More of Oregon

Continuing our vacation to Oregon...Our trip to the coast(Florence), and to visit the lighthouse.
After a somewhat winding trip, we got to this great little cove with a beach, a surfer, and a very short hike up to a lighthouse. It was awesome. I played a little with Photoshop too.





We took a tour of the lighthouse and learned a lot. The reflectors are beautiful.






Here is the view from the side of the road after we left. Do you see the lighthouse?

Trip to Eugene Part 1

We had a great time visiting family in Eugene, OR this weekend. Here are a few pictures from the beginning of our trip. I will continue posting other pictures throughout the week.
We were greeted with a ton of Sunshine! (unusual for OR) It was great to see all of John's family and his grandfather.



We had a great place to sleep and kids to wake us up in the morning.


The next day we went to the market square (or something like that) where there were artists, crazy hippie people (singing songs about Saturday with bongos and shakers), and farmers market organic foods. The University of Oregon is HUGE in Eugene.



Camile loved walking around-


Eugene is also know as "Track Town USA" Even the restaurants celebrate it.


More pictures about our trip to the coast and a beautiful garden park we visited to come tomorrow.

Zoo and Aquarium overnight trip

I was a chaperone this past Thurs.-Friday for the 8th grade trip to the Denver Zoo and Aquarium. We had a blast. I'm going to include a lot of animal pictures so that Caleb and J.T. can name them:) Thursday we went to the zoo...and it was drizzling the whole day, but we still had a lot of fun. Besides all the animals, we saw a sea lion show, a lion with a zookeeper, one group saw some bears mating, and we did a photo scavenger hunt around the zoo. There were 2 baby giraffes named Pongo and Blizzard too!

Thank you to one of my students- Madison, for some of the awesome pictures!

After the Zoo we headed over to the Aquarium for the "Wild Nights" educational program. Before that started we ate at the Aquarium restaurant.

Then we started our program and got to hang out in the aquarium for a couple of hours. It was very fun to see all the fishes.

At around 10:00 we put our sleeping bags in front of the large shark tank (with other fish and things too) and slept in front of the sharks. It was mesmerizing to watch the sharks swim by all the time. (especially when you are up anyways listening to 8th grade girls whisper and giggle). When I woke up there were 2 large sea turtles sleeping right up next to the glass where my feet were. I saw them wake up and make their assent to the surface. SO COOL! Here is a video of the sharks (before we went to bed) but this is really how close they were to us:)

Motivation

I am trying to run more...because it is good for me.

On Saturday I was really not feeling like it, but I laced up my shoes and drug myself out the door. My I-pod was dying and I was not feeling like running, so I decided to take a different-shorter route than normal. To my surprise, I found encouraging messages on the sidewalk the entire route. Every hundred feet I saw arrows and things like "best effort" "you can do it" and "be strong". Thank you to whoever put the message there. I appreciated it:)

Happy Easter

Today we forgot to bring our camera to church...which is a bummer because John has been working with the MS youth group for around 6 wks on a drum piece that they all played in front of church today. It was awesome...a long row of drums and lots of middle schoolers with sticks. The leaders and one high schooler played too. We tried using other peoples video camera and digital camera and neither one of them worked. Bummer! Everyone at church loved it. Hopefully we can get a video of it another time. One of them worked but didn't have sound. Here are a few captured clips from it.

Happy Easter to Everyone.

Coupon Disaster

No, my coupons didn't all fall out of my coupon binder:)

I messed up by not reading the fine print of my coupons 3 times today!!

Just when I think I have it down, the system beats me again.

All of you who say you should use coupons and don't...well it sometimes is ANNOYING...but I am addicted.

Here are some examples:

Safeway had a coupon in their flyer for 12 pks of soda 3/6.99 with coupon. I got all my groceries at King Soopers, then headed over to Safeway for cheap soda. When I got to the checkout counter the cashier nicely informed me that the coupon said "minimum purchase $20". UGGG. I walked around the store for what seemed like an eternity and I found Apples to Apples (the game) on clearance for $5, Wheat thins on sale for 1.69 (and I had a BOGO coupon), and a skateboard toy (prize for school kids) for .99. I filled the rest in with cream of something soup and a BUNCH of apples and bananas. Here are my items without the fruit:

Another example: I went in to Bath and Body works with 2 coupons. When I went to purchase my items and get a bunch of stuff for free but one of the coupons had expired a few days ago. UGGG. I still got the other thing free.

Yet another example: I went to Maurices specifically because I had a coupon that expired today and a gift card. I tried on clothes and shopped for at least 40 min. and settled on a cute gray pair of pants to wear for teaching. When I got up to the counter it wouldn't take the coupon because it was already a clearanced item. HMMM...shouldn't they make that obvious on the coupon???. Guess not.

Besides that, my day of scavenging for free or almost free items was great. I started with a free sandwich from Charlies Grilled Subs (my favorite). I use a punch card when we go there and the 8th one is free.

Here is what I got at other stores:

My closest Hallmark went out of business so they sent me a $2 coupon for anything at a different Hallmark. (This time I read the fine print and it had to be a "division of Hallmark" product.) I headed over to the clearance section and got some metal tags for scrapbooking and a cute gift bag. I also included my B&BW lotion and some perfume I got from VS free (from a card I got in the mail.)

At King Soopers I got 8 Airhead X-tremes for free (after doubled coupons) and 6 Mountain High yogurts for free after doubled coupons. The cheese was .99!, the cake mix .3o after coupon, and the Juice was Buy One (3.79) get one free & eggs for free. (After a $1.00 coupon for the juice it was .93 each)
My last stop of the day I tried on a really cute shirt at Marshalls. It had a spot on it, so I asked for a discount and they gave me an additional $2 off. At least something worked out for me:)

More pictures of spring break

I had so much fun hanging out with family over spring break.

I called Isaiah "floppy" because he had a floppy head, and Caleb starting saying "floppy head" over and over:)

Caleb was so much fun.

He tried to be gentle with Isaiah...this may be one of the rare moments.

He is in his "Going to Bela's" outfit here. The guys went to Cabelas on Saturday to see the large stuffed animals and to shop.

I also taught Caleb to say "Volleyball"...although it sounds more like "ballyball"

Isaiah loves to look around...
We gave him a bath and he clung to my finger for dear life! (Check out his fingers)

We also included him in one of our many games of Settlers of Catan.

Doesn't he look thrilled?

If anyone who lives around here knows how to play Settlers...we should get together to play.

Thanks, Lori for sharing your kids with me. I had a great time!