just an update

Hi Everyone!

I don't have time or energy to add pictures to this post, I just thought I'd do a quick little update since its been a while since I have posted.

We just got back yesterday from a week vacation with Jeremy's entire family.  I am so happy to be home.  It was fun to go and I think Jeremy's mom was happy to have everyone there, but before we left for the trip, Jeremy said, "What do you think the family blow-up will be this time?"  I laughed and just told him to keep his mouth shut around his brothers and probably no arguments would happen.

Well, there was basically some sort of argument/family drama event every single night.  I got so little sleep some of the nights because of this, and we spent a lot of our time waiting around for people because half of his siblings don't really understand what it means to be somewhere at a certain time and are not considerate of people who are ON TIME.  Then they get mad at us because we didn't want to wait with our children for (i am not exaggerating) over an hour in 80-90 degree weather while they finally made it to wherever we were going.

Yeah.

So I'm happy to be home.

We did do some fun things, though.  We walked through the Lava Caves (almost 2 miles in the dark) and climbed Smith Rock (I carried Hailey almost the entire way, 2 and 1/3 mile over and then back again), and went to different parks for the kids to play.  The resort we stayed at had an awesome kiddie splash park and pool area, Hailey LOVED the water and wanted to swim all day.

The week before we went on a trip to the oregon coast with my sister and her husband, and that was awesome.  We spent all of our time outside on the beach, the kids proved to be awesome travelers (did great in the car and slept fine any where we put them) and it was really refreshing.  I have a bunch of pictures up on my blog from that trip if you want to see them. (http://beccaellis.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/oregon-coast-trip/)  Also, as soon as we got back from that trip, we had VBS up at the church and I taught the 4-5 year olds (although I also had a few 2 and 3 year olds, also).  It was fun, but I was exhausted at the end of the week and then had to pack up again for Oregon.

Shea starts up at his new preschool (here in Indianola) in a few weeks and I'm taking online classes again this quarter.  Also, I don't think I have shared anything about this, but I recently bought a new camera and I have connected with a doula in the area who I will be working with to offer free birth photography in exchange for experience at births and to build my portfolio.  I am super excited about this and have potentially 4 births from now through December that I could be at, including my sister's.  I also am doing a young woman we knew from Port Orchard (she was one of the teens we were working with when we lived there) who is pregnant and I am doing her maternity pictures in November.

Anyway, thats it for now.  I was finishing up a post on my blog for a local farm to table cafe I went and pictures for, and now I am ready to go to bed!  Jeremy is up watching the Huskies game with his parents, but Hailey is coming down with a cold and I think I am fighting it off, too.  I am so thankful Jeremy is off until Tuesday and we have nothing planned all weekend.