Lincoln City ~ Day 3 ~ Family Photos

It is so rare that we see our extended family that I wanted to take the opportunity to take some family photos.



There were 6 kids in my Mom's family. My Aunt Linda, who passed away 5 years ago this September, was the youngest.  My Uncle Butch (George) is the oldest.  My mom was 4th.  Uncle Butch looks JUST like my grandfather.  Really, the resemblance at this age is startling.  His only child is Dennis, pictured on the right and his "significant other" (of approximately 25 years...I'm guessing) is Marcia.  We consider her family.

My Uncle was the volunteer of the year for OroValley, AZ last year.  He has volunteered for the police force for years.



Uncle Buch and Marcia (pronounced Marsha).



The Royer family.  My Grandfather's side of the family is French, (from Callais, France).  My Mom is 1/2 French and my Grandfather is responsible for the nose that you see repeated in this photo.  We call it the "Royer nose."  Apparently it's a dominant gene.  It's even more prominent in profile. :)



I love this photo of my Mom. She looks so happy...she really loves her brother and is so happy when they are together.



A great photo of Mom and Mike.



Mike's family.  We were trying to get through these quickly (the children were not excited about this exercise at all and it was COLD) and so sadly, I didn't notice that Michelle was positioned funny in the photo until after we were inside and looking at them on the camera.













I love this photo of Mom and the grandkids.  I had to do some photoediting to get it though because what I didn't notice until later was that one of the Grandkids had to go to the bathroom.  And you could tell in EVERY photo....



Exhibit A of why I could never be a professional phototrapher.

And Kaitlin insisted on holding her imaginary baby.



I love this photo of Mike and Michelle.



At this point, as evidenced by my hair, it had started raining.



So while I'm not crazy about how I look in them, they are still nice to have.



Can you tell that Andrew is all done with pictures?



Sweet Matthew was game for one more.



I didn't get a good family photo as it was raining and by that point the kids were toast.  But it wasn't a problem as we went back and did professional photos at the beginning of this month which turned out great.

I actually have more photos that I wanted to post from this day of our relaxing afternoon and some beach fun.  But they'll have to wait for the next post.

Lincoln City ~ Day 2

I didn't take a lot of pictures (by my standards) at the beach this time.  There were a few days that I took quite a few, but when we were at the house I just spent a lot of time in the moment, enjoying the day.

Dan picked up the camera and snapped this one of me while I was reading one afternoon during "cocktail hour" which ended up being at around 5pm daily.  I was sipping a Lemon drop, reading a book, and enjoying the view and the sunshine.  A little piece of heaven.  It makes me think about how I need to carve out more moments like that.  It is so good for the soul & restorative.



We decided it might be fun to do a late celebration of Mom's birthday at the beach since we'd all be together.  So we had a steak dinner, and I made strawberry shortcake for dessert.  Simple, but fun.  The children ate at another table/kitchen bar nearby so they aren't in the photo.  I think we all loved the dinner arrangements!

Sunglasses were necessary at the table from the sun setting on that side of the house.  No complaints, we'll take sunshine any way we can get it!



We ate very well on our vacation, considering each meal was for 16 people.  We rotated responsibility for dinner so that no one was overly burdened and it worked great.  We have some good cooks in our family and dinner was something to look forward to.  Dan gained 12 lbs on our trip!  (And has since lost it).



Happy Birthday, Mom!!



Nana and her grand kids + Grand niece and nephew.  Noah was happy, he is just going through a bit of a phase with the camera after a not so great experience with school pictures.  It's so unfortunate as he has such a great smile and he was so joyful this trip.  This isn't representative at all of how he was on vacation.



Mom said one of her favorite parts of our trip was her birthday gift, which sadly, I can't share as we are giving Winnie the same thing for her birthday and she reads my blog!  :)  Don't want to ruin the surprise!

I have some great shots of Mom's expression opening the gift.  And would you believe those are all the photos I took on this day?  I think that's a beach non-picture taking record for me!  It was really nice just to soak in my time and relax.  A really great start to the week.

Mike's 41st Birthday!

May is one of the busiest months of the year for our family.  School starts to wrap up and there are lots of different field trips, programs, etc. this time of year and we also have our anniversary, Matthew's Birthday, and Mike's birthday, which is also Shannon's birthday!  (Mike & Shannon's birthday is the 24th, my Grandmother's was the 25th,  and Matthew is the 27th).

We invited my brother's family over to celebrate his birthday while Mom was in town so she could be a part of the party.   We had a delicious dinner of steak, wicked shrimp, twice baked potatoes and salad.



Kaitlin loves to give gifts and made a gift for Uncle Mike as well.





Mike loves music and so Mom &  I bought him a nice pair of noise cancelling headphones.  They were really neat!  There are definitely days where I think those could come in handy!



As we were setting up the cake, I caught some pictures of Noah smiling...he has the best smile.  He's not comfortable with the camera right now so I have to be sneaky to catch it.










Mom offered to bring a cake from our favorite bakery in Richland.   Normally I love to bake a birthday cake, but I admit it did make things easier this particular time of year.



Make a wish!  Never a shortage of kiddos to help blow out candles.



Kaitlin loves Isaiah and brought her cake over to where the boys were eating.  Michelle and I see a lot of similarities between Kaitlin and Isaiah.  Isaiah is very sweet and considerate of Kaitlin.  He'll seek her out to play with her and she loves it.

 



And another year is in the books for Mike!  It seems these years pass more quickly the older we get!

Christmas Eve ~ Part 2

My brother's family arrived and we attempted a family photo.  Last year we got a great photo in one attempt.  This year we tried a few times and called it good!

My camera was having trouble and I didn't get many great photos over the holiday.  The flash wasn't working consistently for some reason, and my camera is an old entry level DSLR and even with the settings maxed out it just couldn't take the low light photos in the early part of the day and the evenings.  So I was disappointed in a lot of my pictures.  But enough turned out to remember the holiday.

 

First up was brunch!



And English crackers!






Love this one of Isaiah and Michelle.



Our brunch menu is simple and also traditional.  Dan grills sausage, Mom makes an egg casserole with homemade salsa, I do a french toast casserole and we usually have fresh berries and pineapple.  Cranberry juice mixed with 7up is a festive drink.... Followed by Christmas cookies!



And then finally, the moment the kids have been waiting for!  Gifts!!  Over the course of the holiday we celebrated with 14 people, so there were lots of gifts under the tree.



Love these excited faces.







Big boxes always attract lots of attention.



What's inside?!



So exciting!!!



Our little Repunzel.  I have to say, I'm not a fan of the hair but she loves it.





These two are so cute together.  They shared that chair most of the morning.  Opening gifts side by side.

 



Once all the gifts were opened they were found in a corner happily playing.



Isaiah opened the last gift for the kids and then they ran off to play and the adults share a quieter Christmas together.  It works out nicely.



Dan was pleased with his Scotch from Mom.



Sadly this photo is blurry.  But Michelle brought back cashmere scarves from Scotland for us that were beautiful.  I happened to buy a scarf for her as well (from my worldly travels to the local Nordstrom), so we had a theme going!



Proof that you're never too old to snuggle your mom.



We had a wonderful Christmas celebration and then Mike & Michelle left to get ready for the rest of their day and welcome Michelle's parents while we cleaned up.



After cleaning up we had around 10 minutes to spare before getting ready for church.  My mom grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico (where my parents met).  We enjoy the food from that area ~ which is quite different from Mexican food elsewhere.  Mom made Psole for lunch which was delicious.

Dan snapped these photos and I like them because it just captures a quiet moment at home....



The Diet Coke can is a definite fixture where my family is concerned.  Andrew was working Legos at the table and I was giving Kitti a kiss.  Dan had the "Yule Log" playing on tv. :)  It was small peaceful moment in an otherwise very busy (but very fun!) day.

Up next was church and the living nativity!