The High Desert

Last week, the six of us loaded up and headed several hours south for a bit of vacation time in Central Oregon.  Our cousins who live three hours south of us, joined us as well.  There was a lot of fun and adventure between the nine of us!

Ready to hit the road -- more or less.

After an 8 hour journey, Stella couldn't wait to get out and puddle jump.

Heading out to explore the high desert.

Wandering among pinecones.

Preparing for our Lava River Cave explorations.

Getting the hang of the USFS lantern.

Reaching the "end" of the 1-mile-long cave marked with a cautionary sign.

Back to the 90 degree temperatures at the surface -- the depths of the cave are a cool 42 degrees.

Strolling near the Nature Center with the kiddos and an abundance of mosquitoes.

Heading out to whitewater raft on the Deschutes River.

Chillin' on the bus ride down to the river.

Rockin' and rollin' on the Big Eddy!

Quiet time on the front porch.

The Boys vs. The Girls Scavenger Hunt.

The Boys...

and The Girls show off their finds.

Reading new books in Sunriver.

Crusing along Bend's River Walk in our family-sized Surrey bike.

Iver and Stella in their prime front seating.

A quick stop in Maupin.

And Hood River.

Our drive home.

Spring 2015 -- So Far

Since our last post, we've started and finished three of the first Harry Potter books, had family day trips to Bainbridge Island and Skagit Wildlife Area, had the first track meet for the twins, witnessed the first steps of any kind for Stella, made multiple trips to Costco, and a whole lot more (none of this list is in any chronological order, of course).

In an effort to document some of this as quickly as possible, I'm just going to throw a bunch of photos up here before my iPhone rebels and tells me I am taking up too much of its memory with images that I haven't posted. More detailed posts to come.

Zeek

Or as he's known around our place, Mr. Moo Moo, has moved on to bigger and better things.  It's hard to imagine a bigger (we're a family of six) or better (all six of us showered him with love) place, but after a 1 -3 month life expectancy followed by a 2+ year routine of pills and subcutaneous Vitamin B shots, our littlest guy passed away peacefully in my arms this morning just shy of 10 am.  He was my sidekick for 15 years.

May you have unlimited amounts of wet food, an abundance of comforter covers to tear holes in, the warmth of the sun to lull you to sleep, and laps to lounge in.

We miss you Mr. Moo Moo.

The Happiest Place on Earth

After months of planning, waiting, and watching videos of the rides-we-would-soon-ride, we finally headed south to Disneyland for a whirlwind of magical moments.

Welcomed with sunshine and palm trees!

Disneyland with family.

Our Disneyland crew -- from Arizona, Oregon, and Washington.

Running wild in Tarzan's Treehouse.

Mickey's Soundsational Parade down Main Street -- a full-scale, sensory-heavy event.

Pluto time.  A and J had a great time spotting characters, asking for autographs, and posing for photos.

Locked up in Toon Town.

 Hanging with Goofy.

And Captain Hook.

Both A and J were choosen Padawans at the Jedi Training Academy.  With the "unexpected" arrival of Dath Vadar, Darth Maul, and an assortment of Stormtrooprs, Anders found himself battling Darth Maul -- light saber to light saber.

Jorja uses her skills to defeat the dark side of the Force.

Our Padawans receiving their official certificates announcing they've proven to be worthy of triaining to become a Jedi.

Welcome to Cars Land!

Buzz might not have been able to sign autographs (apparently his lasers burn paper), but he's quite photogenic.

 Watching the Pixar Parade on our last night.

Divide and Conquer

The past few days have been an experiment in our parenting: Kristin took the twins to Disneyland and I stayed here in Seattle with the littles.  While this might sound like a bad deal for both of us, there were very valid reasons to sign up for this situation.

The first is that the twins are a great age to hit a theme/amusement park.  The second, and most important, reason is that Kristin's mom really wanted to take the twins to Disneyland. As a single, working mother, she somehow managed to take Kristin and her brother several times as kids. Kristin freely talks about how these were some of favorite childhood memories (and might be why she went to grad school within driving distance to Anaheim ;))

Unfortunately, Ruth never got the chance to take the twins, so we promised ourselves that we would get them there sooner rather than later in honor of their grandmother who couldn't.  With Stella's arrival last year, we had to skip over 2014.  Hence, here we are.

Kristin and the twins get back tomorrow and -- knock on wood -- things have been pretty good.  There have been some incidents.  See Stella below.

(Lest you think I'm a horrible parent, she actually wasn't really that upset in this picture.  Her hair was just crazy post-bath and she was being funny.  If it were a real tantrum, I generally don't whip out the phone.)

Truthfully, I've had quite a bit of help over these five days.  Our good friends checked in with me multiple times and even brought me sushi for dinner last night.  Plus, our mother's helper came yesterday and will come again today to give me a chance to get to the gym and run some errands.

As I could have predicted, this experience makes me appreciate having our whole family around a majority of the time -- and that includes two adults who are generally here!  It makes the crucial, er, I mean, small things like runs to Starbucks much more manageable.  But just to prove we had a good time, here are a few pics from the past several days.

Happy New Year

True to form, Kristin and I wanted to get this post up on New Year's Day, and here we are a day later. Kristin managed to squeeze out some time yesterday to edit and post all of the photos, but then I was going to do a little write up.  Twenty four hours later, I am actually able to start typing.

Needless to say, we've had a lot going on lately, and we are always trying to enjoy the moment without getting too caught up with what's coming next (not always easy, at least for me).  The holidays were a lot of fun.  As you can tell, we were able to get some Christmas prep done with my parents visiting, had a great early birthday party for Stella-Mella, and had lots of fun on the holidays themselves with the ample time off from school.

Our New Year's resolutions are still in flux, but they do involve slowing down a bit, focusing on simpler things, and generally just trying to calm down after our whirlwind year of 2014.  That said, we had a blast last year so there are certainly worse things in the world than having another jam-packed year. A corollary to our resolutions involves getting more posts up to our now-joint blog -- so let's see what we can do with that one.

Happy 2015 to everyone!

And here are some overdue photos from 2014:

In search of our Christmas tree.

Watching the farm animals.

Stella's first Christmas Tree Farm visit.

Grandpa and Grandma join the festivities.

Iver heading over to the resident ATV.

Visiting the zoo on Christmas Eve.

Our Christmas morning stroll.

                                      

New bikes -- with gears!

Racing around the track.

Relaxing in the stroller.

Mud and puddles.

Taking the corners.

Our delicious Christmas feast.

A beach visit for rocking throwing...

and eating...

and goofing around.