10 and 2....

A cheery lily just because.....

This week was the B-Day Party for Sunshine and Whippersnapper. This was the family BBQ portion of the celebration. I wanted to share a few pics with you.

Wow! I wish I knew that pic was being taken!

Behold!.......The trucks and sailboats!

Sunshine's new pole!!

It was a fun evening and I am glad everyone that came was able to make it. I can't beleive my oldest is 10 and my youngest is 2! Gulp....time flies!

Our Coast Vacation...

The big anticipation, the first hike to the ocean of the trip......

We had such a nice time on our vacation! We took our trailer down to the Nehalem Bay State Park. The headwind going down the Columbia Gorge was a strong one and we got terrible fuel mileage going down.:( As you know terrible fuel mileage with today's prices is NOT good, but we made it fine. The weather was cloudy at times with some wind/breezy stuff but still nice, no rain which was a huge blessing! The kids of course had a blast and I was much refreshed while we were there. We left on Tuesday June 10th and we came home on Sunday June 15th. The first day we got there we took a hike out onto the beach, a short 10 min walk to the beach from our campsite). It was still kinda misty when we got there so I wasn't able to get any pictures that trip on the beach. We got our camp all set up and relaxed with a homemade pizza dinner.

Wednesday we headed for Tillamook Cheese Factory in Tillamook, OR. We sampled cheeses, we watched as they packaged all the cheeses. It was pretty fun. The kids liked the cheese samples too! We got our ice cream cones and sat in their sunroom area. Then we headed across the road to buy a fresh crab....I love crab.....Spud Man loves crab too....wait the whole family likes crab! So we took our crab back to camp and devoured it in no time! I got to take a nice nap while Mr Wonderful took the kids on the beach, where he buried them and played in the waves till they were too cold to stay any longer. Did I mention there was a lot of sand in our trailer by the time we got home?

Thursday we headed up north our first stop was in Seaside, OR . In Seaside we continued with our tradition and let the kids ride on the carousel and bought saltwater taffy from Rascals, YUM! We headed up north to a beach area called Sunset Beach. We got to drive out on the beach for a while and even stopped for a few whole sand dollars (that ads a new twist to beach combing)! Sunshine also got to try her hand at a little driving.....we have the entire whiplash experience on video.....if you can keep from getting sick that is. We headed a little further North once Mr Wonderful secured his position as driver once again. We did a little shopping for Miss Birthday Girl and I got my hair cut real quick, it was bothering me and I needed a fresh look. The boys all went for a drive over the Astoria Bridge which is about 5 miles long while Sunshine and I got our girl time when I was getting my hair cut. We finished off our day by driving back down south to stop at Mo's for dinner in Cannon Beach and enjoy the ocean views and eat our chowder and seafood. The food wasn't as good as I remember though.:( After dinner we headed out on the beach right in Cannon Beach and had a nice evening stroll. Then back to camp we went.

This little guy wanted in on the action with Spud Man. They had a blast!

Friday was our day to find a lake to go fishing......it took us a few tries to find somewhere we thought we could actually get to in order TO actually fish, (lots of weedy lakes) BUT it meant driving a long ways on windy roads. When we got there we were really disappointed by port-a-potties that were disgusting (I mean they were BAD~ they make me want to run for the nearest tree screaming and bare my buns for the world to see!). It was a beautiful mountain lake that had been somewhat trashed. There were ammunition casings, garbage that had gotten into the water (pop cans and chips bags etc.) and it just seemed such a shame, especially with that long drive to get there!:( Anyway we had a really nice time and caught a few fish. There were also some interesting little creatures to discover.........there were salamanders in the water (well at least I think they were salamanders)....they were very curious (or hungry for our fish) and they'd come right up and let you catch them and everything. I wasn't too keen on the kids catching them though. HaHa.

Our curious salamanders....

Mr Wonderful trying not to get hooked by Whippersnapper's fishing habits...

Saturday was the perfect finale to our week. We went to several small beaches close to the State Park and enjoyed some tide pooling, wave chasing, picnicking, and long walks along the shore. The kids had such a blast! They loved taking their Tonka trucks out and doing some excavating in the sand too. It felt soooooo good to get to the coast again.

Waiting for the next wave.....

This trip was SO good for Maggie....she really had fun!

Happy Birthday Sunshine!

Sunshine turned 10 on the 16th of June!!! We are doing a combined B-Day party/BBQ for Whippersnapper and Sunshine tonight. Whippersnapper's B-Day is on the 28th of June. For her B-Day evening we went up to a nearby pond, let them fish for a couple hours, BBQed some burgers and had some cake. Then we insisted she help uu load up some stuff in the back of the pick-up and we had hidden her gift (a big box covered in a blanket) that no one had even noticed in there the whole time.....anyway we strategically told her to move this, move that, then lift that blanket some......she saw the picture on the side of the box and she was all smiles! We got her a pool. We got one of those above ground pools that is 12' across. She was so excited! It was really for the whole family but she had been asking for one for a long time so we figured it was a good time.

I had to do her hair like a 4 year old that day because I was going into shock over her being 10 years old already. HaHa Everyone got good and dirty and had a great time!

Here are a few pics from our evening fishing...



Whippersnapper LOVES tackle boxes!








It was a fun evening!!

Some of my favorite things....

I wanted to share some of my favorite things in life......

Baby pictures of my children....and when I get all crazy and do something out of character like using cloth diapers for our youngest.
Messy food faces as long as there is not dirt mixed in with it....haha

Embarassing pics of my kids on the potty chair...

Seeing Mr Wonderful be a wonderful Daddy!!!.....

Cats with extra toes and calicos....... this calico was one of my childhood cats....

My kids getting to spend time at the coast....sand and all.....

Ornery Brother spending time with my kids....

Horses....my beloved horses.......how I miss having horses...but they are some of my favorite things....

Miss Callie Dog....here she is as a puppy......

Silly Maggie dog......

When we splurge on something to make a special memory! Here we are taking a helicopter tour of Cannon Beach and Seaside Oregon for our anniversary. I am 7.5 months preggo!

Thanks for joining me on a few of my favorite things......

High School to House Wife...We Make Plans..

FINALLY ENGAGED!!!! WHOO HOO!!!

The morning after the beautiful proposal in the dark we had to head to the Oregon State Fair where I was entering a project.

My sister was the one taking Mr Wonderful and I down to Salem, along with her baby. My sister was really happy for us and excited. We knew my parents would be less than enthusiastic about it so we hadn't told them yet, plus there really hadn't been a chance to tell them anyway. So here I am wearing my beautiful ring for several days and my parents have no idea I am engaged. Anyway I did well at the state fair and we had a great time......except that episode of crying baby for hours in the car......that part wasn't so fun.....maybe my sister was trying to prepare me for kids? I am sure that was it.....

Well we finally got back into town and tracked down my dad on the construction job he was working on to share the "good" news. He was happy for us but secretly I am sure he was terrified. I am his youngest and a daughter at that so I am sure that it was hard to swallow. Then came my mom.....I actually don't even remember telling Mom, it seems she was just not ready to accept it and it took her a long time to even allow me to talk about making plans for the wedding. It was a rough few months for our relationship.

We wanted to set the date for December of 1996 with just a 4 month engagement, but my parents put a veto on that idea. So we decided July would be a good month to be married, we set the date for July 19th, 1997 that would allow for almost a year long engagement. We toyed around with having an outdoor wedding at my parents place, we toyed with having a church wedding, it was fun deciding all the details and Mr Wonderful was right on board with all the details as well. We make a great team! Sometime I regret not having an off season wedding.....July is so hard for him to get time off for our anniversary because it is his busy work season and everything costs more because it is the prime vacation season........we were on to something with a winter wedding BUT I am not sure that December would have been a wise choice either. HAHA

We finally decided on a church wedding, we chose a small country church. Only one problem....it didn't have air conditioning, we didn't really think about the importance of AC when we made arrangements. It wasn't until about January 1997 that my Mom finally decided this wasn't going to crash and burn and she started agreeing to help me plan and get ready. We decided on a pattern for my wedding dress, actually we combined two dress patterns. We ordered the fabric, it just so happened my future MIL worked at a fabric store and was able to get a great discount on all the stuff I needed. I chose a beautiful brocade fabric with some organza to gather around the neckline......I eventually added lace and beaded it all by hand. It was a labor of love and I loved it when it was done. Here is a picture of me sewing away....we also made a bunch of the little angels in the picture by the sewing machine for people who helped out with the wedding. They were really special and a real challenge to make. Forget the wedding dress, that was easy, it was the little angels that were the challenge! HaHaHere is the dress after I put the lace on but before I beaded all the lace.My parents gave us a budget of $1,500 for our wedding. We picked out invitations with a mountain scene because I was raised in a mountain setting and Mr Wonderful loved the mountains as well. We invited about 200 people. We chose a beautiful cake with a little fountain under it, I made the maid of honors' dresses....I chose to have two maids of honor because they were both close friends and I couldn't make one a bridesmaid and one a maid of honor.....Mr Wonderful also had 2 best men. So we paid for the maid of honor dresses since I was making them, then my MIL did the flowers as her gift to us. We managed to pull off our wedding for less than $1,500 somehow! Now I can't even imagine being able to pull that off.Look here, what do you suppose she is thinking? "I just LOVE my bride's maid dress." Not likely, well maybe she was thinking..... "Thank God, I got her married off!" Or how about..... "Oh God I am SO HOT please let this be over soon, I'll just smile and pretend I am fine." Or how about..... "She is so going to pay at my wedding someday!"

I actually chose that dress color because it is my favorite dark thundercloud sky color, our pick-up is also close to that color......I know weird huh? Hey I still like the color so who cares right? I mean people lately are doing brown and pink together or turquoise and brown.....brown dresses? Come on!

Stay tuned for wedding pics the reception and the rest of the story......