Hiking

One of the first days at the beach, Brayden got so excited he ran and ran all the way to the water and then tripped on a rock, landing face first into the ocean.. the COLD ocean. This is a picture of Brayden protecting daddy from the big bad ocean. Oh, this beach was crazy because it had broken sand dollars all over, we have never seen a beach with that many sand dollars.
We are so excited to be here in Oregon, and one of our new favorite past-times is hiking. We have been on about 3-4 hikes a week. Brayden and Camden LOVE it and so do we. It is great family fun. I typically forget the camera, but I made sure I had it for the HOBBIT trail. I was so excited for this one. It is a wooded trail that is about 1/2 mile in, and it lands on the most beautiful beach!! The only way to this part of the beach is by this trail. It gets its name Hobbit trail because of the little hole of a trail you have to go through at the very end. Brayden calls them tree tunnels. The trail and beach are spectacular.

Fathers and Sons

Last weekend Justin and Brayden went to the Father and Sons camp out with another family in the ward. They decided to stop at the petting zoo along the way. Above is a cross-eyed possom.
Yes that is really a lion on Braydens lap!! What kind of petting zoo? I am not quite sure.
Justin was so pleased with this picture, and how close they got to the Lion. I had to make it part of this post.
Fun with the Lacoutures. Justin and Brayden had fun with them at the camp out and the petting zoo.

I know the FEELING!!

I am so excited.. I now know the feeling of when I need to go to the bathroom!! I just tell mommy and I get to go on the big boy potty!! No more diapers for me. Mommy would give me stickers and then I gave all my stickers to daddy. He traded my stickers for a digging truck. I have not had any accidents for a week! I am growing up. I now live in a new house, and I got a NEW bed. My bed is a big boy bed!

Home sweet home

Yes, we are finally here!! We are at our final destination. The place that we will now be calling home. Isn't this exciting? We have so many new things to learn and do. We have a lot of new terminology to learn- especially ocean terms. The area we are in has 17 fresh water lakes, sand dunes, and the beach. We are still adjusting to the climate... In Maryland we lived at the pool this time of year... Now it is about 70 degrees and almost cool. Very different.

We had a few members of the ward scout out a house for us, and we love it. We ended up with a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage and fenced back yard. It is less than 10 years old, and we have another member family living next to us with two boys about the same age as ours.

We spent a few nights at a friends home down the road, until we had enough things unpacked to sleep on. We were so excited to have fit all of our stuff in 13 feet. Well, to be completely honest... the tight packing took its toll on many items. Good thing we won't be making a move like that again.

We are now to the point of life that many of the necessary boxes are unpacked. I think this has been like pulling a bandaid off slowly... it is painful! We don't know how much to unpack, and how settled we want to be considering it is a rental. We hope to buy within the next few years. We will see.

Thanks to everyones love and support as we make this major transition in our lives!!

Thank You

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for letting us stay at your house for 5 1/2 weeks!! It was so much fun. Thank you for letting us tear up your house (literally), and letting us eat all of your food. We enjoyed every minute of it.

Side note: While we visited, we played HGTV with their house and their credit card. We updated 3 bathrooms, and the entire basement. It was a lot of work! Mom and I enjoyed working on the house, and buying things for the house while dad was occupied in the fishing boat.

Side note #2: Sorry we didn't see as many friends and family as we would have liked. We had pink eye the first week and a half and then some cold for another week. Sorry that we missed many of our favorite people.

5 GENERATIONS!!

We are fortunate that my Great-Great-Grandma is still alive at the age of 96 years old. We were able to take this 5 generation picture.

Simple joys of life.

Rub a dub, dub... The Lintons all in a tub! OH, I mean POOL :)

While we were in Utah some of our favorite times were hanging out by the pool. Okay, the little pool. We all took turns playing with the boys in the pool and enjoying the relaxing days. Brayden LOVED the pool and couldn't get enough. Camden has this theory that if Brayden can do it, so can I. He would kick, scream, and crawl his way to the pool.

We also took out the slip and slide. Justin and I loved it just as much as the boys. My dad didn't exactly like to nice burn strips it put into the beautifully manicured lawn.

Visiting Justins Grandparents

We went to visit many relatives while we were in Utah. We made sure to visit Justins grandparents because of their rough time they have had over the last few months.
Fun times with Aunt Bev.
Grandma and Grandpa Linton.

My HOTTY

Okay, so Justin thought that now he was graduated, and he didn't have to start work he would grow a beard. He was sick of shaving and wanted to be on VACATION. I didn't mind the beard, but when I came home to this... that was a different story. I couldn't look at him without wanting to shave it myself. He definately got the reaction he was looking for. :)

PINK EYE

Both of my boys experienced these really grose eye buggers. At first we thought Brayden was allergic to something. Then when Camden ended up with them too we knew it was contagious, but still not sure. It didn't look like pink eye, partly because the eyes were clear except these huge green/yellow buggers. After visiting the doctor (on our anniversary), we had the clarification that it was pink eye. Gotta love it!! That was 1 1/2 week of isolation from family events and friends.

Visit to Idaho

One day we ventured up to Lava hot springs to spend the day basking in the Sun.
We set everything out by the door, and then Justin and I packed everything into the car. EXCEPT we missed one bag.. The one holding my moms swimsuit... oops!! They had swim suits to rent for $1.50.. My mom was not up for that, but honestly I don't know if I would be either. It all worked out for the best because it ended up that Camden's eye goobers were pink eye and he didn't swim to infect everyone.
Grandpa loved having fun with Brayden in the pool. I love how this picture captures Grandpas excitement.

Fishing, Fishing and more fishing

Over the 5 weeks we were in Utah, Justin and my dad FISHED and FISHED. They would go in the morning, evening, and in the middle of the day. My dad bought a little Bass fishing boat this year and they had so much fun. We all had fun with the boat and the yummy fish.

A day with the Zarlengos

Visiting Aunt Autumn at work!! Brayden LOVED visiting Skywest Airlines. They took him on an airplane, and he got to see how they clean and work on them. Autumn has a desk job, that overlooks the airplanes in SLC. Brayden thought it was the coolest.
Take me out to the Ballgame! We went to the Bees game and had so much fun. Nate and Autumn are expecting their first baby, and cannot wait. Uncle Nate and Aunt Autumn love to spoil our boys until theirs comes!

As you can tell, Camden liked the Licorice.

The Year of Copper

For many of you who may not know, 7 year anniversary is the year of the Copper. In celebration of our COPPER anniversary, Justin decided we would do it in Copper style by visiting the largest copper mine in the country. Yes, we went to Kennecott Copper mines in Utah. It was so much fun. We loved taking the boys, they loved the digging trucks and all the dirt.

Here are some fun stats:
Kennecott's Bingham Canyon Mine has produced more copper than any mine in history - about 17 million tons.
The mine is 2-1/2 miles across at the top and 3/4 of a mile deep. You could stack two Sears Towers on top of each other and still not reach the top of the mine.
The mine is so big, it can be seen by the space shuttle astronauts as they pass over the United States.
By 2015, the mine will be at least 500 feet deeper than it is now.
If you stretched out all the roads in the open pit mine, you'd have 500 miles of roadway - enough to reach from Salt Lake City to Denver.

Brayden loved the digging trucks- They were HUGE!
Crazy enough, this is what we learned:
The trucks that haul the ore are larger than many houses and weigh more than a jumbo jet. They stand over 23 feet tall and can carry from 255 to 360 tons of rock.
The truck driver rides about 18 feet above the ground -- nearly two stories high.
Each tire on these big trucks costs from $18,000 to $26,000 and lasts just 9 months.

We recommend it to anyone, especially those of you with little boys who love to dig!