Weekly Wednesday: donation time

Yesterday was our annual school-supply shopping at Bi-Mart!

Each year we fill the car with paper, pens, notebooks, backpacks, calculators and Kleenex to donate to the Tigard-Tualatin School District. The supplies go to help students right in our town who don't have what they need to start the school year.

We choose Bi-Mart because it's a local store, and that means our money does even more by staying in the community.

This is one of my favorite things all year :)

If you want to donate to your community, I know school districts everywhere can use anything you can offer! :)

Weekly Wednesday: Mariners

Even though we just got home from a three-park East-Coast trip, Mom wanted to ride the train to Seattle for more baseball! I hesitated at first, but you only live once, right?!

Felix was part of the draw for this one but he blew it big time, giving up four runs (including two homers) in the first inning. Mariners ended up getting stomped.

But all things were not bad. We were surrounded by fans who don't equate baseball with drunken, obscenity-filled rowdiness. The people around me can really make or break my MLB experience.

And I got a veggie dog!!

And a Shiskaberry to share: (I just Googled that and discovered Shiskaberry is a strain of weed! Hmmmm)

The weather was perfect.

The game was a blowout, but since we got a couple guys on base toward the end, we had to pull out our rally caps. It didn't work.

Our monkeys travel in style - and we always get lots of comments from passersby:

Rainier was out in all her glory. The view from the train was amazing, and we could see her just a little from the stadium concourse:

:)

Weekly Wednesday: dresses for everyone

I owed Eryn some workout clothes from her birthday, so the McKee ladies hit the outlet mall last Wednesday.

We all found dresses at Eddie Bauer... matching dresses!! Mom thought it was hilarious that she was actually wearing a dress. Apparently, it's been many, many years. She might be wearing it to Jill's wedding next week in New York.

The dresses were on super sale, so we each got one! We felt like bridesmaids :)

I've always loved making Eryn try on stuff... like these "shoes":

She only fell over once :)

Weekly Wednesday: He's back!

Dad had his three-month post-op appointment Monday - and he's all clear!

We celebrated with a trail run/walk at Tryon State Park - and then some belated Father's Day lunch.

Just over 3 miles:

Burritos and fish tacos at Taqueria Las Casitas in Tualatin:

And frozen treats from Ome Calli: 

 Happy Father's Day, Dad!! :)

Weekly Wednesday: school supplies

Mom and I started back to work Monday (Eryn started today), but that doesn't mean we couldn't squeeze in one more Weekly Wednesday!

We used our lunch break to do our annual school supply shopping. We always choose to shop at BiMart, a local, employee-owned company, because then our money does double duty.

We filled four carts - the back of Mom's car!

It feels great to help others :)

Weekly Wednesday: Go Mariners!

We try to get up to Seattle at least once during summer break to catch a Mariners day game. The four of us took the train Wednesday to see Seattle beat Atlanta!

We passed some of the time playing with my camera. Fun with monkeys:

Can we get us all in the picture with everyone looking good? Doubtful :)

This one's pretty good:

How about some ugly selfies?

No, Eryn, ugly:

Yeah, like that:

Dad!!

Better:

Yeah, Dad wins ;)

And so did the Mariners!!

We had a bit of time to kill before our train left the station, so we walked around and found a neat waterfall park right in the middle of the city:

:)

Weekly Wednesday: National Cheesecake Day

When I learned it was National Cheesecake Day, I knew what we had to do!

I got a Cheesecake Factory gift certificate for my birthday, so I ordered up a couple slices for my family to sample: Adams Peanut Butter, Red Velvet and Oreo.

We ate and played a round of May I? - and I didn't lose! Dad usually creams us, but he was having an off night :)

I hope you celebrated, too!

Weekly Wednesday: TURKEY!

My family of school employees tries to do something fun once a week during the summer. But first, Mom and Dad went to Europe for a couple weeks. Then Brad and I were camping at the Redwoods. So this was our first official Weekly Wednesday of 2014.

Actually, Mom, Dad and Eryn went golfing last week in my absence. Fine with me - I can't stand golf ;)

Since it was HOT, we picked indoor, air-conditioned bowling for our outing. But first, lunch in at the Hawthorne Cartopia.

Then a round at Grand Central Bowling:

In typical Dad fashion, he face planted on his first throw and then complained about sticky shoes the whole time. Oh, Dad...

I totally sucked the first few frames - and then I suddenly became a bowler... and got a strike.

Followed by a second strike.

And then a third! TURKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've never, in my whole life, done that... And then I WON!

HAHAHA - from last place to first place, baby!

We celebrated with a chocolate caramel tort at nearby Pacific Pie Co.

Yeah, it was good ;)

:)

Weekly Wednesday: school supplies

Per tradition, we used our last Weekly Wednesday of the summer to buy school supplies to donate to Tigard school kiddos.

Our favorite Bi-Mart manager was on hand to ring up our three overflowing carts:

Between the three of us, we had more than $900 in pens, paper, notebooks, calculators and backpacks to deliver:

Feels great to help others :)

OH, and as a bonus, this Halloween display made me very happy :)

Weekly Wednesday: bike locks, French food and plants

This week's outing was a bit random.

We started Wednesday morning with a trip to Dick's Sporting Goods so Eryn could use a gift card to buy lights for her bike. Then we moved to REI to buy a purse and the bike lock system Brad had picked out. She used her dividend - more free stuff!

By then we were starving. We wanted to try something new and ended up at La Provence in Lake Oswego. Eryn's neighbor is part owner, and we've always wanted to try it.

Everything on the menu looked amazing, and we had a hard time deciding. We finally settled on potato tartiflette for me:

Northwest Salmon Omelette for Mom:

Vegetarian Croissant and Cream of Asparagus Soup for Eryn:

We shared around and all concluded that the food was good but not quite as amazing as we were hoping. The prices were reasonable. I would give them another chance and try some other dishes.

The place was packed, and we enjoyed sitting on the patio and people watching. The ladies behind us cracked me up. Definitely Lake Oswego ladies. They all looked the same!

Then came the main event: plants for Eryn's yard.

We hit up Home Depot, Lowe's and Gardener's Choice, filling Mom's truck bed twice.

Eryn used more gift cards and got a tons of plants for her back-yard project. I can't wait to see the final product :)

Next week we'll celebrate Weekly Wednesday in Kansas City! :)