Sunday, September 25, 2011

Camping Trip!






This weekend we ventured camping with the boys for the first time. (You can see in one picture they are getting ready for the trip by testing out the chairs while snacking!) We got a very big tent and packed the car full of gear and headed to the coast. We camped at Fort Stevens, near Astoria, OR. (http://www.astoria-usa.com/fort-stevens-state-park.shtml). We met up with our friends, the Tuwalski's, who live in Portland. They have 2 small kids too and we knew the kids (and adults) would have a lot of fun. They brought their 2 dogs, which pleased Owen tremendously. Things went pretty well - except that none of the kids slept very well and I personally thought it was much colder at the coast than at home! You can see in the following posts some of the activities we did during our trip!

The mighty Pacific Ocean









We finally got to visit the Pacific Ocean during our weekend trip! It was magnificent and we were all in awe of nature's beauty. The boys, of course, had a ball playing in the sand and the freezing cold water! Colin even got caught by a wave that came in much further than the others and it took him down on his knees. A good lesson about the power of the tides!

Astoria, Oregon









During our camping trip we visited nearby Astoria, Oregon. In addition to checking out the town, we went to the top of the Column (http://www.oldoregon.com/visitor-info/entry/astoria-column) and stopped by a local beer festival. They had a great play area set up for kids with toys, bubbles and paints. The boys played there for hours!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

A visit from Grandma!!








This weekend we had the pleasure of having a visit from Grandma. The boys were as active as ever but had so much fun playing with her. They played drums and cymbals with their Gears containers, made a toast with their raspberries, rode their bikes under grandma's arms as a bridge (and watching Owen "duck" down was incredibly cute), and had lots of fun being ornery boys with her. Unfortunately I think Grandma went home with the cold the boys had last week... Sorry Grandma! We hope that doesn't deter her from coming back again very soon!

Planting a Tree




The boys had great fun helping to plant a tree in our back yard. I think they had more fun giving the newly planted tree plenty of water...

One thing is for sure, this boys LOVE mud!!!

Saturday, September 3, 2011

A special surprise


Last weekend I ran my first 100 mile race. As I came up to the last 400 yards I saw that my boys had come out to see me finish. I was SOO excited to see them, I didn't expect them to drive up for the finish. I'm working on my blog which will have plenty more pictures from my race (ultrarunnerjen.blogspot.com) but in the meantime, here are a few shots of all of us at the finish area.

Owen Update




Owen has officially transitioned to a big boy bed! After several crib incidents - getting his leg stuck in between the bars and finding him straddling the top bar with his leg stuck against the wall - it was time to get him out of the crib. He seems to like the extra space in his new bed and also the new-found freedom of being able to move around in his room during "sleep time." He will eventually calm down and sleep again, change is always difficult at first.

He also loves playing with pencils (not sharpened) and just started "hanging" by the fridge doors like he's doing a pull up.