HITS House Reunion

We always said we'd have a reunion...and it finally happened! These are the four friends that I lived with during my senior year at Whitworth--Karina, Sooz, Heather, and Becky. It's been EIGHT years since we've lived together...and we had a FABULOUS reunion over Labor Day Weekend on the Oregon Coast. We rented a huge house on Lincoln Beach and had a great time just hanging out with each other and our families.

Posed roommate shot...Ellie, Susannah, Becky, Heather, Karina

Slightly more memorable KID posed shot...Gracie, Bekah, Hazel, Katie, and Cooper

Candid, in the middle of a rousing game of "Killer Bunnies" shot...Beau, Nelson, Jeff, Marc, and Chris

Becky, Heather, and Cooper

Hazel had matching rain boots...so darn cute!

Gracie and Daddy at the beach

Marc and Jeff confirming that the water was COLD

Gracie just LOVES Auntie Susannah...

Jeff couldn't resist...how often are we on the coast? He had to run in and get wet, despite the frigid water temperature...

The crew going for a walk

Grace loved the waves and the sand

Hazel had cupcakes to celebrate her SECOND birthday. She loves to sing "Happy Birthday!"

On Saturday, we spent the whole day at the house just catching up and enjoying the ocean.

I'm thinking this is just before we played MAFIA. A fabulous game of cunning dishonesty...



Sunday we went in to Depoe Bay to watch the waves come up and splash people. The Nelsons and the Lochheads also got some clam chowder to make the trip official.






It was such a great, relaxing weekend for reconnecting. Thanks, ladies for traveling to make this happen. We MUST do this again soon! Love you all!

Harvest 2009

DAD

BRADY

BEN

JEFF




Harvest Highlights...
1) our week of harvest was interrupted by rain--though not a highlight, it was MEMORABLE. (note the dark sky colors in the pictures!)
2) BEN flew home from Anchorage to harvest for a weekend. It was so fun to have him in the field with us--he has this ENERGY that is contagious. When he came we ran FOUR combines--Dad was out there driving combine with his son and two son-in-laws...I asked him if it was a dream come true... :)
3) Drew and Annie came to visit for a day. It was so fun to have Jeff give them the farm tour--he was speaking as a seasoned farm hand.
4) We didn't get to help as much as we'd like, due to rain, so we went back for a three-day weekend a week later. We left a SMIDGE more satisfied, having finished Dad's wheat and started in on the peas.

Pool Petal Stew

One thing we love about going down to the farm is that Grace gets lots of time with her cousins, Brooke, Abby, and Megan. This summer was no exception.


In between getting in and out of the kiddie pool, the girls got to use the play dishes outside. Megan and Abby were running around getting all sorts of delicacies to add to their stew...


...and they let Gracie STIR. She was in heaven. Such a big girl!

Our Girl

It is so fun for us to see Grace getting bigger. When she was an infant we wondered what activities she'd like to do someday, what her personality would look like, what her loves and dislikes would be... And day by day, more of Grace is revealed. Here are her latest quirks and skills...

Grace loves BOOKS. We teacher-parents haven't even forced them on her...honest! We have a basket of them in the living room and her favorite activity involves either looking at books, packing around books, or turning pages of books. Right now her favorite has all sorts of animals in it and she loves to make the fishy face and moo with the cow and point to animals and wait for us to say their names. When she gets to the monkey, we make the monkey face and that leads us to find Uncle Drew and Aunt Annie in the family picture... And that is her second love--toting around and saying all the names of the family members in our two framed family pictures. Don't have a picture of that, but you can imagine us finding those framed pictures in all rooms of the house. (with Grace chanting, "Abby...abby...")

She watches Dad read the paper in the morning and loves to play with paper. She also loves cell phones and pens. We're trying to work on scribbling, but most often the pen is enjoyed more when tasted.

"Uppy, uppy!" Grace says 'up' whenever she wants to sit in her chair outside or her highchair in the kitchen...or when she climbs the stairs, or when she wants to be held... She also says "uppy" when she wants DOWN from her chair or when she wants the music turned ON... We think she's suffering from preposition confusion.



Grace LOVES the water. She says, "POOL" and gets really excited when we start putting on her swimsuit. Several times at G'ma Joan's they went to FILL the pool and Gracie came back with wet clothes. We were home a time or two this summer to use the inflatable pool that Auntie Julie gave her for her birthday. She loves it! Oh, and the bath is second best--she's really into nodding her head YES and we were wondering if she knew how to nod NO...apparently G'ma Joan got to see her do this first when she asked Grace if she was ready to get out of the bath...a fierce nod, NO. :)

And, of course she likes to spoil her daddy whenever possible. She says "Daddy" with the confidence of a well-loved girl.

Never did we think a kid could be so fun. If only we could've somehow had a sneak peek of these moments during those sleepless newborn nights so long ago... :)

Print the Blog???

Has anyone had a company print out their blog in a book before? I have heard that it is possible, but I don't know anyone who's actually had it done and am curious how it actually turns out. Does anyone know the best way to do it? :) LE

"Mommmm..."

"...don't you think it's about time you blogged?"







The Lochheads have been so busy soaking in all the last moments of summer that we haven't taken the time to sit down and record it! We'll post soon! :)

Important Things About Cousin Brooke

These are the important things about Cousin Brooke that Gracie is learning...


Brooke can double as an airplane driver. I learned to hang on after this picture was taken. SO fun!


She has really fuzzy pink slipper socks, and if you play your cards right, Brooke lets you wear them like leg-warmers.


While Mom and Dad are painting the laundry room and arranging storage boxes, it is much more fun to swing with Brooke in the backyard. She is a super swing pusher--and sometimes she swings alongside me!


When Brooke comes to stay with us, it is fairly certain that we will get to do fun things. Our afternoon at the Hatch pool was really fun. Brooke can do an amazing cannon ball off the diving board--and she was brave enough to go down the slide and touch the bottom of the pool AT THE DEEP END! What a fish!


Brooke is very fashionable and loves to share her hot pink sunglasses with me.

We love it when Brooke comes to stay. When are you coming back? :) :)