Do you read Balancing Everything? Jessica (AKA kerflop, AKA verymom) and her family have dealt with a number of health issues in the past year or two, a couple of them involving surgery. The most recent one involved Jessica learning of and having surgery to repair a hole in her heart that was—atypically—causing her to experience frequent blackouts.

I’ve been reading Jessica’s hilarious and heartfelt take on homeschooling, gardening, ineffective-but-well-meaning housekeeping, and life with kids for years now. Even though I’ve never met her in person, I feel like we’re good friends once removed, because of our mutual friendship with Heather. I’ve been following along with the health dramas and ensuing financial stresses, praying for her and her family, wishing I could do more.

Then a couple of her good friends decided to give Jessica a rash and a ray of sunshine in one fell swoop. They took over her blog and set up a donation button, compiled a list of businesses who are donating a portion of their profits to help Jessica’s family cover their medical expenses, and asked for donations to a charity auction.

And that’s where I come in. I donated a custom-painted piece of pottery to the Operation Pay For the Hole auction to help Jessica and her family pay for recent medical expenses. The auction closes on the 10th, which means as long as the winner contacts me promptly, I would have time to paint and ship the piece in time for it to be a Christmas gift! There are some other neat items up for grabs, including a handmade bag and some beaded yarn and crocheted earrings I’ve got my eye on. Why not check it out? ‘Tis the season for helping our fellow bloggers, right?

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Oregon to visit Erin and Rocco and INDY! Annalie was pretty excited, as you can see in this photos I took on the shuttle from the parking lot to the airport.

The reason we were all able to go on this trip is because I found a great deal on tickets on a bargain airline. The flight times sucked, which is probably one of the reasons the tickets were so cheap. We arrived in Portland after midnight, and then had to drive for over an hour to get to Erin & Rocco’s town. (How to tell a true friend: you say, “The flight times suck,” and she says, “No problem, I’ll leave the baby home with Rocco and drive almost three hours round-trip to pick you up and drop you off at ungodly hours! It will be worth it to see you guys!”) When we arrived at 2am I took some photos of the funky-cook projection nightlight. Because what else do you take pictures of at 2am?

We woke up early to a gorgeous, chilly fall morning. Erin and Rocco’s new house is sort of out in the country, on a property with lots of fruit trees and blueberry bushes and grape arbors.

Elliora and Annalie had a blast exploring. The wet weather and lack of rain boots didn’t even slow them down. (Why didn’t we bring rain boots with us to Oregon in November? Because both girls had just outgrown theirs and we didn’t have a chance to buy new ones.)

We did some experimenting with bubbles, with a kit Erin bought for Annalie. (I have many more photos of the bubble-blowing that I took with my real camera, but let’s face it, I’m probably at least three months away from Flickring those, sadly. I keep uploading photos, but I’m doing it at such a slow rate that I’ve been three months behind for the last five months.)

We played outside a lot. We chased the kitties…

…admired the awesome wallpaper hung by the previous owners that Erin and Rocco had the good sense to keep…and accidentally turned some of Rocco’s paintings into stained glass windows when we used them to block the light in the bedroom for Elliora’s naps.

Erin and me.

Indy smiles.

We took a quick trip to the ER where a googly eye was removed* from Elliora’s nose. We think she stuck it up there a day or two before we flew to Oregon. She was totally fine, and has promised not to stick things up her nose anymore.

*The doctor described to us how they could stick a long, thin tube up E’s nose past the obstruction, then inflate a balloon that was in the tube, and that would push the object out…or I could try just covering E’s mouth with mine and blowing hard, and that might dislodge whatever was up there. So I did that, and it pushed the googly eye almost all the way out. Troy said, “Huh. I guess maybe we could have consulted Dr. Google on this one.” So if your kid ever gets anything stuck up his nose, now you know something you can try before you head to the ER.

Lovely fall photos taken outside the hospital with some handy fall leaves. (Elliora with her Thanks For Being Brave While We Got That Googly Eye Out Of Your Nose cookies in the first photo, and looking like my mini-me in the second.) One nice thing about visiting Oregon when we did was that we got a little taste of autumn. It’s my favorite season, and even though I love living in San Diego I do miss out on fall when we live here.

Troy and Indy. Erin reading stories to Indy and Elliora.

At Indira’s daycare, the teachers are always describing her as “small, but mighty!” It’s a very accurate description. She’s little but boy is she determined and fearless. She and Elliora were quite a pair. Also, seeing Elliora next to Indy made us realize how tall Elliora has gotten!

Elliora, post-nap; Annalie, mid-sketching on the kitchen floor. This shiny, shiny guitar in the guest room made me wish it was 7 Days while we were there.

Erin and Annalie baked a delicious apple bundt cake one night. Mmmmm, bundt cake.

It was a fun whirlwind visit, and I’m so glad we went, despite the fact that in order to make it to the airport for our 7am flight, we had to wake up at 3:30am. Bleah. The good thing about such an early flight, though, is that we were back home by 10am and had an entire day to ease back into real life.

Back home in sunny San Diego.

a quickr pickr post

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I know the rest of you Americans are deep in Thanksgiving prep this week, but around here we’ve got sheep on the brain. Elliora is turning two next week, and her favorite thing in the world right now is a certain British sheep whose name might rhyme with Shmaun the Shmeep. Brenda used that as inspiration for these super-cute sheep invitations. The “ewe” pun on the back was all my idea, though.

p.s. Click through to look at my shiny new banner! Brenda‘s all over my blog today. And in my house, actually! She and Bug are staying with us this week to celebrate Thanksgiving and to—fingers crossed!—help us finish unpacking the house. Woohoo!