Cannon Beach

My mom's side of the family got together for our first family reunion in.... well, it might have been the first, but if not then its been many many years, and we all met in Cannon Beach, OR. No one from my family lives on the west coast, but they decided to hold it there anyway. I'm not really complaining because Cannon Beach is amazing and Doug's parents live 3.5 hours to the north of there and so we rolled both visits into one trip. We drove up on Saturday morning (4 am baby!) to Seattle and surprised Doug's parents who were not expecting us until Thursday. That was fun. :) It's hard to pull a surprise on Doug's mom, but since we had decided to go up early like 2 days before, we just kept things really really mum and didn't call her all that day so she wouldn't wonder why we were in the car every time she called. It also helped that my nephew, who was originally going to be a niece, was born that morning and kept her plenty occupied. That's right, I am FINALLY an AUNT! My brother and sister-in-law had thought for four months that they were having a baby girl, only to be extremely surprised to find that Madeline had turned into Henry! :) So we showed up at 4:30 so surprise my in-laws, and it was great. We got to spend some extra time with them and take a break to recoup from the long drive before diving into reunion stuff. Plus because we arrived early, Doug's parents gave up their tickets to see Aladdin in Seattle to Doug and I, so Doug, BJ, Kristen and I all went downtown for the show. The show was the premier of Aladdin that they had just written, so we were the test audience. Eventually they want to have the show groomed for Broadway, and although it has the potential for Broadway, it was nowhere need that caliber yet. But it did have its moments, and the genie was amazing, and we had tons of fun singing Disney Afternoon songs in the car on the way up, so it was a win all around. On Monday we headed down to the reunion and played hard for four days, then came back and to Seattle and played hard for two more days, then made the 13.5 hour trip home on Sunday. I figured out that we spent about 35 hours in the car traveling. I wish I knew how may miles we covered. It was a fun vacation. Cannon Beach is amazing. If you haven't been to the Northwest coast, get there. The water was even warm enough to swim in, but just barely. All the pictures are out of order, but I tried to group them according to days.

This is from our second day. I went running in the morning with my dad (Sublime! Running of the beach on wet packed sand is awesome, not to mention the fact that there are NO hills and breathing oxygen rich sea level air is amazing. I wish I could run on that everyday, forever) and then we packed up the kids and made the LONG walk into town to buy kites. If ever I go to the beach again, I am bringing my B.O.B., no matter what. We could have easily pushed it on the sand and it would have made the entire going to town experience much better. That being said, our girls were such excellent troopers. It's about a 5 mile round trip walk, and Evelynn walked the whole thing. Eloise walked over half and then rode home in the hiking backpack, where she fell asleep on her croissant. :) We found these statues to be great distractions on the way in and back.
This is a puffin. They nest in the area, and lots of photographers come to try and get a picture of them around haystack rock.

This was at Haystack Rock at low tide Wednesday morning. The lowest low tide was at 5:30 am, so we were up at 6:00 to get there around 6:45 to explore the tide pools. It was such a nice morning, and a wonderful beach day. Eloise was tired, so she had her jacket in her mouth all morning, but Evelynn was begging to go back and get her swimsuit on and swim in the water, so we did. It was nice. :)

Running from waves. The girls went through all five outfits I packed for them, someone of them twice. I had to dry pants by the hotel fire everyday just to keep us stocked.

Sea anemones in the tide pools. They were sticky and when you touched them they would curl up. I didn't touch them, but the girls did.

Muscles and starfish. It always surprises me how un-Disney like starfish are in real life. Am I the only one?

Haystack rock at low tide.



This was our beach day on Wednesday after we visited Haystack rock. Our hotel is right behind the girls, and off to the left is Moe's, an amazing seafood diner. Doug and I ate their twice. SOOO yummy. The girls played in the sand for quite a while, but Evelynn really wanted to get in the ocean. Michael just ate the sand and played in a bucket of sea water. He was so awesome about the whole thing. Not one complaint until he got tired, then it was into the backpack and a quick walk and he was out. Did I mention my kids were awesome for this trip?

In town the day before we bought a kite. It took as 3 seconds to get it aloft, and then I staked it to the hiking backpack and it stayed up for several hours. Eloise just loved to hold it.

Michael in the sand, soaked from splashing in the water. I have the cutest little boy!

This is the first day we arrived. We checked in, dropped off our bags and RAN to the beach. It was amazing. The girls loved it, even though you can't tell right here. Eloise took a minute to warm up, but Evelynn jumped right in, literally. She fell face first trying out outrun a wave and got soaked. Kisses on the beach are extra special. :)

Doug and his boy at the ocean. It was a special moment, and Michael loved it as you can see from the smile behind the binky.

I found these at the town of Seaside about 10 minutes north of Cannon Beach in their candy store. Pretty awesome huh? I gave them to my sister-in-law because she has this thing for vampires. ;)
In Seaside I also found a store selling novelty sodas, and so I added 19 new kinds of root beer to Doug's collection. He was thrilled. :)
This is what happened a lot in our car this trip, and thank goodness it did or else none of us could have survived! All three of my kids did great this trip, and that's with each of them cycling through a nasty croup bug and fever.
In Seattle we went to the Science Center and the Bite of Seattle outdoor festival. We paid $10 to try 5 small portions from different restaurants new dishes, and they were mostly very good, but not worth $10. So we got corn dogs and BBQ pork at some vendors to round out our meals. In the Science Center there is a butterfly house, and Doug took this awesome shot. Good job honey!
On Saturday we went to Remington Farms, which really isn't a farm at all but a mini amusement park for kids. I was doing well at taking pictures, but then I lost my phone in a peacock pen while riding racing bike with the girls, so I put it away once I got it back. There were pony rides, little roller coaster, Ferris wheel, bike races, a train (which is where Michael is in this picture) and other rides for the girls, and they would have stayed all day long if they could have, but the adults gave into fatigue and we packed up to go home.

We left on Sunday morning with almost all of our stuff (we left Doug's church clothes and a water shoe in Washington and I lost my nursing cover somewhere) and brought home a bike for Evelynn that used to belong to Kristen, sea shells and sand dollars from the beach, lots of sand in random places (I'm still sweeping up sand at my house) and lots of fun memories. This picture is the sunset I saw in Salt Lake, when we were almost home. Hooray! The girls did pretty good on the drive home, and we surprisingly made very good time, only stopping three times for bathroom/nursing/gas. My family is talking about having the next family reunion in Maine.....I don't think I want to have to drive there! Thanks for all the fun times everyone!

Independence Day 2011

This years Independence Day was almost a total bust. We woke up super early on Monday the 4th to go see the hot air balloons because I made the mistake of mentioning them to Evelynn and then having her get so excited that I promised we would go see them. And then we all went to bed like 2 hours past our bedtime because we had family over for dinner and then neighbors over until 10:00. But we were up and over to the field by 7:00 am, only to have the balloons not take off because of high winds. It was cool to see them all inflated and then blown over by a gale force wind that came through around 7:45. Darth Vader squished a few people. :) We then walked over to the parade route and found a spot in about 15 minutes. I will never understand why people get so uptight about staking out "their spot" every year. For 7 years I've seen the parade, or at least part of it, and this is the earliest we ever arrived (only out of necessity because of the balloons) and we've always gotten a decent spot. Usually it's been "I hear the parade starting, lets head over!" Anyway, it was nice because it was over cast and even a bit rainy, so it was nice and cool and not blazing hot as in years past. It was interesting to be the at the beginning of the parade route this year. In years past we were at the very end, and there is a big difference in people enthusiasm levels at the beginning versus the end of the parade. I think we'll try and get beginning route seats from now on.


After the parade, we wound our way back home and into much needed naps. Then we went and bought fireworks. I know, I know, it seems dumb to buy fireworks on the 4th since EVERYTHING is picked over, but we didn't really have a choice. And is it just me, or have fireworks become so much more expensive than when I was a kid?! My brothers and I were talking, and we think that maybe Missouri just has cheaper fireworks. I swear I could go in to the fireworks warehouse (no dinky tents in MO) with 2 weeks of allowance and come out with 2 hours worth of fireworks. But that didn't really matter this year because it turns out my kids are terrified of fireworks. Evelynn would not even hold a sparkler, and Eloise took a lot of convincing to try. But just in case our kids were on the fence about fireworks, Doug and I made sure to push them over the edge into total terror with our last firework of the evening. We'd done all the dinky ones and had saved "the big one" we bought for the end. Since I had gotten the date of Stadium of Fire wrong and missed the Owlz baseball game with fireworks this year, I was really really looking forward to some pyrotechnics, but these turned out to be to upclose even for me. Doug followed the instructions on the box, lighting the fuse with 30+ feet of free space around the box and then ran back to the house and the girls were on the porch. The first 4 rockets went into the sky no problem, but the 5th one knocked the box over, pointing the rockets at our neighbors car. Three or four zoomed off towards their parked cars, and then the box flipped and started firing at the house, aka, US. Luckily they mostly hit the bushes and didn't go onto the porch where the girls were huddled, holding each other and screaming, but one did go right between Doug's legs and before he could jump out of the way it exploded and scorched/cut his leg. It didn't cause a lot of damage but it's still healing. I was in the side yard holding Michael and laughing/screaming the whole time. It was funny because no one really got hurt, and nothing was damaged (except Doug's leg. Sorry honey.) Even our neighbors cars were fine. But the girls took 30 minutes to calm down, and they want nothing to do with fireworks ever again. I'm really bummed about that since fireworks are one of my favorite things..... oh well. By that time it was past bedtime, and so we all headed in. Definitely not my favorite 4th of July, but we'll have many many more to come, hopefully with lots of fireworks and less tears. :)

Michael at 9 months or We're all getting older

For my birthday, Michael gave me the gift of 5 lbs. Yes, Michael gained 5 lbs from his six month to his nine month appointment! Here's his official stats.

Weight: 18 lbs 10 oz 20th% (6 mo- 13 lbs 7 oz 1.25th%)
Height: 28 inches 42nd% (6 mo 26.25 inches 36th %)
Head: 17.8 inches 48th% (6 mo 17 inches 35th%)

So obviously he's growing, and growing a lot! As you can imagine, I'm thrilled, the doctor is thrilled, and Michael is just thrilled to be eating and eating and eating. We're all thrilled. For your reading pleasure, Micheal's eating schedule is as follows: wake up, nurse, eat breakfast with family (Greek yogurt, baby food+baby cereal+formula) naps, wake up, nurse, snacks (graham crackers, bread, yogurt), nurse, naps, wake up, late lunch (pureed leftovers mixed with baby food veggies, Greek yogurt), perhaps another nap, dinner with family (our dinner pureed or more baby food+cereal+formula), nurse, bedtime. Plus snacks when necessary. It's a pretty food filled day, and I can tell you he loves it. To clarify, I would have been following this schedule anyway even if he hadn't been under weight, but I wouldn't have had to add all the Greek yogurt and formula. By the way, the Greek yogurt I think was the key to his success. I found this brand called Zoi at Winco that is made with cream and whole milk. It had 19g of fat per cup! It's pretty intense, and he loves it!

Other Michael milestones:
* He got tubes in his ears last Thursday. It was a very good thing because not only will it stop the chronic ear infections but it has also drastically improved his hearing and verbal skills. He went from hardly doing any babbling and not being able to mimic sounds to doing it all the time and beginning to use more and more sounds.

This is Michael pre surgery. He's all happy here, but he was NOT happy when he came out.

* He is doing the "real" crawl more and more now instead of the army crawl. It's so cute to watch him.
* He is sleeping through the night!!! This one is so awesome for me, and all mom's know the relief that comes when their child masters this. It only took a few nights of him sleeping in his own room and realizing that mom was not going to come feed him every time he woke up AND he had a three week hiatus from ear infections which helped a ton as well. We're all much happier now. :)
* He can put in his pacifier all by himself whenever he needs it, even in the night, so when he does wake up in the night, most of the time he can find it and put it in and go back to sleep, all without me having to leave my bed! I love pacifier babies!

Eloise also had a growing up/learning moment this past week. Evelynn found one of those big plastic straws that you can blow through and it will whistle (I hate those things, so I keep them hidden, but she found them anyway) and I made her play outside with it while I moved furniture with my brother Mark. Eloise felt left out, so she went and found her own straw, a hard plastic one that has no give and took it outside on the trampoline, unknown to me. A few minutes later I heard massive screaming and Eloise came staggering up to the house with blood coming out of her mouth. She had fallen onto the straw while jumping on the trampoline. Luckily it had not gone down her throat, and also luckily it has just hit the roof of her mouth, so after some calls to the pediatrician and dentist it was decided she didn't need stitches and everything would be fine, but it sure looked awful. In fact, here's a graphic picture of it!

It's much much better now, only a small scabbish type thing in her mouth.

Evelynn has been her normal happy, active busy self, and she has fallen in love with our neighbor Tinley. She spends most of her days at Tinley's house happily playing dress up, princess, Mom and Baby, and all the other girly games she can think of. But she does spend some quiet time most mornings (while we wait for a decent hour to ring the neighbors doorbell) reading. I snapped this picture a few days ago. I hope all of our kids catch the reading bug like Doug, Evelynn and I have. Granted, most mornings she "reads" a comic book, but that's ok. :)

In other news, it's my birthday. I'm now 27, officially in my late 20's. This is the first birthday where I've been surprised at the age. I know 27 isn't really that old, and I don't feel old at all, but it seems like 27 year old women are considered "older". I'm realizing that the people I run by around campus are all much younger than me, sometimes by 7 or more years. I'm wondering if I'm starting to look "older." I tried to explain to my 18 year old brother that I might be turning 27, but I still felt like the 18 year old just starting college. He laughed and looked at me like, "Yeah, whatever." But it's true. The only perceivable change I feel in myself is a deep, deep underlying exhaustion and the three kids I tote around in the back of my car. It's a weird feeling. I'm sure many of you can relate. :)

There is another tell to my increasing age, as I found out recently. I've been having back pain for.... well since motherhood began really. It's gotten significantly worse in the past few months, and I knew I needed help, but I was unwilling to schedule an appointment with the chiropractor because I did NOT want to take 3 kids to an appointment where I couldn't be watching and physically restraining them the whole time. I would rather endure the pain than go through that. Anyway, Doug finally scheduled the appointment for me, so I finally went. This chiropractor was recommended to us by a friend, and he does a combination of deep tissue massage and chiropractic adjustments as a way to retrain your muscle memory so that when you get adjusted your back muscles don't pull your newly adjusted back out of alignment again and again. It's a view I've actually had for a while, but not all chiropractors do it. Anyway, I went in to get the initial diagnosis, and it turns out that I'm more messed up than I thought. You know it's bad when the doctor is poking you back muscles and all you hear is "Oh my goodness, that's tight. Oh my. Oh wow, you have seen better days. Wow. Oh my." Yeah. Then he started working on my back. I thought I was going to puke, it hurt so bad. After about 10 or 15 minutes (aka an eternity of pain later) he said I did a terrific job (meaning I didn't scream, flail, or punch him in the face) he tried to adjust my back. He was only partially successful. Originally I thought I just needed one or two adjustments and I'd be off on my merry way. Nope. It turns out I need lots of sessions of torture, I mean massage, just to be able to get my back to fully adjust, and then I'll need more to retrain my muscles to keep me pain free. It's a long, very painful road ahead. It seriously is one of the most intense pains I've felt, and that means I'm ranking it up there with breaking my tailbone and labor. But it has it's benefits. I've been twice now (once yesterday which I am still smarting from) and even though it leaves me sore for days, I can already feel an increase in flexibility that I haven't had in a long time. It's made me realize that I have been slowly getting less flexible with time even though I've been stretching 3 -5 days a week after aerobics and running. It's was kind of funny when the chiropractor was trying to describe what my tight muscles were doing to my posture. Basically he said my muscles were rounding my back and arms. He showed me what it looked like, and I said "You mean I'm molding to the shape of nursing a baby?" Yep, that's exactly what it looked like. I laughed. I guess it was to be expected, but God wasn't kidding when he said that we would have sorrow in bringing forth and up children, because it takes a toll on our bodies. Not that it isn't worth it, but ouch.

But on to happier things. In honor of my birthday, I'm going to share some cute kid videos. I'll blog about any fun birthday excursions when/if the occur later. Eloise has a fever and so our planned activities for the day have been cancelled or put on hold (seven peaks and library picnic). I hope we can still do the picnic because I made a cake for the dessert contest. I'll have to take a picture of it when it's complete even if we can't go, because it should be pretty cool.

This video shows that my son is all belly and tongue. I guess there are worse combinations.

The New House

For those of you who are curious who haven't yet seen "my" new place, here are some photos, along with the back story. This house belongs to my father, as did the last one I lived in. The Provo house was bought for the purpose of housing the Kartchner children when they went to college as a way to save on rent and perhaps make an investment. It has served us very well, and we were sad to leave the area. The house we live in now in Orem was purchased as the future retirement home for my parents in some odd years. In the mean time, my family and my brothers are filling/renting it for him. It's definitely an upgrade, as you can imagine any retirement house would be. Anyway, we're all getting used to this new luxury, but as you can imagine, all upgrades come with a price. I'm not looking forward to the first round of bills to come in, and more space for my family means more space for them to get dirty and spread messes around, which is more space for me to clean and clean and clean. My minimum cleanup routine has just increased its completion time by 20 minutes. Anyway, besides all that, it's been wonderful to have more space, a place for everything (with LOTS of room to spare), and my family only occupies the main floor and the top floor. My brothers have their own space in the basement. We put in a garden in the backyard and filled it with lots of tomatoes and peppers and pumpkins for my bottling projects this fall, and I must say Doug did a bang up job with it. So enjoy the photos, not in any particular order. :)

Front entry way from the top of the stairs.

Guest bedroom just off the front entryway (aka formal living room, but we changed it for now).

Girls bedroom, take 1.

Girls bedroom, take 2

Master bathroom.

Master bedroom fireplace and balcony.

Master bedroom
Michael's room
Stairs down.
Formal dining room, unoccupied.
Pantry off the kitchenFamily room.

Laundry room with my favorite addition to the new house, an amazing washer/dryer set. So so so amazing. Did I mention they were amazing?

Our garden! There are plants in there now.

Kitchen! It's now minus the boxes.

Study/Lego room for Doug.

Our first days here, we had an unexpected visitor to our home. While some movers were delivering furniture in the rain, my Dad turned the corner and found this little gal coming in out of the rain, obviously looking for some handouts. She stayed for about 10 minutes, then wandered into the backyard for a while, and ended up in our garage, where she pooped on the floor quite ungraciously and was on her way. I wonder if we'll see her again. :)