"You don't have to blog about EVERYTHING."

That title is courtesty of my youngest cousin ... who just started sixth grade, oh. em. GOSH.
(If you saw me right this instant, you'd see me feeling very OLD.)

That quote was brought about when I asked him if I could share our new inside joke. Which I'm going to share ANYWAYS, now.

He had turned his head away as he said, "No offense." ... And, since life with me is like living a game of Mad Gab, I had to ask him, "Did you just say WALNUTS??"
(And so, for the rest of the weekend, he'd walk past me and stage whisper "WALNUTS," that silly boy.)

Of course, when he was playing Hide-and-Seek with the munchkins (which they've gotten MUCH better at!), he'd ask them, "Where's [his name]?" ... and they'd run off shrieking for "That little boy." (Yes, my three-year-olds call their twelve-year-old cousin a little boy. I don't quite get it. But I appreciate that they refer to 70-year-old women as "girls.") ... They did this because my cousin told them that he was Mark, his own (non-existent) twin brother.

*shifty eyes* I have no idea where they inhereited this gullibility .... So says the girl who believed her dad when he told her that if she went near a beaver, it'd bite her leg off. Or her Jr. High Science teacher who told her that her thumbs' shape was due to "Stubby Thumb Syndrome." ... Yeah ... nooooooo clue. *shifty eyes*

But, yeah. We had a very nice weekend. Friday, as you know, we drove down to Bandon. We stopped and toook the kids to the Newport Aquarium. Got to see the Octopus there ... Shelia ... and her brood of eggs. Poor gal probably won't be there for long (Female octopuses/octopi die after all the care they give their eggs).

Then we drove down to Bandon and got to the beach house. Just a short little walk (maybe two blocks?) to the jetty with a little bit of beach (Seriously, if you are looking for a beach house reantal, this was a REALLY nice place). Bucket and Bruise were so sad that Mutti didn't go to the beach with them on Friday. Also, Bruise appears to be REALLY scared of the waves ... whereas Bucket would have leaped headlong into them if I hadn't held her hand.

(Saturday: Mom/Mutti, Cousin Ashley, Michael, the kidlets and I went to the beach. Bucket, Ashley and I played in the waves. Ashley lost one of her flip-flops when we were chasing waves. "I only brought one pair of shoes!" she cried. ... I couldn't go after it, since we had Bucket with us and I couldn't see where in the waves it had even gone. Luckily (blessedly), her shoe washed up not ten feet from us within five seconds. We had made jokes about an octopus wearing Ashley's shoe. And, really, if her shoe HAD been lost, I was more than willing to give up my pair of flip-flops until she could get a new pair (since I knew she wouldn't want to rely on my dollar pair ... which like to come apart a lot.))

Saturday, we took Mom and my Stepdad with us and went down to the Prehistoric Gardens, south of Port Orford. We stopped and toured the Cape Blanco Lighthouse (which was a little nerve-wracking with two three-year-olds climbing 63 stairs and a ladder up to the top of the tower ... especially with 50 mph winds blowing. We were on the last tour, since they had to shut down due to the winds. ^_^), and then we stopped by a little lavender garden (I now have a jar of Lavender jelly and a bottle of essential oil. Yum!) and a candy shop (if you go, they have free samples. I especially like the honey bites and the pie candies. My Stepdad adores the Cranberries in Ivory -white chocolate-) where Mom and I picked up some treats. ^_^

Sunday morning we went to the Bandon LDS Branch for Sacrament Meeting. It was the smallest church building I've ever been to. Pretty little building (I know I'm shallow. But I liked that the chapel was white and sea green. It was kind of funny that my jacket and undershirt were coordinated with the room ^_^). Then we went back to the beach house, made sure we were mostly packed up (I did one last load of our laundry) and Mom went with us to walk on the beach and to walk around the marina (a special treat for Bruise).

Oh ... did I mention that my mom's GREAT at eBay? She had two GINORMOUS boxes of stuff for Bruise and Bucket. Bucket especially loves her Snow White ballerina outfit (appears to be a homemade costume and is very pretty). Bruise adores his Transformers Underoos (he used them and his Spiderman Underoos as pajamas while we were with my family).

We had quite a bit of family there: Mom and my Stepdad, Aunt Julie with her dog, Sonny Boy;

Uncle K and his wife, C, along with my cousin's baby girl, Haven; Uncle B and Aunt T and their kids: Tiff, Ashley, and AJ (aka, Mark's twin) (and you know that Mark doesn't exist).

It'd been a while since I'd seen everyone. (Except for my folks and Jule, I hadn't seen everyone else since Thanksgiving.)

Oh, while we were at Cranberry Sweets, Bucket ran into the corner of a glass shelf. She burst into tears and, as Michael picked her up to assess the damage, she peed all over his fleece vest (which repels water well) and the floor. *sigh* (Yes, my daughter is part camel and loves to drink when she's in the car. ... And when she gets mad [Like, say, when I send her for a time-out], she often loses bladder control. I'm working on that.)

But the gals working there were VERY nice about it. (They told me, "Oh, these things happen. It's fine."Even though my mom and I were quite embarassed.)

But it was a really nice trip. Like I said, the beach house was VERY nice. We slept upstairs (if you click on the link when I first mention the beach house and scroll through the pictures, you can see a little picture of our bedroom -- the one with the view of the beach and Table Rock). Since it's so close to the jetty, you hear the foghorn as it sounds ... about every twenty-thirty seconds. (I slept with earplugs in Friday night, but not Saturday.)

The kids all slept downstairs, which was nice. Except that my munchkins wanted to get dressed in our room ... next time we'll just keep their luggage in our room. ^_^

We didn't go to West Coast Game Park this time (I had forgotten to bring the charger for our GOOD camera. Oops! ... and it is rather spendy: $15/adult (13+) and, for us, $11 for Bruise and Bucket together ... that's approacing $50 for about 1-2.5 hours of walking, not including the money for cones of feed for the goats and donkeys walking around.

However, if we'd had the camera all charged up, we'd have gone. But it was good to take the kids to see the dinosaurs this time (which, for the SIX of us -- Mom, Cecil, Michael, the kidlets, and me was almost exactly the same price), since none of us had ever been to that before (and we've all been to the game park). Really, it's a cool place ... and we will go again sometime soon. But it is rather spendy, in my opinion. I'm probably spoiled, since we go to the Zoo about every month (but for being so much larger, the zoo is cheaper. Even more so with our membership. Just sayin'). However, I can understand that West Coast has less people coming as often and does have to pay (somehow) for all those animals and the cost of their care.

I can't believe that it's already about to be September. That's crazy!

Well, I need to close this up and finish a couple books during the kids' nap today. Then do the dishes and clean up the house a bit (although, thankfully, most of it is pretty clean due to all my hard work last week. Yay!!).

(It's been a month, today, that Gingi-cat died. I still miss her.)