Dear Time,

You seem to fly by.
But sometimes you stand still...and I relish in how I get to spend you.

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BFF'S

Do you still have your BFF's (best friends forever)from when you were younger?

Well, I do.

I hope I can say that in 20 years.

With much anticipation I waited for the impending visit of one such BFF. I was so very excited to see her and pleased as punch she was coming such a distance to see me. BFF's for sure! I won't gush about how everything was just the same, because well, it wasn't. I have a husband, 3 children and a household to take care of, so naturally it wasn't exactly JUST like it used to be, but it was so fun to spend time together. Just like I have mentioned before it was like she and I picked up where we left off and everything around us had changed:) Good friends are like that- even when you're growing and learning and changing a good friend always seems to do all that with you somehow. Maybe they just accept you for what you're becoming as much as for what they remember you were.

While she was visiting we had an opportunity to take off just her and me.(Thanks to a wonderful husband) We drove up the coast and took in the beautiful sights. I sure love where I live... I hope she does now too.

Our travels north took us to Cape Perpetua and the surrounding area. Most of our time we spent exploring at the Devils Churn. Though we missed high tide, it did not disappoint...







The pictures below were taken at the look out by the Spouting Horn. (Click HERE to link to a short video of it on youtube) Because we weren't there at high tide the spout wasn't very big and I was randomly incapable of capturing it on camera.


We also visited Heceta Head Lighthouse and had a wonderful lunch at Mo's(click this link just to hear the fantastic jingle). Yummy food!


Sometimes I have to pinch myself I get to have so much fun.
So, despite one terrible day of sickness and the fact that you had to travel 16 hours in a car with my children(more on that later) I hope you had a wonderful time. Thank you for coming and visiting me Jaislyn. BFF!

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Friends

It has become very clear to me how lucky we are to have such wonderful friends. Because of our travels and opportunities to live in many different places those friends are not only awesome, but varied, both in culture and inevitably--location. I like to think about my friends relative to where they are living. For example, my friend who lives in California; I always imagine her playing outside with her kids eating citrus fruit. This is obviously not what she does all the time but for some reason it's the image I have stuck in my brain. My friend in Germany is forever sunbathing at the Lake we sun bathed at together during my visit many years ago...and another friend in Utah, will always be riding her horses down the canal we transversed together on horseback so many times when we were younger. I can't explain why I do this, but I have created so many images of my friends in their relative locations that I just assume they are doing the same with me.

Do you do this too?

Maybe you imagine me tackling children along the ocean shore.
Maybe I'm in my little art studio, painting my latest landscape.
Perhaps, you envision me sightseeing a new area.
Maybe this is just what I hope you are envisioning:)
Whatever the image may be I am guessing there is some actual truth in it. I do actually do all three of those things I listed, though maybe not as often as I wish I was doing them:)

But I digress, what I was really meaning to write about was good friends and what a blessing it is to have them in abundance!

We've recently had some visitors that go way back on the friend register. We were so happy to have the Merrill's visit. 7 years and 7 kids later and it didn't feel like that much had changed...except everything. Everything but us really. Isn't that always how it feels?
We did our best to show them our favorite sights and cook them some yummy food. We hope they enjoyed their visit as much as we enjoyed it. I was too busy playing to take very many pictures. These will have to suffice...





This girl cracks me up. This is her 'cheese' face--adorable.

Strike a pose!--








There is always time for good friends. Next time we'll visit you in your new home. We can't wait.

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