Esther, beloved, beloved darling girl, has spent a year researching cookie recipes.  And not just regular cookies—wheat-free, dairy free, nut free, soy free cookies.  And she taught Piper and Kyla to make Lemon cookies and Chocolate cookies.

In the words of Genesis…

      And they were good.

 

Ya know what’s in Newport?  An aquarium.  Seattle has a pretty lame aquarium, and I had heard accolades about this one.  All ten of us headed south and explored!

We didn’t even get in the doors before Piper started hamming it up.  She’s a….dolphin?

Wesley as a deep-sea diver is a little more obvious. 

The aquarium was fascinating.  I loved the indoor aquariums as well as the outdoor marine mammals and birds.

We have discovered Piper has 2 fears (though they seem like fake fears to me—she plays possum so often that I can’t always trust her authentic emotions):  1) walking across tall bridges and 2) sharks. 

Ahem, we were in a shark bridge.  Sorry, Pipes.

These are supposed to be shots of our immediate families, but…

…you’ll find a commonality (besides Dan and Dwayne looking very much like their father).  Isaac-Wesley is in both.

I do love my nephew.  Isaac is better read than I, has introduced me to some of my favorite authors, has great insights, and is an interesting conversationalist, but I really value him for just one thing.  He allows Wesley to climb, grope, ride, and snuggle him…sometimes simultaneously.  Having Isaac around is such a nice break for me.

Further proof of Wesley-as-tumor:

Funny story:  Dwayne unearthed his latent desire to own an otter or two (because if two ferrets are bad, three otters are better).  Standing right in front of the exhibit, he started searching for “residential otter containment units” on his phone.  Somehow, he came across this quotation in reference to otter maintenance:

If it’s cute and not prolific, it’s got a bad attitude.

Which basically reduced us to fits.  On our way home, Deborah and I debated whether or not 3 children apiece made us each prolific.  ‘Cause we’re pretty cute.

Okay, two outta three ain’t bad.

We made it to our home for the week at Pacific City, OR.  Pacific City is the place you go to when you can’t afford Cannon Beach and reserve too late for Newport.  But it has plenty of sand….and this week, rain, wind, and clouds.

But that will NOT stop us from dunking ourselves in the ocean.

We try to role model wearing warm, dry clothes, but it hasn’t rubbed off on the kids yet (or the nieces, it turns out.)

Another favorite past time is making sure to get sand in every crevice. 

Ready, set….

ROLL!

(Piper is the orange sand monster.)

Pacific City has a bluff, designed for climbing…and dying.  There’s a very obvious fence strung with clothespins as remembrances to those who’ve died falling off and drowning.

There were an unexplainable number of people on the other side of that fence.  We stayed on the sand side and climbed. And climbed.  Then Isaac, Wesley, Piper, and finally Mama, kept climbing.

The fun part is running down!

Our annual week with the cousins was planned Pacific City this year.  Our determination to take two days to drive 6 hours landed us in Cannon Beach on Saturday night.  Yep, on design, we landed in the most popular Oregon Coast city at 8pm on a summer Saturday with no reservations.  You can tell where our children get their intelligence.

We sat in the car and used our GPS and phones to find and call all local lodging options.  Finally, Dwayne called a hotel that had one last room left.  Matching our intelligence, they were going to discount it deeply, but it was still more than we had planned on spending.  However, it was the last room in town, it was a sweet suite, with a separate king room for the kids, and they had a pool open until 10pm. 

We took it.

And can I tell you about the genius behind Hallmark Hotel?  Each kid gets their own plastic bucket and shovel set AND a beach ball.  The three kids probably cost them about $3, and it was like getting a priceless gift.  In spite of waking up to rain the next morning, we knew the beach was meant to be for us, now that we had our sand pails. 

The donuts from the local bakery didn’t hurt either. 

Pacific City, ho!

We had heard from the Humes and Krugs that the Children’s Museum in Olympia is fantastic.  We had about 3o hours to drive 6 hours, so we thought we’d see what the fuss was about. 

It was awesome. 

I loved…I mean, the kids loved the play house, the market, the outside stream, the huge sandbox, the art room, the ship, the science, etc. 

I don’t know if we’ll make it back before my girls outgrow it, but Wesley can play amongst the driftwood and sand for years.  He even built an office so he can get some work done.

One of our summer highlights is going to the Whidbey Island Fair, just minutes from our cabin.  To make it even better this year, my parents joined us, and we met up with some of our favorite island people on the fairgrounds.

It’s a small fair, which works well, as my kids go different directions, but we always run into each other eventually.

Since the midway ticket is $30 per kid, it’s nice that there are a lot of free things for kids, like balloon animals and cupcake decorating.

They also all got to try cardboard loom weaving.

The Crazy 8’s were new to the fair this year, and I always enjoy the pageantry.

The kids enjoyed the rides, the friends, the food…and can’t wait to do it all again next year!