A new home.

One of my favorite friends has been a bit of a nomad. Though she's never actually moved further away than Oregon, because of her career I always thought it was just a matter of time. I hated the thought, especially since one of my other favorites has already gone. Well, she and her husband just bought a house! I'm thrilled for them and selfishly ecstatic that it means they're "stuck" here! :)

Today I got to spend the day with her helping to unpack a little. I put together a little housewarming basket but being the emotional, sentimental sap that I am, this is my favorite. I've loved this quote for some time and this was the perfect time for it. (H - I MAY have printed a copy for my house too!)

I made it in Publisher and just used basic shapes to create the house (a rectangle for the house, trapezoidal roof, and a rectangle and oval for the chimney). I saved it as a jpeg so it can be printed anywhere at any size. If you read my other blog you already know how much I like to do this.

If anyone (cough cough wink wink) needs "artwork" for a wee room I'm sure we could whip up some seriously un-baby like pics! ;)

MIA

I know I said it in the last post, but it's true...  I just can't bring myself to spend time sitting in front of the computer editing photos and writing posts!  I have tons to share too!

Jim was out of town for 6 LOOOONG nights (the longest by far we've been apart in our 14 years together) and I got to experience being a single Mama.  While I dreaded it for a while before he left, and it went much more smoothly than I feared, I'm still very grateful it's not my everyday life!  While he was away we completed several fun projects I'll share eventually.

We've been running around having a lot of fun too.  We've made one trip to Yakima so far to visit my grandparents, we've had lots of fun little day trips, explored new trails, and we just got back from our first camping trip with kids yesterday.  It was so fun, due in large part to the fact that we went with one of our favorite families.

Hopefully I'll get pictures of all of that posted soon.  For today I want to post pictures of our less than successful beach "photo shoot" from last week.  The photographer that we love and has taken all of our pictures has been posting pictures from evening shoots at the beach for a couple of weeks now and she's had me drooling over them.  I decided I wanted to try and gave Jim plenty of warning and reminders.  He's not a fan of my photo shoots. ;)  We headed out and were planning to try a new beach...  it was full.  When we finally decided where to go from there and arrived the parking lot was full.  The man on duty told us we could park in the "upper lot" and walk down to the beach. (1/8 mile doesn't sound bad at all does it?)

We gathered up all of our stuff (blankets, diaper bag, camera, and a light reflector I'd just bought) along with both girls and set out on the path.  It wasn't too bad and when we got down there there was hardly anybody there so we got a little spot all to ourselves.  By this time it was getting late and Little One was TIRED!  She wanted nothing to do with sitting prettily for my camera and was not happy when we took her pacifier.  Jim was embarrassed to hold up the light reflector, he felt bad for Lu and wanted to leave, Stella ran out of patience and we finally called it quits.

I was bummed that we hadn't gotten better pictures, but all was quickly forgotten as we started  back up the path to the UPPER parking lot carrying all of our stuff.  We pretty much got our butts kicked by that trail!  Luckily a trip to Menchies cooled us off!

Dancing

Dancing

Menchies had decent light too

None of them took my breathe away or brought me to tears like Rachel's pictures do, but there were a couple that turned out ok (though since I'm their Mama of course I love all of them - like the sequence of 5 I caught Lu yawning!)

We're here...

I never blog very much during the summer. (I don't clean enough either). We still haven't gotten a new computer so my pics are stuck and frankly, now that this amazing summer weather has arrived we're having far too much fun to clean or be on the computer!

We've been taking family walks, trips to the beach, meals outside... There are many more activities planned so I do need to get to documenting though!