Cannon Beach

Ahhh the relaxation and rejuvenation of the beach!  I miss it already!  Back in mid-May we traveled down to the Oregon Coast for 5 days with the Warner family.  And Ryan's girlfriend Carly got to join us as well.  We actually stayed in Gearhart, OR which is about 30 min. north of Cannon Beach but we referred to it as Cannon Beach the whole time anyway.  My wonderful parents rented this beautiful beach home about a block away from the beach.  It had 5 bedrooms and a huge kitchen and was such a lovely getaway place. And man did we sack out!  Funny how groggy and lazy you get when you finally let your body have some downtime.

The weekend was filled with lots of trips to the beach and the town of Cannon Beach, lots of eating, walks to the little bakery in town, walks on the beach, flying a kite, playing in the sandbox, roasting smores on the firepit, reading, playing games, taking naps, etc.  It was just what I wanted it to be and just what our family needed! This was Nathan's first trip to the ocean and he absolutely loved it.  We still talk about the beach a lot even now and pretend we're at the beach or going to the beach with our toys when we're at home.  He was relatively brave with the waves and was in heaven splashing in the puddles or playing with his trucks in the sand. He even found his very first starfish!

It was such a fun week.  Now don't get me wrong--we definitely had our moments sometimes.  That's to be expected when the family is together constantly for 5 days.  But all in all we created some really wonderful memories and had some great family bonding time.

We found a starfish!

Such a great beach house for relaxing, playing, and hanging out

Ready for the beach mom!

Flying our first kite--a train kite!

We loved playing in the sand

The beach house even had a sandbox.  Nate played in it about 80% of the time probably.

Relaxing by the fire pit

We love the beach!!

   We also lucked out and got a couple family photoshoots by our talented Ryan.  Here are some of my favorites below:

To see more photos check out Ryan's photography blog at http://ryanwarnerphotography.com/ (and of course if you're interested in hiring him, please let me know!)

Nate Turns 2!

May was an incredibly busy month for us so I'm just now getting caught up on blogging.  Lots of fun posts coming up though because May was a very busy, but very fun month!

First up is Nate turned 2 on May 10!  I can't believe it!  It's still weird to say that he's 2.  Time is flying by. For Nate's birthday we had a really fun day celebrating with friends and family.  We told Nate the birthday plans in April and he couldn't stop talking about it for the whole month.  He would tell total strangers what the plan was for his birthday.  And the day definitely didn't disappoint.

Luckily his birthday fell on a Saturday so we got to celebrate on his actual day.  Our first activity was going to the Woodland Park Zoo!  We were joined by all the family and then also the Faders (Nate's godparents), the Ridges, the Stevensons, and the Walkers.  So Nate had a wonderful combo of his family and closest friends there.  The weather held out and we just had a wonderful, surprisingly non-stressful day wandering around seeing the animals.  The kids got along great and there were no meltdowns!  They led the way to the different exhibits they wanted to see and all the adults meandered around them.  We were there for 3 hours which I thought would be plenty of time to see the zoo, but we didn't even get to see 1/3 of it.  No matter because we had a great time and felt like we got to the important parts.  Our favorites were the giraffes, the gorillas, and the elephants.

Enjoying the penguin exhibit--and praying for the rain sprinkles to stop!

We got to see the giraffes up close!

Gotta love the zoo!

After the zoo, we all ventured down the street to Tutta Bella--Nathan's favorite restaurant!  Tutta Bella is a gourmet pizza restaurant and I used to live right by it.  I probably went there 100 times when I lived in Seattle.  They also have a location in Issaquah now too that we frequent and over time it's become Nathan's favorite place.  I love how he says the name of the restaurant with a full on Italian accent too.  It's a fun place because the food is really good, it's a nice atmosphere, but it's also great with kids and there are lots of families.  We had a great meal and then Nate got to open all his presents and enjoy the yummy cake that Grampa Jay made him.  What a great day celebrating our boy and being with so many loved ones!

Also a big shout out for the awesome photos courtesy of Ryan Warner Photography

Enjoying yummy pizza and salad with amazing friends and family

The awesome cake made by Grampa Jay

Nate opening his new Thomas the Train set with his best buddy Gavin (aka the Thomas the Train expert)

Happy Birthday to our sweet boy!!