Rotations

Our official, final, there's-no-changing-it-now, list of where we will be going on rotations.  

 1.  Oak Harbor, Washington on Whidbey Island.  It's a Naval Air Station.  

 We're pretty excited about this one.  

It's only a couple hours ferry ride to Victoria, B.C. Canada and also couple hours drive to Vancouver, B.C. Canada.  It's a short ferry ride to San Juan Island and Orcas Island.  It's going to take our entire stay there to explore this area. 

 2. Back here for an Internal. 

 3. Roseburg VA Hospital. 

4. Chemewa Indian Health Services in Salem. 

 We lost the Eugene one we were hoping for because we got drawn into an internal.  And we lost Bandon because some girl was a jerk, but because of that, we're going to Oak Harbor, which we are very excited about. So it's all going to work out nicely. 
 
 

Before & After

Before

 After

Birthday Festivities

Logan's birthday began very early, with James wishing him a happy birthday at about 6am.  Then James promptly went to the clinic in Portland.  Logan on the other hand, couldn't go back to sleep because he was so excited it was his birthday.  Not being able to find James, he came and found me instead.  Yay, for me.

The first thing Logan asked about were his presents and I had to confess I hadn't wrapped them yet.  So he graciously suggested that he wait in my bed, while I got up and wrapped those presents.  

Taylor had been planning for days to scare Logan on his birthday.  This was her plan:  

                               1. Get up before Logan

                               2. Go downstairs 

                               3. Wait for Logan at the bottom of the stairs

                               4. Shout "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" when Logan 

                                   came down the stairs, thus scaring him.

I'm not sure she considered the fact that she's NEVER up before Logan in the mornings.  So her plan was really destined to fail from the beginning.  

In spite of the shouting, ("Mom, are you done wrapping my presents yet?!?   No, son.  It takes longer to wrap presents then to UNwrap them,") Taylor continued to sleep. 

So I told Logan of Taylor's plan, so he went in and woke her up.  Then Taylor came running down the stairs, wide-eyed, yet still waking up, hair all tangled and so happy she still has the "opportunity to do this" plan of hers.  

 Finally, we're all ready for Logan to come downstairs.  Taylor shouted "Happy Birthday" and...

the presents were sitting on the table, all neatly wrapped.  Whew!  What a morning!  And it wasn't even 7am yet.  

Besides his cowboy hat, he got a Lego R2D2 watch.  We always know what time it is now because he is constantly informing us.  It's great.

He got a couple of mini Star Wars Lego sets and

 

from Nana & Papa, a book on baptism.

When some neighbors of ours saw that Logan was into cowboys and had the cowboy hat already, they brought out a pair of snake skin cowboy boots for him.  Did he luck out or what?!?

He won't take them off and he puts them right next to his bed at night, "because that's what real cowboys do!" 

I made Cowboy Cupcakes.  (Those are supposed to look like cowboy hats).

As part of his birthday, we took Logan to a rodeo!  He loved it!  

He was enthralled.  He watched.  He asked questions.  He observed and learned.  I loved it too.  I can't wait to take him to another one. 

We saw calf roping,

steer wrestling,

and barrel racing,

 which was a favorite of all because the horses ran so fast.

We went to the "slack events" rodeo.  It's for all the competitors who didn't make it into the "real" rodeo.  For us novice rodeo fans, it was still fun to watch, but it didn't cost us a dime and it wasn't crowded at all.  In fact there were about a dozen people there is all.

Everyone thought Logan looked so cute in his cowboy hat.  All the "cowboys" said hi to him and were really nice. 

We hope Logan enjoyed his birthday.  I really wanted it to be special because I think turning 8 is special.  He said it was the best birthday ever and that's what really matters. 

8 Years Ago Today

Eight years ago today, I held this precious bundle in my arms for the first time!  He was so small and so perfect and my life has never been the same since!  It's so much more wonderful than it would have been without my baby boy!

 2 months old

10 months old, after his first major haircut.

1st camping trip

1st bike

He's been running since about 2 weeks after he learned to walk.

I could do an entire post of the funny ways and places he's fallen asleep in, but this is one of the cutest.

One of his favorite places, the coast.

Inside a helicopter. 

Growing up!  Getting off the bus as a Kindergartener.

 1st tonsillectomy (and last).

He's gotten faster on the bike.

 

Still best friends.

 

One cool dude.

And this is Logan on his 8th birthday, so excited to be a cowboy and for his upcoming baptism.  He's excited to start Cub Scouts and to start working on his Faith in God.  

He still loves Legos, especially Star Wars Legos.  If he doesn't have certain Star Wars set (which is generally the case), he just makes his own out of random pieces and they always look just like the real thing!  He's amazing with Legos.

He's starting to enjoy reading more and I regularly catch him reading on his own.  

He's a great big brother.  He and Taylor get along really well most of the time.  

He loves riding his bike and being outside.  He'll do anything to be outdoors.  He loves hiking with his dad too.  He really enjoys one-on-one time with his dad and going out in the convertible with him. 

He keeps saying, "I can't believe I'm 8 years old!"  And I couldn't agree with him more.

Happy Birthday, Loganberry!  I love you so much!

Colorado (part 5)

or The Finale!

We loved our time in Colorado.  We loved being around family we don't get to see often enough and we loved seeing places we've never seen before. 

We said good-bye to Colorado in grand style though, with a parade. 

No, the parade wasn't for us, it was for Eaton Days. Eaton is a small town near my sister's house.

 They had old cars,

and even older cars. 

 And like every good parade, they had horses, 

firetrucks, 

a pageant queen, 

and a super-sized tooth!  

Yeah, what else can I say, it's an enormous tooth walking down the street.  There were at least two dentists and one orthodontist in the parade.  They were the ones driving the nice, new and very expensive looking cars.  It's probably some poor dental assistant in the long pants, long shirt and costume, pretending to be happy about walking in public this way.

 The kids got to say hi to Smokey the Bear.  Good to know he's still around.  He doesn't look like he's aged a bit since I was a kid. 

 Earlier in the week we went to the Poudre Public Library in Fort Collins. 

 

 It had a great kid area, which Taylor loved.  I had to drag them away because we needed to start our drive to Cheyenne.

We also went to the Windsor Public Library.  So we were able to go to four different libraries in two different states during our trip.  

Logan loved the Windsor library because it had Star Wars Legos on display.  (If he looks red and sweaty, it's because he is.  We just came in from playing at a park). 

Before we knew it though, we were on our way back to the Denver airport.  On the way, we passed fields bigger than I've ever seen before, dotted with gigantic rolls of yellow hay.   It was beautiful.  

In Oregon our fields aren't quite so endless looking.  They are usually stopped by hills or rivers or trees.  This was like standing on the seashore and looking out on an endless sea, except that this was a hay field instead.  

The Denver Airport from a distance.

As we approached the airport the kids became excited for the flight and super excited to see their dad again.  We couldn't wait to be back with him again.  It was a happy reunion in the Portland airport.  The kids grabbed onto James' legs and hugged with all their might.  I had to fight my way through, just to reach over and squeeze his shoulder.  Lovely.  

We remember fondly our time in Colorado though.  The kids have been writing about it in their journals and I've been blogging about it.  It won't soon be forgotten!

Thank you Elizabeth for letting us invade your home.  We had a wonderful time.  Can't wait to see you all again.