On the shores of Matheson

 

Back by popular demand!  Okay, so maybe back by the demand of one person!  Here are some photos of Matheson Hammock park, where I grew up going almost ALL the time with my family. I was going to give a delightful story about how we came to name our son Matheson and all that, but I smell a delightful aroma in the air that needs to be remedied immediately.....maybe I will write more about that later (about the naming of Matheson, not the aroma in the room), and maybe I will post more pictures of Matheson......the baby.  Because people probably want to see him.









 

All three of the Arroyo daughters learned to park in this very parking lot

Barley there.

I recall that I began to spell poorly in the fifth grade, when I refused to study for my spelling tests.  Perhaps its not a natural gift to me to spell properly in the first place, but I certainly could have made it easier if I tried. So, I suppose that you can safely say that I rely heavily on spell check.  Often this gets me into trouble because spell check is an amazing thing that is often no use at all.  Often, my spelling is so off that it doesn't even recognize what it was I was trying to spell.  That's pretty bad. Other times, I find myself changing words as I mindlessly click buttons around.  The other day, I found myself writing something that was meant for all of my in-laws to read, and after I "published" what I wrote Isaiah pointed out that I told them all that I was "Barley" there.

According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, barley is Barley is a cereal grain derived from the annual grass Hordeum vulgare.  The All wise computer once again put me in my place, and I was Barley there.  He....he...he....

Lewis and Clark

Isaiah has a special fondness for early American exploration and hopes to grow up to be an early American explorer.  So this week, he is reading a book about the Lewis and Clark expedition, and each day coming home to tell me all about everything he he has read.  Here are some of the things I learned:

-Lewis was not a first name.
-Meriwether is not "Mary-weather."
-Lewis was not a woman named Mary.
-Lewis was not a woman at all.
-Because "Mary-Weather" was not a woman, it makes it a lot less odd that he was very very close friends with Thomas Jefferson.
-Apparently, their team traveled by boat most of their trip.  Not by camel. According to Isaiah they had not invented camels yet.

Another Tidbit from Montana. Actually, From Idaho. My bad.

Some random tidbits from Montana

When the cost of the memorabilia outweighs the benefits, the phrase "Take a picture, it lasts longer" comes in handy.

These happy times.....our four year aniversary surprise.

People may ask why my photos are so green.  Its because I live in Oregon and it is green here.

I'm not so sure what he's doing.

A few weeks ago we decided to plant a garden.  Our house came complete with a garden bed, so I was very excited when we finally got around to doing something with it.  None of us know a thing about gardening, so we just went out and got a bunch of starters and put them in the ground haphazardly.  Hopefully we will at least get a return for our money. Jedidiah was a big help.