Beach Part II

Depoe Bay

 It was a scary loooong ways down.

 The people at the chowder bowl sure know how to get customers for life.  Just put a train up by the ceiling that goes all the way around the restaurant non-stop and the kids will never want to go anywhere else any time they're in town.  The boys LOVED this place.

Meet Noah.....

We stopped at some random market right off hwy 99 to see if they had any flowers we could bring to mom to say thanks for watching O, but we got distracted by a cage near the front of the store with two brother kittens in it.  One of their other siblings had just been carried off by a happy little girl.  The owners of the store were giving them away for free on behalf of a neighbor whose farm cat had a litter.  The lady's two children were there and the way one of them was talking he would make a really good salesman someday.  The boys and i were on the ground petting the kittens.  Joe was standing but still held one surprisingly, and i think he had a moment like the one in the Grinch who Stole Christmas where at the end the Grinch's heart grew 3 sizes that day!  The boys and i had written off ever having a cat a long time ago, solely because joe had always been so adamant about not having one because of his allergies.  This made me sad, one because i'd pretty much always had a cat throughout my life, and two, the boys especially joey really really really wanted a pet.  But i do really like the guy i signed up to live my life with and don't enjoy seeing him miserable, so i pretty much just planned on having 2 cats after he dies, and i'm an old lady.  I just realized i don't like the sound of that having actually written out the words, because in reality, if he dies first, i'm hoping i'll follow him a few days later, if not hours.  Okay this post is getting morbid now, or sweet, depending on the reader.  Anyway, so i look up and see joe standing in the distance talking to the owner but they are close enough for me to make out a couple words like allergies, bath, they just get use to it.  After a couple minutes he's standing by us again.  I hear joey talking sweetly to the kitty, "Oh i know you want to come home with us, but you have to stay here."  They knew these cats were free but they also knew cats weren't an option in our house.  But when i looked up at joe's face he looked kinda strange and i thought, That man is actually considering letting them take one of those kittens home.  Long story shorter, the deal went down, and we walked away with Blue Eyes, as joey named him in the car.  At home, Noah was one of the only names that didn't get vetoed by the boys, so it stuck.

 Our little mother hen finally has something to take care of.

Buddies

Noah loves Ian too, and apparently he's forgiven him for dropping his little kitty body overboard from the top bunk.

I gotta say, it's been pretty nice, instead of chasing after me all day, Oliver hunts down the cat:-)

A Trip They Won't Forget

Go to the beach, come home with a cat.  Wait, what?!  It seems we can't manage to have a simple trip to the beach without a story to go along with it, so here it goes....

Awesome gramma gets us sweet condo for free right on the bay that goes out to the ocean.   Awesome grandpa babysits youngest with gramma for two nights, teaches him how to do obsessive yard work.  Living the good life watching Looney Toons.

So it was a liiiitle gray the first night we got there.  Joey's out there somewhere, can you find him?

Same first gray night, before ian and i came down to join them, joe and joey stumbled across this glass float behind a log on the beach.  My hubby's so cute, he kept it in his jacket, told me he wanted to show me something, then re-hid it in the same spot that he found it when i wasn't looking so i could see it in its original spot.  It had a sticker on it saying "Finders Keepers" and to call a phone # to register it.  

We'd heard of this before but didn't know exactly how it all worked.  Joey and i saw this poster the next day from 2010.

From October to the end of May, they put out 2012 of these glass floats at random places all along the 7 1/2 miles of beach over the course of those 7 months.  And we just happen to find one on the last weekend, how cool is that?!  Joe felt kinda bad that we hadn't called to register ours on monday when we saw people poking around with sticks looking behind logs and in grassy areas.  They might have been told that one was hidden on our beach that hadn't yet been found, oops! :-)

Here's our 12 year old...

Oh phewww! he's still five and goofy

Cute pajama boy

I had visions/fantasy of a sweet peaceful weekend of no demanding, howling baby around to manage, but reality quickly smacked me as the same drama of two brothers carried on while there.  Oliver does add a whole other dimension of noise, as well as trouble for Ian who can't keep his hands off him, just in the same as Joey feels the incessant need to poke his middle brother.  One less is a noticeable difference though, and i got to spend some great time with Joey on the second day.  While Ian took a good nap with Daddy, my oldest and i walked the town, got ice cream, visited the glass blowing shop to see some action, and drove to the next little town to check out some gift shops and locate our restaurant for dinner.  It always amazes me how different each child is when we have them alone, it's like they become another person.  There's no competition, no whining, arguing; just sweet peace, a slow pace, and one on one conversations.  Our favorite finds(besides ice cream) were the crazy big parrot that we almost walked into because we were busy looking at all the things on the wall, and the $26 angry birds hats. (black one not shown) :-)  

Someone had left a super cool fort they had built that the boys had fun playing under.  That's the place we stayed at in the back.

Finding balance, harder than it looks!

So I'm trying to finish this post but just found out that the disposable waterproof camera we took to Great Wolf Lodge this weekend didn't work.  We took some of the CUTEST PICTURES IN THE WORLD, and i have nothing!  Excuse me while i have a little sob fest.

K- I'm done.  On with the beach trip.  Hopefully some videos will cheer me up. :-)

Joey's loving the water, Ian's freaking out  and wanting to go back.  Apparently the little clam and shrimp holes in the sand are just terrifying.

                                      

Joey obviously showing much more compassion than me telling ian we could walk back if he wanted to.

                                      

Ian's a happy camper in the shallow water away from the holes.

Oliver loves being outside more than anything, even more than reading books, which is saying a lot.  Here he goes from subtle facial gestures, to pointing, to trying to just knock the door down himself, since mommy isn't getting the hint that it's time to go outside right NOW.

Mondays....

I volunteer in Joey's classroom since joe has the day off, and the two youngest get to hang with daddy.  This week they had a field trip to the laundromat!  They were big helpers. :-)

He actually threw down what he had in his hand when i asked him what he was doing, when a moment before i saw him shoveling one handful after another into his mouth.

Another caught in the act moment.

Are you seeing the theme here?

My Street Gang

One of the MANY reasons i love being a mom of three boys- driving home alone tonight after dark i got so excited to hear the loud horn of a diesel engine coming up from behind that i passed my turnoff for home just so i could race far enough ahead to find a good place to pull over and record the train on my phone so the boys could watch it the next morning. (longest sentence ever?)  There are so many more little things in life that i take time to enjoy that i never even would have taken a second glance at if not for the little people in my heart.
Today i'm thankful for trains, hail, legos, steep dirt hills, pipes attached to high ceilings, and cars on the road that resemble Chick Hicks and Lightning McQueen. :-)

This giant stick continued on with us for the rest of the walk

He's his uncle Eric's nephew

He finally loves him