4th of July in... Oregon!

So, my father-in-law's cousin Nancy has a house in the beach community of Neskowin, OR.  She and her husband and daughters spend every 4th of July in Neskowin and it is a serious big deal tradition thing.  And they were nice enough to let us join in!  Dan and Judy got us a beach house and we got to enjoy the beach and all the family festivities.  Our house had a view of Proposal Rock, so Paul and I decided to hike it during Noelle's nap time:)

 

Here is the paparazzi shot of us starting our hike so you can see the treacherousness of it, and how awesome we must be to have hiked such a rock.  :)

The 4th of July 

Nancy and her family always participate in the Neskowin 4th of July parade and this year's family float theme was the "Family Circus."  So we were elephants.  And we handed out circus animal crackers to the crowd.  This parade was serious business and I can see why Nancy and her crew head to Neskowin every 4th.  It's awesome, perfect, small-town USA and it was fun to be a part of it.

Family craft time:

 War zone or beach fireworks?

 Walking with Grandpa Dan!

 New toy from Grandma Judy.... Noelle loves it!

 And of course, the beach.  We spent a lot of time in the water and a little time trying to convince Noelle that sand is a friend, not foe.

 The Oregon coast is not known for luxuriously warm water... but that meant more cuddle time:)

 Oh it was beautiful and we experienced such generosity as always from Judy and Dan, and Nancy.   We love our family!

Random June

Bath time with daddy while mom is in NYC...

 Chair I bought at Home Goods (new favorite place to go).  Best purchase ever.

 Almost big enough for daddy's sweatshirt.  Almost there Noelle!

 Going to the dairy!  We've been here 3 times already because we love it.  Also, they have lots of fresh dairy ice cream in case you were wondering.

 In June, we went with our BFFs Suzanne and Keenan.  Then they moved away about 3 weeks after we became BFFs.  Noooooo!!!!  Do you know how hard it is to find couple BFFs??  :)  We miss them.

Girl's trip

We took a GIRLS trip to NYC in June.  Oh, it was so fun!  Bekah, Diane and I stayed with Diane's aunt Martha and Uncle Phil.

I don't have any pics of the 3 of us.  How did that happen?  I swear we took some...  But here's proof that all 3 of us were there.

Artistic:

 Awkward:

 FB profile pic:

 We saw Newsies and the WTC Memorial.  We ate a lot of sweets.

I'm already looking forward to our next girls' trip!

First steps- June 24th:)

Memorial Day weekend in Nashville. 

Early June, we took some semi-successful family pics in our yard.

DuckDuckPARTY

Noelle loves DUCKS.  So we had a duck party with my parents.  

She wasn't a fan of cake or frosting, but she eventually embraced the giant fondant duck... well, at least his beak.  Later we got her to eat some cake while she was playing.

She was spoiled and it was a fun day.  Ok, also a sad one for me- my little baby is one!