Beach Day

I love that picture of Cannon Beach.  We took the kids there for the first time on Tuesday, and once we got to the beach, enjoyed a beautiful day.  I don't know what's wrong with us that we haven't taken Daphne or Christian to Cannon Beach yet.  It's only one of my top 5 favorite beaches in the entire world (Daph was very impressed that I got to live there when I went to Ecola), but apparently we've been very lax in our beach adventures.

The drive is about an hour and a half, but since we like things wild, it took us 3 hours.  Our first issue had to do with a me staying with the car and getting gas in Hillsboro while David walked across the parking lot to my favorite Starbucks (185th, yay!), except he got confused and walked to a different Starbucks.  The kids and I sat at my favorite Starbucks for what felt like hours wondering where he was, me imagining him having disappeared into thin air, search parties, breaking news on TV; the whole 9 yards.  But we were finally reunited and it was fine.  Especially because he managed to get a Pumpkin Spice Latte at whatever other Starbucks he went to. 

Our second issue occurred when Christian started whimpering in the backseat when we were about 20 miles from CB.  But you know kids and whimpering: it happens so often you mostly tune it out.  What you can't tune out, though, is the sounds of massive amounts of vomit spewing from your child's mouth.  We pulled onto the first logging road we found and spent 45 minutes trying to clean up the disaster, something that's rather hard to do when you only have about 7 napkins in the glove box and you're almost out of wet wipes in the diaper bag.  David got sick too, because he does that when he sees other people get sick.  A trucker pulled over to tell us it was National Dog Day, so at least we had that.  

Obviously we were off to a rough start.  Cannon Beach was the busiest I think I've ever seen it, but we found a great parking spot, had a good lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, then spent the rest of the afternoon under the sun and on the beach.  Jonas was pretty good the whole day and the kids had a terrific time playing in the sand and water.  Lola found a few doggy friends to run with, so I think she enjoyed her Dog Day fairly well. 

We drove home uneventfully but in a rather malodorous car.  One feeding stop for Jonas meant we even missed city traffic.  Hurray for beach days.  

her favorite beach activity is digging a hole to hang out in

must've just been a little carsick, because he perked right back up

jonas's first beach trip

all of us

The Mountain House

I kind of want to talk about our vacation in the most monotonous, boring way ever.  Like this:

Last year we liked our vacation at the snow house.

This year we decided to go to the mountain house, mostly because it was cheaper and because we could take Lola. 

There was no snow because it was the warmest weekend of the year and because we were at a lower elevation than last year.

We played inside and outside, watched movies, ate food, read books, had no internet or cell service, went hiking, and ate more food. 

It was fun.

The end. 

Seriously, by bedtime tonight I felt like I could barely come up with enough responses to all of Daphne's questions today (I read recently that a 4 year old asks an average of 437 questions a day...I know whoever said that was not exaggerating) so I just want to blog like a man with no embellishing whatsoever. 

I can share pictures though.  And even with pictures I can be lame and not think about what I'm saying.  Like this:

This was C's face every time he saw water.  He's saying 'wow':

This is a dried up river bed we found.  Daphne loved it:

This is Daph as a good hiker girl:

This is Chrish as a good hiker boy:

This is David pretending to wash dishes:

This is Chrish attacking Lola:

OK, never mind, I can't talk like that anymore.

The cabin had a lovely deck with a little creek and bridge out back.  Even though it would have been fun to have snow, it was great to be able to go in and out so easily.  Christian would stand at the door and whimper if he felt like he'd been inside for too long, so opening up the sliding door for him to play out back was perfect.  As long as he didn't go stomping through the creek, which was his favorite. 

Having no internet was wonderful.  Too much time is wasted on the internet these days (seems like to me, but what do I know?), especially with the millions of little gadgets that make it so accessible.  It was a wonderful purge to be without for 3 days and we didn't miss it one bit. 

Now that I have vacationed 2 times with these people, I think I can safely say I like it.  Lots.

This is everyone who was on the trip:

Us + Farm Animals = Great Love

Our stash of firewood has been running low lately so yesterday we took the day to run to Albany and give David some wood cutting time.  Also there are three February birthdays we needed to celebrate
and some delightful farm animals to visit.  Sounds like the makings of a great day, right?

Daphne amazes me with how at ease she is with all the animals.  I've never seen her be scared, even when she lays in the grass and hopes that Annie will eat her. 

Christian fell completely in love Annie.  He wasn't too keen on being on her back alone, but he was perfectly happy being up there with David.  I think if Annie and David had gone on a little ride around the field Christian would have quickly been fast asleep.

And then there's Pascha.  Isn't she the most beautiful little thing?

We are allowed to love Pascha because she is not for eating.  She is the start of our little herd and will be good for milking and producing beef to eat later on.

It's really too bad that she can't live at our house.

After animal time it was birthday time.

And Chinese Lantern time.

And then time for a late night drive home, wherein Christian was fast asleep before we even reached Albany city limits and Daphne talked and talked and talked the entire way home.  

Christian has been talking about Pascha and Annie today and Daphne has been trying to ride Lola.  It seems the effects of the farm animals don't quickly wear off.   

Apparently We Like Tanks

You know the weird, random assortment of letters you have to decipher when you're signing in to some sites?  The last time I left a comment somewhere I also had to make sense of a blurry photo as well as decipher the letters, all to prove I'm not a robot.

Well...and you might want to be sitting down for this...I THINK I MIGHT BE A ROBOT because I can NEVER get those things right.

I'm not sure what to do with this information.

Daphne would probably like me a whole lot if I was a robot.  She likes things of the mechanical persuasion, like airplanes, and as we learned today, tanks.

David got an invitation through work to Young American Day at the Air National Guard Base.  This was Daph as we were walking in:

She's saying, "Look at that!  Look at that big airplane!  Can we go see that airplane?  Can we get in that airplane?  Can we go see that firetruck?  Look at that big airplane!"

We waited in a super long line to get a few minutes in a fighter jet.  Like an hour and a half long wait.  The wait wasn't actually too terrible; we waited with one of David's co-workers who happened to have a very sweet wife, so David and his friend would take the kids around to look at other things while she and I chatted it up in line.  When the fighter jets took off on the runway we could still easily watch them.  Really we missed nothing by being so wonderful as to hold spots in line for our spouses and children.

It was during this wandering around where it was discovered that Daphne really loves tanks.  

I mean, just check out her look of pure happiness/contentment at getting to chill in this massive machine (I don't think this is a tank; maybe a Humvee?  I get my war machines mixed up.  The boys up there playing with the 50 caliber make this a real touching photograph, though.):

When we finally made our way to the front of the fighter jet line, I was afraid that she would get nervous climbing the wobbly stairs to get to the top (personally I was feeling the need to possibly throw up) and cling to me for dear life and not want to touch the plane.

I was wrong.

She let us set her in no problem and was immediately pestering the poor pilots, "what is that? what is that?" and tugging on all the bells and whistles. 

She got out so that David and Christian could get in, and then what do you know, when no one was watching her closely she just hopped herself right in for another round.

My favorite part about the fighter jet was that I got to meet two pilots, so now when I see the jets flying over I can imagine maybe one of the guys I 'know' is in there and that's pretty cool.  I can say I 'know' them because I asked the very personal question of  "do you ever throw up on yourself when you're up there" and the one said "I really try not to."  I find it interesting that he didn't say no, so does that mean he sometimes does?  An interesting thought to ponder.    

It was a really fun day and I imagine we'll go again next year. You can all come too, it's open to the public (I don't think they advertize it much?).  They have all manner of American-type things to be happy about: police cars/motorcycles, fire trucks, airplanes, tanks (if I hadn't mentioned that yet) and then some loud planes do cool take offs to watch.  If you or your children find any of those things fascinating you would probably enjoy this event. 

We got to watch that big grey plane take off.  It was pretty big and loud.

Easter Finest

Is this not the most adorable thing you've ever seen?






















Yes indeed, matching ties.





































The one in pink is not a fan of cooperating for photographs, but her dress was cute so she needed to be involved regardless. I'm glad you can't see the Cadbury Egg smears down the front of her dress, and it's good this was taken before the yellow bubble water fiasco and before the pee accident.

Lady-like much?

Here we are as 4, pretty much as put-together as we can ever be:






















Impressive.

Egg Hunting

David's work hosted an Easter Egg Hunt that we attended last weekend. Poor Daphne thought there would be chickens there (how else do eggs end up all over the grass?).






























There was the actual hunt, then snack time and craft time. She also got a goodie bag. I will give you 5 guesses as to what her favorite color is:



















I love that Daphne is getting old enough to appreciate and enjoy the holidays. Easter is a little hard to understand, I think, since death/life isn't something a small child can really understand. We have quite a few Easter books that we've read over and over this season to lay the foundation of comprehending Easter.

Of course Daph makes sense of it with her 3 year old brain...and talks about children living with Jesus in His house and playing Easter Eggs with Him.

I'm pretty sure you will find that story in John chapter 59.

It's Important to Document the First Trip to Ikea

Last week we went to Ikea for the first time since Christian was born. Daphne and I used to go all the time while David was at work; it's such a great place to go to get ice cream and let Daph play in the kitchen area.

We've been wondering lately if she would qualify for the big kids play area, where you drop them off to play while you go shop. I know they need to be potty trained, but the height requirement concerned me. Sure enough, she is a few inches too short, but once we explained things a bit they let her in! The workers were so sweet about it, and Ikea officially has the best play area ever. She had the best time and now that Daphne is officially registered, I think we'll be going there more often.

Christian had to stay with us.


















I wasn't able to get all the things on my list, but David found something that we just needed, so we came home with that instead.


















A super fun road carpet for only $12.99. I've seen some cute DIY ones that I've considered making because I know David has wanted one of these carpets for the kids, but let's face it, there's not much time for DIYing lately and $12.99 will not break the bank.

It's a small price to pay for something that offers such fun for all.

A Snowcation

A couple of months ago I found a smashing deal for The Grand Lodges at Collins Lake Resort up at Government Camp. We'd been tossing around the idea of a little family vacation but weren't sure what to do, and when I found these we decided it sounded perfect.

We went this week and it was perfect.

You can tell by Daphne's face how excited she was as we got close to our destination and she could see all the snow.

















We got to our condo and she was thrilled that we had acquired a snow house in addition to our regular house.

"Now we have two houses," she said, "our house and our snow house."

We spent the days playing in the snow, coming in to warm up by the fire, playing in the snow, eating, playing by the fire, and playing in the snow.




















































It snowed pretty much the entire time. We always had a beautiful view from the windows.

Daphne got to sleep in a bedroom with bunk beds, and although we did not trust her to sleep on the top she loved playing up there. She told me that when Christian grows up she will sleep on the top and he can sleep on the bottom. (She really thinks we own the place.)


















Sometimes David and Daphne went out to play where I could see them from our deck.






















Christian liked being outside, but he also liked playing Jenga next to the cozy fire.








Snuggling with Daddy was good, too.












Our first official family vacation was definitely a hit. The resort is a beautiful place to stay, we would go back in a heart beat. The weather was perfect, and of course, the company was delightful.