Reunion Time! - Part 2 Prehistoric Gardens

So we made an unscheduled stop on our way down the Oregon coast to this tucked-away tourist attraction called Prehistoric Gardens.  As is usually the case, it was a really good idea.  What makes more since than life-size dinosaur replicas in a forest that was probably around when they were? 

The Captain did not want to pose with T-Rex in the parking lot.

In the washed out background is a brontosaurus.

This blurry picture is the only one of the
 triceratops, which is one of my favorites.

 We just wandered around the trails, following the map, spotting cool ancient beasts. 

 The kids were in heaven.

This one looks like the dinosaur was somehow
following us.  I assure you, it was not.
Still not sure how I took that one . . .

Ichthyosaurus, a personal The Captain favorite

"get the baby dinosaurs, Mom"

 Johnny was explaining how big the stegosaurus's brain is.

Even Lee enjoyed herself.

As you can see, it was pretty great.  It was an awesome introduction to the Redwoods.  More of those to come . . .

Reunion Time! Part 1 - Lighthouse

So our family reunion this year was for my family.  We went to Crater Lake.  Since it was in the middle of August, it saved us from slowly hating each other as we ran out of things to do in the dogs days of summer. It was a nice reprieve from the heat.  It was wonderful to see our family again, and meet some of my nephews for the first time.  In short, it was glorious.  

So get ready for picture overload. 

We decided to go early to the reunion and spend some time vacationing in the redwoods before we met up with everyone.  It is my favorite place on the planet and no one else in the fam had been there, so it seemed a waste to be so close and not introduce them.  We flew into Eugene late, slept, rented a car, and drove down the coast.  We stopped at a small town for their farmer's market and had blueberries, homemade humus, and chocolate for lunch.  While we were there, we got a flier for a dinosaur park.  More on that in the next post. 

And we stopped at a lighthouse.  Of course.  We have none in Texas, that I know of, so we wanted to show them to the kids take some awesome pictures.  What can I say?  I pack my camera, I'm going to fit in some photo shoots.

Super girl!

Once this cuteness started, I jumped in on the action.

You always start with the traditional family picture . . . then things deteriorate, or in my line of work - get awesome.

The super hero thing was kind of a theme for this shoot. 

There's a reason we call her Joy.  This girl
pretty much has fun everywhere.

But she's beautiful when she's just sitting still, too.

Then this guy wanted his own solo time, too.  Which usually involves poses of his own invention.  I contribute some pointers.

In conclusion, yes lighthouses make for good photo locations.  

More Water babies!

For the last session of swimming lessons, The Captain wanted to do diving class.  What a turn around from last year, when he was scared to jump off!  The only diving classes were in the morning, so that meant swimming classes got kicked over to me.  We managed to get up and be at the pool by 8 in the morning, which meant it was only 92 degrees outside, instead of 127.  The early bird doesn't get fried in Texas.

The Captain loved his lessons.  He was good at taking direction and practicing and he got pretty good by the end.  We will definitely do diving class next year.

Front fall in

 Approach and jump.

Front dive.

 He can do a back fall in from the board, too.  But the awesome picture I took got deleted from my phone, sorry. But here's a video.

And here's Miss Joy swimming like a fish.  She's the one entirely under water. She was super happy that she got to have class in her favorite pool.  She pretty much spent the entire class wiggling around under there.  The Captain taught her everything he learned, so she's started to backstroke.  Her teachers kept asking me when she turns 5 so she could start official swim classes.  I had to tell them she wasn't even 4 yet.  

No fear from this girl.

 And this is what Miss Lee and I did while the other two swam.  She's wearing her pjs and Joy's sun hat.  And holding the lid to her tupperware container full of breakfast.

Another year older, but mental pretty much the same

So, for my birthday this year, Johnny abandoned me.  Not really, of course, but his grandmother's birthday is a few days before mine and she was turning 90 this year.  Since Johnny was switching jobs, and still had some vacation days, and frequent flier miles, he saw no reason to not go to Utah for the festivities.  There was really no reason why we all couldn't go except that we were saving our miles for the family reunion coming up, I was in the middle of a house project, and . . . I can't remember any of the other excuses, but I'm sure they were good.  

Anyway, at the last minute, we wondered why Johnny couldn't take Miss Lee with him, since she flies free anyway, and it wasn't a business trip.  We ended up agreeing that it would probably be a great present for his grandmother and Lee's grandparents and extended family to spend some time with her.  Plus, with only two (fairly) independent kids at home, I might actually get some work done.  That ended up being quite true. 

 I was able to not only finish mudding away the horrible faux cinderblock wall finish on one of our living room walls, but paint it and hang up picture frames as well.  

This is the layout.  I took the picture for Johnny's approval, but
wanted the paint color to be a surprise.

They went in about the middle of this wall.
Ignore the laundry, I have three kids.

So on my birthday, I took my two big kids to see Inside Out.  Sadly, no one prepared me so I was caught crying with no tissues.  The kids enjoyed it.  I liked it.  And afterwards we got the obligatory free Slurpee.

Not to be neglectful (which was hard after all my friendly ribbing), Johnny sent me long-distance birthday flowers.  Lovely.  And I made my favorite cake, homemade angel food.  The kids decorated it for me.

Delicious!

 I also got to spend some time in my sewing room (with the kids awake!) making myself a birthday present - a new pencil skirt, cannibalized from a skirt a co-worker had given me 8 years ago or so, that I had liked, but never quite looked good on me.  I threw some lace over it, and voila! one of my new favorite skirts.

Photo curtesy of Joy.

The finished product.

All in all, a great birthday.  And when Johnny got back, we went for a birthday celebration the next weekend.  We went to the Historic Park in our neighboring city, which I had wanted to check out for awhile.  They had a park volunteer dressed in historic costume giving a tour of the Dr. Gilbert house.  Plus we got a personal tour of some of the other houses, church and train caboose by an English man.  A nice accent was a pretty good present.  Then Johnny took us to a Hibachi restaurant for dinner.  We've only ever been to one once before, when we were house hunting in Virginia, so The Captain was barely 1.  It was surprisingly successful.  Meaning, I didn't want to kill any of the children.  They hardly complained at all, were very well behaved, and enjoyed their dinner.  A birthday miracle.

 Then we went to Coldstone for dessert.  The kiddos hadn't tried that before either.  It was crazy busy, so we took the ice cream across the street to the beautiful fountain to eat.  Lee got to see many "dog dog"s, and even pet and be licked by one, so she was happy.  It was an amazing day.  One of our best.  It's true, my children getting along is the best present.

I love The Captain poking his head up in this picture.