Beach trip and more

This summer has just blown right on by. Today is the last day of freedom for the kids. All except for Jayden start school tomorrow. Joel is in 5th grade, his last year of elementary school. Hannah is in 3rd. Olivia starts Kindergarden - on her birthday!! I can't believe she will be 6 already! Josiah starts preschool, and Jayden will start his preschool next week. I will have one morning each week (about 2 1/2 hours total) with no kids at home, and am really looking forward to being able to spend that time volunteering in the classrooms. I haven't been able to volunteer much at the schools because I always have little ones in tow.

We went on our annual beach camping trip a week ago. We tried out a new place for us, Tillicum Beach. Our campsite was overlooking the ocean and it was just a beautiful time. We were blessed with great weather too, which is rare for the Oregon coast. We also got to spend some time at Honeyman (the Oregon dunes) with David's side of the family. Joel and Hannah started this mammoth blaze:

Enjoying the gorgeous tide pools at Cape Perpetua:

Even Jayden got buried in the sand this year!

I just couldn't resist this picture. This was taken right after Josiah got knocked over by a wave and rolled a few times in the wave. Turns out he wasn't upset about rolling in the freezing cold Pacific Ocean, he was mad that the wave took away the stick he was holding!! If you look closely in the background, you will see me laughing at him. Hee hee.

Josiah is becoming Daddy's helper with setting up the camper, and Jayden sure is taking notes for next year!

A week and a half ago, we lost a great man, David's grandpa. This past weekend, David had the privilege of leading the memorial service and it was a really healing time to share all the wonderful memories of him. Here is a picture of the last time we visited with Grandpa, about two months ago.