Zach Turns 4

Zach's birthday was Sept. 16th. He is now a big 4 year old! Whoa! How did that happen?? Anyway, these are some pictures from his birthday party at the park. Same place we had his party last year, and it has worked out great both times. This was the first year he was allowed to invite friends to his party too, so he asked 3 friends from preschool to join us. He is definitely growing up! Anyway, in case you couldn't tell, we started off the festivities (after running around and playing in the park) with a pinata. Here's the birthday boy taking his first swing.
Trying again...
The party-goers (plus some random tagalongs from the park!) waiting their turns.

Abby, getting a piece of it!
And it broke! (no, not from Abby! I believe Jasmine made the final blow) It's amazing how exciting getting candy is for kids!
Miss Abby, working on a sucker and sporting her pinata shades and soccer ball whistle.
Cake time! He chose the football cake from Costco....it was kinda fun to let him pick out the picture he wanted, along with the cake type (white or chocolate) and filling. He went with white cake with strawberry filling. It was quite good too!
Getting ready to blow out his candles.

And finally, PRESENTS! He got so many wonderful gifts and we are so grateful for them. Especially now that the weather is changing, it is so nice to have some new things to play with inside the house. I'm sure all of you moms know what I mean!
More good stuff.
His cool new UO hat from Grandma and Grandpa Stapleton, and some fun new PJ's.
Woody and Jessie dolls. He LOVES them!
Our family! Happy Birthday Zachary! We sure love you!

Aren't They Beauties?

So Andy was supposed to pick our tomatoes for me since I could tell the plants were pretty full and I wanted to make fresh spaghetti sauce, but more importantly because I'm afraid to do it myself for fear of having a run-in with a spider. Seriously, scary. BUT, he wasn't getting to it and our poor tomatoes really wanted to be picked so I put on some long gloves, brought a broom (in case I needed to knock down a web and squish the aforementioned thing,) and put on my game face. However, much to my surprise and delight, there were no spiders to be seen. Ahh, to just enjoy picking these yummies in peace was quite the treat. And quite the relief too!

Now I just gotta make that sauce..... :)

Camping

Sorry, but this is going to be long one! We went camping at Crescent Lake last weekend, (Labor day weekend) with my sister, her two girls, and Andy's sister and her family. It was our first time camping with the kids, so I was a bit apprehensive about it...worried about them getting bored, worried about them sleeping ok in a tent, worried about them getting cold, etc. Turns out the only one of those things that I really needed to worry about was the cold factor. Of course we had to pick the weekend where it got down to 30 at night, and wasn't much warmer than that in the mornings. Yikes! The wind didn't help either....BUT, we pereservered and had a great weekend enjoying our family, great food, nature, campfires, campfire songs, and all of that other great stuff that just goes along with camping. (notice I am leaving stinky outhouses off of this list....blech) :)

After we first arrived, it was actually pretty sunny and warm. Abby was all smiles - she is an outside girl for sure!




Relaxing after all of our setup. I forgot how much work camping is! Especially with two little ones to chase after and make sure are not getting into trouble or danger. (sister Alice and niece Emily on the bench, niece Jasmine and nephews Andy and Austin in the chairs)
A view of our tent-land with the lake in the background. It really was a beautiful campsite.
Andy, Austin, and big Andy all braved the COLD water for a swim. I thought they were nuts!
Even more of a surprise, however, was when Abby wanted to get in too. What? This is the girl who doesn't even want to get in a pool because it's too cold, and yet she will get in Crescent Lake like there's nothing to it.
The kids were really good about playing and keeping themselves occupied with the few toys that we brought.



Cookin' those hotdogs!
My little ham.
Delicious!
The next day the "boys" wanted to take the raft out.
All aboard! Paddling away...Zach is the little head in front. They were pretty funny to watch.

It's hard to tell what our nephew Andy is doing here, but he's working on his trap to try to catch one of the million chipmunks that were roaming about. The boys had teams, and the team to win didn't have to look for firewood, which apparently was a big incentive. All of the traps were safe and wouldn't hurt the chipmunks (don't worry) but it didn't really matter anyway because no one caught one. Andy (husband, not nephew) was close but the little guy scurried out and escaped.
Our brother-in-law, Mike manning the grill. He is a chef, so he kept us well fed all weekend! I gotta say, it was pretty nice having him around! :)
Hanging around the campfire....the day was getting colder already.
Andy's sister, Colleen, with Andy and Adam. Am I confusing you yet with the Andy's??
Yummy corn on the cob!

The little table we brought which served as both an eating table and an art table.
Happy girl.
Everyone all bundled up, doing their thing on our last morning there.
Buddies.
And finally, the birds were loving our leftovers and just helped themselves. (see the bird on the grill?) We weren't going to eat the food anyway, so it was entertaining to watch them.

And I guess that's it! We had a good time and are definitely glad we went and know it will be easier next summer when the kids are even older. They really did great though. Thank you to all of their cousins who were wonderful helpers and were really great at keeping them happy and entertained.

Now next time we're going for some warmer weather though!

Welcome Baby Kade

We have a new nephew! My brother, Mark and his wife, Pam had their second little boy last Wednesday, Aug. 27. He is healthy and beautiful and all are adjusting well. Here is Kade Galen Turay with big brother, Jace.

18 month pics

We got Abby's 18 month pictures back the other day. She was really not very interested in cooperating with the photographer, so we didn't get very many good ones. These are some of the ones that I like the most though. Enjoy!

Anniversary

Ok, so our anniversary was last weekend, and my wonderful mom said she would watch the kids overnight so we could go do something together. In the past we've opted for a night at the beach, but this year we decided to be wild and crazy and actually just stay in town. The thought of a whole 24 hours on our own, in our own city, doing the things we used to do (before kids) was a pretty exciting prospect for us! Plus, Andy's sister, Colleen hooked us up in an awesome jacuzzi room in her new hotel. Sweet! Here we are after arriving at the hotel. Just a little happy couple shot. :)

After checking into the hotel we headed out to King Estate Winery. They were having a garlic festival so we thought we'd check it out. There were about 5 different wineries doing tastings, lots of garlic products, and a band playing. Not many people were dancing though because it was so stinkin' HOT! Here's Andy in front of some garlic, sipping on some Pinot Gris. Mmm!
Eating one of many chunks of pickled garlic. I didn't really like it, but Andy was having a good ol' time with it. :)
Me, outside, sweating. We didn't last too long out there. But, it was certainly beautiful, even if it was sweltering. (have you picked up on the fact that I don't like heat yet???) Ugh.
So, we got back to our hotel room to freshen up before dinner, and we found a gift bag, card, and bottle of wine that wasn't there when we left the room before. We were happy enough to get a card and some wine, but my sneaky little family decided to surprise us with......a paid trip to Vegas! What??? Yes, it's true. Here's the VERY clever poem my sister, Alice, wrote up about it and what we were going to be doing there. (if you click on the picture you might be able to make it out) Apparently my whole family chipped in to the cause for some extended anniverary fun. Andy and I were pretty much in a state of shock after reading the letter. We sooo don't feel like we deserve it, and certainly haven't done anything like this for anyone before, so we feel some guilt about the whole thing, but at the same time, we are of course, very excited. Neither one of us has ever been to Vegas before, and are curious and excited to see all that it has to offer. Thank you family!!!
This is the shirt that was in the gift bag.

All ready for dinner!
We ate at 6th St. Grill. It was quite delicious. After we ate we had to go to the bar side of the restaurant so Andy could play Golden Tee Golf, and then we each put a couple bucks into the video poker machines. Andy lost his money, hence the sad face.
Me, I won $15! Alright!
After that, we headed over to Peabody's Pub to check out their karaoke. I was persuaded to do one song....Let's Here it For the Boy. It's Andy's favorite one that I do and I thought I would be nice since it was our anniversary, even though I was very nervous! It turned out ok though and we had a good time there.
Sealing the evening with a kiss! Ahh, I love anniversaries! They're pretty special. :)