Jayden’s 1st Puzzle
Puzzles are HUGE here at Royal’s parents house. When we were first dating, I had to prove my worth by working on a million piece puzzle they had out, ok it wasn’t a million, but close. This is one of the few times that I’ve been here that there hasn’t been a puzzle out to work on. That was until this morning. Jayden found a puzzle that his grandma had bought for him, and we sat down and low and behold he’s a puzzle genius. He did the majority of the puzzle himself once I showed him what to do. Yea, Jayden!
I’m still here
Can you believe I am still in Washington??? I can’t. I feel like I’ve been banished and boy am I sick of wearing the same clothes all the time. I am also really missing my double jogging stroller and of course Royal. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to field the question of when is dad coming back to get us? We have about 11 days to go and a whole week before Royal comes. Me and the kids are now down in Kelso, at Royal’s parent’s house, for the home stretch. One of the main differences between my parent’s house and here, is that here there is always work to do. My parents have the ultimate vacation home, big ole spacious house on the lake, it pretty much begs you to sit down, put your feet up, and stare at the trees and moutains and water surrounding you. Royal’s parents house, while I could sit down and put my feet up, I’d be all alone and I don’t want that, so I join in on the work when I can, ya know with 2 small kids and all. I should of been taking pictures of the bags (garbage bag sized) and bags of beans I’ve snapped for canning, the 100 lbs of tuna that was fileted and put in jars and canned, the amount of food that was brought here from Costco yesterday in preparation for the people coming in for Gabe’s wedding, but I didn’t take one picture. My guess is it was because my hands were busy snapping the ends off of beans. :) However, today I felt guilty because it’d been like 3 days without me taking one picture of the kids, so I took my camera to the park today.
It’s been a rough couple of days for the kids. Yesterday, Jayden fell on the sidewalk outside and skinned up his knee and Willow took a header off the couch and caught herself with her forehead. Bummer. Then today, Jayden was outside walking with Great-grandma Mary and Grandpa Fireball and got startled by a bunch of barking dogs and fell yet again on the sidewalk and re-scraped up his already sore knee and it’s now a big, bloody, oozy, bruised up mess and while at the park Willow lost her balance going down a slide and gave herself a bloody lip - I know, where was her mother???? Lame. We went home after that and called it a day.
Climbing and Jumping
This has been one of the busiest vacations ever! It seems like we are constantly packing up the kids and going somewhere. I only have like 3 weeks to go! Wonder what else we’ll cram in. :) We went to the Sand in the City in Olympia this weekend, put on by the Children’s Hands On Museum. They had a sand carving contest and ton of things for little kids to do - play in a huge sandbox, sift through sand, make starfish stamp rubbings, make mosaic necklaces, climb up a rock wall! The 3 boys waiting in line for about a half an hour to climb up the wall. I really didn’t think Jayden would do it, I figured he’d jump out of line when he got close to the front. But he followed his cousins right up to the end. He got his harness put on, hooked up to his belay, and then he chickened out. Fine by me, I was proud of him for getting that far without freaking out. His 2 cousins though, they did a little climbing!
Today we hung out at the house and played in the lake. The boys had gone swimming 4 different times before lunch!
To the beach!
Today, the 4 of us and the Wagner’s loaded up a couple of cars and headed out to Westport! Living in Kansas, sometimes it makes me feel a little crazy knowing that I am no where near an ocean, I feel a little claustrophobic being completely surrounded by land. So, while Royal is still here, we wanted to take advantage of the Pacific Ocean only being an hour and a half away! It was pretty cold when we got there this morning, but the sun eventually came out and it warmed up quite a bit. I was just thankful it wasn’t raining!
Royal and Willow all coordinated in their purple!
Taking advantage of some driftwood.
The 3 boys contemplating their next move.
They decided that it’s not too cold and yes, they are going to go swimming. Brrrrrrr. I remember when we used to do this as kids. Now, it’s too freakin’ cold. :)
Royal put Willow’s feet in the ocean for the first time. It won’t be the last!
She got a little cold, her lips turned a bit blue, and she didn’t seem to happy.
But she perked up right away!
After we got most the sand off the boys, got them dried up, and a bit warmed up. We hit the town, smelled some flowers, checked out the docks and boats, and then went to the candy store and got lollipops and salt water taffy. Because it’s just not a trip to the beach without leaving with a bag of taffy!
We then headed back to the beach to play for a bit before we got back in the car!
Yea for the ocean and cousins!
Fish On!
Finally the secrets are all out! We’ve been planning a surprise for Jordan for months. My parents are throwing him a graduation party and as a surprise me and Royal and the kids, and Kaylee and her family were coming! Me and the kids ended up coming early when my grandma got sick, but Jordan had no idea Royal was coming, and even though we’ve about blown the surprise a ton of times, Jordan never quite caught on that Kaylee and her family were coming too. Royal flew in last Wednesday and finally today Kaylee her her family got here from Pennsylvania! So me and Royal and the kids are now back at my parents house at the lake, with Kaylee and her family. But since Royal has been here, we’ve been “hiding” down in Kelso with his family, and there has been tons of fishing goin’ on. Royal’s been getting up around 4ish to get on the river and finally get to some fishin’ that he’s been really missing out in Kansas. He told me today that in the past 4 days, he’s caught 18 fish! Most of them had to go back in river because they were wild, but we’ve got a bunch to stick in our freezer! Wooooo! Hooooo!
Here’s Royal’s first fish. You will also be able to tell this was pre-haircuts! ;)
These are the fish from day#2!
Jayden was really starting to warm up to this fish and gave it a big ole kiss! Royal was pretty pumped about it. :)
The next couple days were a bit of a dud out on the river and Royal didn’t manage to bring anything home. Big ole bummer. But that afternoon Fireball, Royal, and Gabe took Jayden out on his first fishing trip in the boat out on the river and went harvest trout fishing. From what I hear, Jayden LOVED it! And he brought home a couple harvest trouts. We don’t eat them, but Royal’s grandma loves ‘em so we kept them for her!
Here is Jayden with his first fish!
Then this morning Royal went out and snagged one more fish for us! Jayden brought out the measuring stick to make sure Royal wasn’t makin’ up how big it was.
Wigs
We’ve been having lots of fun at Royal’s parents house the past few days. I have more pictures that I am going to post, but these were too funny to not do right now. :)
Here are Jayden and Willow with their Great-grandma Mary.
