vacation at Ocean Shores (Copalis Beach)

Our first night at the beach. Of course we had to go out & play. The kids went into the freezing water, too. Aurora went in w/ her long pants and boots. Keagan loves the water and we had to keep reminding him to not go out too far, and he was in long pants, too! He came up to me and shook the sand off himself. My mom thought this was hilarious and took my pic w/ the sand splattered all over me.


Our camp site that we stayed in was about 15 minutes away from Ocean Shores. We spent an afternoon having fun in the "city" These cars are called the slick track. They put water on it to keep it slick so they slide around a little. Ray, Thom, Keagan, and Melissa & Aurora went on them a few times. They loved it! Keagan loves that he is tall enough to do it himself now!


We rented a bike for 4 people, but crammed 7 people on it. We laughed and laughed! You can see how crowded it was, and I was on there, too. We originally rented it for an hour, some of us only lasted 15 minutes... some 1/2 hour. All of us did the bumper cars. Fun! Fun!

One afternoon we went to the beach, it was in walking distance. It was a little chilly & windy for a summer day, but we had lots of fun. Of course the sun came out after we went back to the campsite, but only for a few hours. It was in the 90s at home, I'm glad we missed that! I thought Ray looked like the uni-bommer in this pic.
Keagan always loves to get buried in the sand. There was another little girl named Faith that Keagan played with a lot when we were camping. She came w/ us to the beach.
Yes, I was there. You can see we're all wearing jackets.... and shorts.

One of the nights mom & I went to the beach and took pics of the sunset. It was gorgeous. I love digital cameras! You can take as many as you want and not worry about developing ones that haven't turned out!
I don't know if I would really call this "camping" although it is the way I like to "camp" we rented a little trailer that had electricity, a very small bathroom, and cable tv and microwave. The campgrounds also had a playground and a rec room w/ a pool table. A few of the evenings Ray and Thom would go play pool, the kids would play on the playground and mom & I would watch the olympics or HGTV (our favorite). Here is Melissa just being ............... Melissa silly as usual. We brought stuff to make smores, but didn't have a fire pit, so we were camping, so we had to have smores, microwave style... I know lame, but you have to have smores while camping.
Silly as always... she didn't want her pic taken.
Our home for the week. Look at how cloudy it was.

The inside of the trailer, it had bunk beds. The kids thought it was very cool. The couch your looking at was our bed.... not very comfortable.

What a week!

I know, I know I haven't blogged for a while. Last week was a little crazy and the week before that we were on vacation, I'll blog about that after this.
I've been busy trying to "write" the primary program. We decided to move it up to sept. 14th because our primary chorister is moving. I don't write it, none of the words are mine, but I have to organize it and get it ready for parts for the children (a lot of copying and pasting). Its not hard work, but takes time and I need quiet time to do it.... I got it approved and handed out parts Sunday. Wheww!
We also had a garage sale at our house Friday and Saturday to help Melissa's dance team - High Impact Dance, to go to Disneyland. Of course our house is the best location... I have never seen sooo much "stuff" It was a lot of work, but now that it is over, it was was fun, too. It was nice to get to know some of the other moms and dads. And thank goodness the weather held out for us. We made almost $800 for both days!
Ray was pretty funny about his front yard. He is so proud of how the yard has turned out. (which he should be, it looks great! I'll post some more pics soon.) He lined the tables down the driveway so you couldn't go on the lawn. One of the moms joked and said, we could set the kids table of treats to sell in the front yard, and he quickly said NO! very firmly. It was pretty funny because he is so mild mannered until it came to his lawn! :)

Portland Family Reunion

We had a family reunion Sat. August 9th (Happy Birthday Eric and Aunt Kathy) in Gresham, OR. Uncle Vic and I were wondering what do you call the cousins kids to each other, 2nd cousins? We decided cousins or family works just fine. This picture is of the younger generation - cousins kids, I only know the 3rd girls name is Elizabeth, Heidi's (my cousin) daughter.

Tom & Aunt Kathy, and Uncle Vic

Keagan, Melissa, and their great Grandma Pat (Granpa Don's mom- my dad) We missed you dad! Sorry you had to work!

Aunt Chris (Uncle Vic's wife) & Maddison (Heidi's 2nd daughter)

Heidi Sorry Heidi, but I thought this picture was just too cute not to post, this represents all of our family! :)

We got to go to Portland Saturday and hang out with family. All of my dad's siblings were there, but him. :( I think he started planning this, too. My dad's bday is August 11th, Happy 60th dad! And Aunt Ellen's is also the 11th. Aunt Kathy and Eric's bdays are August 9th! After spending time w/ family, we went to the outlet stores. Melissa brought her friend Lauren along, they had fun shopping. We stayed at a motel w/ a pool and the kids had fun playing in the pool. We went to church the next day and then went to visit Uncle Vic, Aunt Chris, Heidi an girls. We played games all afternoon and evening and then Uncle Vic did roasts on the rotisserie. YUM! Fun times! We left a lot later than we planned, but it was worth it and got home @ 11:30 p.m. Now I'm trying to get motivated to pack for this week, were going to Capalis beach (near Ocean Shores) for the rest of the week.

Nelson Property

Thanks Nelsons and Martins for inviting us to your parents property. The only bad thing is that my pictures didn't turn out very well! The property is beautiful!! We had such a great time! We went last Sat, Aug 2nd. They have a great piece of property out near Shelton. The creek runs through it and there are a lot of fun things to do. One of the best is the swing. Vaughan Nelson is helping Keagan on it, it goes over the creek. There is a trail to a meadow and then over the bridge you can go down to the creek. The kids (of course) played in the creek and had lots of fun!
Melissa, Aerika Corrigan, Keagan, and maybe Tally Corrigan.
MMM roasting marshmellows. Lots of fun!

Towards the end of the night several of the kids made a rock dam in the creek. They built it up pretty well. Team work!

16 years of bliss?!!

Our Wedding anniversary is August 1, 1992. This year was year 16! We went out to Black
Angus and Ray suprised me and had the kids go overnight to friends houses. That was really nice and quiet at the house! We know we're getting old when at 9:30 we were fighting to stay awake!
Here are some of my favorite pics of us, this picture was taken a few weeks after we got married. Do we look young... or what?

At the Washington DC Tempple August 1, 1992

Melissa's Girlfriends

Melissa had her birthday slumber party this Tuesday. She had 8 girls come over. (We missed you Brooklyn) When people hear that I had 9 12 and 13 year old girls over, they think that I am crazy. But really, Melissa's friends are really nice girls and I really enjoy them! We started off by having homemade pizza.

This is Daneah, Caitlyn, Lauren, Maleah, Kimmie, Sarah, Melissa, Emily, and Katie.
They had fun doing different poses, this is maybe half of their pics.
We had a special suprise for Melissa. When she went to the Lakefair Parade she saw some old cars and was drooling over them. Ray arranged for the owner of this car to come pick up the girls and we took them to Dairy Queen. 1/2 of them got to ride on the way there and 1/2 on the way back. The only sad thing was that it was raining and they couldn't ride w/ the top down.

We put a table in the middle of the living room so they could all sit together. Aurora (Melissa's cousin) that she was a big girl, too. She was loving it.
Katie, Melissa, and Kimmie. Melissa has this tradition that she likes to get a picture w/ each of her friends and have them come sit by her when she is opening the present she gets from them. She scored on the bday presents. She ended up w/ a little over $100 of gift cards and cash - Cool, now I don't have to school shop for her, she can do it herself. :)
How sweet, I even got to sit by her and have my pic taken.
They played outside and went down the slide, too. Kimmie, Daneah, Maleah, & Emily.
I love this picture of Kimmie and Katie - laughing and having a good time.
We got "forked" while the girls were here, someone came and put plastic forks in the backyard and a sign that said Happy Birthday Melissa. So, after they saw this we had to go play a prank on someone. We decided on the Oliver family.... we crammed 9 girls in the van and went to tp their house. Well, the girls were WAY too loud, and thanks to me not knowing that when I turned right, it was a cultasac, we got caught. But we had lots of fun and lots of laughs! They wanted to go more, but there were too many policeman out. They only stayed up till 3 a.m. I think everyone had a good time.

Dance Festival

Dance Festival is finally over! It was July 25th and 26th. It was a great experience and amazing to see, but I am glad all of the practices are over with. They have been practicing since January! Melissa was also in the clogging speciality number, so she had extra Friday night practices.
My pictures didn't turn out in the Tacoma Dome, so here are some pictures from the Zone Preview in May in Shelton. Just imagine this times 3 or 4 more youth. I heard 2200 for the Tacoma Dome!

Melissa is the girl w/ her head down.

We just got an e-mail from her clogging specialty dance teacher that there is an article on lds.org about the dance festival. I'm sad I didn't get any pics of Melissa in her clogging outfit. The link is

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/2-200-mormon-youth-dance-in-washington-state-s-tacoma-dome. The link also has links to the article in the Olympian and the article in the News Tribune. I can't wait to see the dvd, hopefully it turned out good.