Steenblik Family Reunion

Tonight we went to Sugar House Park to a family reunion with Tony's dad's family.  The kids had a lot of fun playing in the little stream that they have going through the park.
They also had a lot of fun playing on the playground with their cousins.
Tony's aunt and uncle bought Cafe Rio for everyone and then we all brought desserts.  It was very nice of them to set up the reunion and provided dinner.  We had a good time seeing Tony's grandpa, aunts, uncles,  and cousins.  Nothing is better family.

Josh's First Day of Kindergarten

Josh is officially a kindergartner.  He is in the morning class with 3 other kids from our ward.  I didn't notice many kids from his preschool in his class, so they must be in the other classes.
He said he had a good first day.  He likes his teacher and liked having a recess.  He told me that he runs as fast as he can to line up when it's time to go back to class from recess.  He didn't give me much more information then that, but he was in good spirits.
We sure love our silly Josh so much.  He is so dang cute.  He really is such a happy-go-lucky kind of kid.  Just wants to have fun.  I can't believe he is going to turn 6 in just a few short weeks.  We are so lucky to have this awesome kid in our family!

Oh The Heat of August

Today was so hot that the kids really wanted to get out the swimming pool.  I, however, really didn't want to go through all the work to get out the swimming pool and getting it filled, so I opted for the slip-n-slid.
We got it out and the kids had so much fun.  Tyler was excited to change into his swimsuit after he got home from school.

Allie liked playing in the water and cooling down except when her siblings splashed her in the face.  She currently has an ear infection with a mean fever, so she has been pretty fussy the last couple of days.  Tony took her to the doctors this morning and we started her on an antibiotic, so hopefully she will feel better soon.
Tomorrow is also suppose to be really hot so maybe we will have to get it out again, or just get out the sprinkler...that would be even easier.

Chalk, Red Rover, and Sprinklers

Megan got out the chalk to color on the sidewalk and Allie decided to join the fun.  Allie may have eaten more chalk then she colored with.

After dirt, wrestling, and playing with Chalk it was Red Rover time.  My kids have a short attention span.

With the construction our sprinklers are out of order so Tony bought one that we could connect to our hose.  The kids think it's pretty awesome.

Megan showing us her cute new swimsuit.

Their is just something about jumping over a sprinkler, every kids loves to do it.

Tyler feeling the nice streams of water.

It didn't take very long before both boys were having the sprinkler hit them in the bum...silly boys.  We had a pretty fun Saturday.

Rocks, Wrestling, and Cute Faces

With all the construction going on in front of our house the kids have loved playing in the dirt and rock piles.

Josh is the king of the mountain.

Tyler really did not want me to take his picture, ha ha I got one anyway.

Josh's smile...I guess it was bright outside.

After the kids all got dirty in the dirt, then it was wrestling time.  Tony gives no mercy to the kids and claims that he is "toughing them up."

Even Allie got in the wrestling action with Tyler and Josh.

I had Josh smile for me and these are the silly pictures I got of him.  I think this one is my favorite. 

Josh's big teethy grin.

This is Josh's "cute" face.  He likes to give me this sweet smile when he's asking me for something.  He is too cute!

Tyler's First Day of 3rd Grade

 I can't believe it but my Tyler has started 3rd grade.  I always love taking first of year and end of year pictures.  It's funny that Megan always has to get into the picture with the boys.  It's like tradition now.  It's a good thing she's pretty cute.

Tyler was pretty excited to go back to school.  He was also very happy that he got to have the same classroom that he had last year.  Different teacher but same class room.
Tyler said that he had a great first day of school.  He really likes his teacher and he has lots of friends in his class.  I think he's going to have a great year.  

Oregon 2015 - Day 8 (9 & 10)

Since we were just driving to Portland we were not in a big hurry to leave Saturday morning.  This is very good because Allie and Megan finally slept in which allowed Tony and I to sleep in.

After the girls woke up and we got everyone ready and everything packed up and in the car, we left the RV park and our little cabin and started our journey northward.  The kids wanted to stop at Great Grandpa Clark's house and say good-bye (again) before we left town.  So we did.  It is always kind of sad to say good bye to my grandpa because you never really know if that will be the last time. 

After that visit and getting gas and breakfast, we officially headed on our journey.  We wanted to go to Tillimook to go to the cheese factory and have some ice cream.
It was a nice drive up the coast and so pretty.  It is so fun to go from the ocean to the forest and then back again.  I am happy to say that even with the crazy roads Josh never threw up the entire trip.  Yeah!

The factory was super busy.  The workers were only wrapping some big blocks of cheese, so it wasn't even fun to watch.  I guess seeing cheese being made so many times up close at Tony's old work made watching them not as cool.

We decided to get some food before we got ice cream and the kids were super silly waiting for it to come.  They were happy to be out of the car and they were doing a good job of driving me crazy.  I would like to say that the food was really good, but it wasn't.  We were really disappointed in the quality of food.  We had no problem still eating it all up, but we wont order food there again.

We of course got ice cream.  You HAVE to get ice cream there.  It is good ice cream, but we weren't terribly impressed with that either this time.  I think that the ice cream in Bandon was better and much cheaper.  We did have to wait in line for a really long time and that might have made our attitude a little different towards the ice cream.

Since we waited so long to get the ice cream we decided to just eat it in the car.  We (as in Tony and I) were totally ready to just get to the hotel.  The kids didn't seem to mind and all got nice and cozy in their seats with their ice cream.  Tyler was so nice and even shared his ice cream with Allie.

He really was such a good helper with Allie the whole trip.  He sat right next to her the whole time.  He would give her toys, snacks, and even fed her her bottle a few times.  Their were a couple (many) times that we had to tell him to help her because he was so focused on the show he was watching, but besides that he was super helpful.  Because of him Allie really was pretty good with all the driving.  She would cry when she was tired, but did really good.  Better then I thought she would.

Josh did really good in the car too.  He was especially good if he had the tablet and mostly good other wise.  He liked the treats and the shows.  He was good at helping Megan with her seat belt most of the time.

Megan was a big whiner most of the time.  She would drop her drinks, snacks, papers, etc and then whine about it...drove us nuts.  By the end of trip she just wanted to sit with me and whined about that.  She would get bored and want lots of treats.  She was pretty entertained by the tablet too, more then the movies.  It made me wish we had more then one tablet. 

We had a hotel right by the Portland airport.  So we had to drive through the busy traffic to get to our hotel.  I was glad to deal with it on Saturday instead of Sunday since the drive to Boise was longer then to Portland.
We checked in and then got some dinner.  After dinner we changed into our suits and went swimming.  We all love the pool and had a good time swimming.  Then it was bath and bed time.  We got up the next morning and ate breakfast before heading back onto the road.
We then drove from Portland to Boise.  We stopped and ate some lunch, but beside that we just drove.  Our hotel was in downtown Boise and it was pretty nice.  It had a super fun pool but since it was Sunday we didn't use it.  So we told the kids we would go swimming first thing the next morning.  It was a super fun pool and the perfect temperature.  We all had a good time and it made me very glad that we went swimming and didn't worry so much about just getting on the road.
After changing and eating breakfast we got on the road again.  Then we drove from Boise to Ogden where we had to pick up Tony's car.  Tyler and Allie went with Tony in his car to pick up Koda at grandma Margie's and Josh, Megan, and I went home to unpack the car.  It was such a fun trip for everyone.  We can't wait to do it all again next year!

Oregon 2015 - Day 7

We decided for breakfast on our last full day at the cabins we would go to a place just down the street from the RV park and down by the dock that has BACON painted really big on the side of their building.  We figured you couldn't go too wrong with bacon.  All the family decided to come with us and try it out.  They had a table that had chalk board paint on the top so all the kids colored on the table as we waited.  The food took a long time and wasn't all that great, so now we know.  But it was a fun experience.

After breakfast we walked to a little shop across the street from the restaurant.  They had fun things and Megan found a stuffed crab that she liked.  I guess after crabbing so thinks they are pretty cool.
After that we headed back to the cabins where the kids decided to do some more racing.  Tyler did pretty good last night against the older cousins so he wanted to see if he could bet them or at least come close.

Tyler did pretty good against most of the kids, but Conner was just too fast for him.  He kept trying to win and kept racing, so I was proud of him for not giving up.  All the kids had fun racing.  Even us old adults raced each other.  I beat my mom, but that's all.  We were mainly going for fun and a little exercise.

There is a really nice candy store in Coos Bay that we found last time we were there and we knew we wanted to go back.  They have tons of samples of their products out for you to taste.  If you want to try something that's not out then they will get some out and give you a taste.  We knew we wanted to pick up something for grandma Margie so it was fun taste testing to decide what to get.

After we went to the candy store we decided to go visit my grandpa one more time.  We weren't sure what else we'd be doing that day so we didn't want to miss out on saying our good-byes.  Great grandpa Clark didn't want to get up to take the picture so we all just piled in around him.  He doesn't say much, but his heart is big and I know that he loves me and my family.  He has been such an amazing example to me in my life.  It was great spending time with him this trip.
We had a bunch of empty bottles that we tried to recycle but apparently you have to go to a certain place that has a machine, so we decided not to worry about it and just leave the bottles for the clean up crew at the cabin.
Earlier in the day I asked the kids what they wanted to do on our last day here and Tyler said he wanted to go to the beach.  Josh said he wanted to stay in the cabin and play the tablet all day...hmmm, he may have an addiction problem.

Josh did end up staying at the cabins with my mom while we all went to breakfast.  My mom didn't want to go out to breakfast and Josh really wanted to stay and play the tablet.  I fed him before we left and then he got to hang out with grandma in her cabin.
Tyler got his wish to go to the beach.  After our morning adventures we came back to the cabins and the kids quickly got ready to go.  Josh is the only one who put on his swim suit.  They others said that they were just going to play in the sand...famous last words.
I stayed back at the cabin with Allie because I thought that she would go down for a nap.  I gave her a bottle but then she just wanted down to play.  She ended up playing the whole time the rest of the family was at the beach.
Tony said that Josh was fearless in the ocean.  He wold go out just as far as the older kids and just let the waves knock him down.  He had a wonderful time playing in the sand and ocean.  I am sure it was much better then the tablet. 
Megan was playing in the sand with her cousins when they decided to bury themselves in the sand.  I got this picture of Megan on my phone from Julie, it is pretty darn cute.  She was super dirty when she came back from the beach, well they all were.  Tyler was pretty wet and dirty too.  Should've worn swim suits.
Tonight was the last night of going to Dairy Queen each night with my siblings.  It has been fun to take a half an hour at the end of night just visiting with each other over ice cream.  It is only a half an hour because we leave at 9:30 and they close at 10.  I didn't get ice cream every night, especially the nights we had ice cream other places.  It was fun just spending that time with each other.  What a fun tradition.  I can't believe it's already over.  Time to pack up and head out tomorrow.  I sure hope we get to come back next year, this has been great.