A picture is worth a thousand words

But......

I tend to be forgetting to take said pictures =( Instead, you will be getting a thousand word synopsis of our most recent travels and adventures. [[[KIDDING!!!]]]

Really, though, we have even been sporadic in our adventures these past few weeks. Most of June, we forgot that the sun was even supposed to be in the sky. I think I may have forgotten to include this earlier, but at the beginning of June we began once again searching for a new home. Stan and Jeanie surprised us with a wonderful gift and we were presented with the opportunity to purchase a new home while keeping our current house as a rental for a few years until the market picks up a little bit. I forgot how time consuming and exhausting that process it!

The long and short of the house story is we will be moving into our new home on July 23rd!!! I will make sure to include a special blog about all the specifics once we actually get moved in. After the last go round, I'm a little more cautious this time and won't allow myself to get really excited until all our stuff is into the new house. Stay tuned for all the good details....

Onto the wee ones who fill our days with so much entertainment.

This summer Aubrey is notorious for going as hard as possible and then crashing as equally hard. She is determined not to miss out on any of the action ;-)

Enjoying some yummy Unger berries during the 4th of July parade

SO DARN CUTE!!!!
I have to say that there is something about the carefree, straight-forwardness about a 2-year old that can bring a smile to anyone's face.
While we were outside playing in the sprinklers, she decided to 'shake your body just like a crab.'
(its from an episode of Dora)

A rare moment....
In the car, Ella will fight until the last ounce of strength she has to keep her eye lids open is gone. She is always watching, listening, asking a million questions about everything around her. One day I asked her, "why do you ask so many questions?"
"Because Sid the Science Kid says 'Keep asking LOTS of questions.'"
Fair enough.

**Please excuse the smudge on the lens right over her eye**

Not sure which was more fun, running through the sprinklers or wearing flip flops?!
I know, of all the battles in this world, flip flops seem to be an odd one. If you ever saw this child'd toes or ends of her shoes it would make more sense. ;-)

Such a poser! She is getting better, half the time I get this smile and half the time I get the kind of smile I'm looking for =)

Hillsboro 4th of July parade

Last week, our entire family went to Generation camp with our church. Its the youth camp and I'm the camp nurse. Ella is my nurse helper. Aubrey is just a ham. And Neal is the wrangler of these 2 young-ins while I try to actually take care of the kids ;-) I'm super bummed that we forgot to take our nice waterproof camera with us. It had been in the car the day we left for camp, but when we stopped home to empty out our gigantic bag of candy it was left behind.

Camp was up on Mt. Hood at a place called Camp Arrah Wanna. It has a great set-up including a pool (that is heated up like a hot tub) with 2 water slides. Here is where a camera would have been great. Aubrey was fearless. She loved going down the slide. She did not, however, like the water in her eyes. After the second slide down, she told me "I close my eyes." Great idea. Over to the slide she runs. She grabs onto the ladder of the slide, steps onto the first step, closes her eyes and proceeds to climb the rest of the way up the ladder!!! Frantically we are yelling for her to OPEN her eyes until she reaches the top, then close them for the slide down. HAHAHAHA!!! She is always good for a laugh.

While at camp, we also got to go up to Skibowl to the summer adventure park. There are 20-some activities to do up there and a surprising number of them the girls could do. They had kiddy carts (1-seater go-carts that had hand-break levers for stop and go), trampoline with the bungee jump, pony rides (I think you are safe to buy the pony now Aunt Kathy. The girls LOVED the ponies. I would guess we rode them at least 3 separate times ;-)), rock climbing wall, super fun house and more.

Ella is old enough to actually be able to follow the instructions and had a blast doing the activities. Aubrey on the other hand needed a little help. Aubrey wasn't about to be left out, however, of all the fun she saw the older kids having. She flipped on the bungee trampoline, she loved on the ponies and learned a valuable lesson...don't sneak up on the ponies or they get scared, even if you just want to give the pony a hug ;-) Aubrey also drove the kiddy cart by herself. Apparently on her second trip in the kiddy cart, she decided halfway through the drive that she had had enough. Out she climbed with the help of the worker manning the cars. Then once the worker turned his back on Aubrey to help Ella, Aubrey promptly climbed back into her kiddy cart, stood on the seat and pulled down completely on the "go lever"! I'm not sure who was more scared, the worker or all the people from camp watching Aubrey drive fearlessly into the edge of the race track!!!

Alas I think I may have exceeded my thousand words. I vow to try harder to take more pictures for the rest of the summer ;-)

I'll leave you with one last Aubrey quote that sums up her personality at the present time.

Aubrey was blatantly disobeying one afternoon, repeatedly doing what she was told not to. I told her, "Aubrey, if you do that again, mommy is going to spank your hiney."

She straight-faced, exasperated reply was, "AGAIN???" =]