Summer, Summer, Summer!

I cannot believe August is upon us and before we know it, school will be starting again!  I don't want to get ahead of myself though.  Summer is in full force, we have been busy, the weather has been beautiful and we have been having a great time!

 

 

 

 

In June, our dear Melanie turned 10. 10!!! Mel has been changing so much lately, turning into such a young lady - haha! We didn't do the usual big party this year, Mel seemed to want things a bit more low key.  It was a nice change, but also weird. She wanted a sleepover with a couple friends from school and then we had a dinner with the grandparents.  Very different from years past!  Another sign though that she is growing up.  Bittersweet for sure.  I think she had a great birthday though and we did so much around her birthday, it actually seemed like a week long party!

 

Speaking of, right after Mel's actual birthday, we headed to Beverly Beach near Newport for a very quick camping trip.  The kids have been asking to go on more camping adventures, and since John is almost 5 and better with traveling, we felt we should schedule a couple camping trips this summer while Mark was on vacation so we could check out some new places.  We asked around and Beverly Beach was recommended a lot.  Welllll, we fell in love with it.  We aren't really tent people and stayed in a yurt.  We also don't have a huge car and have to be able to get all of our stuff to "camp" into our car, so we thought this was the perfect fit.  We loved our spot and will definitely be going back next summer.  We were even able to meet up with friends that were staying there too and it was nice to spend some time with them. We also loved the proximity to the beach and the ability to drive to Newport or other areas nearby.  I think we could manage a longer trip next year for sure. 

 

 

We headed home for 4th of July at home.  We went to the Hillsboro parade, our annual tradition.  In the evening we had quite the gathering at our house with neighbors, family and friends.  BBQd and let off fireworks.  It was a great time and what we usually end up doing.  We love it though.  Stay close to home - close up shop when we are done - and walk into our house!

 

A few days later we headed to our 2nd camping destination - Stubb Stewart Campgrounds.  Stubb was VERY close to us.  Which was a huge plus, but it was a totally different experience than Beverly Beach.  We stayed in a cabin this time, which was pretty cool, and we stayed longer and "camped" more, but it was more mountainous.  It was BEAUTIFUL, but it's the kind of place to go with a group, bring your bikes and explore.  We still had a great time though, we learned we can actually camp!  By Day 2, we took off and drove to the coast.  We are coast people for sure :-)  It was fun though.  The weather was so nice, we explored the nearby area and went to Cannon Beach and found the perfect quiet, beach access right next to Haystack Rock.  These were our travel destinations for the summer, and we had some great times and made some great memories.

 

Now that our trips are out the way, we are just finding things around town to do.  There are plenty!  We are trying to keep these kids busy and trying to keep them from killing each other.  Haa haa!  You wouldn't think it by seeing their LOVELY faces and smiles, but oh my, these sweet kids of mine can't seem to leave each other alone.  Keeping them busy has been our only solution and what is keeping us sane! :-)  Mel has been in a couple camps and has a couple more lined up.  In between, we are just trying to enjoy the outdoors and find some fun things to do.  Like keeping up with John's train obsession.  We are finding a whole train community exists out there and we try and do and see all we can.  

 

We went to my dads house and picked our yearly supply of raspberries to make 10 jars of jam.  Yum!

 

We go to the farmer's markets and the park is always a family favorite.

 

FINALLY, letting off the kids' rockets!

 

Bowling and going to the pool and having friends over!  These are some lucky kids - they don't even realize it :-) 

 

While Mel has her camps, I get my alone time with John.  He still won't let me drop him off anywhere, so I enrolled him in art classes throughout the summer once a week at our rec center.  He loves them, especially since I get to participate with him.  It's fun though, he is such a different kid one on one with me, and although I am looking forward to him starting preschool in September, I am going to miss our time together.  I will always remember these couple years I have had with him. 

 

 Other than all this, we are just enjoying our summer.  We are having one big long Stay Vacation, but I'm almost liking it more than traveling.  I can't complain!

 

One gray cloud in our summer - our kitty Mike, went missing.  Poor guy, hard to have a pet and one day they are there and the next, they are gone without a trace.  We had Mike almost 3 years and he had grown to be a cat that loved to be outside and was pretty independent.  He came in to eat and cuddle on the couch with us in the evening and loved to just be able to wander free the majority of the time.  He didn't seem to give much thought to our many dogs that came into our home.  And he LOVED to follow Ruby and I on our daily walks.  It always made people laugh and do a double take to see him running after us.  He is the 2nd cat that has just disappeared that we've had in this neighborhood, so I think we are done with cats for awhile.  It's hard, I hate not knowing what happened to him.  Mikey, you will be missed.

Influenster Testing Time!

 

Can you see the Influenster logo on my main page?  With a score (currently) of 74?  That means I'm pretty active in their online testing and sharing of their products that they send to me COMPLIMENTARY to test and review.  If you are one of the lucky ones, you are sent a "Vox Box," usually themed, with products that you get to test.  I love it, it's been pretty fun.  Since I have been participating, I have been sent 4 boxes and have even won a few prizes for sharing my experiences.  The box I recently received was the summer Sunkissed Vox Box.  This particular box included Dr. Scholls For Her High High shoe inserts. A full sized tube of Olay Fresh Effects BB Cream.  A package of Goody Ribbon Ouchless hair elastics and a bottle of SinFul Shine nail polish with Gel Technology.  All the items were great and I tested and tried all of them.  My reviews are as follows:

 

Anyone who knows me, knows I LOVE my nail polish!  I love being current on the new trends and I love to play around with some nail art.  I am also a mom on the go and don't have a lot of time to wait for multiple coats of polish to dry and I also like when the color stays for more than a few days before it starts chipping off.  This line of polish was great!  It went on smooth and shiny and dried pretty quickly.  Above I used the color that Influenster sent me and I am a fan of one nail being a different color, so I used my own silver that I had as well.  I loved the combination!

 

One of the challenges offered up by Influenster and SinFul Shine was to go to Walgreens, where they only carry this line, by the way - and pick out a second color.  I was intrigued to try another color so I went right out.  I had to go to two Walgreens before I found the line, but after I looked on line, I saw exactly which stores had it in stock and lucked out that way.  Which I have to say, was pretty dang cool!  I liked that something like a bottle of nail polish would be updated online.  I wish I would have done that in the first place! :-)  By the way, this line has a TON of colors and at only $2.99 a bottle, it was hard to choose only one color.

 

Above is what I came up with after I combined the two colors.  I need to brush up on may creative nail art ideas, or maybe I need some new tools! :-)  I can't wait to try more!!!

 

The next item I tried was the Dr. Scholl's® For Her High Heel Insoles.  Since I am a stay at home mom, I don't get many opportunities to wear heels or cute shoes, but when I do, my feet are NOT used to wearing them as long as I used to be able to.  These little clear, barely noticeable insoles were great!  Gave my feet the added cushion and comfort that I needed to keep me walking smoothly and comfortably!

 

My 10 year old daughter and I both fight over our hair elastics.  I have them all over the house so whenever we need one, we have one handy.  I got these little Goody Ouchless Ribbon Elastics and thought we BOTH needed to try them out.  They were very cute and a nice change.  I think I am a fan of the standard black hair band still, but my daughter loves them.  She is so fashion forward, she started to wear them on her ankle, which was super cute!  Then I realized she started giving them to her friends too as sort of a friendship bracelet type thing.  Very cute! Check them out here: Goody Website and here (view here)!

 

I am not a regular make-up wearer and I am horrible at putting on moisturizer and sunscreen, so I was intrigued by the Olay Fresh Effects {BB Cream!}.  I have been seeing it all over the place, but didn't really know what it was. So, I was super excited to be getting this product to try.  I do not like foundation at all, so I was a bit apprehensive that it was a tinted product.  BUT - I was VERY surprised.  The cream was like a light moisturizer consistency and blended right into my skin.  The product smooths and moisturizes and has SPF 15!  Awesome!  I used it in the photo above and added a little mascara and it was great to just put it on quickly on a day outside with my son and feel like I had a bit more coverage AND protection.  Check out Olay Fresh Effects BB Cream here:  www.olayfresheffects.com and here: www.olayfresheffects.com and http://www.amazon.com.

 

***All of these items were sent to me complimentary of Influenster***

 

Spring to Summer

 As the title says, this post will be going from Spring to Summer.  As usual, I do not know where the time goes!  It's crazy.  As I pick pictures to post I just smile because I forget all these awesome moments with my family.  But, am also sad because I DO forget!  But, I am so glad to have this forum to share, and if anything, go back myself and look back at so many fun memories.

 Easter was fun this year.  I love seeing John continue to realize what all these holidays are and I like that Mel looks after him and shows him the way.  I think she likes to live a bit through John and still enjoys the holidays too, even though she is probably a bit old for things like Easter Egg Hunts, but its nice we can still enjoy these events as a family.

 In March, Mark had some time off and we took a day and went to the Coast.  It was a bit chilly, but the kids still managed to clearly enjoy themselves!

 In May, I went with Melanie to Camp Yamhill with her girl scout troop for the first time.  I have skipped previous years for various reasons, but I thought this year would be a good time to go.  It ended up being in the 80s and beautiful, hot, but beautiful.  It ended up being a lot of fun though and I am glad that I went.  I wanted to be there for Mel and I think she was glad I went.  I loved finally being able to see her do all the things she had talked about in previous years.  She even got to go zip lining this year!  She is one BRAVE girl! It was a quick trip, they pack so much in!  But, we all had a great time.

 We had beautiful weather in May and it continued over Mother's Day weekend.  My mom was able to come stay at our house and her, my mother in law and Melanie decided to have a day to treat ourselves.  We all had pedicures and a nice lunch out.  Melanie, my mom and I went and had dessert after.  Mark and the kids, as usual, treated me like a queen.  I am so lucky to have the family I have and for them to make me feel so loved.

John has been SUPER into trains again all of a sudden.  So we have been trying to find just about anything involving trains that we can go and do and see.  I love the wonder and amazement in his eyes.  He is just so amazed by the workings and the steam and the rides.  I love to just sit back and watch him.

The last couple of months, we have just really been enjoying the beautiful weather we have been having and loving being outside after a long winter.  I feel our life has slowed down or simplified a lot, but then I look at the these photos and I'm like, What am I thinking?! :-)  I am realizing we can still have a lot of fun on a small budget.  We go to the park a lot and explore, we definitely find enough to entertain ourselves!  And we are volunteering a lot and it just feels so good to help and be involved and it has also been very beneficial to us and our kids.  We have a day out and have fun and  they learn what it is to give and they don't even seem to realize that they are working!

 

Not to mention, it cost nothing to go to Lowe's and be goofy!  We do this a lot.  My in laws were with us one day and were laughing because we were at Lowe's walking through the barns and sheds and dreaming how we could live in them and they were just cracking up.  We really just seem to be able to make even an errand to the hardware store into a fun adventure.

In May, Melanie also had her choir concert.  She started late in the year, but she ended up having a small solo role and did a great job.  She really enjoyed the community choir group and just tried out for next year's higher level and she was ACCEPTED!  It will be a bigger commitment, but she is really excited and I think it will be a great learning experience for her to be involved in something like that.

We have been spending a lot of time with Mark's parents over the past month or so.  It's been really nice to have that quality time with them and they just love their grandchildren so much.  Mel and John are very lucky to have them in their lives and I am very thankful too!  Mark's dad has been helping him build his turtle enclosure in our yard...yes, a turtle!  Our newest addition to our family is Phyllis, a Russian Tortoise.  Mark has been busy building her habitats inside AND outside.  Because you know Mark doesn't do anything simple :-)  Besides tearing up part of my yard, Mark, his dad and the kids have been enjoying fishing!  It's been a lot of fun and I love that John can be more involved in the outings and adventures and we can also do it all as a family.  We are discovering there are all kinds of ponds and lakes close to us that they can shore fish and the kids are having a blast.

 

It is now mid June and the school year is a day from being over.  It has gone WAY TOO FAST!  Bittersweet for sure.  Mel's school was like night and day to her old one and I am so glad we moved her.  She was challenged more than ever, but I am glad we made the move. I was able to help out a lot more and volunteer and it was nice that John could be involved as well with me when I did all of those things. It feels like its own little community and has even encouraged us to stay in this area and our house so that John can go there as well.  Hopefully it will continue to make us feel this way. 

 

Melanie's birthday is coming up and it will be the first year we won't have a big party, it feels really weird, but the natural flow of your kids getting older, I suppose.  We will still do a small friend get together and we are having a dinner with all the grandparents and my sister who will be in town, so she is super excited about that.  Her first week of summer camp, and Girl Scout camp to boot, is during her birthday, so I am sure they will celebrate her there as well too.  10 years old, feels weird to say.  I have a kid who is going to be in the double digits!  Ekkkk!!!

 

John just seems to be growing an inch a month.  He is getting so big and maturing quickly.  He LOVES Mel, although he doesn't always like to admit it, but he does!  He copies everything she says and I can tell he thinks she is just so cool.  They are playing a lot better together, which is nice, and I love to see them interacting better and being able to just hang out and play.  They still have their  moments, but I feel a bit better going into this summer than I did last year with them being able to hang out together and have some similar interests.  I am sure this year will probably be one of the last!

 

As for the summer, Melanie has a few summer camps lined up, so that will help keep her busy.  I signed up John for some art classes, so he will go once a week for most of the summer, with me, of course!  Mark is off for a couple weeks as well, and we have a couple small camping adventures set up.  The kids are getting more curious and wanting to try new adventures.  With both kids more adventurous and easier to get out and do, I am really looking forward to more adventures in the coming years. 

 

Here's to another successful school year and an enjoyable summer!