Mother of All Muddlers: Girl Power!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Girl Power!

This weekend was an all girl weekend (okay, except for our next door neighbor. Who's a boy. But he doesn't count, because he lives next door.) OUR boys were all up in the woods foraging for drinking water, carrying freeze dried food and tents and wandering around for three days, all in the name of,... fun.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love to camp. With a cooler that contains my beer so it's nice and cold and my hershey bars so they don't get too melted when the roasted marshmellow is slapped on top of it. And the annual trip to REI? Fun! I like to slip a cute little skirt into the pile of water bottles, new filters, tasty freeze dried astronaut food and additional backpacks. New backpacks are required as the kids get old enough to carry enough stuff on their backs that they do not have to rely on their older brothers' unconditional love and mercy to carry enough food and water for them to stay alive too.

I do own a pair of hiking boots and they do have some marks on them. I am seeing my dog days of hanging out in non-yurts come to an end again since the baby of the house is almost two, and the man who fitted Jared this year at REI told Rob all sorts of wonderous stories about outfitting his clueless three year old and taking her hiking for hours in the forest. Yikes. My only hope is that I can distract Rob with the boys when he asks me that semi-annual question, "doesn't ice camping sound FUN?' If I never own something called a crampon in my life time, I think I might die a happy woman.

So, the girls and I are jam packing all our favorite activities into this weekend while we still can: sugar cookies with pink strawberry frosting and sprinkles baking, pizza making (the girls basically ate all the cheese and olives before it got on the pizza), going out to eat (SOOO much cheaper and easier when you just have three mouths to feed), mall hopping (Disney store princess action figures!), watching girl movies like 'Barbie and the Diamon Castle' to which Fiffi danced the whole time and Beans was riveted to the point I don't think she blinked the entire movie and Oak Glen pet farm frolicking.

I kind of forgot how present I have to be as a parent, since I have the older boys to really rely on every other time. This weekend I had to feed rats and the dog, clean the pool, take out the garbage, and break out fights over new Disney princess action figures myself. No sneaking away to do edits for my article due Tuesday; when the girls were awake, we were all about hanging out. Including eating meals at the little girl table, even if I absolutely didn't fit into any seats.

Posing in Oak Glen, where the Pendleton fire was just last week. The fires really depressed the tourists, which is too bad, this is a big weekend for them. We'll go back to get apples (big apple growing community) and pumpkins and Christmas trees this year.

Tire swing at the new park by the one room school house museum.

Pretending to learn something in the one room school house museum. The school closed in the early 1060's.

Interesting stuff,...

Okay, so this is an old picture taken at football, but it's a cutie.

This is another old pic from the summer when I took the two girls and Jared out shopping for football gear while the other two boys were in vacation Bible school. You can see why all eyes need to be on the girls, no attention can go anywhere else,...