Summer is Tiring

We made our 4th trip to the Valley this summer last week and as usual we were busy visiting family and friends. I had a wedding shower, bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner and wedding all within the week. It was so nice spending time with my high school friends and getting to go out with grown ups. Thanks to my wonderful babysitters during all of this: Grandma Myrene, Grammy, Papa, Uncle Wes, Auntie Ashley, Great Grandpa & Great Grandma Carlson...all helped out over the several days I was busy. Jeff, Jenna and I were exhausted when we got home. I realized that summer is a lot more busy than I thought.

Here are a few pictures from the week:

Makena & Jenna

Interested in the crab

Visiting Great Grandpa & Grandma Carlson

Jenna telling Grandpa how important Sophie is

Love that tongue out

Play date with Nolah

Meeting a new friend A.J.

Relaxing with Oskar

Great Grandpa & Grandma moving in

Yum Starbucks

Bridesmaid in Marcie & Brandon's Wedding

The Happy Couple

It was a great week and we are happy to be home...until next week when we go to Birch Bay with the Moller's! Then we are taking a summer break and staying home :)

7 Months Old

 I can not believe our little baby love bug is 7 months old already. She is growing up so fast. I remember one night when I was in high school my mom coming to my room to say goodnight and telling me that she couldn't believe her baby girl was 16 already. At the time I didn't really get why she would be sad that I was growing up so fast. Now I do. I know it's silly to want your baby to stay little forever...but I do :) I want time to slow down, but I guess that is not the way it works. So, Jeff and I will have to enjoy every day with our thumb sucking, love to stand, can't live without sophie the giraffe, eating, bath splashing, rolling, sitting, curious, precious miracle girl.

Sitting on my own

Playing with Mommy

Spokane Friends in Portland

We often reminisce about our wonderful year in Spokane and about all the great friends we met there. We are lucky that one of our couple friends (Dave & Georgene) that we met there moved to Portland at the same time we did. It is always so much fun to get together with them and their adorable kids Annabel and Jacob. We were able to go over to their house this weekend and enjoy a good meal and watch their kids play.

They had these zoo animal costumes and decided to try them on for us (the elephant and gorilla are not pictures...but just as cute).

Annabel and Jacob were very attentive to Jenna and went and picked flowers for her.

Isn't this the cutest?

Jenna was getting a little worn out

Takes a certain person to pull this look off after getting out of a pool

It great to see our old friends and watch their kids interact with Jenna. We are so lucky they live close by and I look forward to the next time.

Beach Bum

We finally had a weekend mostly free so we headed to Cannon Beach to enjoy the nice weather. It isn't very often that the beach has clear sunny skies so we took full advantage of it. When we arrived we had a picnic lunch, watched the ocean waves crash and ducked the flying kites that were crash landing around us. Jenna enjoyed laying the in the shade of her stroller and watching the people stroll by and ended up taking a nap in the moby. 

While she took her nap Jeff and I watched closely as tons of kites around us were dropping out of the sky and many times we thought they were going to land and take us out. We began to realize that watching kite flying can be dangerous; especially when the kites are flying out of control and have metal on them. There was a family in front of us that desperately wanted to fly every kite they owned (and they had about 10 of them) and they weren't the best kite flyers I have seen. Every time one failed they brought another one out. We joked that they had a never ending supply. This gave us a good hour of entertainment; especially when one kite got away and flew over the hotel roof nearby (it was recovered). We learned what to not do when flying a kite...but it did provide a lot of good laughs and good entertainment. We look forward to teaching Jenna how to fly kite but we will make sure it is small and we are far away  from others.

 It was nice to get out of town for a few hours and enjoy the ocean beach. We forget how close the beach is to us sometimes.

Jenna's Crew

Jenna wanted me to introduce her crew to you. These are her very best friends that we take most places. She plays and chews on these little guys all day. I think of these friends like toys on "Toy Story". They are all kind of quirky in their own way and we make up stories about them and where they came from. I can only imagine what they think of their leader (Jenna) and her mom :)


And without further ado we introduce "the crew":

Sophie: Jenna's very best buddy (and most expensive)

Mr. Elephant/Ellie: A great traveler and crinkly belly

Ball: Easy to grab and chew on...his younger brother 
Mini-Ball (not pictured) is a car seat only friend

Mr. Moose/Moosey Moose: Hangs around on the
play mat but does venture out with us for long trips

Group Photo of the Crew

With their leader

Making sure everyone is there

 

We are lucky to have them around and thankful for those who purchased these fine friends. 

**Editors Note: I probably should be cleaning the house...but this is more fun :)