A day at the beach

With the beautiful sunny weather we've been having in Portland we decided to go to the beach over the weekend. We hadn't been to the Oregon Coast in awhile and I can't tell you how perfectly relaxing it was with the warm sun, ocassional dogs greeting us and friendly Oregonians walking along the sand.

Here's Ollie looking for a good spot to start a sand castle.

Link getting started on digging the moat. He actually really got into digging and the moat looked more like a drunken path that stretched for about 10 yards.

Jake and me enjoying the warm sun.

Seriously, this is why dogs are superior to cats, they let you make them into sand turtles.


My barefoot architects working on the positioning of Castle Lupton.

The hole Daddy dug. It was fun to sit in although I needed a crane to lift my enormous body out.

The hole also had this nice built in feature, a slide, complete with pocket filling sand everytime you went down it.

At the end of the day we filled up the hole and trucked everything back to the car. Before leaving Seaside we stopped at Bell Buoy Seafood Market and found some smoked oysters and fresh crab to take home for dinner.

Dinosaur from the Condiment Era

Has anyone else discovered dinosaurs in their refrigerator?

They're called Rainbows, Mommy

Today Jacob and Ollie went to the Pacific Northwest Sportsmen's Show with our friends James & Jamito. The main attraction for them was the Kid's Trout Pond where everything is provided for the kids to catch & release (or keep) a few trout. Ollie has been telling me all week that he is going to catch a fish for our dinner except this morning the story changed to him catching a little fish that we were going to keep in our aquarium instead.

When they got home after a long day of Sportsmen stuff he was a little chatterbox telling me how you catch a fish, how you get very wet and that we should call them rainbows. He ended up catching 2 nicely sized ones and given one from a little girl who decided she really didn't want it. The next step was to clean them which I was hesistant to let him see but it's amazing how kids just take the whole death of the fish they just caught and the blood & guts so matter of factly. And when they came off the grill after being cooked there was barely a second glance. Jacob ended up eating the fish as I have never really cared for fish even though my mother cooked fished quite a lot while I was growing up. I'm sure he would have loved to share these with Grandma.

Play Date with Ethan

On Wednesday we had our friend Ethan over for the first time. He is a real sweetie with the same sense of humor as Oliver. They got along great playing grocery store and playing hide & seek with Jacob and me.

Here's a few shot of the boys taking over Link's new dog bed. He tried to climb in with them but just couldn't fit.

Play Date

Recently I've been scheduling a lot of playdates with our friends from school. This day our friend Jamito was over and we took advantage of the warm afternoon by making chalk drawings on the sidewalk.

Ollie was experimenting with his 3-D glasses and 3-D sidewalk chalk. Note to all you parents, there is no way you can possibly make chalk look 3-D.

Also I love how in the last picture we caught Link in a big old yawn!

It's Raincoat Time!

On Sunday I attended Bargain Hunting 101 at the Crystal Ballroom, and it was amazing! I sold a lot of jewelry that we found in random boxes from years ago. It was almost like an easter egg hunt with Jacob and I saying "I found another set of earrings". It was good to clean out the studio without having to throw out jewelry that someone might still love.

While at the sale I found the perfect raincoat from the boutique Haggis McBaggis. It's Thomas the Train, one of Ollie's favorites. Now every morning he says, "I think it's going to rain mommy, I should wear my raincoat". The forecast is for a few days of rain so I know it will be getting a lot of use.

Dog Painting

This is Oliver's painting from Montessori school yesterday. He said it was a one legged dog. The dog must have really good abs to stand on one foot.

Dog naps

I love how I always find this dog sleeping in the sunbeams.

Worm

Ollie found a nice fat worm yesterday. He put grass in the jar so that the worm had something to eat followed by a lump of dirt when I explained that they actually eat dirt. When I told Ollie the worm might like to live in the garden he asked "so he could eat the vegetables?"

Porn for Mommies

If anyone has ever seen the hilarious book "Porn for Women" (there's an example above) you'll be excited to know that I've taken some porn shots of my husband over the weekend. My "porn" is not men with ripped abs or strong muscular arms. My "porn" is when my awesome husband is fixing the car, mending the fence or taking our son camping so that I can have time to myself. These are the things I fantasize about. On his list of "To Dos" this past weekend was fixing the starter on the Subaru. Nothing makes me happier than seeing him in those Carhartts and grease stained work shirts. So for your enjoyment here's my man posing for mommy porn.

And not so much mommy porn but just adorable little guy helping daddy by showing him where the starter is.