Pony Party

A friend of Maren's had the most amazing birthday party yesterday. A party where everyone got to ride, feed and brush ponies! Here are just a couple of the pictures.

Week at the Beach

At kind of the last minute (usually we are big planners, so a few nights before is big time last minute for us) Brian decided to take the week off and spend spring break with us!! We were very excited and decided to go to the beach. Our day at the beach turned into 6....We lived like real travelers and without much of a plan our trip became an adventure. Our journey started in Newport with stops in Yachats, Florence, Bandon and Brookings. It was amazing seeing so much of the Oregon Coast (to say the least;) most was beautiful, but we did encounter the strange and unusual as well). What a great week though! We got to spend so much time together and we still wish we could have another week!!!

Meeting up with the cousins and Mandi and Pete was one of the highlights for us!!!

OK, one of the weird things....Ever been to http://gameparksafari.com/ ? Well I for one hadn't and was in awe the moment we stepped in. They gave us cups of food and immediately rams, goats, deer, etc. came up to us and nudging our sides and hips. Of course Maren and I completely freaked out, but Luke and Brian seemed to be ok;)

What was even more surprising was how close and what little barricades the animals had. We saw more animals than there are at the zoo with a fraction of the security..Lion, Camel, black bear, tiger, leopard, leopard babies that Maren got to pet, buffalo, emu, etc. Seriously, we were inches from these animals.

Like I said, Luke loved it! He even tried to rile them up by smacking one on the bum!

Brian was mostly with me....What in the he!! is this place and are we safe here!!!

It was a great experience and I am sure that none of us will ever forget it!!

Florence.. The beautiful Dunes. We have a great video of Maren and Brian doing some pretty good (and athletic if I might add) jumps off the dunes but I can't seem to upload it. This is one of the most beautiful stops of our trip!

Lighthouses...One of our new found interests on this trip was to see all of the lighthouses along the coast. Who knew there were so many! This is the Hacenda Lighthouse which required just a short hike up to, and it was such a beautiful day that it didn't matter that we had to carry both kids on our backs;) In total we visited five lighthouses on our trip!

Beautiful and quiet Yachats.....

Cassie's Beach. We'll be visiting there again for sure.

Flying the kite.....A few weeks ago I bought a kite at Freddies not even realizing that we'd get to use it at the beach!!! After Brian fixed my hasty construction it flew right up.

When Luke got a turn he would laugh like crazy and then let it fly...I think I ran after that kite at least five miles in all;)

Can't wait for summer....

Benny and the Kids

Grandma and Grandpa MacDonald took the kids to the Beaver game last weekend and somehow managed to get a picture with Benny!

Skyping

Our new favorite thing is Skype! The kids have LOVED being able to talk with their cousins. Sorry about the lack of pictures these past couple of weeks! We are learning how to deal with my new schedule without going crazy and I think we are going to be just fine but it will take some getting used to;) It is actually kind of fun to have a real "Friday" again!

Maren is 5!!!!

After Disneyland it had already felt like we had been celebrating Maren's birthday for a week, but we still had another week to go! What a great week it was though. Maren absolutely LOVED her birthday this year! She already seems so much older...A whole half decade!

Maren at her party at Safari Sams
Random Luke shot....

After the party and all of the gloriousness that goes with it!

The whole group

Notice the pink cheeks?!?! They all played so hard, but these two especially loved to see each other!

We just kept putting quarters in for Luke to ride....

"Real" birthday day at home....Later that night putting her to bed she said, "Mom, you know my wish came true. I had the best birthday ever!".....Awww!

When we asked what her favorite present was she said it was the gum....To think of all the gum she could have had if we'd only known!

Art Table...So appropriate for Maren:)

School Birthday party

Newport Beach

Before we left I had to convince Maren that it was OK to wear her swimsuit to the beach (she was thinking of the coast). Newport Beach was a place that I grew up coming to everysummer and I was so excited to see it again and share it with everyone. Anyway, by the time we got there, both kids were waist deep in the ocean and loving every minute. For my camera's safe keeping we missed the pictures that were actually in the water, but got some good ones making sand stuff....

For the record, the same place that serves balboa bars and frozen chocolate bananas is still there!