Forever.

So it's been forever since I posted. My bad. Quick updates about what I've been up to. Lets see, last week of July a lot of the kids "went it" with friends, guardians, or families. With the kids who were left, we went to Silverwood. That was awesome, except a few of the boys and I waited about 2 hours for one rollar coaster ride! You'd think we were at Disneyland or something.  We had tons of pool time, and just hung out. Took a few trips to the Garland (a movie theatre) and parks. I think the last few days we had pizza for dinner 4 days in a row.

The first week in August I went on a family vacation to Eagle Crest, Oregon. It is really close to Bend, Redmond, and Sisters. The resort was awesome, and we got some great time in the pool, river, and mini-golf course. After vacation, I was able to go back to Oak Harbor for a few days. It was great to be home and catch up with some friends.

Check out my FB for more vacation pics.

Since being back from vacation, it feels like this is the 'home streatch'. There is only one full week of normal summer after this week, and many of the kids won't be here. I'm trying to squeeze in one last writing project into my tutoring sessions. I thought it would be fun for each of my kids to write a news article about an event that happened in their cottage, and put it together like a news paper. Hopefully that can be finished before the end.

Some exciting news: I've decided to keep interning with Hutton during the fall! I need to do an internship for school, and really wanted to continue working here. I'll work about 10 hours a week, focusing on career prep stuff- like interview skills, resume building, and networking- with the older kids. I'm so excited I am able to do this.

Got milk.

Last week, the younger kids went on a field trip to tour a local dairy. I loved this trip. It was a small farm in the country about 40 min away from Hutton. It was beautiful with the rolling green hills and classic red barn. The dairy was a family run business. The wife gave us a tour of the farm/dairy and explained the process that the milk goes through. When we first pulled up we were greeted by donkeys. They have donkey instead of goats, because unlike goats, the donkeys ONLY eat the weeds. The kids had fun petting them.

Next, the kids were able to gather some eggs from the chicken coop. I found I was totally acting like my mom did when we were on field trips. I was asking the kids, “what did you feel, what did it smell like, what did you see?” They were excited to answer and explain to me what was going on. The farm also had some baby rabbits! All the kids sat in a circle and passed the rabbits around. I was really impressed at how laid back our “tour guide” was. She was super friendly and didn’t freak out or worry about the kids dropping the animals or doing the wrong thing.

Baby Rabbits!

Next, we learned about the milking process, which was explained in an engaging and kid friendly way. We saw the milk cows, tasted the food they ate, saw the milking and pasteurizing station, and saw where the milk was put into cartons. The cow food tasted like a high fiber cereal, except with more salt. Some kids loved it so much they took handfuls and just chowed down. Haha. I loved learning that the milk wasn’t homogenized and didn’t have antibiotics in it. The milk literally came from the cows, which were healthy and fed the best food, was heated to kill the bacteria, and went into the jugs. This is how milk should be. The farm also had little kittens which were probably only a few weeks old. The kids loved holding them and putting them in their pockets.

At the end of the tour we got cookies and the fresh milk. Yum. I definitely bought some of their milk that weekend at a local grocery store. So good.

Got Milk?

Field trips.

The past few weeks have been filled with several field trips during the 1-4 activity time. Last Wednesday, we took the older kids bowling at a place up north. Bowling really is not my favorite activity. For some reason I usually don’t have much fun, but bowling with the kids was tons of fun!

For our field trip this week we went strawberry picking at Greenbluff. We took a golf cart shuttle down to the berry fields and split up into groups to each pick a basket. My group was so excited to find ripe berries. They were constantly saying things like “Kristen, look at this red one! I found a super good one! Quick, come over here, I found a ton, I need help picking them, QUICK!” haha. The excitement was precious. Compared to the strawberries at the fields in Oak Harbor, these berries were so small! But they still tasted good.

The today show.

About a week ago, Hutton was featured on The Today Show! We had a pancake breakfast to celebrate and watched it together. Check out the link!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/43606486#43606486

A week of summer.

For the 4th, those who were still on campus went to Riverfront Park to watch the fireworks. I had to make sure to carry on my family's caramel corn tradition, so I made a batch for everyone to eat. Yum. We got front row seats for the fireworks. They went off right above our heads! Pretty fun.

On Wednesday this week the older kids, Dave, Russell, and I went rafting. Hutton has their own rafts, and both Dave and Russell are guides. We went on a slow part of the Spokane River. This trip pretty much to learn the basics and safety, which was good, because I know nothing about rafting. It was super fun to laugh and joke around with the older kids. It was a perfect day to be on the river, because it was about 90 degrees.

Staying warm.

It has been really warm this week, so the kids have been loving the pool! However, some of the younger kids always get cold, and end up curled up on the warm cement with their towels over them to warm up. Today was especially cold, so the boys completely covered themselves with their towels, and huddled in the big tubes.

Boys being boys. Singing songs about poop and giggling.

Skype spontaneity.

I never knew three hours could go by so fast. The other day Rick, Tony, and I randomly skyped each other, and had some pretty good laughs.  Miss you guys! Anyway, we figured out that neither Tony nor I had much planned for the weekend, so we thought hey, why not go to Silverwood! It was pretty out of the blue, but we were both down! On Sunday, Tony rode his bike up here and we took thumper to Silverwood. It was such a nice day to be there- not too crowded, not too warm. We hit up each rollercoaster a few times, starting with the Aftershock. Tony convinced me to go on the Panic Plunge. That was the one ride I was pretty nervous to go on. The first time I pretty much closed my eyes the whole time and was probably freaking out a little bit. Once the ride was over, I realized it wasn’t even that scary! So we went on it again. This time I kept my eyes open. Woo! Tony was trying to convince me to not hold on at all. Let’s just say I didn’t get to that point. Anyway, the day was super fun, and just added to an awesome weekend.

So much fun!

Panic Plunge!

Cousin time.

Silly Face Jamel

On Friday and Saturday I got to hang out with my aunt and uncle and little cousins! My aunts birthday was on Friday and they were going on a hike in the Valley. They were able to pick me up, and I joined them for the weekend. On the hike, part of the path was flooded, so we had to hop across on logs and stumps. Quite an adventure. After, we had a lovely picnic, played some catch, and played on the playground. It is fun to be able to hang out with my little cousins. I was playing on the playground with the twins, and Jamel turns to me and says, “Your nice, like realllyyyy nice.” Haha ohh 5 year olds.
 

Eli and his blue eyes.

On Saturday, we celebrated Julian’s birthday, which is on the 10^th. Robyn found this water aquatic center on the south hill which is perfect for kids. There is a lazy river, water slide, and fun water squirt gun/ water bucket dumping thing. The boys do really well in the water! The twins need someone with them in then deeper water, but Julian and his friend could swim around wherever. After the water park, we got some ice cream for Julian’s special day.

Julian at the waterpark.

Action!