Spring Break

Last week the kids were out of school for spring break. We wanted to do something besides $1 night at a seedy bowling alley in an area where the term "Vantucky" got it's name. We chose the one day last week that it wasn't raining and headed for Lincoln City, OR for a one night vacation.
We saw this sculpture on the way at a tree farm:
This was our hotel room:
Just kidding! We stayed in a hotel :) Here are the boys skipping rocks in the shortest river in the world. D River runs from Devils Lake, under a street and into the ocean.
We saw a lot of these flowers popping up everywhere. It's called Skunk Cabbage.
While I was enjoying some quiet time in the hotel, Jason took the boys to do some crabbing. They got some raw chicken for bait and went to a spot to drop their crab pot. They didn't catch anything, but the interesting thing that happened was when they threw out their leftover chicken to the seagulls. All of a sudden the swarm of seagulls left. A few seconds later a bald eagle emerged from the forest, swooped down and grabbed the chicken with his mighty talons and returned to the forest. This happened right in front of them! I wish I had been there!
The next day we went home by way of Tillamook. The drive was so scenic. We passed a field of daffodils. If you know me, you know we had to turn around to get this picture.
If you know Jason, you know we had to turn around to get this one.

We enjoyed some Tillamook ice cream (of course) and headed home.

The Grass is Greener

For a couple of days this week we enjoyed (except for the steaming piles they left behind) our neighbor's animals hanging out in our front yard. I guess one of the horses broke through the fence. The grass is literally greener on the other side of their fence, so they were happy to feast on our long grass.
We got to feed them from the convenience of our front porch.
After Juan Carlos had enough of Jason chasing him around the yard, he headed home.

March Madness

The past month has been a busy one. Jason and I went on a one night trip to Disneyland. We were able to get a some much needed sun and fun (and Cafe Rio).
Jason's second favorite thing about Disneyland (first is going to Disneyland without the kids) is the Disneyland goats that reside behind Thunder Mountain. They are so docile. They were just waiting for us to come pet them.
My second favorite thing about Disneyland (first is going to Disneyland without the kids) is the blast of joie de vivre that I get when going on a thrill ride.

A couple of days after we returned, I went to Utah to visit friends and family.
It's always fun to catch up with the gals.
I got to arrange some of my mom's silk flowers.
My niece Olivia celebrated her third birthday with lots of Barbie! My favorite part was when she was opening Grandma's present which was in a Ziploc box and said, "Oh, we're out of these!" She was more excited when she opened the box and found beautiful handmade Barbie clothes.

Here's Olivia helping Grandpa pin the tail on the donkey.
I'm always so excited to visit, but always glad to get back to this:
A couple of days after I got back from Utah, Jason quit his job. He was very unhappy in his job and wanted to take a few months off to write his book. He is so happy now and getting into the groove of constant writing.
It's kind of fun to have him around all the time-and we can take turns taking the kids to the bus stop. :)

Cape Falcon

A couple of weeks ago one of those rare winter things happened-it was sunny. . .on a Saturday. I felt the need to take advantage of this, so I talked Ethan into accompanying me on what I called "a coastal adventure." He knew there would be Tillamook ice cream and clam chowder in it for him at some point so he was game.
We have been to so many beautiful places along the Oregon coast that it's hard not to return to our favorites, but I wanted to do some exploring. We went to Oswald West State park and hiked the Cape Falcon trail. Now, I've learned by experience that whenever you hike to Cape "Anything" you're going to start at sea level and end up at a beautiful lookout point. The catch is that between the sea and the beautiful lookout is a steep hill. We were up for it though.
As we started on the trail walking through the beautiful coastal forest, I couldn't believe that I was hiking in February without a jacket on! No snow, just ferns, moss and pine. The first half of the hike was easy, I kept thinking, "I can do this." I showed Ethan common foliage used in floral design that was growing all around us and quizzed him on it on the way back. After a while we started encountering mud pits every once in a while. Our feet got covered in mud despite our best efforts. Then trail started getting increasingly steep. I asked Ethan if he wanted to go back to the car. His reply was, "I've wanted to turn around ever since we started." I kept telling him it would all be worth it and how good that clam chowder would taste along with the sweet taste of victory.
We started seeing beautiful views of the ocean through the trees.
The last bit was making our way in between 2 walls of greenery
Then the spectacular view.
We made it!
We could have sat in the sun all day!
Ethan loved throwing rocks off the cliff. He even said, "Mom, in the far future can we come back here?" I was done hiking at that point, but he had to go back. One of the highlights on the way back was Ethan thinking he found a geocache, but it was really a bag of dog poop. We had a good laugh about that one. By the time we got back to our car we were starving. When Ethan finally got his clam chowder he drank it. It was such a fun day. It reminded me what a beautiful area we live in!

Seattle (Fun) Times

A few of weeks ago we realized that we had a couple of free nights at a hotel that were expiring, so we jaunted up to Seattle for a two days. Luckily we picked 2 sunny and dry days to visit. Our first stop was Ivar's for some seafood and clam chowder. Teasing the seagull is always fun, too. We went to a couple of our favorite shops along the waterfront then headed to the Seattle gum wall.
Caleb is taking gum out of his mouth to add to the wall, NOT taking gum off the wall to chew. :)
We all added our contribution.
Then a walk through Pike Place Market.
After dinner, we found a cool Japanese dollar store and loaded up on stuff we didn't need. We'll buy anything if it only costs a dollar.

We spent most of our second day at EMP (Experience Music Project), a museum near the Space Needle.
They had interesting exhibits on Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, horror movies and the movie Avatar.

Edward's scissorhands

The boys trying to play musical instruments together

I got to live out a life-long dream of scratching out some beats as a DJ for a few minutes, but I'm not going to post a picture of that. :)

Our next stop was Archie McPhee, a weird novelty store. Of course it was right up everyone's alley. We bought a huge mystery grab bag of merchandise and split it in the car. We got everything from an Alexander the Great action figure to tape with sausage links printed on it.
Our last stop was the Fremont Troll. Now we can say we've seen it.
And this is how we vacation, Farnworth style.

Ringing in the New Year With a Bang!

One of the benefits of living in the country is being able to blow stuff up and shoot at stuff without annoying our neighbors too much. This year we weren't able to find any fireworks, so we made our own with dry ice, 2 liter bottles and water. Jason and the kids started off the night shooting an old monitor in the backyard. Then it was time for the good stuff.

This is a leftover pumpkin from Halloween


An old suitcase


A 3 gallon Tillamook ice cream bucket. I had to move the camera when this one blew up because there were shards of plastic coming at me.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas. . .

and Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again.

Actually we've had a great Christmas break so far. I love sleeping in, reading, watching movies and generally doing nothing while the kids are kept busy with their new-fangled electronics.
The month started off with a favorite tradition-watching Jason cut down and haul off our Christmas tree, then watching him put the lights on the tree. :)

We added a couple of new ornaments this year-one commemorating our summer vacation on the Oregon coast and a llama, just because we love them.
We went again this year to see the Christmas ship parade on the Columbia River.

We celebrated Caleb's birthday on the 23rd. We told him he could go to any restaurant for his birthday and he chose to stay home and have his favorite dinner of frozen breaded chicken patties, mashed potatoes, and country gravy. He was very happy to get a new airsoft gun and a Lego set.

On Christmas eve we had our traditional ham dinner with party potatoes and rolls. Afterward we watched Christmas shows. I knew we wouldn't be able to stay up later than the kids, so we set our alarm for 6am to set out the presents. When we were done Jason got out his megaphone and woke everyone up.
Sorting the presents
Hiram got a surprise gift-a laptop. He was very happy about that!
Then it was over and me and Jason went back to sleep and the kids played.
We survived another year and the best part was that no one was sick for Christmas.
Jason got me an interesting combo of presents including a stun gun and diamond earrings. He said the stun gun is for when someone tries to steal the earrings or for when I'm walking alone in the woods. It must be a guy thing :) I hope you all had a festive Christmas season! I'll leave you with our family photo that didn't make the cut this year.
I'm going to try to make 2012 the best year yet. Caleb says the aliens are coming in June and we're all going to die, so let's make it count! Happy New Year!