You Don't See That Every Day

This birthday was unlike any other. I usually get to pick where we go for my birthday - and I usually head to the beach.  We did make it to the sand on Friday night. We had dinner at the restaurant, and then got a short time to walk on the beach. Little K was not feeling well, and I didn't want to stay out too late because I had plans for the next morning. Beautiful weather, delicious food, good company. It was a great start to my birthday weekend.    Early Saturday morning I got up to run a 5K to raise money for a pregnancy center. I love babies, and what better way to celebrate MY birth-day than to help others get to their birth-day! I had a great run - coming in under 30 minutes... which I haven't done in a long, long, long time. I even placed first in my age group. A BIG thank you to all of you who sponsored me - you gave the best birthday gifts of all! Right after that I hurried drove home ever so slowly and cautiously, to clean-up and head out with the f...

Family. Most of us don't get to pick our family. I'm fortunate that the one I picked to marry into is one that I really really like to hang out with. For most of our married life, my husband has not seen his two brothers and their families on a regular basis. Unless by regular you mean once a year or less. Because they live out of state, time together is a rare but precious time indeed. As we all age and have kids grow older, and incomes change, our times together have increased. And the fun and memories just keep getting better. Last year for the first married niece's wedding, all 3 brothers and their entire families were able to be together (although the bride and groom weren't there for long) and talk came around to doing this get-together thing more often. So this last month we had what was one of hopefully many to come family reunions. We rented a lodge from our church that is located on the Oregon coast. It was supposed to rain all wee...

A week has passed since our spring break ended and I am finally getting to this. It went by too fast! We kept busy enough to feel it, but no so busy that we didn't sleep in. Oh, that felt good. And yes, Monday morning of back-to-school was very painful for all of us. We started the break with a wedding - friends' children who we've known since our kids were little. We all enjoyed the wedding .. it was simple and beautiful. Our Boy got a chance to serve - scooping ice cream at the reception.  We all enjoyed the dancing - The Boy and I joined in on the Mom and Son dance; The girls showed us their moves to songs we had no clue on; and The Mr had some great tango moves. It made me miss our ballroom dancing days. That evening we picked up The Cousins. What a giggle-filled three days those were! We took them to a local children's museum one day. There was an exhibit there for streams - and just like an engineer's grandchildren would do, they each start...

Dear Friend overseas, I haven't been too good at keeping in touch, and I apologize for that. But you know how summer gets around here! Let me catch you up on the month of August at least. I have to do that before I can post back-to-school pictures. The Cousins came to town. We're naming this summer the Summer of the Cousins. In July as I posted earlier, my kids got to hang out with all their paternal cousins - which hasn't happened ...ever. In August we had cousins come to stay at our place. Which involved the necessary trip to the Oregon coast, since it was in the triple digits at home! What a beautiful day it was too! No wind, warm and just about perfect. It also included the traditional damming-of-a-river. Some of them worked hard at it. We had the traditional fare at Mo's restaurant and ended the day with ice cream. We also spent one of the hot afternoons at a local aquatic center. I got up the courage to go down the big twisty slide, but no way ...