Merrick

instagrammed.

Oh this kid. He loves to put this rope in our tree and do acrobatics from it.

He LOVES to learn. He is so good at reading and wants to tell me about everything he learns at school.

This particular day it was about the vowels.

He wanted to be a robot. Enough said.

We were at trader joes and he was giving me the biggest crazy eyes and holding some candy. I asked what he was doing, and he said he was giving me puppy eyes. hahaha. 

It might have worked that day. :)

He is such a great big brother. He loves to take Quincy on long runs down the driveway on the skateboard.

and lets not forget how perceptive he is...

Berkleigh

according to my phone...

Berkleigh is such a fun big sister.

She loves to read to Quincy.

She is always giggling and laughing and doing really weird things. (which I hope are on purpose, but sometimes I wonder.)

Berkleigh is so passionate about life as seen in this picture. I am ashamed to tell you where we are. :)

She is the girliest girl, and LOVES her friends.

 This girl has the most gorgeous hair. One of these day we will both love it, but only after I take the time to learn how to tame it. 

Quincy

This girl KILLS me.

She is 17 months old and has so much personality.

Here is some personality busting through these instagram pictures.

 7 am in my bed and this is how she rolls.

Trying to get something out of the fridge. Um. How she even opened it is still going through my mind...

She is my little errand buddy. We play lots of peek a boo through the rear view mirror.

She loves little seats, and the wipe case is her favorite!

She LOVES to play with her blanket over her head. This little ghost cracks me up!

I am in love.

Sitting outside...

...and trying the new blogging app for my phone, while Merrick and Berkleigh "build" things. Did I mention it is 75 degrees?
Yea... Perfect.

!!! 1 year !!! (and some deep Jen thoughts)

We celebrated our 1 year anniversary of owning Salem Foot and Ankle Clinic. 

It has been a hard year. I am sure we have some gray hair.  hehe

Figuring out how to be business owners, employers, a doctor, dealing with the old owner, learning to market yourself...

It is all hard! 

The best part though, is putting in some blood, sweat, and tears and seeing the business thrive.

I couldn't say last year that I liked Oregon. It was a hard year with a really wet winter and spring, buying the practice, having a newborn. It wasn't so fun... But this year I can really say that Oregon is growing on me.  I have been much happier and enjoy the rain, the rainbows, the fluffy clouds, and the crazy random that Portland has to offer. It is truly growing on me. I don't think about California as much as I used to, and I don't envy my friends when I see their instagrams, blogs or facebook statuses. 

(Ok, maybe a little. I do love it there...)

We have had some surprises (well, not really... but kinda) this past month and we found out some friends of ours would be moving to California and it started to make me feel a yearning for California again. I just wanted to be there, and I started questioning what our life would be like if we were still there, would the kids have a better childhood, would I be a better mom if the sun was shining all the time...

It was starting to consume my thoughts again and making me unhappy with Oregon all over.

I was mad at myself for feeling this way again, and I kept trying to take my mind off of it, so I said a little prayer.

A day or two later, I was on pinterest and I saw this print...

It was what I needed to hear.

By no means has our ship come in, but we definitely started our long swim out to it by moving to Oregon. Literally swimming through rain. :)

I just felt like we could have a fine life in California, but in Oregon we can have a better life. We don't need to worry about crazy home prices, gas prices, food prices, taxes. We don't have to worry about paying for a car that breaks down, or a roof that needs to be repaired. The cost of living is so much lower in Oregon, that those things do not worry us like they did when we lived in California.

We can get out of medical school debt and business debt way faster than we ever could in California.

When we buy our house, we want a 15 yr mortgage, and pay that sucker off fast.

 How great does that sound... to not have any debt.

I don't think that would happen that fast in CA.

So California, I am not saying I am breaking up with you, but you know, we could have lived in you and waited for our "ship to come in", or we could have taken a swim out to our ship....

and I think we chose wisely.

(Promise we will come and visit.)

Spring Break

Ha. this is old and has been sitting in draft form forever. I just get lazy and don't want to transfer my instagram pictures to the blog....

But today is the day, so lets go back in time to 3 weeks ago...

Some friends and I thought if we didn't get together during the week, that our kids would be whiny, and the week would drag on.  We needed something to keep these little tykes happy.

We went to Portland to this ice cream shop called:

I love places like this. So yummy, fresh, and made from Oregon ingredients.

We enjoyed ourselves and our cones...

 Look at mine!
Strawberry basalmic vinegar with black pepper.
mmm.

Then we headed to the OMSI to see the Mythbusters exhibit.

So cool. So fun.

(I do not know what Berkleigh is doing, but I am pretty sure I have a picture of myself doing this same face with a side pony in 1986.)

The kids tried all different kinds of experiments.

Does it matter if you run or walk in the rain?
Do you get less wet by running?

Berkleigh and Tessa sitting on a swing held by two phone book pieced together page by page.

 Pulling the tablecloth out from under the dishes.
Totally works. I did it. :)

Cliff hanging and Can you Dodge a Bullet?
Both amazing to watch the kids try to do.

And how fast does it take you to change into a superhero in a phone booth.
Super Rachel was pretty fast.

We had a science day where we did all sorts of crazy experiments. It was also like 700 degrees outside so it was nice to be in the sun having fun with friends.

Here is the Elephant toothpaste...

And some flubber!

Spring Break went by fast! It was fun to hang with friends and to have such nice weather!

Mr. Darcy

I love that she will know the ins and outs of Pride and Prejudice before she can fully talk.

Train them young.

Quincy and Tyson

She loves her daddy.

the beach

Our friend Cory had a birthday on Saturday. He wanted to go to the beach and surf... so away we all went.

It was a great day. It was 72 degrees. Amazing. Sunny. Beautiful. Perfect.

These two wanted a photo shoot...

 Finally got a jumping picture...

We tried a pinterest idea, and dug a hole, added a shower curtain, and filled it with water.
 We would have made it deeper, but we had babies toddling around and thought we should keep it shallow.
Bathing beauties!

We were so excited to be back at the beach in the sun and enjoying the warm weather.

We had an Easter Egg Hunt for the kids since Easter was the next day.

This was Quincy's first real Egg hunt. She didn't really care until she opened the first egg and saw yogurt covered raisins....

 This is pure joy...
sand stuck all over your face due to snot and other sticky yumminess.

Checking out the loot...

 Building sandcastles...

And before we left, we decided to hike straight up the sand dune.

Merrick had some moments of weakness...

but it was worth the sore toes and calves to see this view.

Rachel decided to race the kids up the dune, at the top they participated in a victory jump. 

This picture makes me laugh. It was so windy up there. Sand was flying everywhere. Merrick and Berkleigh's expressions are so funny to me.

Looking down from the very top.

And our idea of getting the kids down the mountain... :)

 We stopped at the tide pools...

 and frolicked in the water..

A perfect day at the beach!
Love love hanging with our friends and enjoying the sun and sand.
Perfect Easter Weekend.