June 2021- A Work Trip to Coos Bay & Coen's Preschool graduation

We did so much in June 2021 that I split this blog into two pieces. This is the first half of June while we were in Oregon.

This tiny piece of grass in our front yard gave us such a headache! After taking out the tree and Brent pulling out a lot of the roots, we hired our neighbor's friend to take out the dead grass, level it, and bring in new dirt. 

Coen's preschool teacher got a new puppy and brought her to preschool the last week of school. The puppy was so tiny and cute- it made me puppy hungry!

Ava wants me to delete this. It's real life though! 

When I work, the kids use the area next to my desk as a platform to express their emotions and have tantrums.

Audrey got into the otter-pops in our garage that weren't frozen...

The kids were having a hard day, so we got out of the house to play at the park. Ava says this is ravenclaw and the green one is slytherin. 

Audrey wouldn't go down for a nap so I thought I would take her for a drive in the car since she sometimes goes right to sleep. I put on her Baby Mine music, but when I looked in the back seat I saw this:

Ava: So, mommy cooked pudding one night and we watched Bluey. Everyone made a mess with their pudding. Everyone wanted seconds or even thirds. 

Brent got home late on a Friday night- it was still light at 9 so I went on a bike ride by myself to get some fresh air. It was such a beautiful evening- everything is all green and flowery in Eugene in June.

I took the kids to the park while Brent presented at an academic conference. They had a picnic in the back of the car, and Audrey was very excited to be included in this. Ava says it was freezing ont he day we went. 

We got our new dirt for the front yard right as we were getting home from church. Ava watched in her baptism dress. At church, Ava bore her testimony for the first time. Ava: I was so terrified but I knew what I was going to say. I was going cuckoo in my head! Mommy said if I went up, I would get tickle-backs. And I asked if I could get skittles and she said yes. So I went up and bore my testimony. I said when I got baptized I felt happy and I hope Coen will get baptized.

I kept my flowers from Costco alive for over a month! I loved how they added color to our front porch.

Audrey posing for her picture.

Coen woke up with some amazing bedhead. Ava: One time Coen had a crazy hair day at school, and this looks exactly like his crazy hair. He had the craziest hair too.

Brent's puzzle purchases continued...

Coen was soooo excited for his father's day program at school. 

The kids sang songs for their dads and had a treat together. 

We spent lots of time at the park. 

Getting in our playdates before our friends move! These boys played marbles for a couple hours.

I had to go to Coos Bay to do an audit. I was nervous to drive the windy 2 hours to the coast, work all day, and then drive home at night, so I decided to stay at the hotel where I was doing the audit. Brent and the kids came along too! This was the view from the room where I was working. 

Ava says our room was very fancy but it was kind of not fancy because there was no microwave so me and Coen had a bit of a tantrum because we couldn't have any popcorn. 

Brent took the kids sight-seeing all day while I worked. First they went to a park in Coos Bay:

Brent and the kids made friends with a local woman walking her dog and got a lot of information about the city and area.

They went to the coast and played in the sand despite it being kind of chilly.

If you zoom in on this picture, you can see Audrey hugging Coen:

So beautiful!

Shore Acres- which I describe more below.

We met up at the hotel and went swimming. We had not been swimming in 8 or 9 months! The hot tub outside felt so nice.

People in the pool recommended this nice restaurant, so we decided we would try it with our kids! They did pretty good. The restaurant was filled with plants and flowers. Ava: The food was very good and we loved the food. 

The outside of the restaurant.

The next day, Brent wanted to take me to see all the highlights of what they had seen the previous day, which was very nice of him to do it all over again. The first place was a park in Coos Bay. Ava: This park was very fun and at the baby section there was swings that me and Coen could go in, because you could strap something so you don't fall off. It was half baby swings, half big-kid swings. 

I thought these lily pads looked like a Monet painting.

Next, we went to Shore Acres, which was my favorite place. In the early 1900s a family built a mansion here and had a beautiful manicured botanical garden, and their property sits right on the coast. It's now turned into a state park. We saw a deer - can you spot it behind Ava? She's yelling at Coen to get out of her picture here.

The botanical gardens were soooo beautiful and peaceful. 

Ava: The flowers were beautiful. 

The coast line is very rugged here.

Brent in his happy place.

Daddy went down by the coast where the sand is and found a rock with tons of holes in it. We brought it home that day.

Ava: The coast was very beautiful and windy. One time when we went to another beach I found a broken sand dollar and on the bottom there was a fossil.

That night we got home and went straight to the institute where we bought pizza for our institute teacher and his family and a couple missionaries. 

The next day was Saturday and I made Ava do her homework she had missed from the past 2 days. She was not happy about it. Brent was at school making up on his work too.  Ava: I hate homework sometimes. But sometimes the homework is fun. 

Audrey loves for us to sing Baby Mine to her before bed, and has started singing along. She loves Dumbo so much. Here's a video. 

Audrey looking cute in her new dress- she didn't go to church because she and Coen came down with bad coughs!

Coen's preschool teacher lives across the street from us. She is amazing! We have absolutely loved having Coen in her class this year and think this was the biggest blessing of Covid- that Coen was able to go to school. Ava: I hope Coen is in Mrs. Whitten's class in kindergarten (Ava's kinder teacher).

Ava: I wrote Mrs. Potter a thank you card for being my teacher and a Target gift card, on the last day of school. I will see her when I pick up Coen from school. 

Ava: The last day of school I dropped off my computer and Mrs. Potter got a pinata from my friend Addyson and it was so funny. She pretended she could speak dolphin. 

Ava's teacher was also so amazing this year! Ava mostly only saw her online since she only started going twice a week in April, and this teacher was so entertaining and enthusiastic, which really helped with things being online. Ava thought she was so funny! 

Coen's preschool graduation- he sang songs and was so serious about it all. He was pretty nervous before. 

Coen's preschool teacher said a little bti about each kid and predicted what they'll be when they grow up. She said that Coen likes everything to be fair and for everyone to follow the rules. He is very smart, and she predicts he will be the President of the United States. 

With our preschool graduate!

Karen came to Coen's graduation to support him! 

Cutest little graduate. 

This was how our kitchen looked on Thursday night, and we were trying to leave on Friday morning. There's so much work to do! We had to clean out the fridge completely, take out all the garbage, clean the bathrooms and kitchen, do our last minute errands, etc. We stayed up til midnight cleaning and packing. 

We finally got on the road at like 2pm and Audrey was pretty grumpy because of her cough. We made it though without meltdowns. The scenery just a couple hours away from our house is so gorgeous! 

We drove through the area that had been burned really bad in last year's wildfire. We saw houses that were burned down to their foundations, but we also saw some that were completely unharmed even though the fire had come within feet of their house. 

Our annual stop to Blockbuster- Brent was especially excited because we had just watched a documentary on the last Blockbuster in the world.

We got to our friend's house at 1am their time and Audrey was wired since she had slept for a few minutes in the car. Ugh! Here's Coen the next morning, playing with a favorite toy. 

We decided to go to Shoshone Falls on our way down to Utah since we're always rushing and have never made it. It was so beautiful! Next time we'll bring a picnic lunch to eat there so our kids aren't hangry. 

We got to SLC on Saturday afternoon, so excited to start our summer break!