Month: June 2023

I am planning to take over dinner prep one night each week. This week, my first meal was black bean burgers with sriracha mayo, homegrown lettuce, and sweet potato chips.

They were delicious!

This week was tennis camp.

We had a tournament on Friday. I got second place!

Saturday we had a tough mountain bike ride with lots of climbing in the rain and hail. Sunday, we spent the day planting. The Bigs held off planting until now because they know how fickle June is in Bend. For example. Mom went out for a run this past Tuesday morning and slipped on ice! They think it is finally safe to plant…we shall see. I helped Dad plant the hanging baskets on the deck:

We also planted the planters on the porch ( along with more than a dozen new plants in the front gardens):

When I wasn’t helping the Bigs plant things, I was playing with Hadley and Maddie. They are at our house so often The Bigs are starting to wonder if they actually have homes. We made ginger ale:

and had grilled cheeses for lunch:

This past week was the last week of school. We had spirit week. I wasn’t really into it but I tried. Here I am for crazy hat day.

The Bigs kinda dropped the ball and didn’t get any other pictures all week. Mom finally took one today when I treated Dad to a Father’s Day latte.

We had a quiet week. Mountain biking class was cancelled because police had closed the trailhead! The Bigs had already left work early to take me, so we rerouted to a new trailhead and road together. There was much grumbling about paying for 5 classes and only getting 3 (next week is cancelled too!) from the cheap one (Mom), but we did have fun.

I did some gardening this week. I took care of an out of control japanese willow.

I also hiked to the top of Black Butte. There were wildflowers (and people) everywhere.

There were also great views.

The Bigs lost count of how many adults I passed on the hike up today. Let’s just say it was in excess of 10. Mom is a little concerned about being able to keep up with me going forward.

One time with Mt. Jefferson in the background

and one time without.

I’m as tall as the fire tower :).

Last weekend we went to the coast. We played in the sand,

did some dune jumping,

some jetty walking,

and walked the beach for miles.

We camped at Beverly Beach.

I slept by myself in the van.

The real reason for our trip, though, was surfing.

I caught some,

and I missed some.

But the whole time, I had fun.

We went to Local Ocean for dinner one night. The Bigs had deviled eggs, but these were no ordinary deviled eggs. They were deviled with miso, soy sauce, and smoked fish and topped with crispy ramen!

Dad had the special. It was dukkah nut spiced ling cod.

I had the rockfish italiano. I was too hungry to wait for mom’s silly picture. It was panko-crusted rockfish, salami, pepperoni, pickled peppers, mozzarella, and red pepper coulis on a hoagie roll. I devoured it.

Mom had the weathervane scallops. Skewers of petite scallops, grilled asparagus, smoked goat cheese, red onion, and white balsamic vinaigrette.

The trip was awesome and I left a total surfer dude.

This weekend we made our annual trip to the ‘Castle of the Dragons’. This year I rode the entire 16 miles myself.

Here we are at the top.

The Bigs look exactly the same as they did in 2016 (ha ha) but I sure look different.

I’m turning into a real biker, so much so, that I demanded some legit biking shorts. Don’t I look cool.