Beach bound!

J, E & I took a mini vaca this past weekend through the niceness of someone Jeff works with in the lab.  She offered us a weekend at her beach house in Twin Rocks for the thoughtfulness and caring that Jeff had shown her grandson several months back.  We left on Friday afternoon and made our first stop the Tillamook Cheese Factory..always a yummy place.  We then found our beach house, unpacked and headed to the beach.

 View from the beach house.

 View of the back of the beach house from the beach.  The bunk house is the small bldg on the right.

 Frisbee!

 Sunset on the beach.

Cake Batter was Ethan's favorite ice cream choice.  It rained all day Saturday and Sunday, unfortunately, so we made a second trip to the Tillamook Cheese Factory for ice cream and cheese samples, and then got a stack of movies from RedBox for entertainment. 

 Bunk house.

 Beach house.

First day of school

Ethan was excited to start school this morning, and to get to wear his new backpack, which is about the same size as he is.  He, along with his friend, Peyton, started preschool today at St. Therese, it is a PreK-8 Catholic school only a few minutes from our house. There are about 12 kids in their class and both he and Peyton will be go Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings.  His teacher is Ms. Horne and Ethan really likes her.  Uniforms are not required until Kindergarten, but we figured he may as well get used to them and then we don't have to have any confusion as to what is to be worn.  Their shirts are navy blue or white with khaki pants and tennis shoes.  He is one sharp looking boy!!  We are very proud of him today for being such a big boy and not crying.  We love you Ethan!!

 

 (after school pickup..apparently he doesn't like his shirt tucked in)

Survived

With the help and encouragement of some great friends....I survived the Warrior Dash!!  I slid in at 1:17:03, 5055 out of 5410 overall and 652 out of 702 in my age group.  Regardless of the numbers, I did it and I am proud of myself!

 Hilton, Jason, Amy #2, Summer, Bryan, Gentry, Christine(?), Me, Amy and Aaron

 Amy & Summer

 Hilton & Amy#2, Amy #1 and Aaron

 Me pushing up to slid down (far right)

Warrior...looking forward to crossing the finish line

One year ago on this same date I went in for surgery on my right foot, followed two weeks later by a DVT  (aka blood clot) and 6 months of Coumadin (anticoagulation therapy).  Today, I am participating with some friends in the Warrior Dash.  What have I gotten myself into?!?  The logo for the race is "The craziest freakin' day of your life."  I will be trudging through waist high water, crawling under barbed wire in the mud, jumping over fire and on top of cars and all on one of the hotter days of the year.  This should be fun, right? Yikes!   (pictures will be posted soon)

And now we can spell cereal

One of my new-found loves is Pinterest.  My cousin, Stephanie, sent me a linked invite and several of my friends also began raving about it so I finally had a few minutes to check it out and have been addicted ever since.  For those who do not know what it is, it is a collaboration of ideas and pictures of food, DIY projects, clothes, pictures, etc. that anyone can put on Pinterest and then I can "pin it" to my own pin boards to view, make, admire, etc.  Recent I have tried a couple of food items and some ideas for helping Ethan learn with good success.

My latest Pintest DIY was scrabble letters as magnets for the fridge...Ethan said he wanted to spell cereal, however, we only had the Leap Frog letters for the fridge, which give each letter only once, which has been perfect for him for a long time but we are now moving one.  He was very excited yesterday when I finally got all the magnets on the letters and now he can spell a variety of things (with a little help).

He is also doing an awesome job with addition.  He came to J & I a few weeks ago with 2 fingers on one hand and 3 fingers on his other hand asking what does 2+3 make.  We have since been quizzing him on what + what = and he has impressed all of us with this, now adding 5+5.  Now other ideas are flowing.  He is very excited to start Preschool this coming Monday.

My mom has been here visiting us for the past 7 days and will be here until Saturday.  We have had a fun several days even though we had to cancel a couple of things with friends as Ethan has had a cough for a week now that we can't seem to shake (we are going to visit Dr. H today to see what is up).