August Date of the Month

Dustin's clinic schedule kept him late on Friday nights so we kept our August date of the month local- camping in our own apartment!

 I made a pretty sweet tent in our family room but it was infested with bears!  We watched The Sandlot Friday night and pretty sure we watched some Saturday morning tv in the tent too because we loved it so much.

 Camping dinner outside- hamburgers and hot dogs

 Our forest backyard

 Our indoor campfire

 My kind of smores!

Camping breakfast in the morning- peach cobbler, eggs, and toasted English muffins

Mount Saint Helens

In July we took a day trip up to Mount Saint Helens with my aunt Sheri and cousin Connor. Basically it was a perfectly beautiful sunny day in the Pacific Northwest so here are a bunch of pictures of our great day!

Ranier Cherries stand at the side of the road? Yes please!

Mt Adams and Mt St. Helens

Puffs of smoke coming off. Connor was afraid she might erupt while we were there.  We assured him she would not.

The Gang. Sheri, Connor, and Dustin

Mt. St. Helens from Coldwater Lake

Just another perfectly sunny day in the Pacific Northwest!

Epic DC Vacation Day 4 - Independence Day!

Day 4 was an all-American 4th of July in our nation's capitol!

We started the morning with a red white and blue pancake breakfast-- blueberry white chocolate chip pancakes with fresh strawberries and whipped cream (a B&D Creer creation).

Great seats!

A happy man!

Next up was a Nationals baseball game!  We met up with high school friends Andrea, Lacie, and Lacie's husband Chris and baby.  It was fun to catch up and see some great baseball!  Our seats were perfect and included hot dogs, fries, and drinks. Happy birthday America!

 

 After a Nationals victory, we headed to the Holocaust Museum.  Wow, what a museum!  I think this was my favorite museum out of all the ones we saw.  I wish we could have spent more time there before it closed but I'm sure we could have spent all day there and still wanted to stay.

The National Mall was our next stop with a long long loooong walk from the museum to Mr. Abraham Lincoln.  By the time we got there my feet were outta-control-sore so we found a spot at the base of Lincoln and waited for the firework show.  Dustin headed to a concession stand for a cold drink and maybe some sustenance and then he was gone... for a while. A very long while.  Actually, that's such a long story that I will save it for another post.

In the end, we ended up leaving Lincoln and started walking towards Washington Monument, where we saw fireflies! We were stopped by the cops as everything was closing for the fireworks so instead we found a nice spot on the grass by the Korean War memorial (maybe?).  The area was not crowded at all so it was so much better than the spot we had before!

I love how you can see the Washington Monument in these firework pics!

Happy Birthday America!

Epic DC Vacation Days 1 & 2

This year's epic vacation was a trip to Washington DC over 4th of July week to see Nathan and Adrienne and kids.  We had so much fun! It was such an exhausting trip!

It started with a red-eye flight from Portland to DC.  We had a quick layover in Minnesota, enough time to grab some breakfast and board the next flight.  Flying in to Minnesota watching the sunrise was a really cool experience!

A pretty sunrise out the plane window

Such fluffy clouds!  "These clouds are so fluffy, I'm gonna die!"

We looked pretty ghetto fabulous.  No surprise coming from Portland :)

Once landing in DC we grabbed our luggage and hopped on the Metro to the Jack's house in the Stadium-Armory neighborhood.  Mr. Elliott was down for a nap so we chilled with Audrey and tried to put her down for a nap so we could put ourselves down for a nap.  Of course this meant that as soon as Audrey was down, Elliott woke up.  :) We tried to spoil these kids with some new 4th of July outfits and toys.  (sorry Adrienne, I stole some pics of your cute kids from your blog)

Elliott's new hat

Audrey's 4th of July outfit

Elliott's baseball pjs and Audrey's new hat

Elliott is WAY into trucks so we busted out a new set of CAT trucks.  We loved having Elliott "read" his truck books because he is able to name all of the different kinds of heavy machinery.  And I mean ALL of them!

Audrey had a fun time playing under her toys.  Note, we did not bring her this toy. haha

That night we braved the metro with 2 kids and met Nathan and Adrienne in downtown DC for some pizza from Matchbox.  It's a really good thing Nathan found us at the Metro Center station because we had no idea how to get out!  We spent the night chillin and catching up.

Audrey loved Dustin!  Best buds!

Tuesday we were still pretty exhausted due to the previous day's red eye flight and the jet lag.  I didn't think 3 hours time difference would be that bad, but man, we were tired!  We spent the morning playing with Elliott and Audrey and then in the afternoon (after naps!) we went to the Air and Space Smithsonian.
Exploring Smithsonians with a 2 year old means that you just walk quickly through all the exhibits and point out the different colors of planes and such.  Hahaha.  Elliott was excited by the planes and we had a good time. 

Nathan and Adrienne joined us at the Smithsonian and we headed home to make some dinner and watch some Bachelorette before my family's flight got in that night.  Then the party started all over again!  My mom, dad, Spencer, and Evan joined in on the epic DC vacation with us.

To be continued...

Camping is in-tents

This summer we were able to take a camping trip with our ward at Cape Lookout which is super close to Tillamook, and it was AWESOME.  Like seriously, so awesome that it wasn't even like camping.  It was right by the beach with easy beach access, nice facilities such as a bathroom with running water, flushing toilets, and showers, and the camp sites were decently sized with a fair amount of privacy.  We had so much fun!  We roasted hot dogs and mallows for smores, and watched a beautiful sunset across the ocean.

Some kids from the ward invading our camp site

Brittany and Vicky. Tents set up and ready to party!

 Of course one of the best parts about camping is the FOOD and we had a most delicious breakfast!  Bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, all cooked over the fire, and peach dump cake cobbler from the dutch oven!

Brittany's sand dollar haul

 The next day we were able to pack everything up after our yummy breakfast and head to the beach for the day- walking in the water (which was surprisingly warm for Oregon coast), collecting sand dollars, and having a picnic lunch!

My sand dollar haul.  Rollin'!

Camping was SO great this week that we decided to go the next weekend as well, but with our friends Brittany and the Stanfords cuz the Stanfords weren't able to go to the ward campout.  We went to Barview Jetty, which is also close to Tillamook but north a bit, where the Tillamook Bay jetty is, and let's just say that this camping experience was not as great as the perfect one the week before.  We were NOT right on the beach, the facilities were only mediocre, and there were SO many people with campsites crammed right next to each other with hardly any privacy... dogs running through the site, bikers along the road. Yikes.  The Stanfords got there pretty late so they had to set up their tent in the dark but we tried to entertain the kids with roasting things on the fire.

The next morning we made another great breakfast of sticky rolls and egg strata and then packed everything up and headed to Rockaway Beach.  We made sure to bring our swimming suits this time, but the water wasn't as warm as Cape Lookout (Cape Lookout was just the greatest place ever).  We still had fun playing in the waves and little tide pools and exploring the cute downtown.

After we had our fair share of the beach, we went to the Tillamook Factory for some cheese, ice cream, and lunch. Yum!  Then Dustin and I with Brittany went down to McMinnville for the Yamhill County Fair Demolition Derby!  This Demo derby was TEENY TINY compared to the Utah State Fair one we are used to in Spanish Fork, but it was still fun and we were able to enjoy some fair food of elephant ears, funnel cake, and snow cones.  I have to say that it was my FIRST time every having an elephant ear and it was delicious! Who doesn't love a giant cinnamon and sugar scone?!  I also picked up a few cute little girl bows for my future lil cupcake (hopefully someday) and lil baby girl Jack coming in October.
 

Demo Derby parade of the cars