Camping in Long Beach

August 31, 2018: 

Camping in Long Beach and exploring Astoria with Jamie, Jordan and Kam.  

The boys love to play around!

September 1: Josh's business parter, Kerry, brought his boat to the coast and took Josh, Jordan, Jamie and Kam out crabbing.  They were excited to try crabbing for the first time!

Kerry

While everyone else was out crabbing, I took Versii and Paxton swimming, then into town to the carnival and out for ice cream!  They had so much fun riding carnival rides!

Waiting in an insanely long line at the ice cream shop.

Only a fraction of the crabs they caught!

After they got back to camp, Kerry and the guys prepared and cooked up all the crabs.  Thanks again Kerry for taking our family out on the boat and for cooking crab dinner!  They loved it!

September 2: Exploring the coast around Cape Disappointment.

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse

Visiting the Columbia Maritime Museum.

The boys trying their hand at Weather Forecasting.

My Birthday

August 30, 2018: My 39th Birthday!

Josh's brother Jordan, Jamie and their son Kameron flew into town from Colorado to visit us.  So naturally we needed to take them out exploring in Portland.

Our first stop: A tour of the Pittock Mansion 

Next we hit Mod Pizza from lunch, a little shopping in downtown's Nordstrom Rack and took a ride on Portland's Aerial Tram.

 Then we went to my favorite dessert shop, Pix Patisserie, for my absolute favorite dessert: The Concord! 

...And as I found out the year before, if you eat it there, they will gift you a free dessert for your birthday!

 After Pix, we drove home to a delicious dinner made by our friends the Higgins.  Erica made me street tacos by special request!  Thanks so much Erica and Sean!

It was a great day filled with love and adventure!

Versii's Testimony

I missed posting this in May.

May 6th 2018

The day Versii first bore his testimony in church.

It was such a special moment that we will cherish always.

Here is what Josh wrote about it:

In light of Mother’s day weekend, a story; On Sunday Versii, 10, got up in church, walking to the pulpit. Anyone that knows Versii would know this to be completely out of character. He is the shyest and most timid person I know. Joy and I looked at one another, wide eyed, in utter surprise. He pulled the mic level and spoke from his heart, for the first time, of how he loves Jesus Christ. That he is grateful for the resurrection and expressed his love for his family. Truly genuine. I teared up. We do not push our children to be. We are free to do as we choose and we respect that. We do however take them to church and are biased toward Christianity. To witness his strength of overcoming himself, and seeing his genuine nature, and knowing he chooses to see grace, have faith...I will never forget that moment. It filled me. We were given a glance into the truly tremendous person that he is. He resembles Joy and she is who I chose to be the mother to my children. And she is, without doubt, the best decision I have ever made. Happy Mothers Day weekend Joy. I am so grateful for her non-faltering, consistent sacrifice, and the benevolent mother that she is to our boys. They will be good men because of you.