Shakespear Shuffle

Labor Day

Okay a week before Labor Day weekend we went to Portland for a variety of reasons but most importantly to go to the temple.  I am so excited the Portland temple is now our temple.  It has been my favorite ever since it was built.  I think I was 8 or 9 years old when it was built & dedicated. I will always remember being able to walk through before the dedication & being in awe of it's beauty inside & out.  The flowers rival those of the Salt Lake city temple ground.  They were gorgeous!  And I got to see some family friends who happened to be there for a sealing (wedding).

Hyrum finished his 450 page workbook for 2nd grade 2 weeks prior to 2nd grade starting.  He worked very hard & was beyond excited to be done.  Sometimes I felt like the meanest Mom enforcing school work during the summer but it was only for like 30 minutes a day & hopefully he'll be familiar with things he's learning at school now.

It really hasn't rained much at all here in the last two months.  But we did have one day with a really good downpour.  Everyone was able to try out their rain boots!

So over Labor Day weekend Dallen turned 18 months old (on September 1st.)  He is basically the cutest thing ever.  He loves to read books & chatters non-stop.  He tries so hard to repeat everything we say & repeat everything the big kids do.  He loves to dance & listen to music & pretend to be a dog or fish.  He is slightly obsessed with shoes & it's usually one of the first things he asks for after he wakes up.  He loves to eat fruit & dairy & not much else.  He is the size of a 2 year old or small 3 year old even :)  Lately he has developed a bit of arachnophobia (wonder where he gets that from??)

We took off Thursday morning to drive down to Newport & Lincoln City.  I've been itching to go down there since we moved to Oregon.  One of the main attractions was the aquarium.  It really did live up to its reputation.  We spent 3 hours there & would've stayed longer if we hadn't been starving for lunch.  We will have to go back soon.

We dubbed this guy the 'pirate fish' - kind of creepy, eh?

The tunnel ... duh duh duh

The octopus was pretty much my favorite

We met up with some dental school friends for lunch & then explored their free science museum- almost as cool as the aquarium :)  The kids had so much fun together.  Hyrum & Braxton were best friends when they were 2 so they had a lot of catching up to do :)

Hiking Cape Lookout - it was crazy foggy there ('froggy' as Emma calls it)

We went to Connie Hansen's garden.  The grounds were much larger than I thought they would be & everything was gorgeous.

Devil's Punch Bowl

 

Loads of fun in the car ;-)

This was the coolest beach (aside from the thousands of flys landing on us).  It was just below the lighthouse at Yaquina Head.  There was no sand just tons of smooth polished black rocks.  When the waves crashed & slid back out to the ocean it sounded exactly like one of those rain maker delio's.  It sounded so cool.

We spent Monday playing at our own beach, hiking around Coffenbury Lake & enjoying delicious Indian food to kick start the first week of school!