The Rest of the Story (AKA the rest of the holiday weekend)

On Friday, Kristin had her sleepover, and the girls finally went to sleep around 1AM! I waited awhile to make sure that they were all asleep before I went to bed..making sure all the doors were locked, all girls in the right spots, and that all was quiet. Chelsea took up her spot at the bottome of the steps, rather than the top, since one of her kids was downstairs, and no matter what kids are here, they are hers while in our home. I woke around 3am, and went to check, and found two girls missing. My heart sunk. It turned out that they crawled up on the couch, grabbing the quilts off the couch, rather than taking their sleeping bags. Phew!! It was 7:30 when Bill & I woke to GIGGLING! The girls were having so much fun....

After breakfast, they headed outside to resume their playing from the night before. It was neat that they spent so much time outside playing. Mary May & Betty Lou (Kristin's rats) were relieved when the girls went home, as they finally got a rest and were able to sleep. I'm sure they loved all the attention.

Just as the last girl was getting picked up, the O'Hara's arrived to drop off three of their five to stay with us. It was their anniversary, and they needed the night off. Declan, Alyona, and Tanya piled in, Declan looking like he was moving in for the month!

Alyona begged Robert to play cribbage with her. She finally met her match....she was pouting before it was all over.....as he skunked her several games!

Tanya & Kristin spent many hours outside on the driveway playing Barbie...it was the big hit for the weekend!
Ryan & Delcan rigged up some rope from the porch to the grapevine....and swiped one of my laundry baskets. Not sure what their main goal was, but they had fun rigging things up!Sunday we went to church, and then to the O'Hara's for a BBQ with the VonRuden clan as well. There were lots of laughs, stories, and fun time shared. It's always great to get together with our friends who are more family to us than friends.

Monday we all slept in, and the kids cleaned their rooms, and then took off for the day with Grandma Alice. They had a full day planned...lunch, the swimming pool in Corvallis, dinner, and then a movie here in town.

Being we had no kids around, Bill, Robert & I decided we should go have some fun, so we cleaned up lunch, and headed out to Scott Mills to check out the youth camp we will be at in a few weeks. We were warned about making sure to check it out before we pulled in there blindly with our trailer. It was a beautiful day, and we saw many fields of white & purple. The white field is a very fragrant flower, and we're not sure about the purple, it appeared to be a thistle of some type, but had cloverlike leaves?

After we left the camp, we decided to take the "back way" to Silver Falls--and follow the GPS. Needless to say, the GPS can't decifer between a logging road and a goat trail....and has no regard for Forest Service gates! We went about 4 miles on a two track trail before hitting a forest service gate....so we turned around, and followed the road back out, as the the GPS recalculated and wanted us to drive over a BIG stump (old growth stump...too big to drive over or around!). We laughed and took another gravel road, that did nothing but loop us around, and try to send us back down the same forest road! We decided to follow the map book instead, adn then did head to Silver Falls to find is SO full, that there was nothing but road parking...we opted not to stop, and headed into Lebanon to have a meal. We hit the new Mexican place in town, and had a great meal!! It was a blast to get out as adults, and have a fun day.