The Coast

We had a BLAST at the coast this weekend. We went and camped out in a cabin at Fort Stevens National Park. It was so nice. The cabin was so cute and it was the perfect situation for us with little kiddos that need a warm place to sleep at night. There was so many awesome hiking and biking trails that we walked and rode while we were there. One that we went on led to a beautiful lake, another took us to an old Civil War-World War II military fort, there was a trail that brought us to the South Jetti (most nortern tip of Oregon), and then the last took us to the beach to play and check out the Iredale shipwreck. We had so much fun enjoying nature and getting away from Portland for a few days. My favorite site was the South Jetti. When you get there, there's this tall observation deck that you can walk to the top of. When you pull up to the deck you can't see any of the ocean, but when you get to the top it almost feels like the whole ocean is spread out in front of you. It was sooo beautiful. You can see the mouth of the Columbia, and the waves crash really hard against the jetti when the tide is in. It definitely made my top favorite places in the whole world. I think Ben and Rylee loved the beach the most. Ben had a blast splashing in the water with Daddy and then Rye Rye and I had a lot of fun playing in the sand. Ben also had a lot of fun throwing rocks the whole trip. One night we were roasting hot dogs for dinner and Ben was holding a big rock, making it look like it was flying through the sky. He started making a whooshing sound and said "It's a metior, it's a space rock!" Cody and I just looked at each other dumb founded and Cody said "Are you kidding me?" It was so funny. I had taught him about metiors a couple of weeks ago breifly. It's so crazy what info little kids pay attention to some times. He is so stinkin smart. We love our Love Bug :-) Mine and Cody's favorite moments of the trip were riding bikes, sitting at the campfire, and just exploring as a family. I definitely feel like the luckiest girl in the whole world. I have the most amazing husband and kiddos inthe whole world. 

Hey Everyone! So I did keep a blog with Benjamin but since he was around eight months old I have not invested as much time. But thanks to some awesome sister-in-laws who keep blogs with their families, I've been very inspired to start keeping one again for our little family. As far as an update for our family, here we go :-) Cody has been working construction this summer. He's amazing and has been working so hard. On Monday he starts his first day of school at University of Western States!!! We are SOOO excited :-) We're finally starting that last stage of school before Cody can start his career as Dr. Leder. Woot Woot! I am so proud of him. Today we went and got him a fold down/portable adjustment table that we found for really cheap. It's awesome and it got us even more excited for him to start school.
        Our Benjamin is doing great. He is growing up more and more every day. His latest and greatest is that we've been learning about each of the planets and what order that they go in. His favorite so far is Saturn. Every time we go outside, day or night, he'll look at the sky and say "Saturn?" and then he'll shake his head and say "No, no Saturn." It's so funny and cracks us up every time. He's definitely obsessed with anything having to do with the sky or things that belong in the sky. The Moon (especially the Moon), the Sun, airplanes, birdies, clouds, stars, and now he's into all of the awesome planets. He's getting a lot better at speaking in full sentences, carrying on conversations, and telling us that he loves us :-)
            Our Beautiful Smiley Rylee is doing great. She is such a sweet spirited and funny little baby. She has been learning to walk these last two weeks and she's doing great so far. She keeps falling down and getting bumps and bruises :-( but she's getting better and she's definitely on her way to getting around better. She LOVES to eat. She's such a bottomless pit when it comes to food. She'll be eleven months old in four days and it's crazy to think that she's almost a year old. So far she says Mama, Dada, Ben, duck, num num, and ball. She is so funny. She watches Ben vroom his cars around all day long, and she loves to play with cars too, so this week she started making car noises too. The only thing is that the noise she makes sound more like a tooting sound than a car driving :-) She poofs up her cheeks, squints her eyes, and makes the cars fly while making that noise. It is sooo funny. We laugh so hard every time she does it. She also is learning to climb the stairs and up till this point she hasn't really gotten into trouble for anything, but now when she starts climbing the stairs we'll say "Rylee, no no, whatcha doin sis?" and she gets this adorable, little mischievous grin on her face, cracks up, and starts climbing the stairs again. When we ask her what she's doing again she slides down the stairs and it starts all over again. It's so fun to see her growing, getting to know who she is, and to see more and more her cute little personality surfacing. We love our Rye Rye :-)
        Well this week we are headed to the Coast :-) It is the first time we're going camping as the four of us so we are SUPER excited. It should be a blast and I'll be posting tons of pictures so check back soon and I'll have some cute babies for you to see :-)