Sparks Lake Sunset Canoe

A few weeks ago....

Pics taken by our friend Jon from his boat.

Pickathon 2011

Pickathon is a music festival we've been going to for 5 years now...  it's over a weekend in Happy Valley - just outside Portland.  Lots of music - it starts around 3pm on Friday and goes until late Sunday night.  We bring the tent trailer and do a lot of dancing, sitting, running, jumping, eating, drinking, enjoying friends and generally having a good time!

We have some amazing friends and this is one of our favorite parts about Pickathon - seeing them!  This is Emmy - 3, Sadie - 4 and Beck and Thomas.  Emmy is the daughter of my best friend Kelly - they live in Seattle.  Sadie is the daughter of one of our most favorite families of all time....the Booths.  Jeff, Paula and Sadie live in Salem.  (Paula is in the background of this pic - she's 8 months pregnant with Sadie's little sister!)

The kids area at Pickathon is filled with things to do - including getting a very cool skull & cross bones painted on your arm!

And....  the ever popular circus!

The boys also got to make magic wands - which were an excellent toy to make - Harry Potter-type spells were flying out of them all weekend!  The girls of course made fairy wands... which as it turns out are VERY much like magic wands - just depends on your perspective!

Beck chose a snake for his arm!  Surprisingly, the painted arms lasted all weekend and washed off easily when we got home.  Happiness for kids and happiness for mommies!

Thomas making his magical wand.

Thomas walking the tight rope - those circus people rocked!  All kinds of activities, safety first and no end to the fun!

Back at camp playing with the girls.  All the kids got along fabulously all weekend!

And they did some resting too - the favorite spot was inside Jeff & Paula's little travel trailer.

Chillin' at the campsite....  Jeff, Carl, Jon, Beck, Chrissy, AJ & Thomas.  Our friends, the Skimores, from Bend joined us as well.  They have two boys - Jack who is 9 and one of Thomas' very best friends and AJ who is 7.  Jon & Caroline had never been to Pickathon but ran into 3 friends they knew - one of whom was Jon's lab partner in 9th grade in Philly!  Small world....

Dinnertime at the music.  No end to amazing food.  We bring breakfast and lunch but eat out for dinner because of all the yummy choices.  And of course it always turns out that the music we want to see most is right at dinnertime so we try to avoid hanging out at camp during dinner!

Carl hanging out at the music - with a tasty beverage.

Fifty licks ice cream - tahitian vanilla.  Mmmmm...

Beck and Sadie - who have been friends ever since their first Pickathon when Sadie was 3 months and Beck was just a year old.

Thomas and his best buddy Jack.  The boys are old enough now and Thomas knows the lay of the land there at the festival that this was one of the rare times we saw them!  They were off running around the forest, playing, building forts, listening to music etc. They'd check in every few hours and then go off to play again... when they got hungry!

This was one of the spots in the woods where those magic wands came in very handy.  That - and about a million sticks to play with!  I often would look at the kids and wish I could see what they were seeing.... I bet it was amazing in their minds... filled with sparkles and stars flying about!

This is Beck learning to Hula Hoop with his new Hula Hoop that he just made in the kids area!

By the end - his favorite things was Hula Hooping and saying "Watch me Rock This One Out!"

He also was quite the little balancer on the ball!

My favorite part is being with my amazing friends....we all live too far away and these are some of the most fantastic women you will ever meet.  I cherish my time with them.

Sadie looks all too mischievous here....  can't imagine what she's been up to!

She and Emmy had such a great time.  Little girls are just so different than those boys!

Paula relaxing at camp - she was such a trooper.  Not sure I would have done it at 8 months pregnant....nope - I am sure I wouldn't have!

Jeff was a very good sport too - he held all the dollies for Sadie while she hooped it up.  But I guess that comes with the territory when you have girls - my world has no dollies - bugs and lizards here!

Beck brought his Treo blocks to play with - we brought them up to the music area too - perfect distraction for a 5 year old while we enjoyed the music.

Thomas loved this drummer.... he positioned himself perfectly to watch!

This is the Woods Stage.  It's about a 5 minute walk into the woods from camp - cool and beautiful.  There's a large area for the kids to play while the music is going on - there's food and beer up there too.  Each stage had it's unique qualities but there's something magical about the Woods Stage.  At night they have lights strung along all the paths to find it and the entire area has pretty lights everywhere!

Happy Campers!  I think once Thomas realized he could get away with no shoes, he didn't put them on the rest of the weekend!  If the amount of dirt we came home with is any measure of the fun we had - then we had an amazingly good time!  (and we did!)

We got home Monday afternoon and after all the dirt was washed down the drain began to talk about next year's Pickathon!