Beauty at the Beach

It has been a while since my last post, mostly because we have been out at the beach house without access to a computer. It was a wonderful week out at the coast. We enjoyed lots of walks on the beach and time to relax. Mason had a lot of firsts this week too. He played his first bowling game, he found his first shell on the beach, and he touched his first starfish at the tidepools at Haystack Rock. He had so much fun out on the beach. Todd would take him in the water a little way and he just loved splashing in the waves. Although he wouldn't want to stay in the water too long, it was very cold!! He loved seeing the birds flying around at the beach and there are tons of seagulls down by Haystack rock so he would point them all out to us and say, "Birdie!!!" Todd's friend JJ was visiting for part of the week so we went to lots of different places including the Tillamook Cheese Factory and a jetty, the Astoria Column, Fort Stevens State Park, Indian Beach and the look out at Ecola State Park, and of cousre for walks on the beach. Todd and JJ even attempted boogie boarding, but decided the water was, "not just cold but take your breath away, butt-numbing cold" as JJ put it! By tuesday everyone had gone home and we had the rest of the week to enjoy by ourselves. It was a much needed week off, especially for Todd who just finished his classes July 28th, bytheway he got straight A's this quarter, all his hard work paid off and I am so proud of him. He is already registered for next term, but we are looking forward to having him home in the mornings until it starts in September. We took Mason into Seaside and he got to ride on a little train with me and had his first carousel ride with Daddy. He like both a ton. I knew he would like the train, but wasn't sure what he would think of the carousel, but he loved it. We had to come home on Friday but we had a ton of fun. Yesterday we went down to a family reunion near Salem and I just had to share this adorable picture of Mason and Todd in the Santiam River. It has been a very eventful week and we are working on getting back into schedule, especially since Mason hasn't been sleeping throught the night recently. Last Thursday night we slept for about 3 1/2 hours because Mason was up all night crying because he is teething really bad. On Friday his mouth was super swollen and he was drooling everywhere, I almost had to pull his bibs back out! He didn't sleep well Friday night either, Saturday night was a little better, and last night he actually slept the whole night through. He won't let us get our fingers in his mouth to check things out, but I think he got some more of his back teeth in, maybe even so molars. We can see some stuff when he laughs. We are just totally enjoying our sweet little man.