Oregon Coast {in pictures}

The summer has come and gone and so has our summer vacation.

We loved going to the Oregon coast as a big family, 

it's too bad that we had some missing family members though

maybe next time because I'm sure that we will be doing it again someday.

There is too much to tell about the whole vacation so to keep it simple for me

I will show some of my favorite pictures.

I love being with my family, especially getting to experience new things with them.

This was a first for Heath and the boys getting to see the coast so that right there 

made it all worth it.

 handsome boys

checking out the Pacific Ocean

 a brewery tour

 a little sand dune racing

 Love my parents, they are such troopers and kept up with all of us

and of course spoiled us along the way too.

 play time on the beach

 so beautiful

 Cody couldn't wait to play with the soldiers on the beach and re-enact 

"storming the beach at Normandy" but when a big wave came in it 

quickly became a rescue mission for all of the men.

 The football lasted but we couldn't say the same for our new frisbee 

which was lost in the tide after one throw.

No worries Brooke.

 Cody is such an easy going kid, you can take him anywhere

as long as he has his chapstick he will do just fine.

 I say it all the time but we really do all love to eat.  

We ate a lot this trip, a little bit of everything,

some days it felt like that's all we did.

 Our home was nice and it held us all, it was good that we each had a room

to call our own but maybe one extra bathroom would of been nice.

  Jim and Heath were our main cooks with a little help from 

us girls every once in awhile, they were awesome!

 love this guy

 I love how the beach could keep the boys busy for hours.

Luke and Ryan were especially mesmerized by the ocean

and would just stand out there forever.

 Ryan couldn't wait for the trip to the aquarium, 

it was all about the sharks for him.

Us girls were definitely outnumber by the boys but we can hold our own,

next time we just need Summer and Kimber there with us too.

Brooke was the only one of us girls who braved the deep sea fishing trip with the boys, 

there was no way that I was going to do that one.  A few fish were caught and everyone but 

Ricky fared well on the boat trip.

 We all loved the crabbing!

It was very entertaining and educational, especially when you have some

sweet older people to tell you all about it.  Ryan was intrigued by the crabs and showed no fear.

Once he was taught how to put them to sleep by rubbing their underside, that became his favorite thing to do.  Ryan helped another dad who was afraid to pick up a crab even with rubber gloves on by asking him, "do you want me to put him to sleep for you?" which he did and then handed him back to the dad. 

 Unplanned vacationing the same time as other relatives was a fun little treat,

We got to see my cousin Burk and the rest of the family for a couple of hours one day. 

Our first time touring a lighthouse. 

 And we thought our group was loud!

We were nothing compared to these loud rascals, 

talk about entertaining to watch!

We stayed so busy on this trip but got to see and experience so much.

These few pictures and words don't even give this trip justice but

to keep it short and sweet it was a wonderful trip.

Thanks family, we loved it.

make us or break us

Luke and I were the only ones out of my family that signed up to run the Cherry Festival race this year.  With the end of the school year being so busy and me feeling so overwhelmed with life we didn't get to running as early as I would of liked.  I hadn't been running since the fall and Luke and I have never ran together so this would be a first.  I wasn't for sure what to expect from it all, I figured with the relationship Luke and I have it could either make us or break us.  So our first run together went okay and our second ended with me leaving Luke behind and running home without him and therefore we never had a third run together.  

Luke and I are constantly working on our relationship, it's a daily work in progress.  I think it's because our personalities are SO much alike that we constantly butt heads on everything, Heath says that we fight like brothers and sisters.  I tell Luke that it's something that I'm never going to give up on and in the long run when we get it figured out we will probably have the closest relationship out of everyone.  Regardless of it all  I love this boy like crazy and know that he was a perfect gift from God given to me.

With race day quickly approaching we came up with a few goals since we hadn't been running, 

we kept them pretty simple for the two mile run:

try to finish in under twenty minutes

run 4 minutes walk 1 minute over and over

think positive words 

just the two of us would celebrate with a treat when it was done 

 Our bible verse to keep us motivated:

Philippians 4:13

"I can do all things through him who strengthens me"

It was finally race day. 

Luke was a little nervous but really excited at the same time, he just couldn't wait to get the race started.  We had our goals but I told him to just let me know what he was needing throughout the race and I would do whatever, but at the same time push ourselves as hard as we could because it would all be over in twenty minutes.  So the gun went off and we started running and kept running for over seven and a half minutes before we took our first break, then after a few short seconds we were running again, we took just two other short breaks before we were in the home stretch.  I told Luke I was going to keep picking up the pace so we could reach our goal and I had to laugh when he said, "You mean we haven't picked up the pace yet?"  He was determined to reach our goal though and kept asking me to check the time to keep us on track and can you believe that we did not argue once during the race, it was nothing but positive.  As we ran across the finish line you could see how proud he was by the smile on his face, I loved it.

Even better was when he won FIRST place for his age group with a run of 

20 minutes and 33 seconds.

If asked I would say this race MADE US even though when I asked Luke if he thought we made a pretty good team, he just shrugged his shoulders and was like I don't know (like why are you even asking me this mom) and then I knew things were back to normal between us.

A few shout outs to the rest of the family that did so AWESOME,

we just happen to all fall into different age categories

Hailey: First Place

Papa: First Place

Nicole: Third Place

Grammy: Third Place

Me:  Nothing

camping trip number two

 We loved camping trip number two.

We had the most perfect weather. 

We added a few lights to our Charlie Brown tree.

I guess we are into a little decorating this year. 

We enjoyed some sister time. 

We enjoyed watching the boys get put to work by Papa.

carrying and stacking firewood

and they didn't complain once.

We always enjoy some great food. 

We love our cooks,

most of the time.

We love to head out for a little fishing.

We are a lot of work for Heath to get us all ready to fish,

between the tangled lines and baiting fish hooks,

he doesn't get to do a lot of this.

 We all enjoy it though.

 

We keep busy catching tadpoles when we' re not fishing or

we relax and take in God's beauty or

we take care of the worms and try to feed the fish we catch

a worm before they are thrown back in.

We even had a visit from the tooth fairy this time.

We are always tired by the end of the day, 

including Miss Ruby.

We even did a little fishing at night, 

there were a few fish caught.

We were busy getting packed up when Cody gave his brothers

a little bible study, it was Sunday after-all.

He brings his bible everywhere.

We came up to a bad accident and sat in traffic for almost three hours.

We stayed busy by reading our library book, talking, playing on ipods

and sitting in the shade next to the mountain.

We did our best to not complain because we were blessed

to have our family all alive and safe, unlike the people in the accident.

We missed having Matt and his family up camping this time but 

he was busy back home winning first place in the truck driving competition.

Way to go Matt.

Looking forward to trip number three soon.

Hello Summer

Even though the kids still had a week of school left

our summer started over Memorial weekend 

with a rainy but fun camping trip.

Thanks to Matt we had a few new things

added to the campground this year.

Our flags.

Our fort.

We worked through the sunshine and rain to get as much of the fort done.

Everyone did their part in helping out, my job was to sand everything.

It's still a work in progress, 

Matt plans on adding a zip line and some more camouflage

and who knows what else.  

The boys love it.

Matt and I also worked together on this project.

A little log bench for the kids to sit on under their fort.

Ryan and Kimber look a little cuter sitting on it though,

don't you think?

We ate so good up camping.

The boys do most of the cooking

which we all love

and there is never a shortage of food around there.

 Of course we did some fishing too

It was raining so not all of us joined it

just these three brave boys.

Ryan was the only one with a catch and 

he caught this one on it's back.

We also did a little early celebrating for my birthday.

Not only did I get some awesome gift cards and money gifts but 

also some homemade rhubarb crisp and carrot cake

some of my favorites, thanks sis!

After camping we came back to finish up our school year.

Cody's had an awesome ending.

Not only did he receive straight A's

(in fact we only had one B out of all the kids)

but his name was drawn at the end of year assembly 

for positive behavior and he won the BIG prize!

An ipod touch.

He was so excited and in complete shock

we were so happy for him.

The last day was finally here.

Luke was dreading it because he was going to miss his friends so much

but I couldn't of been more ready. 

Good bye First, Third and Fifth grade,

and hello SUMMER.

 The summer fun started off right away.

Right after school we celebrated Abigail's belated birthday with a pool party

then Saturday morning my birthday celebrating started right back up again

with an all day shopping trip for Amanda and I.

We had such a great day and found some great things.

I came home to my boys who had a few surprises for me

the new chair that I wanted to go with my new desk

and a home made double layer cake made by Heath.

My boys are so good to me.

Sunday was my actual birthday so right after church

we did some more shopping

then met up with my parents for lunch and headed to the movies

to watch Iron Man 3.

This was probably one of my favorite birthdays in a long time, 

I've felt so special and loved with all of my cards and their sweet messages,

my gifts, my phone calls, my lunches, my flowers, and my surprises.

I'm really liking 37.

Thanks! 

This week's been a little quiet and laid back.

The kids have had some play dates

we've been swimming at the pool

going to the library

enjoying the sunshine

and just getting some stuff done

so it's felt good.

 We also made a little trip into the eye doctors for Luke.

So we knew that he would be needing glasses soon from his last appointment

and I told him that if he didn't get them in third grade then for sure he had to have them

to start off his fourth grade year.  Well Luke isn't good with changes so he was fighting me 

on getting glasses all last week and then like a miracle the day before we had our appointment

he was at peace with the idea and was good to go.  Now this kid couldn't be happier

and can't stand that he has to wait until his actual glasses come in, his biggest problem was

trying to decide which pair to pick out because he loved so many of them.

I think he looks so great in them, such a stylin boy.

Oh and just in case you were wondering about 

all the shaggy hair you are seeing in these pictures

it's getting cut today. Cody even asked if he could have a haircut.

  It's back to camping for us....

yipee.