Pictures from The River

Every year many of Missi's family visits a place on the McKenzie River called The Wayfarer. It's a quaint, old-fashioned "resort," where the activities are things like horseshoes, croquet, volleyball, etc...It was a fun coupla days away from Eugene and the kids had a great time exploring and playing. Here are a few pictures.


The kids LOVED going out on this Huck Finn-style raft that they had at the place in a little man-made pond. We had to push ourselves along with a pole as we looked for bullfrogs.





Drew lost a tooth while we were were at The River, but he was relieved to discover that the tooth fairy could even find him while he was sleeping in a tent at a place up the McKenzie River!

Every night one family from among the big group who visits The River is responsible for making dinner for everyone else. This year the Hillier's put on a Hawaiian luau and it was a HUGE success.

Three generations of Oregon Law students

Zeke figured out that he enjoyed swimming

Here's a fun game...

Here's a little challenge I just thought of: What (or how many) words can you type using only your left hand (A-S-D-F) and maintaining proper typing technique? For example, here's a few: sad, was, tazed

Perhaps this is the type of thought that runs through my brain only after I've been on the phone for like four hours talking to people about the federal citations they have received.

If you think of some more words (and I know there are more!) leave them in the Comments!

Big News

I bought a scooter this weekend. How sweet is that?

Action photos coming soon...

There are lots of things I could write about today, like how our dog Zeke got out and so I was riding my bike around our neighborhood for a long time trying to find him, but instead I'll just post a screenshot from Yahoo for today. Check out temperature! I know the rest of the country is under a heat wave, but 101 is really hot for Eugene!
Thank goodness for AC!

Blog Finally Updated!

A long-overdue update to the blog is finally complete. I tried to go in reverse-chronological order, so the most recent stuff should appear right below this post. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Fourth of July Recap

For Fourth of July we were at our friend John and Robyn’s house, which is just around the corner from our house. Earlier in the day I organized a flag football game, which was fun but was slightly a let-down since we only had enough players for 4-on-4. I also got pegged in the eye that didn’t feel too good (it’s a long story but it probably would’ve killed a weaker man).

John and Robyn had about 40 people over for a big BBQ and the pool was absolutely packed with kids. They had tons of good food and the kid’s loved getting their faces painted. We also watched a replay of the Nathan’s hot-dog-eating contest (on a side note – what drives these people to stuff their faces with nasty hotdogs for 12 minutes?), which almost took away my appetite for the whole night.

The fireworks display we put on probably rivaled those put on by several small municipalities – we were shooting off 4-5 mortars per “set.” It was a really fun night.

Night Out in Portland - 6/30/07

We have been trying to get together with our friend’s Dave and Caleen for about the past year since they got married, but both of our busy schedules has made it EXTREMELY difficult to find a night to make it happen. Well, we finally got it on the books and it was well-worth the wait. We met over at their house in Forest Heights and we were joined by our other great friends Jesse and Nicole and Lindsay. Jesse and I have been friends since fourth grade and Missi and Lindsay are also childhood friends. We hung out for awhile at their house catching up and then went to the Dublin Pub to catch a show by The Jacob Merlin Band. It was a fun night with great friends. The type of night that makes us miss being in Portland more often…

Day at the Farm - 6/30/07

I took Samantha and Missi's sisters Ella and Elizabeth out to my grandparent's farm. The girls had a great time picking raspberries, getting eggs from the chicken house, swinging on the swingset, and taking a tractor ride. It was just confirmation that The Farm is one of the best places for a kid.

Photos from the Farm - 6/30/07

Missi's Trip to Austin - 6/21 - 6/25

Missi spent four days in Austin, Texas having a “girl’s weekend” with two other women from Portland and of course Amber-Rose, who hosted the ladies. They ate out, got pedicures, went to a concert, spend some time at a lake house going water skiing/wakeboarding/tubing, and just enjoyed escaping the duties of being moms and wives for a few days. I know that everybody had a great time and I’m sure they are already planning Girl’s Weekend II for next year. Now, how things went on the home front back in Eugene may have been a different story…


Oops, forgot to rotate this one before I posted it. This is the ladies in front of the hotel where they stayed their first night in Austin.


Adam's expression says, "I can't believe I'll be without my wife for four days!"




The ladies checked out a concert by The Matt White Band.

At the intermission they met Matt White





At Dell Diamond, home of the Round Rock Express. Thanks for the hook-up Amanda!

The Zimel's middle son, Elijah

Amber-Rose and Isaac

P.S. Not sure why the lower pictures are smaller. Probably just operator error...

O.A.R. Concert - 6/18/07

As those regular readers of my blog know, O.A.R. (Of A Revolution) has been one of our favorite bands for a long time. Their music is basically adult-rock infused with reggae and jam-bandish improvisations. Their studio albums are good, but their live performances are even better. Missi and I have found that one of the things we most enjoy doing together is going to see live music, so our shared love of O.A.R. and live music has made us pretty devoted fans of their shows. So you can imagine our excitement when we learned that they were coming to Eugene for the first time since 2002. We have seen O.A.R. at the Roseland in Portland for the past few years, but we were glad to not have to drive a few hours north to catch them in concert.

The show at the McDonald Theatre here in Eugene did not disappoint. Our good friend Kirsti came down from Portland to go to the show and we all had a good time. We were right up front and you could definitely tell we were in a college town. Things got pretty crazy with lots of “friendly” pushing and shoving, some crowd surfing, random people making out, and lots of other “extra-curricular activities” going on. The band put on a great show and it definitely passed my “did I get my money’s worth?” test for a concert. Afterwards we met several of the band members, and I actually caught one of the drumsticks that they tossed out into the crowd. It was a fun night.