Cider pressing and Halloween, 2013

A few miles to the north and down an incredibly scenic drive lies a water-wheel driven grist mill which has been lovingly maintained by a team of local volunteers.  Every year on the last Saturday in October they hold a cider pressing.  The kids and I think that real, fresh, unpasteurized apple cider is pretty much the nectar of the gods, so we queued up and got our allotted two half-gallons.

Then it was time for Halloween.

 Left to right:  Isaiah (cheetah); Eve (peacock); Samuel (tiger)

 I "made" Eve's costume this year, which is to say, I bought clothes in  the right colors and went a little nuts with feathers and a hot glue gun.

 That is one hot little pepper!

Fall photo round-up

Whee, it's another picture dump!  No unifying theme here, just some pictures of our life.

 Eve and Solomon

 Solomon (to differentiate him from the incredibly similar baby pictures I have of his older brothers)

 Samuel, needing a little help from Daddy to go to sleep.

 No comment.

 Adventures in self-photography

 Samuel

Samuel with a coonskin cap.  And blue eyes.

Annual end-of-summer trip to the Kluge homestead

It has become a tradition for the kids and I to visit my folks during the last week before school starts.  Happily, it generally works out that Uncle Daniel can be there at the same time.  Below are some pictures of this year's adventures, plus a few miscellaneous pictures I couldn't find a home for.

 Wading in the Yamhill River.

 Uncle Daniel, teaching his nephews how to "water ski".

 Chillin' in the river

 Yes, we are Dr. Who fan-geeks.  If you have no clue, look here: Stormy

 I think the blackberry bushes I planted must have started their lives a little too close to a nuclear power plant.  Freaks of freaking nature.

First day of school, and Isaiah's first day of Kindergarten!

Mt. St. Helens, summer 2013

"Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it!"

I was four years old when David Johnston shouted those words and died. We had just moved from Portland to the home in Sheridan where my parents still live.  My memories of the eruption are minimal, but I have a hazy (ha!) recollection of ash falling and of a sonic boom that sent me racing outside, looking toward the north horizon, to see if the mountain had blown its top again.

Prior to this summer, I had only seen Mt. St. Helens from the boring south side.  Ever since we moved to within 40 miles of the mountain I've had an itch to go look into its maw, and now that itch has been scratched. 

 Eve, standing on the main observation deck of the Johnston Ridge Observatory, which was built on the spot where David Johnston was stationed to keep an eye on the volcano.

 This shot was Brian's idea.

 As was this.

Wildflowers like these were scattered all across the slopes.  It made for a beautiful contrast with the desolation of mud and ash that still dominates the landscape in the path of the explosion.

2013 visit to Montana

Here I am at last, with sufficient free time of an evening that I can attempt to post a backlog of pictures on my poor neglected blog.   We'll start with the trip to Montana we made in July, to attend not one but two family reunions.

 One-month-old Solomon, expertly put to sleep by his uncle Stanley Jr.

 Grandma Bernadine and the kids

 Us wimminfolk. Ugh.  I'm one month postpartum in this shot, and I look it.

 Three generations of Dostals

 The brotherly lineup: Michael, Brian, Stanley Jr.

 This trip was Grandma Bernadine's first chance to meet Solomon.

 Brian's Dad's headstone.

A different view from the same spot.  Quite the cemetary, no?  I wouldn't mind being buried there.

Never trust a rudbeckia

After dreaming and scheming about it ever since we moved into this house, I finally chose and planted perennial flowers to grow alongside the path to our gazebo.  Brian was critical to the success of this project, which occurred about three weeks before Solomon was born.

To mark the ends of the flower bed, I decided to plant some rudbeckia (the plant family from which black-eyed susans come).  I bought four identical plants... or so I thought.

 Plant #1: This is how I expected them to look.  So far so good.

 Plant #2: ...what the... half the plant is producing double flowers?

 Plant #3: Oh come on.

(OK, this turned out to be my fault, I grabbed a dwarf variety by mistake.) 

That's what I get for trying to plant according to a plan.  And now I present the purple potatoes I grew for my oldest boy, who loves the color purple.  Their sheen is almost metallic.

Solomon Sebastian Dostal (a belated introduction)

Solomon Sebastian Dostal was born on Saturday, June 1 at 2:32 p.m.  He was 21 inches long and weighed 10 lbs. (!!)  As of this posting, he is two months old, and yes, I am running way behind with the pictures here. 

 Welcome to the world, Solomon.  

 The kids were beyond excited. Eve had been hoping for a baby sister, but any cute baby would do.

 For all his wild, sometimes violent energy, Isaiah adores babies and had been longing for us to have a baby of our own. 

 It took Samuel a little while to get up to speed, but he has now embraced big-brotherhood.

 There's the money shot.

 Solomon, newly de-heathenized, with his godmother Aunt Janet.

 Say what?

 Awwwwww....

                .......geez!

(Power to the people! says Solomon)

 Yay for those first baby grins!

OK that's enough thank you all goodnight.

Not dead, just gestating

Boy, nothing takes a girl's mind off blogging like growing a baby in her tummy.  Or at least that's the effect it has on me.  Now that the arrival of Dostal #4 is imminent (my due date is less than a week away) my nesting impulses have spurred me to get caught up on a number of things, including the backlog of miscellaneous photos I've been meaning to post here for months.   Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) pregnancy has also diminished my interest in snapping photographs, so I should be able to cover this in one post.

 Eve's 7th birthday party (my shirt reads "Loading...please wait")

 Isaiah's 5th birthday (and first real party with non-family guests)

 Apparently, everything met with his approval.

 Easter breakfast, and my first homemade butter lamb. (The lamb cake turned out well too.)

 Isaiah all dressed up for Easter and rarin' to go.

 My beloved kerria (japanese rose) plant.  I saw one for the first time two years ago and knew immediately I must have one.

This was me a couple of weeks ago.  I'm even more... protuberant... now, if you can believe it.