The summer is almost over.............

Ya know I really really hate how quickly time flies once you give birth to a child. Before I had kids the time just kinda was there. Once Kaeden was born I swear I blinked and another one came along and now they are almost 2 and 5. yes in two more days my "baby" turns FIVE years old :-0 5 yrs ago today I was working my last day at the Travelodge before giving birth since I knew I was being induced on the 29th I chose to take the 28th off to prepare. I'd already worked almost a week past my due date and through the harsh summer heat so I felt I deserved one day before my life changed forever. Who knew it would change it so drastically? My Tiny man starts Preschool on the 5th and I'm so excited for him but it makes me a bit teary to think of him being in "School". Even though he could go to Kindergarten this year I've chosen to keep him out one more year. #1 I don't think Mommy is ready for her "baby" to be in Kindergarten LOL #2 I don't think Kaeden is ready as he has never been in a structured situation with other kids/adults etc and I'd love to ease him and us in with 3 days a week for a few hrs a day before he's a full time M-F student. He'll be going M-W-F from 9:30-12:00 which will work great with our schedules. What in the world with kailer and I do without him for 2 1/2hrs? Kailer will miss him I think. Guess we'll find out next week!

This weekend is the boys' birthday party. Saturday at Noon. We're going with a blue's clues theme and I think they'll have a blast. Kailer is IN LOVE With Blue right now so he's just going to flip over a blue cake ;) I can't wait to see his face since last year he didn't really care much what the cake looked like, although he did enjoy eating it!

We've been home from our first vacation for a week now... I wanna go back!!!! We took an 8 day vacation to the Oregon Coast. It was WONDERFUL! We expected rainy weather for our camp trip but we got blue skies and sun! Granted it wasn't 80-100 like it is at home when it's gorgeous and sunny but it was 60-70's and very nice. Better then I had hoped for! We started the trip out by staying at Grandma and Grandpa Goodwin's house Fri night. Corey, Cassie, Bri, Kyle and Taylor joined us around midnight and we all got up Sat morning to head for the Old hwy and check out the waterfalls and the Vista House. Had a lovely picnic off the side of the road and then headed to Warrenton which was about 5miles from Astoria to set up camp! Camped 2 nights in Warrenton and the first night we got rained on pretty good. When we woke up Sunday morning to clouds and drizzle we prepared ourselves for a rainy week of camping. We drove up to Astoria and visited the Astoria Column. It was quite the hike (164 spiral steps up!) to the top and Kaeden got scared so Daddy stayed down with the boys while I ran up (LOL ok so more like huffed and puffed up) to take some scenic photos and then get back down to the family. Of course it started raining pretty good so we were unsure of what to do next on our adventure. We decided to head to Ft Steven's and check out the old military battery's. The weather turned nice and we ended up having great weather for walking around outdoors. Ft Steven's is HUGE and after the military stuff we drove up and walked out to the Ocean to see the wreck of Peter Iredale. The kids were so excited to finally be seeing the ocean as was I since we'd been on the "coast" for a whole day and I had yet to see it ;) Next we headed to the South Jetty to see where the mouth of the Columbia River met with the Pacific Ocean. Very cool view! Very cool thing to experience :) Then it was back to camp to prepare for Monday.

Monday morning we woke up to blue skies, packed up camp and headed to Ft Clatsop. What a cool place to visit. The kids had fun but weren't too fond of the 2+ mile hike we did. LOL After lunch in the parking lot at Clatsop we headed to the Seaside Aquarium. The kids had fun and fed the seals. Kailer was a bit afraid of them. From there we split up and Steven the kids and I went our way and Corey and his family went theirs. We chose to head to Cannon Beach and visit Haystack Rock. Unfortunately the tide was in so we couldn't do the tide pools. I was a bit disappointed but the boys had a blast playing in the sand and Kaeden and Steven headed out to do some wave jumping :) Kailer and I dug holes in the sand. Then we met back up with Corey and headed along the scenic route to Nehalem Bay State Park to camp for our 3rd night. Our campsite was just a hike over the dunes away from the beach and Steven and I hiked up to catch some sunset pics. Unfortunately the sun was gone so I got a few pink sky pics and after catching our breath and finishing our dinner (we hiked with our hot dogs in hand so we WOULDN'T miss the sun LOL) we headed back to the campsite. It was a funny site as we had we clothing and towels draped over every available tree branch LOL Unfortunately they didn't dry too well since it wasn't blazing hot.

Tues Morning we packed up camp again to head to our last camping destination of Cape Lookout State Park. On the way we went to Tillamook for the day and visited the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Had some great samples, watched them make cheese and had some yummy ice cream cones. Then we drove 20 miles East (The longest 21.8 miles of Steven and Corey's lives) to the Tillamook Forest Service Center. This was an awesome place for the kids! It was very hands on and taught us about the Tillamook Burn. Corey took all the kids and left Steven and I with Kai and they played in the river for awhile. He brought me back a soaking wet muddy Kaeden... :p lol When we arrived at our campsite at Cape Lookout we were amazed! It was gorgeous. By far our favorite campsite yet. It was just a few minutes walk to the easiest beach access I've ever had on the Oregon coast yet! No walking over dunes, no walking through tons of soft sand.. Just walk over a few rocks a tad of sand and BAM you're on the nice firm beach. It was so easy that we were able to get the stroller down there! Behind our campsite was the biggest tree I think I've seen and the kids could climb i n and out of it! There were little hiking trails through what I like to call our "campsite's backyard" and the kids had a blast roaming around and we enjoyed not having to keep such a close eye on them as we had at the other sites. We fell in love with the site and decided to stay an extra night that wasn't originally planned. Lucky for us our site was not reserved yet for Wed night so we all agreed to reserve it again :)

Wed morning we got up and walked the beach looking for shells. I absolutely LOVE going for morning walks on the beach, it's so peaceful and beautiful. The boys enjoyed getting wet in their PJ's although they were a bit grumpy as all these long days and early mornings were wearing them out lol. After beach walk and breakfast we headed back to Tillamook to go to the Air Museum. It was pretty cool but not worth the $$$ In my opinion LOL but the boys wanted to do it and since they went to my Forest Center in Bum F* Egypt I figured I'd give in and go to the air museum. Next we hit the Cape Mears Lighthouse and the Octopus Tree and had lunch there at the park. It was a gorgeous day and the hikes weren't too awful. Ok who am I kidding?!?!?! I almost DIED walking back up from visiting the lighthouse LOL The Tree hike was pretty easy though.. short but steep. Then it was back to camp for our last night camping. Steven the boys and I headed down to the beach to catch that sunset I'd been trying to catch for the previous 2 nights and had a great time playign on the beach. Daddy pushed Kai all over in the stroller and Kaeden found seaweed and raced the waves.

Thursday morning we got up and headed for another morning beachwalk before we made breakfast and packed up camp. We got rained on for the 2nd time... Not bad at all!!! 5 nights camping on the Oregon Coast and we got rained on night #1 and night #5 and nothing in between! Cassie who is pregnant was not feeling so hot so Corey decided it was time for his family to head home as they had plans on Fri and Sat and could use the extra day to rest. We went our separate ways and the boys and I headed towards Lincoln City to stay a couple nights with Grandma and Grandpa at their beach house. When we got to the house Grandma and us headed towards Newport to see the Yaquina Head and Yaquina Bay lighthouses. Bummer they were both closed but we got some cool pics. There were bugs EVERYWHERE and I was a bit miserable, not to mention I'd left my inhaler in the van at the house so was afraid to do much hiking without it. On the way to Newport we stopped at the Devil's punchbowl and saw 3 whales playing in the ocean and I even managed a snapshot of a whale spouting! That was cool. We grabbed some ice cream and Steven fed a squirrel :-O Crazy man. In newport after the lighthouses we visited the Port of Newport dock and watched the sea lions make some serious noise. Heading back to Lincoln City we decided to hit the beach and went to the "D" River (the worlds shortest river). Kai really enjoyed playing in that water as did I cause it was WARM! That night Grandma and Grandpa watched the boys so Steven and I could go out to dinner and we went and had some great food at the Chinook Winds Casino and then gambled away the $12 cash we had left from the week LOL It was so nice to have a little bit of "us" time doing something that the kids just couldn't go do with us. We NEVER have that...

Friday morning we got up and Grandma and Grandpa took us to breakfast at the Casino. YUMMMMMMY! Went down to the beach behind the casino and of course the kids got a bit wet and dirty, what's new? Back at the beachouse Grandma watched the boys and they napped while Steven and I went shopping at the outlet mall down the hill. We got Kaeden a few shirts for school and 3 new bras for Me who needed them DESPERATELY! We all had hot dogs/sausage dogs for dinner and just hung out.

Sat morning we got up and packed up everything to go. We had breakfast, took some pics, flew some kites (kinda) and then all of us, EVEN GRANDPA headed to the park to let the boys play a bit before the LOOOOOONG drive home! It was a great park and we got some cute pics. I really enjoyed spending some time with my parents and wish we could do it more often. Said our goodbye's and hit the road for home. Along the way we stopped at Multnoma falls since we weren't able to stop on the way up as there was no parking at all. There wasn't on Sat either so we parked illegally, ran up and took a few pics of the boys by the falls and headed back to the van LOL We found ourselves a picnic spot that was unfortunately about 4-5 miles the OPPOSITE direction that we were trying to go. Drove another mile or two to find a turnaround and then on the road again. The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful and we arrived home around 8:30pm. It was such a nice feeling to be home......

While we were gone the hill across the street from us burned, but our house was safe and sound in one piece when we got home so that was a great thing! The van had NO problems and drove like a champ. No one was seriously injured (although Kaeden and Taylor managed to get some serious blisters on their feet from wet sand and sandals rubbing) All in all the trip was absolutely as perfect as I could have imagined.

Pics to come soon...... that was a LOT of typing lol