utah & the fourth // picture log

we spent about a week down in utah over the fourth visiting family & celebrating the holiday.  it was so much fun!  the boys had their first snow cones, jumped on a big trampoline for the first time (and with a sprinkler underneath!), held their first sparklers, legit swam in a lake for the first time & basically just had an amazing time.

it's always so hard to say goodbye to the fam.  we only get down there a couple times a year & by the end the boys are so warmed up to all their cousins, grandparents, aunts & uncles & having so much fun that it's so hard to leave knowing they'll lose some ground over the distance in the next six months.  and of course i miss them all terribly too.

at least we have all these fun pics to remember the good times!  crazy trampoline jumping, swimming with sharks, kayaking, dinosaur park, the farm & our family.  love all these crazy people.

parker ray // you're five.

so it's june & i can't think of a better time to go back about a month or so to talk about my number one turning five.  parker turned five at the end of april & we had such an amazing time celebrating.  instead of a big party we asked parker what he wanted to do & he said he wanted to go to the ocean.  it wasn't a huge surprise since the ocean is his favorite place in the world & his obsession with sea creatures runs deep (thank you octonauts).

but seriously, it was a blast.  we got a house out at lincoln city, oregon & had sam's parents, his sister & her husband come along too.  the boys chased waves, looked for shells & played in the sand.  the highlight of the trip (and the thing parker still talks about a month later as his favorite part) was climbing up on rocks & searching for sea creatures in tide pools.  we saw sea anemones, sponges, clams, mussels, snails, sea urchins, crabs & the highlight was finding a starfish.

five is such a fun age.  both boys are in such good places right now & taking them on adventures is pretty much the best thing ever.  i seriously can't believe parker will be starting kindergarten in the fall & i'll be down to one kid for most of the day monday through friday.  what even is time??  it's a mean, mean thing, whatever it is.

at five parker is still obsessed with animals.  he has read his animal encyclopedia before bed every night since christmas & has virtually every animal's name in the book memorized as well as a ton of facts.  his favorite show is octonauts & he is so fascinated with ocean animals.  he still loves going to the zoo, playing with his stuffed animals & building things with legos.  he's always assigning everyone in the family different characters to be from different stories & is pretty much playing some sort of scenario out at all times.  he loves going on hikes & will hike around 2 miles or so before his legs get too tired & the complaints start.  he is obsessed with turning over big rocks to look for bugs, worms or snails under them & isn't afraid to pick up whatever he finds for a closer look.  he can count to 100 & sight read all sorts of words... especially animal names.  he's excited for kindergarten but was super sad to say goodbye to all his friends from preschool.  i know he'll love kindy & will do so well though, his brain is just ready for it.  this summer he's going to do swimming lessons, a zoo camp & play soccer in the fall.  he's just the coolest little kid & is super easy going like he always has been.  he's just my little buddy.

here are a few (ha!) pics from our weekend at lincoln city celebrating p-ray.  making birthdays into weekend adventures is becoming tradition & we're already looking forward doing it again next year.

happy birthday parker ray.  we love you so much & had a blast celebrating your big day with you.