Ten Year Trip-Part 1

In April, Jess took me (and Reed, since he's still nursing and I'm not ready to be away from him overnight yet at his age) to Oregon.  I've always known I would love Oregon.  It seemed like something out of a fairy tale, not to mention I love cloudy skies.  I've never understood the love for sunny days.  I honestly don't think I could get tired of the grey weather.  Since our ten year anniversary was coming up, Jess decided it was a good excuse to take me to Oregon, to finally see it in person. 

We went early, in late April, since we weren't sure if our anniversary would fall during graduations and things, like it usually does.  So we worked out babysitting for the big three, and feeding for Gia, between the grandparents and aunts.  On Wednesday morning, we headed for Vegas and the airport.  Reed was good, and also wide awake, for the drive there.  We had an easy time getting through the airport, and Reed was such a cute little traveler, wearing his own backpack and carrying Moono through the airport.  He was still awake and cheery as we boarded the plane.  He waved to everyone on the plane, already in their seats, as we made our way down the aisle.

We were next to a young single guy, who did a good job hiding the fear he probably felt at sitting next to us with our toddler.  I have to say, I was pretty nervous myself.  Reed is fantastic and so good natured, but he is active, not hyper but busy.  We also chose the hardest age I can imagine for having to fly.  Big enough to want to be independent, and move around, but not big enough to understand why he has to sit still.  Thank goodness he played with his toy Moono...
 
...and happily organized all the papers and magazines in the pocket of the seat in front of me, until it was time to take off.  

 
Once we started moving I fed him, hoping he'd fall asleep.  He was awake, but starting to look sleepy.  When we got off the ground, the rougher movements of the plane got him excited at first, and he balled up his hands into fists against his chest and started sort of growling.  I think he was trying to mimic the sounds the plane was making.  Then, pretty quickly, it actually lulled him right to sleep. 

 

I held him as he napped, and tried to read a bit.  He woke up just as we started the descent, and he was calm and happy for those last few minutes of flying.  It was such a relief that he did so well.  He cuddled me for a minute just after waking up,

while looking out at the sea of clouds.
 
 He liked looking out the window with us as we came into Portland.

 We got our rental van, and went straight to a restaurant.  Jess had planned ahead a bit, and wanted to try a place called Gravy.  Breakfast food for lunch, which I love.  I later regretted ordering pancakes, even though they sounded good.  They were great, but I should have been more adventurous, since I think pancakes are good everywhere.  Jess had a really good and unique biscuits and gravy though.

Reed picked at our meals, and had some fruit and fresh apple juice.

Reed seemed to decide he was king of Portland, on the walk after lunch.
 
Before leaving Portland, we went to the Japanese gardens.  We put Reed in the hiking pack, which turned out to be good because we had a decent hike to get there, uphill, and the gardens themselves involved a good walk.

  It was SO pretty.

  I was happy to find a pond that did have koi.

Reed liked the fu dogs best.  :)
 
When we left the gardens, we headed for Corvallis for our first night, where we stayed.  We drove around a bit..

...and checked in to our hotel.  We walked from there to a cute little downtown area and had dinner at Laughing Planet Cafe.  This was probably the place where we ate our most interesting meals.  I had a Bollywood Bowl, which was really good, and Jess got one that I thought was amazing.  It was a bowl with mashed potatoes and kale, topped with kielbasa and a mustard-stout salsa.  It blew my mind.  I couldn't stop eating from his.  Ha! 

The next morning we got a muffin and coffee from a really cute coffee shop.  This was about the time we started noticing how incredibly friendly everyone was.   People told us all the time how nice the people in the midwest would be, but I did not find that to be true.  Everywhere I went in Oklahoma I smiled at people, and very rarely had anyone acknowledge me, let alone smile back.  Our neighbors were amazing, but other than that I was not impressed.  In Oregon though-every single place we went multiple people smiled and chatted and were just SOOOO nice.  Every time it happened we just looked at each other like "WHERE ARE WE?!!"  

After our muffins and coffee, we drove a bit more around town, and then headed for the coast.  Corvallis was such a cool town.  It ended up being one of my two favorite cities out of the places we stayed.  After exploring, we headed for the coast.  We had a little drive to get there, and Reed was great for it.  The views everywhere were beautiful.  So green, with so many trees, and mist.

 

We had fun at the coast-it was chilly and grey, and so we were just about the only people around most of the time, and we loved it.  We walked around, looking for shells, and found some tide pools.  I took some cool pictures of the tide pools and they seem to have disappeared.  :(

We had lunch nearby at a Mexican place, which was pretty good.  The waitress thought we were crazy when we asked to sit outside, because it was so "cold and windy".  We were confused, because there was barely a breeze, and it was nice and cool, but far from cold.  I guess their version of wind doesn't compare to Kingman's. 

From there we headed a little farther down the road to Cape Perpetua.  This place was amazing.  Rocky, and the waves were smashing into the rocks.  It was raining on us, which only added to the experience.  The whole area felt sort of tropical, and there were crazy plants all around us, the coolest trees and ferns.  Since this is getting a bit long, and because I'm having trouble finding all my pictures, I'll stop here for tonight, and leave you with a video and a picture of the boys at Cape Perpetua.

Two Christmas Programs

Wednesday and Thursday were the last days of school before Christmas break.  Cason had his Christmas program on Wednesday.  We picked Jess up from work and went straight to the school.  We were allowed to check Paige out early to come and watch.  Cason had been nervous about it for days.  He doesn't like the be in the spotlight too much.  He walked out all shy and cute, trying not to smile and staring at the wall as if it was really interesting, so he didn't have to acknowledge the audience. 

He was in the top row, wearing a red shirt.

It was cute watching him talk to his buddy next to him.

Reed liked watching him sing.

He did a great job, and clearly knew his lines and the signs that went with them.  My favorite part was the end of the songs, when he'd turn around, suddenly really interested in the wall again when people started clapping.  Haha!

The next day was Paige's turn.  The night before she'd decided out of nowhere that she wanted to play Jingle Bells on the piano.  She assured us that she was allowed as long as she could play and brought her music.  So Jess printed out the music for her and she practiced the night before.  I was nervous for her, considering she decided she didn't want to take lessons anymore and hasn't practiced in months.  She did awesome though.  They were kind enough to let her play on short notice, and she opened the show.  :)  She looked nervous but went through with it.  Brave girl.  I took video, but you can't see her in mine, so my dad sent me the one he got.

Then she took her spot with her class.

Reed started out super interested...

...but pretty quickly faded on us.

I realized when I glanced over that there were 3 generations of Jacobs guys to my left and I'd never taken a picture of the four of them together.  So we did that.

Paige's 8th Birthday

Paige turned 8 last Thursday.  That is crazy to me.  I have so many vivid memories from her birth, and our stay in the hospital, that it could have been a few months ago.   I can remember lying in the hospital bed, watching Jess in his pink recliner/bed recording this video of a sleepy newborn Paige in his lap.

She challenges us for sure, she is strong willed and so smart.  She could be an attorney one day.  Ha.  But she says she is set on astronomy or marine biology.  If you ask, marine biology is always included, but she seems to be more interested in astronomy by far.  She's always reading about it and checking out library books on space.  

She and Cason were saving up for this moonscope we saw on amazon, that was made for children.  Cason would have liked it I'm sure, but I think he was mostly contributing because he's a sweet boy and knew it would make Paige happy.  They hadn't managed to get it yet as Paige's birthday approached, so we got her a telescope for her birthday.  We decided to buy her a better one, though it's still for beginners and children.  

We gave it to her during her birthday breakfast, before school.  She was really happy to get it, and the moon map it came with. 

 

 

 She had a good day of school, including getting taken out for a birthday lunch date with Grampa and Grama Trudi, at the restaurant of her choosing.  So Denny's.  :) 

We had pizza, Paige's favorite for dinner, and since Grannybob is in town, she got a couple more gifts.  One was a CSI fingerprinting kit from Grannybob, and a beginners astronomy book from us.  

She loved both, and got to work lifting our prints all over the place.

Lucky for her, the moon was full on her birthday, and the sky was really clear, so it was a perfect night to try out the telescope.  We all took a turn and it is really cool! 

Jess made us all a birthday butterbeer to end the day of celebrating our girl.

The full moon had me thinking about the night she was born, because there was a full moon then too.  My labor with her started intense, no buildup at all.  We left for the hospital and I can remember the drive so clearly.  The moon was big and full and bright, and we both commented on it.  I watched it for a good while on the drive, probably to distract myself.  Ha.  We were both caught off guard by how it felt to meet our baby.  Even more amazing than you expect.

 I was so happy and so relieved at how naturally it all came to us.

She was our only baby under 8 lbs, but she gained a pound her first week and got right to work filling out.  She was so happy and joyful, and such an easy baby.

She was a little beauty too, and we could tell she was a smart one early on too.

She has grown and changed so much, and even when she frustrates us she makes me proud of how strong she is.  

She won't be pushed around, that's for sure.  Ha!  

She's still our sweet, smart, beautiful, silly, joyful girl, and will always be our first baby, the one who changed our lives (and us) in the best way, and made us parents. 

Happy birthday Paige, we love you SO much.

Happy 4th Birthday Neely

Neely is four, as of Monday.  I can not believe that.  She's getting so big, and she's so proud of it.  She talks about how things were when she "was little" all the time.  :) 

Not too long ago, while planning Reed's birthday party, it hit me that I hadn't remembered to celebrate it being Neely's golden birthday last year.  So we made up for it, and the day before her birthday this year, on her last day of being three, we had a golden birthday breakfast for her.  She was a tad confused, but liked the attention.

 and the gold stars on her cinnamon roll.  :)

The next morning she had her real birthday.  She slept in, and then I made some eggs and some chocolate muffins for breakfast.  She opened her first birthday card, from Aunt Mindy and Uncle Randy, and was SO excited that it came with a cute memory game.  We played quite a few rounds of that, and she is REALLY good at it.  She beat me, fair and square, a few times. 

Then she put on a dance show for my mom, Reed, and me.

 She always asks to go to the park "with the wiggly bridge", which is my least favorite because it's always crowded.  So she doesn't get to go to that one as often as she'd like.  Of course on her birthday, we took her.  We met Jess for his lunch break and watched them play.

 She chose the meals for the day, pizza for lunch, and spaghetti for dinner.  She got to open some gifts that night too.  Just a few, the rest are for the party.  My mom gave her a Frozen pajama gown, and a Frozen sleeping bag with sleep mask.  :)  She got to cuddle in our bed and fell asleep in her mask, cuddling her kitty.

She wouldn't take off her gown all the next day.

Even for our trip to Walmart, where she got to pick out a doll she's been wanting for months.

 She's our feisty one, not afraid to let people know what she thinks.  She's also SO sweet and loveable.  She makes us laugh all the time, and will ask me out of nowhere if I know that she loves me.  I'll say yes and ask if she knows I love HER, and she says "Yeah, you don't have to tell me all the time."  Ha!  I can see some of my traits in Paige and Cason, and some of Jess in them too, but so far Neely is ALL Neely.  She is FAR more open with her feelings than either of us.  Everyone who spends any real amount of time with her will get to know her.  She's not a private person, like her parents.  At least not so far.  She has a TON of personality.  We love this girl.  She's adorable, tough, smart and funny, and so many other things I can't put in to words. 

She feels big and all, but she also still likes pretending to be a baby when she wants a little extra lovin'.  It's sweet.  She still adores Reed, and thinks everything he does is the cutest thing in the world.

 

She drew this for me.  Some dinosaurs of course, beneath a crescent moon, sun, and dragon if I'm remembering right.

 

We've started doing an interview with the same questions on their birthdays.  I'm sure most of you have seen this already on instagram, but it's a good little window into who Meewee is.  Love this sweet girl so much.  You make us so proud, and I would do anything for you Neely!  Happy birthday!