Camping Without Kids

Last weekend my mom graciously agreed to watch our kids so Wes and I could go camping by ourselves to celebrate our anniversary.

It was the best 28 hours ever!  Not that I was counting or anything.  Ha!

We stopped to eat dinner at Calamity Jane's in Sandy.  This was definitely my kind of restaurant!  I think the majority of the menu was reserved for hamburgers.  I ordered a guacamole and Wes ordered a Texas Red.  We split them.  We both preferred the Texas Red.

Then we drove up to Frog Lake to camp.  Given the name it should have been obvious that there would be frogs but I didn't really put two and two together.  There were hundreds of tiny little frogs.  I'm not exaggerating when I say every step we took around the lake we had to watch where our foot landed.  We might have felt a few squish under our feet...

It took us all of 15 minutes to set up camp.  Amazing how that works when you don't have kids running around needing help or causing mayhem.

Then Wes went out fishing and I set by the lake and read.  

GLORIOUS!!!

The next morning we got up before we would have at home, which is weird because we were totally excited about not being woken up by kids.  But we were both just too excited to sleep any longer.

Wes went out fishing and I finished my book.

When he came back, we ate breakfast, cleaned up camp, all in under an hour.  I am still amazed how much you can get done without kids around.

Then we went fishing in the canoe.  We both caught a fish.  I lost my pole in the lake.  Why don't they float?  I mean, that should just be a standard for all poles, right? 

 I was seriously annoyed.

Before we headed home we went to Ikea and got these super cute lockers for kids so they have a place to put their backpacks next year besides just wherever they decide to drop them as they are coming into the house.

Caleb's 17 Months

Happy Monthday to this little guy!

He is finally starting to fill out and isn't just a long string bean.  

Right before our eyes he's turned into a little toddler!  I'm excited for him to be big but also sad to think that in just a few short years I'm not going to have anyone to attack with a zillion kisses and there will be no more baby giggles in our house.  

He already has learned how to crawl out of his pack N play and his crib.  He flat out refuses to sit in his high chair so it's currently sitting in the garage.  Just today he showed me that he knows how to walk up and down the stairs, holding onto the wall.  Not only that but he wanted to show me how fast he can do it.  Oh man, talk about fear inducing.

He loves to jump on the trampoline and just yesterday he climbed down from it by himself.  He has a sixth sense about the dishwasher and seems to always know when it's being emptied or loaded.  Even if he's outside playing as soon as the dishwasher door is open little man is coming to climb onto the door and pull things out, so doing the dishes is currently reserved for nap time.

He loves going to the lake and throwing in rocks
and eating all the chips while avoiding getting wet as much as possible.

He still doesn't sleep through the night and the last two days he's woken up before 6am.  Hopefully that last part doesn't become a habit.

Last week Caleb got his two upper canines one day apart from each other.  That makes 14 teeth for him.

He says, "Thank you ,which sounds like "tnk", Mom, Da, Ball, Bye Bye, Baba (Bottle), love u, and yay".  But his favorite word is still "NO."

I love how he uses his eyebrows to express his gibberish.  And just about everyday, several times a day he finds me, pulls on my shirt and starts walking to the kitchen, asking either for candy or graham crackers with his adorable pudgy pointer finger.  I can't really resist that. 

One more month till Nursery!

Happy 8 Years to Us

Today is our 8 year anniversary!

I tend to romanticize things and would probably say marriage with Wesley is perfect!

Wesley on the other hand when asked the other day said more realistically, "Sometimes marriage can be hard."

But given the fact that he is rather perfectish and I'm fairly flawed it makes sense that we have different sentiments on the subject.

I always tell Wes that if everyone was just like him, everyone would be happily married forever.  He laughs uncomfortably when I say this but I seriously think it's true.  He's annoyingly perfectish.  He gets the "ish" because he sometimes does leave the cheese knife on the counter so you know, life can be a bit of a challenge with him.  I'm kidding.  Neither of us are perfect, I just happen to think the world of him.

Since we started dating I feel like almost right away we have been inseparable.  I honestly feel like Heavenly Father knew all the paths we were going to take in our lives and he knew in the end we were meant to find each other.  I feel this was the sweetest tender mercy for me.  Just considering all the bumps along my path that were of my own choosing and then to hear about his life and realize how carefully he walked his path, sometimes I can't believe Heavenly Father would allow someone like him to even be considered an option for me.

Back when we were dating, I remember when we started talking seriously about marriage, I prayed to Heavenly Father in more of a pleading way that if he allowed Wesley to be my husband I would thank Him everyday for him. Honestly I can't say I've remembered to thank Him for Wesley everyday but probably pretty close. Oddly enough I remember that promise the most when I'm frustrated with Wes.  I remember that I promised I would thank Heavenly Father for him and then I do and then my heart softens.  It's funny how that works.

Anyways this has turned uncharacteristically personal and mushy.  But hopefully without jinxing us I'd like to share a few more details about us...him.

He is always showing me new, deeper ways he thinks and feels, teaching me how to be better at communicating and caring for others.  When he serves in his callings at church he really tries to give his 100%.  He is who I want to go to for advice, to talk to about the minutest parts of my day, he is my sounding board for spontaneous and sometimes ridiculous ideas I have come up with, he lets me cry when I'm hurt and cheers me on when I'm trying to accomplish goals.  I think we both feel drawn to each other all the time.  He tells me he can't wait for work to end so he can rush home to be with us.  In the evenings we typically find ourselves in the same room as the other even if we are both doing two different things.  I still am pleasantly surprised how well we work together on projects or family struggles.  I love that we have the same religious goals.  That we both really, deeply care about God and about trying to be good.  I love at night when I'm a spaz I can get him to laugh some of my favorite laughs I've ever heard.  I love waking up each morning to the handsomest face in the world.

On that note...I've gathered some very er, um, unique pictures of Wesley.

In advance, You're Welcome.  

Purple Hair: Don't Care

Novalee used her girl scout money she earned a few years ago to buy hair chalk at the scout store.

This last week I helped her braid it and chalk it purple.

I think she felt pretty hard core.

She loved it!

I loved that it wasn't permanent.

😜

Scout Camp 7/17-7/22

Jared went off to scout camp last week.

I think he had fun.

I missed him.

Wes went up Monday night and stayed until Wednesday night to help out.

I didn't like being away from Wes for so long.  

I might have given him a stamped, self addressed envelope and insisted that he write me while he was there.  I'll leave the mushy stuff out but it was a sweet note.  I might have teared up a bit.

I didn't even ask Jared to write me.  I figured he would be too busy having fun to want to stop and write his mom.

All the other kids slept on the floor in my room the first night.

On Tuesday we went to the $1 movies.

That night I didn't have the kids sleep in my room so I could stay up late reading.

I love the freedom of sleeping in our room alone.  I love being able to do whatever I want and not have to worry about if I'm keeping Wes up.

Somehow Kinsley ended up in my room anyways that night.  So I stayed up late reading and then bright and early Kinsley popped her head up and said, "Hi Mom!"  

Why!?!

Before Wes got home we went to the store and I let the kids each pick out a favorite candy bar for him.  You would have thought he had been gone longer than three days by how excited we all were to see him!

Jared came home Saturday with some color, tired and stinky.  Shower and a nap were the first things he did.

Then we woke him up and we all went to the lake.

Jared loved camp!  He loved horsemanship.  His horse's name was Jinglebob.  Jared said that the horse sways to the song Jingle Bells.

And Jared loved swimming even though he said the water was frigid.

I love this kid.  He makes my heart happy.  I missed him when he was gone but I'm glad he had this chance to learn and grow on his own.

Desk for the Girls

I purchased this desk at Habitat for Humanity for $15.

It was stained a dingy brown color so I repainted it Hawaiian Teal and cleaned the handles.

The indoor color is more true to the actual color.

I love this color so bad it hurts!

  I told Wes I might paint our whole house this color...well on a smaller scale I am painting the inside of the playhouse this color.  

Anyways, the girls, Novalee is thrilled to have a desk in their room.  

She is kind of a geek when it comes to office supplies. 

She professes to collect the stuff.

Devils Lake

Last weekend we went to Devil's Lake with the kids and our friends the Bells.

It was kind of chilly there, 62 degrees.  Which was about 20 degrees colder than our last camping trip.

True to form Caleb didn't sleep at night and we (Wes and Me) had two fairly sleepless nights.  The last night he slept in the car with Wes.  And then slept in until 9am...wish we could have slept in.

As soon as we got there the little kids climbed up on the picnic table and started chowing down on junk food.  We don't usually have a ton of junk food around so I'm sure they were in heaven.

 Kinsley once again out fished everyone.  She caught two fish.  The second she let Hite reel in.

 The first night we ate at Moe's.   

Pretty much, really serious "roughing it".

    

 Then we went back to camp and watched a movie.

 We met up with our friends.

 And ate smores.

The next day we went back to Moe's and swam at the sand bar right there.

It was freezing.

As we were leaving two deer started swimming to our side of the beach, even though there were people on the beach and pier.

Then they ran up onto the beach and darted through the crowd.  It was crazy.

They are just in front of the pier in this picture.

I love that Novalee still has some of her baby curls. 

 They just frame her face but they are so cute!

 I totally forgot Lincoln City had an outlet mall, so while that wasn't really in the plan for the weekend, I couldn't resist.  So I took Caleb and Novalee while Wes took the rest fishing at the dock.

 Sunday we packed up and went to say goodbye to our friends, who convinced us to come play one last place before heading home.

Devil's lake has this cool castle play structure thing.  It's massive.  Kind of like the Washington Park Playground but this one is made out of wood.  It was impressive.  Plus our kids ran off the last of their energy and slept the whole way home.

My little caged animal.

I like her.

 We are already planning another trip there next year!