Where Do You Get Your Buns?

We went on a field trip last week to the Franz Bakery in Portland. It was a lot of fun and very interesting. Did you know?...

• Franz bakes 1 million buns and 80,000 loaves of bread a day.
  
• They also have bakeries in Springfield, Seattle, and Spokane.


• The Franz Family came to America from Austria first in 1895.
  
• The bakery began in 1906.
  
• If you go to pretty much any fast food restaurant in the Pacific NW (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, & Nevada) you are eating buns baked by Franz.

We tested this information when getting 1/2 price strawberry-limeades at Sonic in Wilsonville following the field trip. Jess put on her Franz baker's hat, held up her mini-loaf and rolled down the window. When the lady at the drive-thru noticed her, we explained where we'd been and asked her where they got their buns. Sure enough, she said their buns were from Franz and a Franz truck had been there just that morning. The kids had their laughs about the whole situation.

When we were on our way to a basketball game Sat. morning, we saw two Franz bread trucks at different stops in Wilsonville. The kids gave the trucks the 'Franz wave' they were told about, which is the letter 'f' sign in ASL and then waving the three fingers.

We had to remove (or tape) all jewelry, gum, wear pretty, red hairnets and leave cameras behind through the factory tour. The tour was for ages 7 and up, so Catherine spent the day with Grandma. We got to follow the whole process of how bread is made starting with the thousands of bags of flour, mixing dough, rising, kneading, rolling, cutting, baking, cooling and packaging. The bread and buns go on the 'bread highway' which is a line that winds down and back across the ceiling of the factory for 1/2 a mile in 22 minutes to quickly and thoroughly cool the bread before being packaged. We saw bread being loaded onto trucks on bread racks.

We saw many different types of bread and labels that are all made at the Franz Bakery, including a new favorite bread of mine that I get at Costco--"Kirkland's NEW Walnut-Honey Wheat"--really moist, dense and loaded with different grains and seeds. I guess I was glad to see where it is made and to find out it is so local. So, if that sounds like your thing, you should try it next time you're at Costco.

Happy New Years Eve--Good-bye to 2008!

A few things we look forward to in the NEW YEAR...

...more BASKETBALL--we're proud of our little 'super stars' (even little sister)!

...more SNOW--we love it!

...more SMILES!

...more FAMILY TIME!
...another successful OSU Beaver football seasons--did you see the bowl game today?
...more health, happiness, thankfulness, etc., etc.
(And the list could go on and on...)
What are you looking forward to in the New Year?

We wish you a Happy New Year in 2009!
Love,
The Classens

4th of July Rodeo

It is a 4th of July tradition of ours to dress up in our 'cowboy' clothes and go to one of the rodeos nearby in St. Paul or Molalla--we don't go every year, but it is still a tradition since we've gone more years than not. Actually, this year was our first time at the Molalla Buckeroo and we liked it as much as St. Paul. There was a fireworks show following the rodeo.

One of the acts was the 'One-Armed Bandit'--yes, a man with one arm who rode his horse without a bridle, cracked a whip, jumped the horse onto the back of the flatbed truck and then up it climbed to the top of the stock trailer. But, the real fascinating part was when he was able to get two buffalo to also jump onto the flatbed and climb up to the top of the trailer.

The kids love the rodeo. They love the bull-riding the most. Catherine has loved bullriding since she was really little. She used to ask to watch it on ESPN when Daddy was flipping the channels. She is still concerned for the calves well-being with the calf roping and steer wrestling events, though. Go figure! She is soft-hearted when it comes to the animals, but likes to see the cowboys get bucked off.

A New Baby

Visiting at the hospital, Sat. March 22.













Last week, we were excited to welcome a new cousin/niece to our family. My brother/sister-in-law had their third child on March 20. We went to visit them in the hospital a couple times. Catherine, who has always loved babies, is enthralled with Reese Olivia. Catherine got to hold her for a long time and didn't want to leave the hospital when our visit was up! She is a cute baby.

I wanted to post the pictures I took of my brother and his family with the new baby because they are so nice, but my sister-in-law probably wouldn't appreciate that. But, anyway, we are all happy for them and excited to welcome this new little one into our family. My niece and nephew are SO excited to have a baby sister. It is a special time they will never forget. They are about the same ages my brother and I were when our mom had our baby brother!

Jessica and Andrew have also been reminiscing about the things they remember from nearly three years ago when we had Catherine in the hospital. Jessica said she tried to tell her cousin that their little sister is going to be a handful someday when she is 2 and 3 like Catie, but she said, "she doesn't believe me!" :) I reminded Jess that it's a really fun 'handful' and she agreed. There is no denying that a third child adds so much to the family! We know this new baby will be the same for them.




Catherine's expressions when she first got to see Reese up close on Thursday, March 20th.

Our friends just brought home their first foster baby to care for, and she was born on Saturday, the 22nd.


We are also expecting another baby in the family in August, when my youngest brother/sister-in-law are expecting their first child.

Easter

We colored easter eggs with the kids on Saturday night, and also finished opening our Resurrection Eggs and reading the Easter story from the Bible.








Sunday morning, my parents joined us at the 9 am service at our church.





We drove to a family gathering in our hometown an hour away, and celebrated Easter and the four April birthdays from Jac's side of the family, which included Catherine who will be three on April 25th. We had lunch, an indoor egg hunt, birthday cake, and opening of presents.








Catherine took her candy eggs to Grandpa to open.





Daddy helped Catie open a new dress up set. Somehow I think Catherine is going to have the longest birthday ever, since we're starting the celebration a month early!

Pick of the Litter

The photos from the ad we found.



We picked out our first puppy tonight! She's about 5 weeks, and won't come home with us until April when she'll be a couple weeks older.
Isn't she cute?

After my countless hours spent searching for the right pups/breeder over several weeks time, Jac gets on OregonLIVE.com to look at the Oregonian classifieds after dinner tonight, and immediately finds the place we end up getting our puppy from! Go figure! We called and found the breeder is in the next town from us, and she said we could come right over. We got there at 9:30 pm and had first pick of the litter, since her ad would first come out in the papers tomorrow. I guess her pups usually sell quickly, so we are thankful to have found the ad and jumped on it as it happened.


The kids were pretty excited tonight. They've been wanting a dog for years. I, on the other hand, am now getting a bit apprehensive now that's actually happening, although I know it is right and time to have a dog. I'm wondering just what I'm getting myself into. I know it is going to be a lot of work. It is kind of surreal to be getting our first dog in a couple weeks, after so many years without a dog, and so many years discussing when we would get a dog. We always said we would when we had property for it to run and all our children were born, so that we all could enjoy raising our puppy together as a family. Jac and I each had one special dog growing up, but for me, that was probably 15 years ago. I haven't been into dogs since losing that one childhood dog I had. In fact, I have kind of been 'anti-dog'. It really bothered me when I'd see people treat dogs as if they were human beings, but I do acknowledge that dogs are special as compared to other types of pets. They are extremely social, loyal and really need the constant companionship of their owners. Nevertheless, I find my heart softening to even the idea of the puppy staying in it's crate in our laundry/mudroom for awhile, and I'm planning to do the crate training thing, and get up in the night to take it out to go to the bathroom. I just want to train the puppy well, so that it will be an enjoyable part of our family and not just another animal to take care of.

Jess liked the runt best at first, but changed her mind after a bit.

Catie just wanted to hold one herself. As you can see, it's already about too big for her to hold!

Andrew's holding our puppy, who just spotted her mama!

We had 3 chocolate lab females to pick from--the runt, one big, brindle (this is the name for a variation in the pure color--she had a touch of yellow hair scattered on the paws), and the medium-sized girl is the one we picked. It seemed like we pretty much all agreed on her together. She has a really mellow temperment, just like her mother. The mother dog, Lucy, is a yellow lab with the sweetest disposition. I am really pleased with that. The stud dog was a black lab, named Duke, and I hear he is a big dog--110 pounds, but really good lines.

Lucy Lou, the mama

If anyone has any good puppy advice, we could use it. We are soaking in a lot of information right now and reading a lot. Jac got panels for building a kennel today. I started cleaning out our laundry room. We took a walk as a family earlier, and were all throwing out potential dog names. I thought the kids would be more into picking a name, but they are as confused as we are. So, we'll see what we come up with!