she’s quite the healthy cook! There was constantly fresh produce to eat, and each meal we had was wheat, dairy, and egg free. She cooks for her family with no refined sugar and no refined meat. She make everything from scratch (including her own vanilla extract, sandwich bread, soap…I know I’m forgetting a lot of things, but you get the idea). Lacy showed me it was doable. And it was doable with her five kids, ages six and under…and my twins…under foot.

Ben and I went to college with Michael and Lacy Fisher, who now manage a 12,000 acre ranch in central Oregon. It was a wonderful little country retreat for our family where we got to experience lots of fun non-city things. And our kids got to play with their wonderful children. Here’s our trip in pictures: Titus teaching the boys how to drive their own kids’ tractor. Even though it was really safe, I found it best that I didn’t watch!

  Jaelle helping the boys hold the cat Somehow I ended up with all the kids (minus baby Esther) in a chain on the walk; it was pretty precious. Joel, Hannah, Titus, Jaelle, Sam, Seth It was pretty awesome: all six kids happily playing as Lacy and I made dinner and Ben and Michael were on a 4-wheel trip

I told Lacy I would try to take pictures of all her kids. Here are my favorites:

Jaelle

Titus  Hannah

Joel

Esther

Before we left on Sunday, we had a picnic lunch down at the John Day River. The boys got to “swim” and look at Crawdad’s. The Fisher kids LOVED Ben! Seth Sammy Ben made himself a human boat and let the kids float down the river on him. Our scenery for the weekend: just beautiful! Always a sign of a good weekend: conked out kids in the car! (Sam)

Thank you Michael and Lacy for your wonderful hospitality and friendship! Our kids are STILL talking about your kids and cannot wait to be “six like Jaelle.” We’re thinking that this will definitely have to be a yearly summer tradition for us!

Uncle Levi’s 14th Birthday

Ben and I are so thankful for his brothers and their roles in Seth and Sam’s lives. Seth and Sam love their uncles and we’re so blessed when they get to come spend a weekend with us! A couple of weekend’s ago, we had Caleb and Levi while Jeff and Diane went to Diane’s class reunion—it also happened to be Levi’s 14th birthday as well. So we got to celebrate all weekend long!

On Friday, Levi, Sam, Seth and I all went to OMSI together. It’s much more fun to visit OMSI with a cool uncle in tow! While we were having fun at OMSI, Caleb was at work with Ben, doing a job shadow. I made them take a picture when they got home, because it was so cute to see them both all dressed up. They humored me…As seen in the picture, we also had Levi’s new dog, Bella, with us for the weekend. She’s a really cool dog, and as one could imagine, Seth and Sam adore her!

Saturday, Ben let me have a little break from the chaos, and while I picked marionberries and went garage saling, he took all the boys and the dog on a hike in the coast range. On the way back, they were able to stop on the side of the road and watch the Hillsboro air show. That evening, Ben took the big boys to the driving range.

Sunday, Levi’s actual birthday, was another fun day as Nathan and Holly came to spend the day with us as well. After church and lunch, we all hopped in the car and headed to Sky High Jump in Tigard. We all had a blast jumping, jumping, and jumping some more. Sam and Seth thought it was the coolest place ever (and I thought, “Hum, next time Ben’s on a business trip, this is where I’m heading with the boys to tire them out!”)

Seth, Sam

We ended the day at Applebee’s—where Jeff and Diane were able to meet us as they had just got back from their trip. Happy 14th Birthday Levi! We love you!