Jacob's First Haircut

BOO HOO! The time finally came to have to cut Jacob's hair. He had these cute little 'wings', but the killer was his hair getting into his eyes. So, Christina, his day care provider, who used to be a hair cutter, cut it today.

Before:
During:
After:

He also turned 15 months old yesterday, so I guess it's a time for some major milestones. First off, he said nye-nye the night before last for the first time, as he was crawling up the stairs to walk to bed, the whole thing is totally amazing to me. We ask him if he's ready for nye-nye and he walks to the fence and tries to open it. We change have some milk and lay him in bed and off he goes, it's so nice! Speaking of bed time routines, tonight was the first night with out bottle, so we are now BOTTLE FREE!! Go Jacob.

He loves shoes and bikes and his push cars lately, it's so fun to see his playing develop. He will play by himself for 15-20 minutes at a time, it's cool just to watch him. He seems to be so smart, but I'm sure everyone's children seem amazingly smart to them:) He also loves to sweep and vacuum, hopefully that will continue.

The other day, he found Ethan's shin guards and brought them to me to put on, he sat down and put out his leg, he knew where they went, so I put them on and he walked around the house for a few hours looking like a hockey goalie, it was funny.

Ehtan's soccer game was awesome this past weekend, they did great, and Ethan was super aggressive and amazing. We are really enjoying the games.

Tomorrow we start our volunteering at Community House - which is a house for single pregnant women. We will be doing whatever is needed - I'll send updates, we're excited to do some service.

Cancun Paradise

Well, we had to return from Paradise:) Jason and I spent 8 days in Cancun at an all-inclusive adults only resort. It was so nice to be waited on and have no real schedule, we really enjoyed the recharging. The resort was awesome, the food was fantastic and the drinks were great. There are 5 other hotels in the area with the same resort so we toured the other hotels and their restaurants. There was a Teppanyaki Restaurant (where they do all the Japanese food cooking right in front of you), amazing Italian, great steak and Mexican food. We didn't get to the Brazilian restaurant. They also have great shows and activities every night, one show was like Cirque de Soliel another was a variety show with Michael Jackson which was pretty good.

We took a few tours - to Chitzen Itza and Tulum which are Mayan Ruins. Tulum is right on the coast with a beautiful beach. It was really interesting to learn about the Mayan culture. We also did a Zip Line tour which was fun - 10 different zip trips.

We took the local bus downtown Cancun and to get to the other resorts. One night after dinner the local bus driver ran a red light and got pulled over by the police, but no "boletas" (tickets), that was a funny experience.

We were also blessed to meet many great couples enjoying their time together and many honeymooners.

And the most amazing thing - we got to see 3 sea turtles make their way to the beach, walk around and lay eggs (well we actually only saw 1 lay her eggs - it's a 2 hr experience). They came up starting around 11:30 pm. Then at 12:30, we got to release 300 little baby sea turtle hatchlings that had hatched in the hotels nesting area that day. The resort company has a foundation that saves the eggs laid by the mamas and puts them in a safe nest and when they hatch they release them late at night to try to save them from the birds and other predators. They are so cute and small - about the size of the palm of your hand including the little flippers.

So, we loved the experience so much we purchased a membership to the resort and we plan on going back yearly. There are options in Puerto Vallarta, Cancun, Riviera Maya and Dominican Republic. If anyone is interested in going, we have alot of weeks we can use - just let us know. There are great kids clubs at the kid resorts so we are excited to bring the boys back.

Hurricane Ike was going through our first 4 days, but even with that, we had a great time and managed to get some serious sun every day. Some were a bit windy, but we made it!!

Check out the pics below for some fun.

Sabbatical Trip Post #6 - Trip Wrap Up

We are back at home - we got here Monday afternoon. And while it is nice ot be home, we are missing the great family time we had together. Ethan loved life in the camper and really started coming out of his shell the last week - it was a blessing to experience. I think Jacob is glad to be home and have more room to run around and play, but misses digging in the dirt - we will have to invest in a sand box.

Our last day in Florence, we went crabbing and caught many crabs, but only 1 keeper, we cooked it in the camper with some fresh organic corn and potatoes, it was a fantastic meal. Below are some pics.

A wrap up summary for those that are interested.

Miles traveled - 3850

Average MPG - 9

Hours Driving - 65

National Parks Visited - 5

States Visited - 5

Highest Elevation - 9800 ft

Lowest Elevation - -192 ft

Activites - Horse Back Riding, ATV Riding, Fishing, Crabbing, Boating, Biking, Swimming, Reading, Hiking, Photography, Journaling

3 weeks with your family - priceless.

Sabbatical Trip Post #5

We are back in Oregeon! And back to the cloudy skys - although we are happy to be in our home state, we will definitely miss the sunny skys.

For those that were praying for safe travels, thank you so much. The long day on Friday was 14 hrs. The boys did wonderful - we started at 3:45 am so that helped them sleep the first 4 hrs. All along the CA coast, the driving was good and Jason was able to relax a bit, but as soon as we got to OR, the winds picked up and we were right on the coast line, so the driving was very slow and very difficult for Jason, but again he did great. We even drove over the Golden Gate Bridge - admitantly, that was not teh best decision and we are very glad we were there at 6am. But it was fun. We were relived to get to the other side though!

We are staying in Florence, which is home to the Oregon Dunes, so there are dune buggies and ATV's starting on the dunes behind us at 6am and going till late night, but it is cool. Jason and Ethan rented ATV's yesterday and had a good time playing around. Today we are going to go crabbing - we'll see how the crabs like the 'seafood delight' cat food and the chicken legs we bought them.

Below are some pics from Monterey and from yesterday with Ethan and Jason on ATV's. The simulator pics are us driving in a convoy in Iraq. The shooting range is all simulated as well, it was pretty sweet. The pics of the boys are at the Monterey aquarium and Ethan playing super heros with his cousin Justin. I have also included some beach pics and some action photos of Jason looking for his wedding ring in Santa Cruz. The one of Jacob in the trailer is funny to me, he is finding all these funny positions to hang out in.

Sabbatical Trip Post #4 - Trip Bummers

Well, today I decided I finally have to post a bummer. But first let me start off with the past few days. We are in Monterey, CA and have really enjoyed it. The weather has been great - a bit chilly, but really nice. And we have been so blessed to spend time with Jason's sister Lisa and her family - Mark, Justin (5 yrs) and Brody (10 mo). WE have gone to great dinners and had the priveledge of Mark cooking for us (he is a chef). Lisa works at the Presido (army training place) and she showed us the simulator shooting range and the simulator convoy area - amazing technology for training our troops. We also went with Lisa and the boys to the Monterey Aquarium and had a great time. Even Jacob went crazy and loved the touch pools and things for little people.

Tomorrow we are up at 3am to drive to Florence for our last stop on the trip. We are waking up early to avoid the San Fran trafic and to capitolize on some sleeping time for the boys since we will have about a 12 hr day.

OK, so now for the bummers. We have had a few hicupps along the way, but so far we have been able to get over them pretty easily. God has definitely been watching over us.
1) The hitch we had installed to put our bike rack on the back of the trailer came unwelded from the trailer bumper - luckily it didn't come completely off before we noticed it, the bikes were just sagging. So, we had to put the rack in George and put the bikes in Harry when we travel. No biggie
2) Jason accidentally hit a truck when he was parking Harry in a really tight spot in Avala beach - all that happened amazingly enough is the license place got tore off so he got some new plastic plugs and put the plate back on.
3) We have leared that Harry is just WAY too long for George to pull safely - Jason has done an amazing job of being attentive and on super-point as we drive. A few times the winds and passing vechicles have sent us 3-4 feet across the road. We deciede to take Hwy 101 back for our long trip tomorrow to avoid so many cars and the high winds we experienced on I-5

But the bummer of all bummers that we cannot easily fix is that Jason decided to 'donate' his wedding ring to the waves of Santa Cruz today:( So for a $500 reward, if you want to do some treasure hunting on Santa Cruz beach let us know. The ring just washed off his finger when a wave hit him. He tried to dig in the sand and waves for almost 2 hrs, but wasnt' able to find it. To those that know Jason's ring, it was his 'crown' and was of course very special to him (not to mention it was a bit more pricy than the average mens ring!). So we are both sad, but things like this happen, so we'll file an insurance claim when we get home and see what we can do I guess.

Even with the bummers, we are having an amazing time and have been so blessed to have this wonderful family time together and see our beautiful country.

Sabbatical Trip Post #3

Well, we made it to the coast of CA! We are in Availa Beach - near San Luis Obispbo - where Jason went to school. Yesterday we hung at teh beach and Jacob loved the sand and the waves, it was fun! The drive here went well. I think Jacob is getting a little tired of the car, but he is hanging on. Ethan is doing great as well and said he could do this forever!

Today we have a 2 hr drive to Monterey to spend time with Lisa - Jason's sister.

I finally got some pics to upload. If you don't want go through the whole slide show, you can click on the link at the bottom to 'see all slides' and you can see whatever you want. Enjoy!

Sabbatical Post #2

We've made it to Las Vegas - almost 1/2 way through our trip. After Lake of the Springs Campground, we went to Modesto to show Ethan where Jason grew up. We stayed at one of Jason's friends parents house and had a wonderful time visiting with them. They recently installed a pool so they boys enjoyed swimming late night and early morning in the 100+ heat.

After Modesto, we headed to Yosemite National Park. If you haven't had a chance to go there, I highly reccomend it as a must do! It is gorgeous and super fun. We enjoyed biking around the valley (Jacob in the trailer). There is paved bike paths over alot of the valley, so it was a great way to check it out. Our campground was right on the Merced River and Ethan enjoyed rafting down a man-made little canal in the river - I did some floating too which was fun. Jacob continued to enjoy getting really dirty all the time! We drove up to Glacier point to overlook the entire valley and we able to marvel at God's creation. On the way out of Yosemite, we drove through the East entrance and saw another beautiful side of Yosemite - massive granite boulder and fields and domes of the granite, so unique and amazing!

From Yosemite we went to Bishop, CA to visit Jason's Dad and Step-mom. They are camp hosts at a lake at 9000 ft - Sabrina Lake - for the summer. It was a great campground on a creek. They treated us to a great day on a pontoon boat on the lake to do some serious fishing. 3 fish were caught an 1 kept, but at the end of the day we could have all cared less on how many fish were caught. We had a great time in the boat. Jacob loved fishing and driving and walking around the boat. Ethan loved catching 2 of the 3 fish and driving the boat. Jacob even took a nap. The terrain around the lake and Bishop was different again, we have loved seeing it all.

This morning we headed to Las Vegas through Death Valley National Park - the terrain here was super varied again and we all understand why they call it Death Valley - 107 degrees and nothing around. We had a major pass to go over which made us a bit nervous in George (we finally named the Tahoe), but with only 1 stop we made up the 5000 ft elevation gain and then back down to -190 ft.

Tonight we are staying with my counsin Lindsay, enjoying good conversation and appreciating a real bed and laundry.

Sorry for no pics again - we will have a big post I promise after the Grand Canyon (0ur next stop).