Hug Point

At the beginning of Summer, our friends Richard and Marissa were telling us about a great spot (hug point) at the beach they had taken their kids, at that point we had decided that we must make a trip with them. We still regret that Charlie didn't see the ocean until he was 18 months old and he lived in 2 west coast states. Anyway, a lot of beach trips are a must this year while our kids are young. I knew I had been to hug point, but I couldn't visualize what it looked like.

When I found out that Max was off of work on July 3rd, we decided that it needed to be a beach day. Richard and Marissa were planning on it too! Joe and Lindsay were going to come as well but had a change in their schedule that made it so they couldn't come.

Anyway,  Richard and Marissa invited us over for breakfast then we all loaded up in their new 8 passenger car. It made the sitting in traffic a lot more fun, apparently everyone wants to go to the beach on 4th of July weekend.
We eventually got there and Lacey and Charlie didn't waste any time before getting wet!

My boys!

Marissa with her babies!

So Hug Point is pretty great because there is this separate water area to play that isn't the ocean. The kids can play more safely and the water is slightly less freezing. The actual larger water area for them to play isn't really shown here.

Give this kid a ball and he will love you forever.

So Max ran over to me just to tell me to take a picture of Richard and Marissa because they were both sitting on their phones. We were laughing about it but really they were brief and I'm pretty sure they were just checking the time.

Early soccer lessons with Dad.

Miles and Lacey playing in the sand.

Charlie took a break from the water to run away from us.

More play...

Then daddy got some time with both his boys.

Sand Goatee!

Richard and Lacey

Happy little surfer!

Charlie enjoying the little "hot tub"

The wind picked up and both Charlie and Lacey were cold so they spent a brief moment cuddled up on the blanket.

We found another way to warm up Charlie was to bury him in the sand. He LOVED this!

Max had tried to sculpt some abs on Charlie but he was just too wiggly for them to stay!

So then Max and Charlie hiked to the creek above the waterfall along with Richard and Marissa while I held down the fort. 

Miles and I enjoyed some waterfall time!

When they got back I decided to do the little hike with Charlie, so I could check it out. We followed the creek a little ways up but mostly played on the cliff, throwing rocks in the deeper parts of the creek and making big splashes.

I was just trying to take pictures of Charlie jumping in puddles but I laughed hard when I later realized it looked like he was a giant.

Marissa and the kids.

We also went to explore a little cave!

Richard and Lacey

Just as we were packing up we realized we hadn't pulled out the bubbles yet so Max did just that, and the wind was strong enough, it just blew the bubbles for him.

We then hiked back up to the car and I decided to take out my excellent beach braids that Max had given me, and since I hadn't been in any photos up to this point...this happened...

But the fun wasn't over yet, we drove up to cannon Beach to go get some delicious seafood at Mo's. We ended up sitting on the Patio with a beautiful view of the beach as the sun sunk lower in the sky. I only took this cell phone photo, but you can imagine how beautiful it was. OH yeah, and there were wild rabbits just past the restaurant wall so that was a super exciting moment for Lacey and Charlie. 

We then drove home, didn't hit any traffic, and eventually all 4 children were asleep! It was a beautiful trip and I'm so glad we get to take our kids to explore and enjoy this beautiful world. 

A family that bikes together...

We have been really excited to get our family all geared up to ride bikes this summer. We have been wanting a bike trailer to haul the kids but it didn't really make much sense since I still didnt have a bike and there aren't really safe places to ride around our house. We ended up finding a great deal on a women's bike and a bike trailer, both only used once. We also had been hunting to get Charlie a big kid bike as he's outgrown his balance bike and tricycle. I have also been excite to get a bike so I don't have to borrow my brother's when we do our triathlons. Anyway, we are super excited because in the last week both Charlie and I got a new bike and we got the bike trailer.

Our first day after getting the trailer and bike all ship-shape we rode it for a couple loops in our parking area then down to the church parking lot by our house. We circled the church a couple times then got out to play on the playground. 

On Saturday morning we decided to try a family bike ride with both boys in the trailer. We studied our biking map to make sure we could go on roads with low traffic. For some reason there are no bike lanes, and few sidewalks in our neighborhood. Anyway, we decided to go to the bakery in Multnomah Village. It was mostly up hill and I was pulling the boys, and it was a hot day so I was sweating profusely when we got to the bakery. We picked out a treat but no one felt like eating it yet (Max had made us an amazing breakfast that morning) Charlie accidentally dropped it on the floor too so we were hesitant to eat it anyway. After our bakery stop, we decided we weren't ready to go home so we decided to go a couple more blocks to Thinker Toys! A great little toy store. We parked our bikes and then spent a long time checking out all the toys. Our boys were in heaven, and Max and I enjoyed it quite a bit too. After we played for quite awhile we decided it was time to go home and start the Saturday yard work. 

After seeing all the cool toys, we were confused by this...

Anyway, it was a super fun Saturday morning and we hope to spend more time biking in the nice weather. 

Class of 2005

And then it was Max's 10 year reunion. I don't think I ever posted about mine (Class of 2004)because it was a little ridiculous. Or maybe it was just that I really wasn't friends with many people in my grade, and it was at a bar, and we don't drink, and we thought there would be food so we were starving. ANyway when Max heard about his reunion he was so so excited. He was Mr. Social in high school and pretty much made friends with everyone. There was a lot of planning and preparation that went into his reunion so it was fun. it was a 2 day ordeal, The first night was a for whole families, kids included, and we had a catered dinner at the Tigard Festival of Balloons. We had been wanting to go there with our family for awhile since we went as children. There was not much of a turnout for this family event. But we had coordinated with some of our closest friends (Richard and Joe) so we would all be there with our kids. Still it was fun to meet with the handful of people that came and have a great catered dinner.

I think the kids had the most fun of all, playing with the water spigot for HOURS!

It was getting late, after bedtime for our kids and they were soaked and crazy so we decided to leave the pavilion area to go into the festival.

 Richard, Brittany, Joe and Max,
Both Richard and Joe live here and we see them regularly, we were really excited that Brittany came into town from LA for some family time and to come to the reunion.

The Night-Glow is probably the coolest part of the festival. If you go at 5;45 in the morning, sometime during the 3 day festival you will see them launch off tons of hot air balloons but we ended up not going that early so we just enjoyed a couple glowing balloons that evening.

It got late and we were surprised at how well our children were acting, after exploring the booths and walking through the festival we called it a night and went back to our car. Both kids were asleep within minutes.

The second day of the reunion was for adults only. It was at a restaurant with appetizers and drinks, It was crazy how many people we knew compared to my reunion,. I guess it was just because I hung out with Max throughout high school but really there are so many good and fun people in his class. There was a great turnout but it was incredibly hot on the patio they reserved. Max loved catching up with everyone. The time passed quickly and before we knew it, it was time to go home and let our babysitter free. This is the one photo we ended up taking. Totally random. I wish we at least got one of Max and me together, we were all dressed up and looking good! Haha!

McKell, me and Brett. Mckell is a friend from church and Brett was my partner when we were DARE camp counselors two years in a row.

And there you have...reliving the glory days of high school!