Seaside

What a fun weekend at the beach! I regret one thing though; not taking enough pictures. I would either completely forget or I didn't grab the camera fast enough. But I got a few good ones in there.

After getting settled in our hotel room, we headed out to the ocean. The sun was just starting to set and it was beautiful.

A couple of those are very frame-worthy, I think.

Swings...

Sophie would have been perfectly happy if we just stayed on the swings all weekend.

Danny has a new best friend, "Wacey" (Lacey, Tim's amazing girlfriend)

That night the cousins got to jump on their beds (the best part about staying in a hotel room, I think we could all agree)

I asked them to stop moving so I could get a picture, otherwise it looked like this:

The next day, we visited the aquarium, went on Bumper Cars and the Tilt-A-Whirl, went on paddle boats, played at the beach some more, cooked up s'mores in the evening, all of which I did not take pictures of, sadly, but I managed to snap a few at the arcade:

And a couple at the merry-go-round:

Danielle had this look on her face like she really believed that she was riding that horse just like her Princesses. :P And this one of Sophie was cute, she was being shy:

She's been doing that a lot lately! When too much attention is on her she'll cover her eyes. :)

This was the morning that we left. I told Sophie we had to say goodbye to the beach, so she sat out on the porch one last time:

This one's my favorite <3

The girls and I were sad when we drove away, but I told them we would most certainly be back. ;)

Lavender Farm

Apparently there are lavender farms? In Hillsboro, Oregon anyway. I thought it would be fun to take the girls to it. I got Danny all excited and everything telling her we were going to a farm with the most wonderfully scented flowers, and they were purple, and we could pick as many as we wanted! It seemed perfect.

That's the problem though, I get this great idea for the girls and I, and envision a fun and charming experience with no problems whatsoever and we'll all go home tired from happiness and joy. But it doesn't always happen that way... two minutes after we got there my girls were ready to go home. Turns out the bees wanted to get it on the luscious lavender action too. But the SuperMommy in me didn't want to give up. I knelt down next to the flowers and told them that the bees just wanted to taste the beautiful flowers and help them grow. I said, "Bees are good for the Earth. We love bees!" and Danny says, "No we don't." and Sophie chimes, "Don't want it!" Aye me.

One of the owners saw the distress my daughters were under and tried to help. She offered them baskets to carry and told them that the bees wouldn't hurt them as long as we didn't bother them. They held the baskets but stayed far away while I cut some lavender for us to take home. Every thirty seconds or so Danny would ask, "Are we done yet?"

Fun times! HAHA

Here are the pics from the day :)