Camping at Beverly Beach

We went camping this weekend with Dan and Cori, Angie and Doug and their two children, Savanna and Jake. The campground was beautiful and it was just a short walk from the Ocean. We spent some time at the beach until the childen were frozen stiff, and then we had a campfire and sat around the fire. The children all played great together and had lots of fun exploring their surroundings! That ocean air kept us pretty cold at night though. We woke up ready to head home. We are still getting used to the traffic around here! We are amazed that the highways heading towards the coast are two lanes instead of four!

Third grade

Courtney started third grade last week and is happy to be back. Her teacher's name is Ms. Duerr and she is a recent grad of Lindfield College here in Mcminnville. Courtney really likes her so far and says she has 26 kids in her class!!! Court got a haircut too.

Alexa woke up on the first day of school to find Courtney gone and then started crying...she was so sad! Tony took Alexa to get courtney off the bus after school though, so that cheered her up a bit. Those two love each other so much! Alexa has adjusted to the change now and is filling her days playing with Eli and all the other daycare children.

A few more pics of our trip to Astoria

Astoria

Dan and Cori came up to spend the weekend with us and we drove to Astoria on Saturday. A few movies were filmed there such as Goonies, Kindergarten Cop, Free Willy, and Short Circuit. We saw the house where Goonies was filmed and the school were they filmed Kindergarten Cop. We stopped at a beach on the ocean and went for pizza before leaving. The scenery was beautiful!!! Next weekend we are heading over to Beverly Beach in Newport to do some camping.

It's off to school for Courtney tomorrow!

school shopping and sickness

School shopping and sickness, that pretty much sums up this weekend. Tony came down with something about 4 days ago and is just now starting to feel better. Courtney and I went school shopping on saturday...can't believe she will be in the third grade already! Alexa really wishes she could start kindergarten... she is excited to ride the bus with her sister...though Tony and I feel blessed to have her home with us another year. Today was spent shopping, again, and making sure our house and paperwork is ready for our daycare licensor, she's coming tomorrow to make sure we are in compliance with all the rules.

Here is a picture from when Tony's mom and dad came to visit. Today is Bing's (Tony's dad) birthday. Happy Birthday...we love you very much and miss you too!

Busy, busy, busy

We have been so busy lately with our daycare. We have had three parent interviews and one observation from a parent all in one week. Our interviews are at night, after work, so it leaves little time for anything else. We just enrolled a two year old little girl who speaks vietnamese and french, but very little english...should be interesting. We had an interview tonight with a mom and her six year old boy. Wow! At one point Tony had to ask the mom to tell her child to stop hitting Courtney becasue he was hurting her (the boy wouldn't listen to Tony when he asked him to stop). The six year old picked up Jackson (our newly adopted cat) and threw him against a pole outside. He threw and kicked every toy he could. Needless to say, we won't be enrolling this child. I'm feeling rather tired after that!

We went hiking yesterday at Basket Slough, it's a National Wildlife Refuge. We took the kids on a hike thru the dense forests and saw a snail and a few deer. It's such a beautiful, peaceful place. Our batteries in our camera were dead when we got there, so unfortunatley, I don't have any pics to share....next time!

Jackson

Our neighbor's cat, Jackson, has found his place in our family. He is a great cat who loves children and he is here all the time. Our neighbors say they hardly see him anymore!