Just 'cause...

I like this photo.

A total eclipse lasting almost 7 min long went over India and parts of China yesterday...cool!

Young at heart

Courtesy of the McDonald's playplace.

4th of July (Evening)

After the busy morning, we visited the swimming pool, took naps, and then joined our friends for some tasty burgers & corn on the cob.

Then it was time for fireworks! The big neighborhood next to ours (our neighboring neighborhood?) holds a big fireworks show every year...really nice for a neighborhood thing! And the boys have made a new friend through gymnastics who lives in that neighborhood--they were so nice to invite us to come and park in their driveway and hang out with them for the evening.

I bought lightstick necklaces for each of us to wear...George caught these fun pics of the boys twirling their lightsticks:

And then the fireworks began... Here are Aaron & Anthony with their friend Gavin:

Benno & I admire the fireworks too.

And George lays back to enjoy the show:

Not to be left out, here's Christopher too:

The obligatory fireworks shots. I realized a day or two later that my camera has a "fireworks" mode on it, oh well.

I have no idea what Benno's talking about here but it's fun amidst the fireworks blasts:

Great show...once we finally got home, the boys lit up a couple sparklers but we were all pretty tired and went to bed. Church started at 9am the next morning, ugh!

LOVE the 4th of July...more appropriately known as Independence Day!!!

4th of July (Morning)

My 4th of July started bright and early as I got in a quick run before the big breakfast at the park...I was surprised to find all the boys up and dressed in the garage making finishing touches to the decorations on their bikes before I even left (and I was up EARLY!)

All ready to go...so very patriotic!

Benno & I hang out waiting for the breakfast to begin.

Nice to get there early and stake out a good table spot!

And at last the breakfast begins... Our ward does the breakfast every year (which means George was in charge of it for the couple years he was the Activities' Committee Chairman! What a relief to not be in that calling anymore, ha!) There were more people there this year than I've ever seen before...it was crazy!

Benno digs into his yummy pancake breakfast (and that's a chocolate muffin on his plate...it kinda looks like a chunk of meat, ha.)

George & boys after a delicious breakfast!

After breakfast, it's time to line up for the parade around the neighborhood!

It took a long time for the parade to get going and Benno's patience wore out...George ended up carrying Benno through the entire parade route.

I hung out along the route to catch a video...unfortunately the boys & George were all on the other side of the street as they came by so I doubt you'll be able to pick them out.

After the parade, the park is filled with all sorts of great carnival activities and free food!

Anthony & Benno come down first, followed by some other kid, then Aaron & then Christopher comes down head first, ha!

This last just makes me laugh, and I'm mad because I cut it off too soon while filming too... So to set it up, we were walking home after all the park festivities and I hung back with Benno. As we're walking along, Benno was really lagging behind and just stopped and crouched down and started grunting, LOL.

If I'd waited just two more seconds to cut off the video, you'd have heard Benno say, "Mama! Poopy!!!!" So mad! It was so funny.

So that was the morning...we love our neighborhood 4th of July--they do this every year and it's SO fun for everyone! We had gorgeous weather this year for it.

A day in Seaside

With a day off work and a hot, sunny forecast on the 3rd, we thought the perfect place to go was the coast (and so did at least half of Portland). Our normal hour drive took almost 2 hours thanks to the crazy traffic...but eventually we did make it to Seaside. And while the entire drive was hot & sunny, wouldn't you know it--Seaside itself was totally foggy. Grrr.

Hoping the fog would burn off after a while, we chose to rent a Surrey to ride around the town for an hour...

Benno didn't like the idea so much at first...(he's eating a rather delicious PB&J sandwich though...that's OUR strawberry jam, YUM!)

The Surrey was a lot of fun and Benno eventually warmed up to it...

Along our ride through the town, we passed this cute little beach house for sale... If only we could... Any friends/family interested? : )

All too soon our hour was up and we had to return the Surrey.

I love Benno's face in this one...

And thankfully, the fog cooperatively burned off just in time for us to plant ourselves on the beach for a couple hours!

There was still a lingering mist right along the water...felt rather surreal (and a little nervewracking...I couldn't see the boys when they ran off toward the water! That's actually Aaron just to the left of Benno's head and who knows where Anthony, Christopher & George were off in the distance...)

I love this one...

The boys found bits of blackened wood from campfires in the sand and drew on the sidewalk...this would be Aaron's creation:

Fun day in Seaside!

Strawberry cuteness

I know I've already posted berry picking pics but we went again and my little Benno was just so cute...partake in the cuteness with me:

Wendy was cute too...she's got a baby in her lap and a 2 year old on her back but she kept picking!

Benno's got a bucket...

And now it's on his head!

Please disregard me talking here...and listen to Benno. He's developed a sort of backwards stutter...instead of tripping up on the beginning letter of a word, he gets stuck on the end or a middle letter as in "that's 's 's 's 's better! a straw-b-b-b-b-berry it." It's cute anyway.

Awesome-Mom Summer

I have so many other events to catch up with but instead I'm just going to toot my own horn for a moment...

I am having an awesome-mom summer so far.

The kids are under control--they have chores everyday which they're actually doing!

I'm keeping the house reasonably clean...

I'm getting my illustrations for the children's book finished (7 down, 15 to go.) We're still getting out to swim, pick berries (and can yummy jam!), visit the coast, play with friends, etc.

Now here's my crowning achievement here...

I've been trying unsuccessfully ever since Benno was born to get back into shape mostly just because I haven't been staying consistent with my workouts and/or eating habits. Well now I'm pregnant again but I am determined not to gain so much weight and stay healthy...so I've been so disciplined about my eating, and on top of that, I've been running again. Every day. Every day for 3 weeks now and I'm amazed at how quickly I'm seeing results. I actually have some muscle definition in my legs again and I can see it in my face too!

(This would be far more effective if I had a "before" shot...George can attest to the change.)

My goal is to keep running as long as I can until about 5 mos preggo...I'm at 16 weeks now (about 3-1/2 months) so I figure I still have about 4-6 weeks of good running time. Maybe more if I'm lucky but that "bowling ball" does make it tough.

And I had a dr's appt today and the pregnancy is going just fine...4 more weeks until that ultrasound!

Anyway...there's more too but you get the picture...all in all, everything is going so great--I had dreaded the summer knowing that usually by this time I'm pulling my hair out and overwhelmed, but for once it's the opposite. YAY!