Camping-Again

I'm not sure exactly where we were camping, but it was a couple hours south of Portland. We went to meet up with another of Caleb's brothers Scott and his wife Sarah and their kids. Although it was domestic camping, we were maybe 100 yards from the interstate and there was a playground right next to our camp site, we still had a lot of fun.

Another reason that we went down south was for Caleb's family reunion. It was fun to see Aunts, Uncles and Cousins that I have never met before and just to hand out and catch up with them. We also don't get to see Caleb's grandma very often so it was nice to spend time with her and have her see the grandkids.

Megan is cute and she knows it.

Here is Megan and Noah hanging out in the playpen while we got the fire going.

Alyssa and Julia had a lot of fun together.

Alyssa admires the fire.

Camping-Silver Lake, Washington

We went camping with Anna, Caleb's parents, Calebs brother Brandon and wife Nancy and their kids, it was a lot of fun. We didn't realize until we got to our camp site that it was a fishing resort so there was no beach to go swiming on and Alyssa didn't understand that the life jacket would make you float so she didn't do much swimming.
Since we counldn't swim we rented some paddle boats and had a good time with those until we got close to the dock and almost got hit my some boats. They were yelling at me to move, but I don't know how many of you have gone in paddle boats but they are hard to get to go in the right directions, but no one died so it is okay (I just got embarased.)

Hanging out on the docks.

We did have some fishing pools but we didn't catch anything worth keeping.

We backed Brandon's truck up to the campsite and everyone piled in to hang out.

Our Family

So I realized the other day that we literally have only 3 pictures of the 4 of us together so I decdied that I wanted a nice picture for the wall because I was pregnant for our last family photo shoot so Megan wasn't in the pictures. This is the best one we got, although Megan is pointing at the ducks in the picture, but at least everyone else is smiling.

We went to a park right by our house which is really pretty and has a small lake right in the middle of it (or a big pond depending on how you want to look at it).

I have yet to master the skills of photoshop, but when I do I'll lighten up the picture a little bit. It was really dark under the tree canopy because it was the one cloudy day in like two weeks.

Megan usually likes Caleb fine, but today she decided that she wanted mommy, oh well.

Grandma Bell made matching dresses for the girls, which turned out really cute, but Megan was just done taking pictures.

Megan finally calmed down when they started playing in the rocks.

We went camping last weekend with Caleb's parents and it was really fun. The kids a did a lot better than I thought they would. Megan just sat and played in the dirt most of the time, but she had a great time doing it. Alyssa had fun exploring everywhere and getting into everything. There was a really big field of grass and I almost lost Alyssa in it a few times.
We camped at Tirillium Lake and it was right at the base of Mt. Hood. We had a great view of the mountain from the lake. Alyssa just wandered up and down the shore picking up mud and letting it fall through her fingers then walking on a little bit to find new mud, it didn't look like much fun to me, but she seemed to enjoy herself.

Alyssa was more than happy to rub mud on Megan.

Mud Monster!!!

Walk in the Woods

We went for a little family 'hike' the other day (I don't know if it qualifies as a hike because we only went a mile), but it was fun to get out and see the difference between Oregon and Utah forests.
This picture came out kinda dark, but Alyssa is waving from a bridge. There were a whole bunch of joggers on the trail and Alyssa tried to keep up with them so she kept running up a head.

Megan tried to walk around, but she wouldn't hold my hand so she fell on her face within a few seconds because the ground was so uneven and she hates wearing her shoes.

Daddy and his girls.

Alyssa picked two leaves at the same time and they made the shape of a butterfly and she was very excited to show it to everyone who walked by.

Swimming Hole

I found out that there is a wadding pool at one of the parks by our house so we have been going a lot recently. It is just a big concrete circle about 15 feet across and is maybe 2 feet deep in the middle, but it is just right for Alyssa and it is gloriously FREE! Megan doesn't like it as much, I think because it is cold but I am not sure, but I do know that she looks super cute waddling around in her swim suit.

I didn't know that they drained the pool at 5 so there wasn't much water left to play in it, but we just went back another day.

There is a picture of the little mermaid on Alyssa's swim suit and whenever she wears it she calls herself a mermaid and says, 'look, I have a tail' and points to her bum. She has also been wearing her suit none stop for the past week. I make her wear clothes over it when we go to the store, but she takes them off the second she steps in the door.

Rite of Passage

I've decided that eating spagetti with sauce and getting all messy in the process is a rite of passage into toddlerdom. So Megan had her first try the other day and even though she didn't get to messy, she really enjoyed herself. Alyssa wanted to be like Megan too, but she only has noodles without sauce so it wasn't messy at all but still fun to eat.