Carrigan Turns 2

This week we had a big milestone for little CC, her second birthday.  This year her birthday fell on a Monday, and just days before Papa was scheduled to come to town, so we did our best to strike a balance of still making her birthday special while waiting for the weekend for our big celebration.

Two years ago Carrigan came into the world with a bang in the middle of the night.  She seems to like to celebrate her birth in the wee hours of the night and this year she and I had our own celebration from 2-5am.  Once morning finally rolled around she was peacefully back to sleep, but our special breakfast plans went out the window.  Instead, after lunch, Carrigan, Merrick, and I went to the children's museum.  Since it was a Monday, in the middle of the school day, the place was dead and both kids had a blast.  I even broke my cardinal rule and let them do the face painting station.

That night, once dad was home, we had dinner and special cinnamon rolls waffles for dessert (the special breakfast re-purposed).

Our big party was Friday night.  All the local family, plus Nana and Papa, came to celebrate Carrigan and her big day.  We had a Minnie Mouse party with food, fun, and of course, cupcakes.  CC was spoiled rotten by family near and far with clothes, shoes, jewelry, money, lotion, and a scooter from mom and dad (made complete with a Minnie Mouse helmet from Grandpa and Lollie).

CC sure gives us a run for our money sometimes, she is sassy and opinionated, but we couldn't love her anymore and are so grateful that she is a part of our family!  Happy birthday Carrigan!

Father's and Son's Camp Out

Today is going to be a real treat for my faithful readers.  The big highlight of the past week was the father's and son's camp out and since I was not there (as I am neither a father nor a son), I am going to hand the blog to Jeremy to write for this week.  Before I go though, I will say that us girls had a really fun time back home.  We went shopping, out to dinner, and got frozen yogurt.  I didn't get many pictures from the weekend, but here is one of the two youngest girls in the family, Carrigan and Isabel having a blast in the bathtub.

And without further ado, here is Jeremy...

This last weekend was really fun.  It was the first time that I took Merrick on the father's and son's camp out, a yearly tradition for our ward, and much of the church.  We went to a boy scout campsite called Camp Merriweather, just outside of Tillamook, Oregon, home of the world famous Tillamook cheese and ice cream factory, more on that later.  

The camp itself is really cool, these boy scouts up here are spoiled.  My scout camps consisted of endless hours of hiking.  This camp is a short hike to the beach, has a lake, and Adirondacks to sleep in.  As soon as we got there we hiked down to the beach.  We didn't stay down there for long though.  You can't tell from the pictures but it was about 40 degrees on the beach with 20 mph winds.  So after 10 minutes of having our faces thoroughly exfoliated by the all the sand fling around we went to the lake.

At the lake we ran into the other members of our ward that had come up early.  The story that they told us was that there was a row boat that was half submerged on the beach and my nephew and his friend, both about 12, decided to flip it over, take it out in the water, and row across the lake to a cabin they could see through the trees.  The cabin was unlocked and was really a big shed where all the kayaks were housed for the camps.  So, naturally, being 12, they decided to ditch the row boat and get a few kayaks.  When some of the adults saw this they decided to get some as well, even though they knew this would eventually lead to the scout camp employees telling them they couldn't use these because they were for the scouts, and liability reasons, and all those other crappy excuses that professional scouters use to make sure no one has fun, which they did the next day right before we left, but I digress.  When Merrick and I showed up, Merrick really wanted to go out on the row boat to see his friend on the other side of the lake.  So we hopped in the row boat and paddled out through the lake.  That is when I snapped this picture, which was my favorite one of the weekend.

That night we roasted hot dogs and s'mores.  I had a fun time and as we went to sleep I wondered why we don't camp more.  Then the wind and cold temperatures reminded me why we don't camp more.  I love being outdoors, I just don't like sleeping outdoors.  In fact, one of the reasons that I work is so that I won't have to sleep outdoors.  Needless to say, I did not sleep well.  But, Merrick did.  And, even after not going to bed until about 9pm, an hour and a half past his normal bed time, he was up at his regular time, just before 6am.  All the other kids got the memo that they were supposed to sleep, so Merrick and I were the only ones awake in the whole camp of about 40 people.  One thing you may not know about Merrick is that he doesn't really have a volume control on his voice so we decided to go down to the lake so he didn't wake up the other campers.  When we got down there he wanted to get in the kayaks, I was hesitant at first because I didn't want to get wet at six in the morning.  But, I let him talk me into it and I was glad I did.  It was one of those experiences that made wish my phone hadn't died so I could have taken a picture.  But, at the same time I am glad I didn't have a phone because it just let me enjoy the moment, and I don't think a picture would have done it justice.  We paddled out to the middle of the lake, which was as smooth as glass without the wind, and I stopped paddling and just floated.  I had myself a bit of a moment as it was just Merrick and I on the lake, the birds were chirping, and the sun was just coming up over the trees.  It was a great moment and one that I think embodied the spirit of the father's and son's campout, and I was glad to share it with Merrick.

Afterwards, we went to Oceanside, another beach nearby, where thousands of jelly fish had washed up over night as you can see by the picture.  Then we made one last stop at the Tillamook cheese and ice cream factory for a nutritious lunch of free cheese samples and ice cream.  It was great weekend and we both are looking forward to next year's camp out.

BayBel's First Birthday and the Voice of a Prophet

As you may be able to tell from the title, this week's blog is going to be a little all over the map, but the last week brought two, very unrelated, significant events.  You are forewarned that I will likely talk about both with little to no transition between the two, so here we go...

Last Sunday we celebrated Ben and Becca's baby girl, Isabel's first birthday.  She has actually been one for a few weeks, but first the celebration was held off until my mom could attend and then postponed due to sickness.  Once the party did get off the ground, it was a good time had by all.  It will just be a few weeks now until we all get together again for Carrigan's birthday.

The other major highlight, since the last blog, took place just a few hours ago.  Our stake (a small geographical area of members of our church) had the chance to have a special conference where Jeffry R. Holland (one of the twelve apostles we sustain to lead and direct our church) came to speak to us.  This is a big deal when you consider that there are 15 million members of our church and he came to speak to 1,500 of us.  He talked about how the church is a force for good.  The church teachings, and the Book of Mormon in particular, do nothing but teach us to be better, more Christlike people.  I talked about this a while back when we had general conference and I have thought about it a great deal since.  It is interesting, to say the least, the opposition the church has faced when, when you look at the evidence, the teaching of the church and the Book and Mormon teach nothing but to be better people.  Attending today was a rare and special experience and I am so grateful I had a chance to be a part of it.  It seemed irreverent to take his picture during the meeting so here is his picture from off the church website.

And We're Back (Plus Easter 2015)

You may have noticed a two week absence in my blog posting.  In some ways I feel like a much younger version of myself then I would sit down with my journal after a frequent, long absence and begins with "Dear Journal, so much has happened since I last wrote.  I will do my best to catch you up." So today I will say, Dear Readers, so much has happened since I last wrote.  I will do my best to catch you up.  In all honesty, the last two weeks have been a bit of a blur. We had Easter, packed, went to the ER, packed some more, moved, and began unpacking.

I would be remiss if I neglected to talk about Easter, so while I may talk about some of the other items on the list above, I mainly want to recap our Easter.  I am not really sure why, but this year I really wanted to make the most of all the different Easter egg hunts around the community and in particular go to one that would have been an all day Saturday event.  It really was foolish considering that we had our walk through for our new house that morning and were moving a week later and it is probably better that it didn't end up working out.  Instead we went to the West Linn hunt that lasts a grand total of 2 minutes and one at a Christian Church in a neighboring town.  I must say that I really enjoyed the activities at the Christian Church.  It was the perfect balance for the kids of fun and celebrating the true meaning of Easter.  Both of my kids really like the performance by Cha-Cha, the Christian Clown and getting colored balloons to shake to celebrate Jesus.

Of course we also had a visit to our house from the Easter Bunny.

It just so happened that Easter weekend also corresponded with our semi-annual church conference when many of our church leaders speak and deliver message about Jesus, faith, hope, service, and just being better, more Christlike people.  We watched as much as we could and even my kids felt the Spirit of the meeting and crowded around the computer to hear.

It was a great weekend filled with family, fun, faith, and love.

I really should just leave the blog there, since the feelings of the week that came after were very different, but in an effort to really get caught up, here is the rest of the story.  I think I mentioned before that the reason we were moving is that my parent's house had sold.  That following Tuesday my mom came to town and what came next was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears as we finished packing and cleaning and saying goodbye to their house.

By Friday night the packing was almost done.  It was 6pm and we were throwing together some dinner before Brendon and Ben were supposed to arrive at 6:30 to take my parents' remaining things to storage before our move the next morning.  The kids were playing in the empty shower when I heard Carrigan scream.  She came running out holding her hand and I assumed she had pinched her finger in the shower door.  Soon I started to see blood, lots of blood.  Eventually I figured out it was coming from her finger and I as soon as I saw the cut I knew we needed to go to the emergency room.  Jeremy, Ben, and Brendon still ended up moving my parents' things, but CC and I missed it.  Instead I held her as they sedated her and stitched up her poor finger.

After all the drama leading up to it, the move was fairly uneventful, we had some rain (heavy at times) but was also had a tremendous outpouring of service as about a dozen people from church came to help us load and unload all our belongings.  Now, just over a week later, we are nearly settled.  We have decorating to do, but most of the boxes are unpacked.  I asked Jeremy last night how long he thought it would take before this felt like "home".  He said it was probably a defense mechanism because we have moved so much that we try to not get attached to where we are, but that he is sure we would get there at some point.  I hope he is right.