A new season

Oh man, so much going on. Well not really that much, just many many many projects, to-dos, concerns, and such running through my mind lately. Logan deployed and though I expected it would be different with two kids adjusting to semi-single parenting with a husband away at war really threw me for a loop! My motto right now is "Keep calm, carry on, and smile", it's tough but I've got a plan... sort of... and I've got support for sure!

So, I've finally gotten through all my vacation pictures and have narrowed them down to a mere 400 that I will put into two photos albums. I'm not sure yet if that's still too many but it's less than half of what I started with. We'll see I guess...

Anyway, I picked a small sample of our fantastic adventure :) The three photos that have all four of us in them and a few others just for fun!

Heading out from Portland to Sisters at the beginning of the trip.

Left: What most of the west looked like, beautiful! :)
Right: My 3 brothers, 4 sisters, me, and my nephew Henry (not looking)

On the porch swing of our KOA kabin in Mountain Home, ID
(I kinda wish we could have stayed there longer, Rowan really liked it)

Left:One of Rowan's favorite things! (I'm so glad we got him that suit)
Right:What Logan looked like through most of the west ;)

In Brandon and Lindsey's backyard in Laramie, WY

Left: Katie showing off her chewing talents much to the amusement of Lindsey :)
Right: Rowan being sweet, watching TV in a hotel in Boise, ID with his arm "around" Logan's shoulders

Maybe I'll be able to choose a few more and make another trip post later. Hopefully under a month this time ;)

family photos

whew! We're home but I still have to get through all the pictures I took! (about 2000 in all) maybe in the next little while I'll get a couple posts up. Bear with me, a few tough months ahead. I can't promise much.

Here's something I do have. Our first official family photos. A friend of mine from back in my Applebees days is starting out as a photographer and we commissioned her skills at a park not too far from where I grew up.


I am so blessed :)

Sunny days

Whew! What a crazy life we've been leading. It's been quite a couple months and I've got way too many photos. I finally managed to pick a few from the vast sea (I could probably make at least three whole scrapbooks from the lot of them!) I hope it isn't too much in one go. You may want to get yourself a beverage and make yourself comfortable ;) Here we go!

SISTERS

At the end of June Logan had a few really busy days in a row so the kids and I (along with Aunty Coco) headed down for a little Goddy and Gremmy time in Sisters.

I think he won the race

Stopping over in Portland we took advantage of the great park by Grampa and Gramma's house and its fountains.

Back up north we checked out a park in Centralia. Logan and Rowan are being "maori" over there and Rowie is in "the jungle room" (from an Imagination Movers song)

4 months old! :D

We've been blessed with some good sunny days while being spared the incredible heat of last year. Logan made Rowan a "water slide" which got him going a little fast for his taste and he preferred to just jump in and out of the wading pool. I've got to add concerning the photo on the right, I just love my bare baby! Looking at this pic just makes me want to snuggle her!

OLYMPIC FLIGHT MUSEUM

On a recent search online for something to do in our area I found the Olympic Flight Museum. Just a little place down towards Tumwater with some vintage war airplanes and helicopters. The highlight of the visit was the old helicopter out back that you can climb in and "fly".

Rowan loved it!

They do have a posted rule against running. As I was lining this shot up he was walking and by the time the shutter clicked, well, you can see how fast a little boy goes from zero to sixty ;)

I love that pant leg is outside his boot
while the other is tucked up
on top :)

July 24th, a good day!

Happy birthday to Grammum!!

We got to visit Logan's Grammum for her birthday. It was a lot of fun. We hung out, played with the dogs, watched her new DVD of Celtic Thunder ;) went out for dinner and Rowan's first bowling game!

Before every shot he (or anyone else) took he'd say loudly, "One, two, three, go!"


























The cheering section was top notch!

Both the kids did really well!

Grammum's garden is so lovely!

Yes, it's been a busy couple months. And in just a few days we embark on an even busier time, our incredible journey. We're going to be on holiday for two weeks and decided that it would be a lot of fun to roadtrip across the west to visit some friends out that way. I'm not sure exactly how crazy we are but I'm pretty sure it's a lot, time will tell. We head down to Portland on Saturday then on to Sisters for a couple days. After that our route takes us along across OR and southern ID, after a dip into northern UT, we cut across WY, down into CO, back into WY, up to Boise in ID, finally we'll swing in to see my sister and her family in Walla Walla, WA before winding up to highway 90, onto I-5 and home.

I have a feeling a lot of the pictures in my
next post will look like this ;)
Until then!

new look

My other background said it was going to disappear so I looked around and found a new one :) I like it. I tried to get a bunch of pictures together for a grand new-look-bunch-of-photos blogpost but it's taken me too long and now it's late and I am a little under the weather. So my apologies but no new photos tonight. I need to go to sleep.

Maybe tomorrow.

Rowanism

Rowan is a funny little chap. He makes us laugh all the time. One of those moments just happened...

Rowan and Logan were just listening to "Hey Baby" (by Bruce Channel) in the kitchen. Rowan asked Logan what the song was called, he didn't know and to go ask me. Rowan asked me, I actually couldn't remember so I said it's "Be My Girl" after a short conversation with me he went back. Logan asked the name of the song and after a little mumbling Rowan reported the name of the song was "I Love My Mother".

Some more sun, hooray!

We didn't get up to much at all today so I'm just gonna post pics from Sunday. We had some good fun on Sunday :)

Some more noodle fun!

We actually went out and bought a few more noodles so we could have large, epic, safe battles :) This one lasted quite a while.

Splashy boys

Rowan loves loves LOVES the pool. He's just going to be in heaven this summer when it's warm enough to swim more than two days in a row. Splashing is just about his favorite thing.

Logan enjoys it too ;)

I'm afraid before long I am going to have to take swimming lessons. I never had the fondness for water that Rowan has already so I never properly learned how to swim. But if I don't learn I think I'd have to keep him away from opportunities for fun and exercise. And that just wouldn't be fair to the little guy. Besides, I'll take any chance I get to wear my boy out! :D

I don't know if Katie will like the water as much as her brother but one thing I'm fairly certain of is that she will be as happy and talkative as he is! She is such a smiley, giggly girl! And I love it!!

Two nights in a row we got to have a fire in our firepit. The first night was after Rowan's bedtime so he didn't get to enjoy it but we did the second early so he could hang out with us too.

Maybe we should have done it even earlier?
Or maybe campfires just aren't that interesting
to an active 2 year old?

Haha, really he was just getting sleepy.

It wasn't as warm today and isn't forecasted to be very warm again until the weekend but it should be nice enough to play outside. Which is good enough for me! :)

Fun with noodles

Last week my younger brothers finished school for the year. This week they are hanging out with us enjoying what should be a week of pretty good weather. If the next 6 days are anything like today it'll be great! Today was sunny, warm, and wonderful!

After we'd done our food shopping for the week I realized that I'd forgotten bug spray so I went back while the guys picked up some Thai food for dinner. Near the bug spray I found a couple of pool noodles. I thought they'd be fantastic for Rowan. Something he can safely "fight" people with :)

He was pretty excited by them.

Epic battles ensued! Fun, safe battles :)

They also serve well as elephant trunks

This photo's a little blurry but I thought it was a cool shot.

I was trying to get a picture of the water lit by the sun.

Even though this didn't turn out like I wanted I think it's kinda cool. It was mostly dumb luck. I couldn't even really see the screen because the sun was in my face!

I can't promise daily updates while the boys are here but I'll try to document the fun in somewhat timely manner :)