Holding onto the moments with Cole

My heart is full of joy

I feel like I'm just playing catch up.....I realized today that I didn't ever post the photos from Cole's Art Show. This year Carter was running a fever and not feeling well at all so I stayed home with him and Chris took Cole to the Art Show. I was very sad to miss the special night for Cole but I was glad Chris could take him. The last back to school night I went with Cole and Chris stayed home with Carter so it worked out OK for us to trade off. 

Cole talked about this horse drawing for 3 weeks and he kept telling me "It looks terrible. The head of the horse looks terrible!" Well he brought it home and I was sure to tell him that it 

DID NOT in fact look terrible.

 It was a wonderful drawing and he did a great job. He really did. 

Cole's work is the blue batik print with the leaves. 

These art pieces are hung proudly in our house. Framed and the works. 

And just because....Carter has a mess of curls and it's cuter than cute.

So Carter will definitely sport his curly mullet for as long as possible. 

Here he is in the morning.....

Idaho to the NW 2010

A year of kindergarten in review

6 years

On May 22 Chris and I celebrated 6 years married. Wow. 6 years. 

Cole asked if he could come out with us on our date and Chris and I thought that was a great idea....since Cole was the surprise that started our story together. We went to our favorite thai restaurant and it was a perfect way to celebrate another year milestone. 

thai iced tea

roasted duck

with rice

Afterwards we took Cole to ride go-carts with his Dad. This is the kids track and the go carts go veryvery slow. 

Finally....photos from vacation

I promise it didn't take me a week to do the laundry-I just got busy with life and work and all that good stuff. Here is Cole in the car. I once got a great piece of advice from my Aunt Anne and whenever we travel I pack a bag full of goodies and every hour or so I give the kids something new to keep them busyso here is Cole with his pipe cleaners. 

These kept the kids busy for 8 hours in the car. 

It was fantastic. 

Here is Cole's "command station" in the car.

Carter of course has his shoes and socks off and he's busy with a super fuzzy toy.

Cole created a pair of glasses out of his pipe cleaners.

Ah. We arrived. After many hours in the car we are here....to the cabin. 

What Chris and I didn't realize....was it really was a cabin....

As soon as we unloaded.....into the cabin...(ahem....) we headed down to the Pacific Ocean. 

Cole has now been to both the Atlantic Ocean coast and Pacific Ocean coast....he's a lucky kid

Carter was very excited about the "waa waa" and took off...towards the water...ahhhh!!!!

We stayed on the beach for a long time and the kids ran around and loved it!

It's getting late here in the photo below...... and Cole just couldn't get enough of the water and the tide coming in.  He told us he was "putting the ocean to bed" so everynight we went to the ocean when the tide came in so he could "put the ocean to bed". 

Dinner at Doogers

Cole loves clams....so he was in heaven with a big order all to himself...and homemade garlic butter bread! 

So was Carter!

So the next morning we went exploring around Cannon Beach. 

Here is Carter getting buckled into his stroller. 

Pretty timeless street scenes.

Cole threw about 20 pennies into this fountain with wishes. 

Carter was not so impressed and I think he was tired!

Carter's face says it all. He was not happy to be in the stroller.  Plus....the kids are so over me with the camera.....but hey....how are we going to remember everything unless I take a million pictures. 

Plus when they are older they'll love all the shots of them in their underoos and crazy hair!

So back to the beach. It was around 50 degrees and raining but we loved every minute of it. The ocean breeze smelled so good and the air was so fresh.

Since the morning tide had gone back out we had all sorts of great ocean plants to look at on the beach. 

The next day we went to Astoria, Oregon and visited the Maritime Museum. 

Chris and Cole on the Columbia ship.

And....of course...back to the beach.....

Next we headed up to Seattle and as soon as we checked into our hotel the kids made themselves comfortable and relaxed on the bed with some cartoons. 

The next morning we had breakfast and headed out to explore Seattle. 

I loved our hotel in Seattle. And it wasn't a cabin...which made me very happy. 

Top of the Space Needle. People were so nice and took a few family photos for us. 

Cole didn't want to go back down. He loved looking at the city. 

This is Pike St. right above one of the entrances to the market. We were pretty excited and I love the market alot. This was the highlight for me. 

Cole with the big fish. It's so awesome to see all the fish...and we were hoping to see the guys throw a fish but someone has to buy a fish first....so there are a bunch of tourists standing around waiting and the fisherman guys are just waiting for someone to buy one.....it's really fun....but we didn't see any flying fish....

The endless rows of flowers. I just love this market if I haven't mentioned that already about 10 times.....and  I used to go to Seattle all the time when I lived in Portland and it was so much fun going back and being able to show show Cole, Chris, and Carter the fun things I remember.

Goodbye! On our way back to the car....

So that night we explored our hotel's pool and the kids had a ball in the pool. 

It was time to go home the next morning so Chris and I were up at 4 am to pack the car. This is Carter a.k.a the mad scientist sleeping with his crazy hair.....it was a huge fro! 

Cole was out....he was so tired!

But not too tired to have his Dad help him with his new legos. We took the boys to the Lego store in Bellevue Square and Cole had a great time! 

So back to 4:30 a.m.  here are the kids ready to leave to start the drive home. 

Goodbye lovely hotel...next up...the car for another 12 hours!

I'm making a movie of more photos from the trip and I have a clip of Cole playing in the ocean....pretty amazing stuff....I'll post that Sunday afternoon.