Pacific City

We went to Pacific City on the OR coast for a few days of sandy fun with my family. There are tons of pictures so I will not be writing a lot. We broke up the drive in 2 pieces, Seattle to Vancouver one day then Vancouver to Pacific City the next. The girls napped well most of the time in the car, but still we had one episode of car sickness and one pull-over to avoid car sickness. 

The last time I went  Pacific City with my family was 3 years ago, when Addie was just a little over 6 months old. It is so much more fun at the beach when the kids can walk on their own & enjoy the sand! During that trip we got a cute pictures of me and my three sisters plus kids; sadly we did not get a corresponding picture this time.

 One of Addie's favorite things was to run down the sand-dune to the beach. 

Etta loved trying to bury herself in the sand. 

Both, thankfully, slept really well at night in their separate places.

You can't tell at all from the pictures (or in-person in my opinion) but my sister Allison is pregnant and due at the end of January. 

In the garden this sunny week

Green beans: ha! Matt picked 3 tonight and that is all we may ever get

Zucchini: we have picked 3 or 4 so far; the plant is healthy but not a monster

Raspberries: coming towards the end of them

Tomatoes: we are starting to get some cherry tomatoes, the rest are a ways off. We tried the bushes in the front of the house this year. They are healthy and not as monstrously huge as last year (which is a good thing because last year the plants put too much energy into growing tall and not enough into growing tomatoes!).

We have given up on the bell peppers and I do not know if we will get any cucumbers.

Addie's first concert

I took Addie to a Zootunes concert with me and my long-time (think since elementary school) friend Becky. 

I pointed out to Becky that Addie was going to her first concert before 

she has watched her first full-length movie :)

Addie had a lot of fun. We brought yummy picnic food, there were lots of people to watch, there was a hill for jumping or rolling down with lots of kids. Oh, plus there was music and Aunty Becky! 

We discovered that the free photo-booth was not quite made to fit three people :)

Marston family reunion in Bellingham

Here is the synopsis:
We had a family-filled weekend! On Friday night Mike, Becka & Ellie drove in from Boise and stayed the night with us. On Saturday morning we drove to Bellingham for a Marston family reunion (complete with photo albums and an organized sharing time). We stayed the night up there, spent a little time in Bellingham Sunday morning, then drove to Kent. In Kent we celebrated all the summer birthdays of the "Kent Marstons". Matt continued the family time by doing an overnight hike with Mike & his dad.

Here are some stories:
*We decided to stay in a hotel in Bellingham Saturday night so we would not feel too rushed about when we had to leave to drive back and so we could make a little more of a weekend vacation of it. Originally we wanted to book a "suit style" room so we could put the girls down in one room while we were in the other so we did not have to turn out the lights at 8pm for all of us. It was basically impossible to find a suite. So instead Matt decided to book two adjoining rooms. Except for that after calling numerous hotels he found out that no hotels would guarantee us an adjoined room. So he booked two rooms with the hotel that had the highest proportion of adjoined rooms and who over the phone seemed pretty confident that they could meet our request. But when we checked in on Sat, not only did they not have adjoined rooms for us, they had us on 2 different floors. If we had booked directly through them, we could have tried cancelling one of the rooms, but since we used priceline we were stuck. Each room had two double beds so Matt & the girls were in one, and I was in the other. I knew it would be tricky to get Etta to sleep in the pack & play if lights were still on or she could still see or hear Matt & Addie, but ti is not like we could leave her alone in there either. It ended up that Matt shared one bed with both girls and it was not exactly a rest-full nights sleep. Matt asumed that at least I was relaxing and enjoying a hotel room all to myself. I thought I would be able to. I had grand hopes of falling asleep early, sleeping un-interupted, etc. But alas, it was not to be! My door latched well but I still heard every little noise from the hallway - and there were lots of them due to the indoor pool being open until 10pm and what sounded like numerous loud adolescent boys going back and forth between rooms. So it took me quite a while to fall asleep and I was annoyed at myself for not packing earplugs. Oh, and did I mention that the room I was in had an adjoined room? Yeah, their system sucks!

* Sunday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel, played in the pool, then went to a local park. On the drive between the park and the restaurant we were going to for lunch Addie said she was hot and wanted the window down. This is highly unusual for her, usually she wants the window up the second the car is in motion. So I was slightly concerned but she seemed fine. She ate a good lunch and was in good spirits. Then we got in the car to drive from Bellingham to Kent. Etta was asleep within about 2 minutes. Addie closed her eyes a few minutes later but then started making some moaning noises. When she opened her eyes we asked what was wrong and she said her stomach hurt. Within about 3 minutes she was throwing up. We pulled over at the nearest exit and Matt & I executed a pretty impressive clean-up effort. All the while Etta slept - thank goodness for that. Addie seemed a bit better after that and took a good nap in the car. She woke up a few minutes before we reached Matt's parents house and we could tell she was still a little off. She threw up almost immediately after we walked in the door. But then she perked up and was chatty and wanted to play and eat and that was basically the end of that. We are so thankful nobody else got sick from her and Addie's sickness did not linger.

Here are some snapshots: