It's been a year!!!

I know, I know... I haven't blogged in a year...Sad, I know. But, since life is just starting to get crazy again, I decided I should be better about documenting it again! So, since it's been so long, I will spare every little detail and just hit some of the highlights from the beginning of this year til now. It's a bit lengthy, so bear with me, and for some reason pictures are giving me a fit, so I will try to add those later:)

Fairmont Hot Springs

For spring break, we went to Fairmont Hot Springs in Montana. It was a blast! The kids loved every minute of the trip. We played around in the water most of the trip, but in between splashing in the hot springs and going down the huge waterslide, we went to Butte and visited a friend of Jayson's, visited the ginormous open pit mine, and played around the hotel grounds. They had a small petting zoo and a park on the grounds, so we stayed plenty busy the whole trip!

Cruise!

My mom, little sister Alora and I went on a girls cruise together(other little sis. Tami didn't make it because she had just had a baby) to the western Carribean. It was one of the most fun trips I have ever been on. Pure relaxation, LOTS of laughing and embarrassing moments, and TONS of adventure!

Memorial Weekend Camping

Preston, Allie and I went camping with my brother and sister-in-law and her family by the St. Joe river. I was nervous that we would freeze to death, but thankfully my sis-in-law's father brought a wall tent up for our huge gang to sleep in and it had a wood stove in it that kept us toasty every night. It rained a few times, but all-in-all, it was a really fun trip. The kids got to run around, bike and watch the adults raft the St. Joe all weekend. I took two runs down the icy water. It was a blast(especially because I didn't fall in)despite the frozen toes and numb fingers.

Oregon Coast

This was our first big FAMILY trip of the year. We left Wednesday morning and got to Salem, OR that evening and visited/stayed the night with some good friends. Thursday, we woke up and headed towards our rental house to spend the remainder of the week by the ocean. As soon as we arrived, the kids threw on their swim clothes and headed toward the beach. (I packed their sweaters and towels because I knew they were going to freeze to death) We spent the whole day playing in the sand, building sand castles, burying bodies, jumping the ocean waves, searching for shells and "creatures"(as preston calls it) and soaking up the sunshine. We topped off the evening by building a fire in the sand and roasting marshmallows for smores. YUM! Friday, we ventured to Newport to see the aquarium. We spent a few hours there enjoying the animals and sea life. Preston's favorite part was the tide pool that you got to touch the sea life and Allie was intruiged by an exhibit where a man was letting children pet a live snake. From there we drove to the house of a highschool buddy Jayson is still really good friends with to visit. It was good to see them,(plus, they had a Wii, so Preston was in heaven!) Saturday we were joined by the same good friends we stayed with in Salem and we all went to the Tillamook Cheese factory. We toured the grounds, sampled lots of cheeses, ate icecream and bought A LOT of squeeky cheese. It was POURING outside, so we went straight back to the house to weather the storm for a bit. After a few hours of some down time, we drove to Cannon beach to see their Annual sandcastle competition. We were a few hours too late, so a lot of the castles were falling apart or being dragged into the ocean by the rising tide, but what little we saw was really cool. On our hike back to the truck from the beach, we were lucky enough to see a pod of whales swimming way off shore, so we sat and watched that for a bit, then went home to wring out our wet clothes and put kids to bed. Sunday we woke up and went to church and had a pretty chill day hanging out at the beach. Monday morning we cleaned the house, packed up and headed out. On the drive home, we stopped off at Multinomah Falls and walked the trails for a bit to stretch our legs. Then drove a little further to the Bonneville Fish Hatchery. The kids loved this! They got to feed and pet HUGE salmon in the spawning pools and we also met Herman, their Massive 70 year old sturgeon. It was a great, much needed family vacation. Lots of memories and bonding happened on that trip!

Seattle

Jay and I went on a quick weekend trip to see a baseball game without the kiddos. The Braves were playing Mariners, and since the Braves have been Jay's team since he was little, we just had to squeeze it in. We got a hotel right in the heart of the city, which was good and bad...Good for location...bad, because late at night after the baseball game, we parked the truck and Jay was approached by a hooker(I swear, it wasn't that bad of an area:)) The next morning, before we drove home, we walked pike street and did a speed trip through Ikea. It was a really quick trip, but worth every minute. Jay was like a kid in a candy store, taking pictures of players and grinning ear to ear the whole game!p.s. another side note... while parking for the game(we were in Jay's huge red truck) we had the parking attendant guiding us into the spot for safety and we hear a scrape. He totally guided us into the car next to us. It did small damage to both vehicles, so we left our insurance information on the car so we could fix it and came out after the game and the card was sitting on the ground in a muddy puddle. Oh well, note to self...don't trust parking attendants...!!!