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!

Baby Shower for Bethany

This week I got to co-host a baby shower at my house.  I basically just needed to provide the space, decorate and bake some cupcakes.

Easy enough.

Unless you have six kids and two part time jobs.

 Even one hour before the party started my house still looked like a bomb went off. 

The dust pan was full, even after round two of sweeping. (I usually have to sweep like two or three times a day).

Crayons all over the kitchen floor.

Dishes in the sink.

Duplo Mega Blocks and Plastic Food all over the living room.

I might have found six or seven socks thrown about the downstairs.

Library books all over the couches and rug.

I don't believe I've ever worked so fast in all my life.  

I was mopping at turbo speed. 

Thankfully it all came together and thankfully Wesley saved the day by rushing home and herding the kids outside to eat dinner and then took them straight to swim lessons so I could clean like a mad woman.  

Here are the cute guests and Bethany the guest of honor.

Now for the decorations.

 I saw this on pinterest and totally wanted to try it.

It was so easy!

I just cut raindrops with my Silhouette.

Hot glued them to thread that I pinned to my wall and later tied to the umbrella.

Easy, easy, easy.

The food table turned out cute too.

Sara made all the food and it was amazing!

I found this on Pinterest also.  It's so cute!

It's the guest list.

I found the almost exact same elephant online but it had the bunny on his trunk so I just edited it out.

Then amazingly I had a stamp pad in the old preschool supply box!

I love when I don't have to run to the store for things!

 I used some burlap scraps I had left over from some pillows I made and cut triangles out.  I used my silhouette to cut out the letters and heart.  Then I just traced them on the burlap and filled them in with permanent marker/blue paint.  I then hot glued them to blue ribbon.

I loved having the excuse to craft a bit. 

 It reminded me how much I like it.

Congratulations to Bethany and Thomas!

Just Keep Running

So I recently learned after a lifetime of hating it that I actually really do like to run.  It's weird because up until just really really recently I could only run like a quarter of a mile before dying.  I really don't know what changed, but something did.  Now if only I could get my knees to agree that running is good for me, I might do some long runs.  For now here are two I did the last two months.

The first was an easy, non competitive fun run I did with my friends.  I wasn't sure if I would like it or if it would be worth it because it doesn't really make sense in my brain to do anything if there isn't an edge of competitiveness in it.  That might be an over exaggeration but only slightly.  

But with nearly missing the race due to traffic, driving over medians on exit ramps, two fun friends that were totally into getting dressed up and all the laughter we share it really was fun!

Then through a friend that had an extra ticket I got a chance to run the Rugged Maniac.   Then she decided to not run either and I spent the evening trying to convince someone, ANYONE to run with me, so the ticket wouldn't go to waste. 

Wesley finally agreed on the condition that I stayed with him during the run.

(My sad competitive brain doesn't get why you would need to have someone running next to you while giving it your all but I guess other people like people....or something.)  ;)

The morning of the race.  Wes looks thrilled...

 Before the race.

 Wesley at the bottom of the slide at the end.

We survived!

 It was pretty intense.  I felt like I was going to die at the end and kept wondering if my heart would hold out.  But I did finish just 8 minutes slower than the fastest girl so of course it was worth it.

I still carry my battle wounds on my arm.

 Sadly how I got these is a really pathetic, uninteresting story.

Now I'm addicted to these events and keep looking for more I could possibly do.