Category Archives: family

Sand, Surf and Sun…In Oregon!?

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Oh my goodness…words cannot even describe how amazing this past weekend was. And after last week? I totally needed it.

We were headed to the coast for a quick overnight trip, staying at my sister’s fiance’s family’s condo. {Oy, Did I get those ‘s right!?}

I am not even kidding, the entire time we were there the weather was perfection…and I kept saying so. I probably said “this weather is amazing” no less than at least every hour. But it was the truth! Never, ever in my entire life have I ever seen such fantastic weather on the Oregon Coast. And poor Rylee, every time we’ve ever taken her to the beach, the weather has been crappy. But not this time!

Within minutes of getting to the condo we had lunch on the table. As soon as we were finished, we were headed down to the beach. Where we played for at least two hours…I don’t think I’ve ever spent that much consecutive time on the beach in Oregon.

::Cue the Photo Bomb::

We built a sandcastle…

Rylee seriously never stopped this running-hopping-prancing thing the entire time we were on the beach…

So Auntie may or may not have been mocking her just a bit…{seriously wish I could do that still}

They also checked out some wildlife…

And the finished sand castle…complete with rock and shell decorative flooring…

Family Photo!

After the beach we headed down the block for some ice cream cones…because, well it was too perfect not to…

We had a few intense games of “Old Maid”…

And the sunset…oh my word…the sunset…

Rylee & Auntie enjoyed the sunset from the condo balcony…

The next day I was awake at 6 AM…but I think it could have been worse…

After breakfast and packing up, Rylee, Andy & I headed to the Hatfield Marine Science Center run by OSU. We’d never been there…such a cool place…

Especially when it has a “suggested donation” of $5 per person as opposed to the $20 each adult/$13 for Rylee to get into the aquarium that she would have lost interest in after about 35 minutes…

Thanks for the good times, Newport!

We grabbed Subway for lunch before heading home. Ry proceeded to pass out pretty much the second we hit the edge of Newport and slept the entire way home…and them some!

And the weekend totally ended on a high…we spent some time in the afternoon walking up and down a chunk of our road cleaning up litter in honor of Earth Day AND!?!? I do believe we settled on a name for this little baby growing in my belly!

More on both of those later this week!

Happy Monday!

Radio Scilence

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You know the saying “if you don’t have anything nice to day, don’t say anything at all”? Yea, that’s pretty much been me this week.

After coming off of the high from last weekend, this week was just kind of…meh.

We had an epic food battle with Rylee that spanned 4 different meals over 3 days all over food that she has always loved that she suddenly decided she didn’t like . Uh yea…not gonna fly in our house, kid. Long story short, and leaving out details that would get me judged by even the strictest of parents, those days? Sucked hard. And meal times and the time following? Were not fun at all.

I took Rylee in to the Allergy specialist yesterday for some allergy testing. After playing outside on Saturday, she came in the house and almost instantly started sneezing, coughing and had a leaky nose. And, since we live right next to the county literally known as the “GRASS SEED CAPITOL OF THE WORLD!” allergies here are bad…really, really bad. She was tested about 2 years ago and everything was fine then, but I wasn’t sure how often they recommend testing kiddos, so I went ahead and took her in. I tell you what, my kid is a trooper. She got a lollipop, a funky sea-urchin type ring and a sticker. She shared the sticker with her baby sister.

And bonus! No allergies!! The doctor did say that all the pollen in the air can be an irritant, hence the allergy like symptoms, but Rylee does not have allergies. Thank goodness, because my allergies start to drive me crazy this time of year.

After fighting all week with what I thought was a nutso allergy attack has turned into a cold. Last night I was miserable and ate a bowl of cereal for dinner. Today I’ve got a sinus headache that really needs to go fly a kite.

On top of all that, work was kind of stressful this week and just well…not fun.

But hey! It’s Friday! Rylee wants to have a family movie night picnic dinner in the living room tonight. We’re going to watch Balto. And yes, it’s even on VHS.

Tomorrow our little family of three is headed to the coast and meeting my sister and her fiance. The weather is supposed to be pretty nice. The condo is on the beach. We may hit up the Marine Science Center. Rylee has requested we build a sand castle. There’s talk of fresh fish for dinner.

Sunday is Earth Day…I’m thinking after we get home from the coast we may strike out on a walk along our road and pick up litter or something. A little exercise, a little good deed. Win-win, right?

Long story short? I am so thankful today is Friday because I’m ready to have nice things to say again!

Easter Weekend

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I have no clever title for this post.

Long story short? Easter weekend rocked my socks off! Rylee was, for the most part, a total dream.

So into all things Easter related!

Saturday was filled with grocery shopping and baking and prepping. Rylee helped make strawberry swirl cupcakes before her nap. Then washed up the plastic eggs that she was leaving for the Easter Bunny to stuff with candy and hide while she was sleeping.

Sunday there was church {she was amazing!}, followed by an Easter egg hunt put on by the youth group {she was so stoked!}.

 

Then back to our house where she finally found the Easter Basket the Easter bunny hid for her {excitement ensued!} then there was family and dinner {home-smoked turkey breast? Yes please!} and lots of time playing outside {hooray for the sun!}.

I didn’t take any photos other than what I snagged on my phone, and you know what? I’m perfectly ok with that. I would much rather be soaking up the family time, the cuddles, the giggles and everything else that makes this girl herself, than running around trying to take the “perfect” shot.

Hope everyone else had a loverly Easter too!

Amazingly Normal

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It’s hard to believe that what I’m about to share is any semblance of normal, but considering the last 2 weeks? This weekend was as close to normal as it’s been in a very long time.

And it was perfect.

Friday afternoon I saw SUN! And since we were going on over 48 hours of no power, we decided to BBQ some dinner. Ry & I swung into the store to grab some chicken breasts, fresh bread and a pineapple. It was such a nice change from fast food/takeout. We rounded out the evening by cuddling up on the couch and watching a movie on my laptop.

Saturday morning Ry & I were munching on some stale bagels while Andy snoozed on the floor of the living room. All of a sudden we heard the beep of the microwave. Finally! After 72+ hours of no electricity, we had POWER! Hooray! No joke, within 45 seconds of realizing we had power, Rylee asked for Saturday morning cartoons.

We were still lazing around all in our PJs. No teeth had been brushed. We still had no water, so no showers were taken. Heck, I hadn’t even put a bra on yet. When we hear a car pull down the driveway. The medical examiner for our life insurance was here! We had completely forgotten about our appointment. Dishes were STACKED in the sink & on the counters of our kitchen. Blankets were strewn all over the living room from sleeping near the wood stove for the 3 previous nights. Our house, and we, were a big fat hot mess. Thankfully I at least had time to put on a bra before the guy made it to the front porch. Andy met him outside and warned him. He was totally cool about the whole thing, but, seriously, talk about embarrassing!

After we peed in our cups, had our blood drawn and went over mountains of paperwork, our plumber friend was over to officially fix our water system! Power and water? In one day!? It was like a dream come true. And just like that, I was no longer feeling like Laura Ingles Wilder. I did dishes! I started a load of laundry! I showered!

After a quick trip to Target, we spent the afternoon doing more laundry and dishes, I cleaned out the fridge…that was depressing, and then we started getting Rylee’s new “big girl room” ready for the big move! I even got to cook dinner that night…using my oven. Seriously, it was a good day.

Depressing empty refrigerator...

Sunday we hit Costco and the grocery store and spent a small fortune restocking our fridge. Then the rest of the afternoon was spent doing more laundry and finishing up Rylee’s room. We still have a couple of projects to “officially” complete her room {I’ll do an official post on all the details then}, but for now here’s a quick sneak peek…

Dinner last night consisted of grilled cheese sandwiches with avocado, bacon and tomatoes. Oh.my.gah. They were so good! Andy and I both agreed we could have another. {For the record? He already had 2 and I already had 1 and a half…they were that good}

Oh, and while cleaning out what’s now Rylee’s room, we needed some storage tubs so instead of buying more, we decided the most logical thing to do was to start getting the newborn clothes out to free up a tub. That didn’t start freak me out or anything…homegirl still has no name, but has a dresser full of clothes…

Power. Water. Big girl room. Family time. All in all? Awesome weekend.

How was yours!?

Either God hates me or He’s got a sick sense of humor

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It’s been quiet around these parts lately…and it’s definitely NOT for lack of excitement.

I swear it’s been just one.thing.after.another.

I wrote a little bit about our water drama here…ok, I was mostly complaining, but…well, whatever. Andy and our plumber-friend were up until 2:30 AM getting the water going. Yes, TWO-THIRTY in the morning. They are nuts. See also: amazing.

Long story short, it wasn’t all the way fixed, but it was functioning. Then later in the day Sunday, after 2 loads of laundry and washing all of the pots and pans something else went wrong and we lost water AGAIN. This time, Andy was able to fix it on Monday evening after work. YESSS!!! So between Monday night & Tuesday after work I did 4 loads of laundry and ran two loads of dishes. I was pretty much doing a happy dance.

Then Wednesday morning, my alarm went off at the usual 5:20 AM. I got up, showered and was headed to the other end of the house to dig some {finally} clean clothes out of the laundry baskets when we lost power.

Now, keep in mind we had just had fully functioning water for a little over 24 hours. And in the country, no power means no water.  {are you freaking kidding me!?}

An unexpected freak snow storm did some major damage to our area’s power supply. According to our power company’s website we should have power restored sometime late this afternoon.

Rylee was all sorts of excited to look out the window and find 8 inches of snow with more coming down!

We spent all day yesterday hunkered down in our house never straying too far from our wood stove, as a family. And you know what? It was so amazing. We played games. We talked. We laughed. With all the water drama happening, we’d hardly spent any time as a family over the last couple of weeks, so this was a much needed surprise.

Sleeping on the floor next to the fire at 22 weeks pregnant was a little less than amazing, but I was thankful for our wood stove so I’m not complaining.

Who knows what this means for the contents of our fridge. I have a feeling I’ll be doing a major restocking of condiments this weekend.

This morning I headed into town to my mom’s house to shower and get ready for work. And apparently in my haste to pack a back {and I use haste loosely, I was in no hurry at all}, I forgot to pack a bra. So yea…thank God for my obsession with camis that have built in bra’s because this could have been way more awkward. {just keeping it real, folks}

Andy and our plumber-friend will be back in the pump house on Saturday finishing everything up, after which I’m highly contemplating throwing a “COME TASTE OUR AWESOME WATER” party.

I’m assuming we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled blogging from here on out, but with our luck? I wouldn’t make any bets.

Happy Thursday.

{seriously, how is it Thursday!?}