And the winner is.....

My Dad! Primary elections were held for Fremont County yesterday and by 9:30 pm the results were in. Out of 14 precincts, 13 carried my father. With a total of 1,590 votes compared to his contenders who had 137, 771, 307, my father swept the election.

Awesome, awesome, awesome! Way to go Dad!

Fremont County Commissioner

Our FABULOUS weekend (lots of pics!)

On a whim, Saturday morning at about 1 am, we hopped in our car (with little packed - or just enough to get by really), grabbed our sleeping baby (who remained asleep for several hours) and headed off down the road with a group of friends for the ocean. We were having a going away BBQ for a friend of ours who wanted to see the ocean once more before heading back to Boise. It turned out to be a fabulous weekend! The weather at home (in Bend) was 90's and 100's - the weather at the coast on Saturday was nothing short of PERFECT! Our friends left at about 10 am to head back home to Bend, but Jason and I decided to grab a hotel room and stay for a night and enjoy the very unusual weather. So after much searching we finally found a little hotel room just across the road from the ocean. It was so perfect that we ended up spending nearly 5 hours on the beach just playing and enjoying the weather. If you know anything about the Oregon Coast (or most of it), you know that it is very rare to actually be able to wear a swimsuit and get a suntan. We did both the whole day - it was incredible. Here are a few shots of our day. We headed home Sunday afternoon - exhausted and sun burnt...but it was so much fun!

Lauren and daddy - diggin.

She got braver as the day went on...

Running for miles........

Footprints....

Lauren's sculpture of me

This proves I was there.

Lauren and daddy

There were lots of BIG black ants on the sand...they weren't mean, but they would crawl all over us. So we made a little ant coral and kept them held up for a while. We let them go before we left of course. And just look at Lauren...not scared of bugs a bit.

Jason's "alien head" sand sculpture.

We met the CUTEST little puppy playing on the beach...he loved Lauren!

My favorite pic - I took one of these when Lauren was little, maybe 2 so I had to take another one this year.

And back home that night...didn't realize how sunburned I had gotten!

Here's a pic of what we found that evening...a little catface spider - just a baby as you can see. We had a grown catface spider living at our house two summers ago...she made her web on our deck every night and we would watch her and sometimes feed her flies. Well, she had babies and then was gone...we figure this is one of her babies. We call her Charlotte - of course. She's been missing for a few days, but we hope she sticks around to have her babies here just like her momma.

Enjoy your week!

Catching up...

What's going on.....let's see...
My beautiful little girl has become quite the "accident prone" nightmare for us. After her fall which resulted in the extraction of 4 teeth!!! she was running and playing on the blacktop at school the very next week and had another fall. We picked her up from school and were "debriefed" on what had occurred and the extent of her injuries...they included a pretty yucky scrape / "road" burn on her elbow and a smaller, yet just as yucky scrape on these side of her hand at the wrist. Well, it could have been worse, right? after what we had been through the week before. She was a little lethargic and her eyes looked a little glazy, but we figured she was just tired and in a little bit of pain - those black top burns can be really painful (per daddy). Also, we were told that she cried quite a bit when the accident occurred, which is very unlike Lauren. She has the pain tolerance of the devil - I like to say. This was somewhat disconcerting to us. We got home, started to get some dinner together and Lauren was sitting on the couch coloring. I went down the hall for a moment and heard Lauren start crying pretty loudly, somewhat out of the blue. I came rushing down the hall to see what was wrong and met Jason coming from the other way. "Something's wrong" he said. "She doesn't usually act like this, somethings not right". So, we scooped her up in a hurry, loaded her in the car and headed to the ER. Now, we could be accused of being uptight parents, but with an incredible hospital and ER staff just moments away and a $25 copay for ER visits, we figured better safe than sorry! Our main concern was that she was holding her wrist funny and would not let us get near it...so we figured that there could be a hairline fracture or a sprain that needed some attention. We were attended to very quickly upon entering the doors of the ER - I knew practically everyone in there as I had spent about 4 months last year working in the ER admitting area. It was nice to have the attentiveness to our situation. Well, after a visit with the Dr. and we think...some time for Lauren to relax, it was determined that she did not have a sprain, fracture or anything other than a very severe "road" burn. So, we left feeling much better and Lauren got a stuffed animal from the ER stash for being such a great patient. I tell you...there is nothing that compares to affordable health coverage and on top of that, we are part of the "family" at St. Charles, so we are always very impressed. We are so blessed to have such affordable and incredible health coverage and health professionals at our fingertips! Crisis averted....this week. We are prepared for more with her however...daddy taught her to climb a tree on mother's day. I have pics to download and post of that adventure. Our little tomboy in a princess dress.....