July 4th Weekend

The 4th of July was on a Saturday this year, so Ian got Friday off too. We spent Friday up at the Planetarium playing with the exhibits and watching another IMAX movie with popcorn and soda. We love having a Planetarium membership! The movies are interesting and educational, and everyone loves free popcorn! Beckett is especially into the Planetarium these days. 

Please note that this shows Davin and Beckett's combined weight! My minis!

Later that night Davin lost his second front tooth! He's pretty much the cutest toothless kid around.

We spent the holiday with the Curnow's and the Green's. It was so fun to have company all day! We started off playing at the Alpine splash pad for a couple hours. It was a little more crowded than it's been in years past, but still not too bad. The kids had a blast. Talia and Lincoln were so funny playing together. Beckett got a turn at his favorite water gun and everyone got wet and ate snacks.

After the splash pad, the Green's went home for naps, while the rest of us headed back to the house and ate pizza and played Wii and napped. Mel and I had a pretty intense Tetris battle. Haha. It was good to have some down time that afternoon.

The Green's came back to BBQ with us for dinner. Mmm it was tasty. After dinner we caravanned over to the Thanksgiving Point Electric park to hang out and wait for fireworks. The weather was perfect and the company was awesome. We ran into a few friends at the park too, so the boys had someone to play with. After a few hours of snacking, playing and talking the fireworks started. It was a really good, long show this year. Loved it! Beckett fell asleep halfway through the show, but didn't fuss or anything as long as I covered his ears.

I am so very grateful to live in this country with all of it's freedoms and opportunities. I hope that I can share how very blessed we are to be Americans with my kids. Happy 4th of July!!!

PNW Trip 2015-Great Wolf & Portland

It was about a two hour drive to Great Wolf. The kids slept the whole way. We met up with Jim, Denny, Aly, Ryan and their girls at a restaurant right by the hotel for lunch. Then we all went to check in and get our water park wristbands. The kids all got these cute wolf ears from the front desk. Great Wolf was very smart and embedded your room key into your waterpark wristband, so all you had to do to get into the room was swipe your wristband in front of the keypad. So cool!

We played for a few hours at the water park before going to our rooms and getting settled in. The water park was a blast! There were water slides and kiddie play areas and a wave pool. Weston loved the big slides. Talia loved the biggest slides she could do and Davin loved the wave pool. Everyone had tons of fun. After we got settled in our rooms we went and got dinner at Wendy's. We got back in the pool for a couple hours before we went to bed that night. The room we had was really fun. It had a separate little "cabin" room for the kids with bunk beds and a twin. Beckett got the floor again. :)

The next morning, Wednesday, we ate breakfast in our room. We had gotten donuts and muffins and milk. Then we packed up our stuff and loaded up the car before hitting the water park again. We spent most of the day swimming and playing. We finally got Davin to go on the slides. He liked them. We had pizza for lunch inside the hotel. After that Aly and her family were done in the water. They got changed and headed home with Jim and Denny. We stayed for another couple of hours. We ended up heading down to Jim and Denny's house right during rush hour. The traffic was pretty awful, but the kids were napping almost the whole time, so it was fine. We got home in time for dinner and a round of croquet. We had the best time at Great Wolf. It's something the kids will be talking about for years. Thank you for taking us Grandma and Papa!!!

Davin after his first big water slide. He was so brave and had fun!

Thursday we had a quiet, low key day. We took a slow morning and then went for a little hike. It was absolutely gorgeous! We saw giant slugs and had a great view of Mount Hood. That afternoon, while Beckett took his only real nap of the entire trip, Ian and Denny took the rest of the kids fabric shopping. They each picked out fabric for a fleece blanket Denny is going to make for them. So fun! Later the kids all helped Papa wash his bug. That night we had dinner together again.

Friday we went to OMSI. It had been several years since we had been there. The visiting exhibit was Ripley's Believe It or Not. There were lots of cool things in there. I spent a good hour with Tal and Beck in the little kid area playing in sand and water while Ian explored the other exhibits with the big boys. Then we all went into the science area and played with balls and bottle rockets and 3D printer pens. It was a good time. We went to Mike's Drive In for lunch afterwards. It was delicious and while we waited for our food and chatted afterwards the kids ran around and played. Weston even climbed his first tree! That night we spent time with Aly and Ryan again and gathered up our stuff.

Saturday morning we headed out bright and early. We drove the whole way home. It was a very long day and we had to stop 4 or 5 times, but the kids did pretty well and we made it home around 9pm. Whew! We had such a great trip! So glad that we could spend time with family and make so many fun memories!