Happy Birthday Dad

Abe: For his 44th birthday we gave Dad a rugby shirt and a 3-day weekend vacation on the Oregon coast. Even better was he got to take me and Koh ...and off we drove to historic Fort Stevens. Boy what a fun time that was with a lot of firsts for us and maybe Mom + Dad, too.

Do you know WE LEARNED TO DRIVE THE CAR ?!(WOW), plus we ran into the ocean and lake water lots of times, played on this really big beach with a rusty shipwreck, climbed up and jumped down the REALLY BIG SAND DUNES, saw racoons and bugs real close, fixed some fires and played with the water spigot, rode + slept in the bike trailer, fired a real cannon (ok, not really), even kept Mom and Dad up almost all night while we got them to sleep with us on a real bed in the yurt. Click here for the 8-min feature film of our weekend.

We ate stuff like never before since it was camping ...like chocolate milk, and these marshmellow drippy things they named after our friends that moved away (SAMORES), and mac+cheese and wild huckleberries and other stuff we found on the ground when they weren't looking. 13 more photos here.

This was so fun we didn't want to sleep, so we didn't. I mean we can sleep at home, right?

Love Letter from Dad #6

Boys - You continue to make my fatherhood dream come true ...every day quite literally. We open up at dreaming hour 5:30 in darkness these days and have been rambling around outside just before sunrise. Sometimes you take me on laps around the house ...and we always pause for backyard activities.

This week I relived two of my earliest childhood memories: painting big rocks (my dad paid me 5 cents per rock, my first job!) and watching the sun move around the sky and rise up from behind the hills to the east. Maybe you're little nature boys like me since you've been pointing at the moon for a long time ...isn't every kid a nature kid? It's been fun sitting on the patio watching the big orange ball sunrise. Can we do this over and over? I love you boys.

Fruitcicle fight

Koh: Abe and me ate fruitcicles today, then he started to mess with me. If you think I look bad...

Ahhhmmmmm

Koh:  Our life is go go go.  Sometimes I just gotta slow down and relax.

Mommy, can we have a dog?

Koh: Mom, Aunt Angela has this really nice hound dog that she says we can have. We all went for a hike and see how well he likes us? I mean, come on, all we have are these old indoor cats. We promise to take good care of it ...PLEASE?????

All 30 dog walk pics here.