July's Wanderings- Bagpipes, Farmer's Market, Burger's, and Antiques

July has been full of fun activities, I thought that I would share them all in one post, our July Wanderings.

In my birthday post I talked about a new antique store here in town that we went to visit on my birthday, it is called Hoffman House Antiques. Hoffman House Antiques is located in a historic building right here in Molalla, it is like a fun treasure hunt walking through the many little rooms of this shop, lots of very interesting antiques and vintage items, it was very fun walking through looking at everything, the whole family really enjoyed it. If you live locally it is definitely worth a visit! :)

I was excited to find a matching set of vintage turquoise candy dishes, I purchased one exactly the same as the large dish a few years back at an antique store in a small town twenty minutes from here on a Mother's day outing. I love the color, I had no idea it had a lid, so when I found one with a lid I knew I had to have it, then I also found a tiny matching one, turquoise is one of my favorite colors so these candy dishes were a real treat to find! It was a very hot day, and by the time we were done treasure hunting we were all ready for a cold drink, luckily they have a coffee drive through right on the property so we all got sparkling limeade, and it was the perfect ending to our Antique shop outing!

Last Sunday the kids wanted to hang out with some of the kids from their youth group at a comic book shop in Milwaukie, Oregon, lucky for Gary and I there was a perfect place in walking distance to hang out while the kids had their fun. The Milwaukie Farmer's Market, I have been wanting to get there for some time now, but it runs on Sunday so we are usually at church, we got there just in time to catch the end of it. I really enjoyed walking through and seeing all the produce, and artisan foods and crafts, it smelled delicious! We brought home some local hamburger (which was delicious) and some colorful, bright green cauliflower and purple potatoes, and a nice big fresh bag of kettle corn, Gary's favorite! Downtown Milwaukie is such a nice place to walk around, I saw quite a few shops that I would love to go back and explore!

Long time reader's of my blog may remember last summer and the very horrible car accident my daughter Sarah was in, you can read about it in Sarah's Accident post. It was the scariest day of my life without a doubt, fortunately Sarah is healing wonderfully. She did sustain a serious head injury which requires trips into the city to visit her various health care providers who are making sure she is healing up well. We have been getting to know the area pretty well. Last week we were up for a couple of appointments and had some time in between, we decided to walk around and find somewhere fun for lunch and came across a wonderful burger joint, called Little Big Burger. The menu is simple, burgers with a few choices of gourmet cheeses, fries, and truffle oil fries, and drinks. The burger was amazing and on a delicious bun, and the fries were wonderful. I got regular fries but tried Gary's truffle fries also -yum! But my favorite thing was the locally made Camden's Ketchup, delicious with the fries and has a little kick. I was so happy to see that they sold it, and brought a bottle of ketchup home, definitely my new favorite, I may have to stock up! Little Big Burger is fun and edgy, the staff is friendly, the restaurant was designed with an industrial look with funky art. There was very loud rock music playing, which would be annoying for sound sensitive individuals, but we enjoyed it, it definitely created a fun and funky environment to enjoy some awesome burgers and fries, we will definitely be back! There are locations all through Portland, I would highly recommend it!

The buildings around the Health and Healing center are really interesting, and very modern, the round and oval shapes are really neat architecturally speaking, the views from the upper floors of the center provide excellent views of the city, we have been watching the new bridge progress over the year, as well as a ship being built, we have watched it literally built from the ground up. Doctor's visits are not always the funnest, but we have always looked for ways to make it enjoyable. :) We finished our visit last week with one of our favorite drinks- Bubble Tea, Bubble tea is tea with large tapioca pearls added to it, as well as flavorful jellies, Sarah likes Apple flavored jellies and tapioca pearls, Joe likes Rainbow jellies, and I like classic Milk Tea with tapioca pearls, they are fun to drink and the texture is interesting. I was talking to one of the girls at the bubble tea shop and she recommended an Asian market where I can buy the tapioca pearls so that I can make it at home, sounds like another outing is in order! :)

The highlight of our week was the Portland Scottish Highland Games, this has been a yearly tradition for our family to attend for more than two decades now, and we really love it and look forward to it every year.

The games always begin with an opening ceremony and the Kilted Mile Run, which is always fun to watch.

Of course we have to get our yearly Scottish Meat Pies and Bangers, they are so delicious!

Everyone enjoys watching the sheep herding dogs, this year one of the sheep/dog handlers had her little one in a back carrier along for the sheep herding, it was cute to watch, now if I can just train my crazy labs like that! :)

There is highland dancing to watch, this year we brought my son's girlfriend and her little sister along, and it was really fun to introduce them to all of our favorite events.

The girls stopped by a hair braiding booth and got their hair done up, they all found hair cords that matched their outfits, their hair turned out really neat looking!

The day finished up with a very exciting caber toss, last year the caber was not turned, this year it was turned twice and everyone cheered, it is amazing the strength of the athletes that can lift that much weight!

Then it was time for the mass bands, where all of the different bagpipe groups get together for one huge group in the center of the field, they played Amazing Grace and Scotland the Brave, it is always very moving.

This year was really special for us, last year with Sarah's accident, we were still able to attend, a fact that we all found to be a huge huge answer to prayers and a blessing, since last year it was only a short time after she was even out of the hospital. We only went for a couple of hours last year, and Sarah couldn't even walk without assistance, and it was pretty overwhelming, Highland Games is very important to Sarah, she loves it and was so happy she didn't miss a year. We received encouragement from another attendee who had had a similar injury. This year Sarah was able to participate like normal, and although she still struggles with fatigue that comes along with healing, she has come a long way and it was really nice to celebrate with this family tradition. :)

So those were some of our July Wanderings, and we have a lot more outings planned that I am really looking forward to! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

You might also like to read about our previous year's Highland Games - in 2011, and 2012.