Thursday, July 2, 2009

Oregon Sweet Oregon

In the middle of June we made our annual homage trip back to the promise land, Oregon. This visit was a bit longer than normal because Cory went to Chicago for the first half of the trip, while I drove back to Oregon with my Mom. It was nice to relax and just "clown" around with the family for most of the 2 week trip. Phoebe loved to be at grandma+pa Potts' house with their teacup poodles. She spent her time divided between harassing the dogs and destroying the clean house. In the picture below Phoebe has a pair of glasses on that belonged to my great aunt Mimi; she loves these glasses and wears the sun glasses and bifocals all over the house still.
While we were in Oregon we also had the opportunity to catch a couple weddings of some old friends of ours. The first wedding we were able to attend was of a lady I have known since I was 2 weeks old. Debbie Snow was my first babysitter and her family was just an extension of ours growing up. The second wedding was for a friend from Eugene I have known for about 9 years now. I unfortunately did not get any pictures of their wedding, only this one I stole from Facebook. Their photographer, however, made really a wonderful slide show of their day. Go see it, they had a fun themed reception.
When not being lazy or attending Weddings Grandma+pa Potts had other fun activities planned such as riding the big carousel downtown. Phoebe got to ride it two times, once with grandma then grandpa.

While down by the carousel we got to play in the park and learned how to be an excellent dog walker.

Okay, so she started out a little rough with the whole dog walker part, who would have thought 4lb teacup poodles would be a bit too much for one to handle. On the up side she did improved quickly.

We also were able to spend one night at the coast in Depoe Bay. Our hotel room and the beach were absolutely beautiful, however, Phoebe felt differently as demonstrated below. She immediately had to clean the place up to her clean standards, which by looking at her room and how she leaves our living room most days I was not aware she had any of.


The beach was so beautiful! In my whole life I have only ever seen the Oregon Coast so clear once before. It reminded me of a more tropical location, except it was so windy and cold we all had to wear coats with hoods.
The second day we were at the coast it was overcast all day, but there was no wind and actually a bit of warmth around. Well, I guess you can't have it all at the Oregon coast.
While in Oregon we were able to make one trip to our beloved Alba Mater UofO. There we ran into he bookstore to stock up on more duck paraphernalia and books. Here Phoebe is acquainting herself with the books at the UofO bookstore, we are trying to train her young so she will not be so frazzled when she does this her freshman year of college.

For Father's Day Phoebe helped me make bird feeders out of pine cones, peanut butter & birdseed. Hers was apparently so delicious that it turned into a desert snack instead of a gift. I on the other hand, managed to curve my appetite for birdseed and pine cones and the gifts came out looking really cute, pictured below on the right. We have 3 of them hanging in our backyard now and are just waiting for the birdies to find them.
One of the best parts of the trip, however, was just getting to introduce Phoebe to all of her extended family members. In the picture below, Phoebe is sitting with Great Grandma Townsend and uncle Daryl. I know his appearance is a bit intimidating, but really he is a huge teddy bear that Phoebe loved, because he always snuck her snacks behind my back.

On the way home we stopped in and spent the night with Great Grandma Hogan. Phoebe loved her house because grandma had a sun room Phoebe could play in by herself and a random neighbors cat who let Phoebe pet her all she wanted. Phoebe LOVED that cat and chased it around giving him lots of pets and constantly meowing after it

The neighbor's cat, the true highlight of Phoebe's trip.

As a present on our trip, Grandpa Potts gave Phoebe a sand bucket, which she loved. She constantly put it on her head and walked around until she crashed into a nearby object. On the way home the sun was peaking around the visors to shine in her eyes and I thought it was very clever that she then grabbed her bucket and used it as her own sun visor. Ahhh, we love our "buckets", a new nickname we have now coined for Phoebs.
In the end my 2 weeks flew by too fast! I love visiting home and I just wish it was just a bit closer so we could visit more then once a year.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The Final Fetal Count Is...

Doesn't the old saying go, "Two Heads are Better than One"? Well, I am not quite sure if I fully agree with that yet, especially when they are both kicking and punching four separate quadrants of my torso at once, but the nurse said it was still a rare and special site to behold.

I know I have been a little delinquent in posting the final fetal count, so without further delay, we are happy to announce baby brother Joshua is sharing his cozy home with baby sister Camille Cossette; Cammie for short.

As I previously shared how Joshua David received his name (Joshua from my friend Joshua Alder and David from Cory's twin David), I will now fill you in a little bit on baby Cammie's name. Camille is a name I have always liked and it has been Cory's first pick of names since before our wee Phoebs was even born. I thought I would let Cory choose the name this time since I did last time; aren't I a nice wifey??? Cossette is my mothers maiden name and since it is a real name to begin with I thought it fit perfectly. Camille Cossette Ferguson is bit of a mature name for a wee one, but I am sure she will grow into it wonderfully one day.