Overnight Cucumbers

So...we are home again. *what* *gasp* *gone*??? Yes we made a last minute decision to spend the week in Utah so we packed up and left. (I know you were all worried about where we were at) It was a fabulous trip and I will post more about it later, but when we got back we were delighted to find some orange tomatoes (SO close to being red...come on little tomatoes...you can do it!), some large cauliflower (but not large enough), and onions poking up from the ground (I think they are done growing, but they are not very big) . But none of them were ready to harvest. But don't feel to bad for me, I did get some cucumbers that were more than ready to harvest, and one green pepper.

I swear I checked them before we left and saw NO sign of growing cucumbers, but I must have missed them. I am thrilled to try them out for dinner tonight!

Lazy Days of Summer.......Yeah Right!

I wish I could say that our summer evenings have been filled with leisurely strolls and laying about in the back yard but alas they have been go go go. The first two weeks have been crazy with cub scout day camp, father son camp, trips to the parks, pool, and movies, and girls camp. The kids did have a great year of school, the both loved their teachers and learned a ton. They are looking forward to next year.

I talked Bryan into getting the hammock for the back yard (and by "talked Bryan into getting" I mean I bought it when I was out with Andrea shopping for curtains) and have loved it. It is So nice to have place to sit and watch the kids play. I am looking forward to a little bit more relaxed pace to the summer (I am ignoring the fact that next week I am watching my friends kids one day, have a big Young Women's project to do, have card night at my house and am trying to plan some fun projects to do for the 4th of July and Bryan has Friday off so we have to do something then too!) Oh well, here's to wishing!

Oh Boy......

Why is that wet sand or even mud can feel so good between my toes, but mashed banana just feels gross?

Yeah, its been one of those weeks! I am ready for a nap....oh wait, I just took one, oh well.

From Ribbons and Curls.....to Make up and Pearls

My little girl turned 7!

Here are 7 things she got on her birthday:

1. A new webkinz to renew her account for another year

2. More littlest pet shops (can she really need more?)

3. New clothes

4. A Barbie Movie (Fairytopia..joy)

5. A Voice recorder that makes the sounds go slower and faster

6. A Tinkerbell reading chair

and....

7. Holes in her ears!

She has been looking forward to her birthday for months for really one reason, getting her ears pierced. She did great and didn't cry at all. She is growing up SO fast. I can already see how she is turning into a little lady! We LOVE our Kaylee and being the only other girl in the house I couldn't imagine life without her!

Happy Birthday Kaylee!

Oregon Trip Part 3.....The Aquarium

For the final leg of our trip we drove down to Newport and went to the Aquarium there. I would rank it as the best aquarium we have been to. It was very cool. We got to see an octopus, sea lions at feeding time, tons of jelly fish, and we even got to pet live sharks and sting rays.

They have 3 large glass tunnels going through huge fish tanks that you can walk through and see fish swimming all a round you....very cool.

At the end there was a cute little playground and we were the only ones playing on it so we got some fun pictures:

Over all we had a fabulous trip, my favorite part was by far the beach, but this kids favorite part was the hotel (swimming pool most of all) and the fact that our room came with "fancy" cups that they could drink their orange juice out of.

Oregon Trip Part 2.....The Beach

It is amazing how 2 years can change a person's life. A young boy goes on a mission for 2 years and comes back a man. Bryan and I tried for 2 years before we were able to start our wonderful family. We lived minutes from the Beautiful Florida east coast while Bryan went to graduate school for 2 years. All of these things felt forever long while we were going through them, but looking back they were just short glimpses of life that passed by much to quickly, but changed our lives forever.

I didn't realize how much the beach meant to me until I was back on one. I nearly cried as a walked outside and a rush of sensations hit me at once. I could smell the ocean in the air, I could hear the waves crashing on the beach, I could see the white crests of the waves, but best of all I could feel it. Something about the ocean calms me, helps me meditate. I was able to get up around 5:30 each morning and spend a while by myself out on the beach. After spending 3 years separated from that feeling, I think I will have to go back at least once a year.

Now don't get me wrong there are a lot of differences between the Florida coast and the Oregon coast. We didn't even get in our swimsuits for our beach excursions this time, but it was fun and we got to see lots of live creatures, from small fish, to washed up jelly fish, to rocks covered in live starfish. It was truly AMAZING!

Oh and here is the view from our hotel patio...man it doesn't get much better than that! They even had a lighted surf at night so we could sit on our patio after the kids went to bed and watch the tide come in (we didn't watch long...it was pretty cold at night)

Here was our first time to play on the beach and our first time to use our Mother's/Father's/Anniversary Gift (a new digital video camera!)

Here are a few more short videos of the kids playing on the beach (the quality is much better on the computer and TV, blogger must have cut the quality down to fit in on the blog...darn)

Oregon Trip Part 1.....The Zoo

On our way to the Oregon Coast we stopped at the Portland Zoo. We bought a year pass last year and it was going to expire on the 31st of May so we decided to stop on in and see what was new. Not much was new....zoos don't change much year to year. But the kids enjoyed it none the less. Ashton loved it and we had a good time. Here are some pictures of the trip.

My favorite part of the zoo was feeding the birds. Two of them bit me, but it was so cool to have them land on you and get to feed them:

This is as close as Nathan would get

Kaylee and The Birds

Trevor and The Birds

I am not much for taking pictures of animals (that is one reason Trevor had his own camera, I think he got a shot of EVERY animal we passed by) So here are a few more pictures of my rowdy zoo creatures:

And because it is too hard to exclude any pictures of such cute subjects here are the rest of our shots from the zoo: