Some pics from this year's Webber outreach program to Salem/Keizer 5th grades

Here are a few highlights of this year's Webber outreach program. If you want to know more about it, here's the link to the official website.This year has been the first year with twice as many scholars and twice as many schools (i.e. two instead of one). There have been some challenges, but all in all I think it went pretty well!

Here's Frank Bash, astronomer and Willamette alumn, giving a short guest lecture at Bush elementary.

The kids LOVED him!

Our Highland scholars Carli (bio), Estella (chem), Emily (EES), and Sam (phys), preparing the solar-system-demo in the hallway. 

 

Building and launching "rockets" (water + alka selzer):

 

 

Learning about sound and building instruments:

 

 

And last but not least, building flower presses for flowers they collected on campus (this was during our last big get together good bye party):

 

Just some random pictures I found on my cell phone

Title says it all - enjoy!

Dog Mountain

After a lot of rain and clouds these past few weeks, today was finally a really, really nice day with temperatures in the low 70s and lots of sunshine. So - hubby, doggy and I packed our bags and drove to Dog Mountain (near Stevenson, WA). The weather was pretty perfect (almost a tad bit too hot for this hike), and not surprisingly, a lot of others had the same idea. The summit was packed with a good twenty or so people and four or five dogs when we arrived. The hike up was quite exhausting (it's pretty steep), but well worth it! We had a blast - including the dog, of course! Lots of sniffing, walking, wagging, and dog greeting. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

When after 3.5 hours we got back to our car, Pepper immediately jumped in, got a drink and some food, settled on the seat and fell asleep. Happy tired dog :).

Happy Easter!

Cuteness part two

Last night Abby even left us and went to sleep with Pepper on the couch. Love is in the air :).

Can't resist - cuteness!

Our three beasties aren't best friends yet (well, the cats are, but they agree that the dog is not their buddy!), but  they tolerate each other and things have calmed down a lot since we first introduced Pepper to the pack. I think we're slowly getting there. Over the last week or so George has made some real progress. Previously, when Jan and I were watching TV, Pepper would join us on the couch while George would prefer his cat tree next to the couch. Recently, though, he has joined us on the couch again, cuddling and purring. He still sits as far away from Pepper as possible (i.e. typically on the other side of me), but still, I call that huge progress! He seems to enjoy it a lot too. Lots of purring and happy kitty smiles.

Abby has been a bit more reserved. Until tonight. I was checking emails on the couch, Pepper next to me (getting ready for the night), when Abby entered the room, jumped up on the couch and settled next to Pepper. Yes, there's still a foot between them, but this is the closest I've never seen them sleep together. Maybe next winter they'll discover that real cuddling is kinda nice when it gets cold out there!

Spring has sprung... or has it?

After a few nice days and then some rainy ones, several of our bushes had already started blooming 

and we were looking forward to spring. But guess what. It's snowing!

Wilsonville was rainy this morning when I left for work, but the Salem area already had about half an inch or so of snow on the ground. Here's Pepper sitting pretty in the snow during our lunch walk:

And when I got home the snow had reached Wilsonville too. Let's see how much it'll snow over night. Maybe Willamette will get a snow day - something that hardly ever happens!