Last Minute Beach Blast

Just a week before baby was due we decided to join my brother and his family on their what seems to be annual trip to the Oregon Coast at Pacific City. The past couple of years we've been extremely lucky to have the best Oregon Coast weather possible! Usually it is cool and windy, but the past couple of years have been surprisingly warm with no wind. This time we didn't luck out as well. It was quite windy...in fact, I didn't even want to get the kite out because we'd be fighting it more than enjoying it. So we resorted to building sand castles and rolling down the sand dunes. Reina and some of the other cousins decided the frigid ocean was fun enough to play in...until their lips turned blue and then decided the sand hills were much more pleasant!

Baelor chose the warmer pond to float his boat on. He easily spent half of the time we were at the beach in this one little pond. Have I ever mentioned he LOVES boats? And motorcycles. And cars. We were not planning on coming so luckily my brother already had their RV they were traveling in for us to stay overnight in. It was actually quite comfy. Since the next day was Sunday and there was not enough room in our one van for everyone, we all piled in the RV to go to church! I slept in the bed while the kids rode above.

It was a quick and fun trip, even with a horribly hurt sacrum that didn't allow me to run along the beach or climb the big sand dune. Baby boy was going to be here in just a few days!

Kindergarten Wrap-Up

I totally forgot to recap the end of the school year events for Reina's first year of school! Here is her first/last day of school pictures...still a cutie.

We went to the first grade music program (since she is in a split Kinder/1st grade class). She was one of the lucky ones to dress up as a penguin for one of the songs...very fitting for her last name.

  

They had a carnival at school with all sorts of fun activities that included lots of sweets. This has been the hottest summer here since I can ever remember! We've had more than enough 100 degree days or close to it and practically no rain. In fact, June had zero rain fall. This worked out for the school carnival  at least! Cousin Karter even joined us.

Sesame Street Live: for Baelor

Reina not only improved on her report card since the beginning of the school year but has excelled in every subject! This summer we haven't done too much as far as school work, but she is reading chapter books! It's a bit of a struggle for both her and I as there are a lot more words she has to really work through sounding out, and for my patience to not tell her the word and get through a long chapter. She does feel pretty cool about reading chapter books like the big kids though. She likes to show us how thick of the book she has read. We are pleased with her achievements as she does excel and just about everything.

I don't have time to take my kids to swimming lessons since I work, but Reina is getting very confident with swimming. She used to be fearful of jumping into the lake or pool because of the water going over her head.

Hard worker picked over 5 pounds of blueberries!

She no longer fears this as all of our lake trips have involved her doing
somersaults or jumping off of anything. She'll gladly go down water slides at the pool, and she even jumped into the 10 feet deep side of the pool at a pool party for Activity Days I took her to. Her ideal day would be creating a gymnastics routine with a bunch of friends- such a social butterfly.

Substituting the kindergarten class next to Reina's class

Ice skating with Cousin Heleena and mommy (6 mos. preg.)

Baelor usually avoids deep water but rather would play with boats or cars in the sand. He is actually quite obsessed with anything "boy"- loves boats, cars, bikes, motorcycles, four-wheelers, balls...the list goes on. We can't leave the gym without him examining each and every motorcycle parked at the entrance. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with his love for fast things when he is actually old enough to ride them!

Wearing daddy's sweat jacket when he was a little boy

So recently he got his first real bicycle. Originally, I bought him a $3 bike at a garage sale. When I brought it home, it was too big for him to reach the pedals. He was VERY sad about this so we splurged and got him a cool motorcycle bike. He loved it right away and would ride it daily for a couple of weeks until he tried out the bigger $3 bike again (somehow he grew) and realized it went faster (bigger wheels). He quit riding the smaller/cooler/expensive bike and opted for the bigger boy bike since he could go faster! Luckily, Walmart took back the expensive bike.

The first week of 1st grade for Reina has been quite eventful for me! I wanted to be part of her first day of school so I walked her and the other kids to and from school, towing three-day-old Rowen and all.