Cousins, Part 2

And for the urban portion of the cousin visit, we accomplished a record number of attractions, only a few of which I managed to get pictures of!  Could it be possible that I am still exhausted from that weekend?

Happy holidays, everyone!!

Dear Amy,

I would have loved to be there! You may remember that vast landscape with few people is one of my very favorite things. We have had the privilege of an unusually snowy beginning of winter, and the kids are out just now rolling enourmous snowballs too heavy to lift. I know you, your boy, and our cousin would all appreciate this truly Nordic weather!

I think it's fair to say that lately I've been managing three jobs with my part-time studies, part-time crafts workshop, and full-time parenting. Just trying to breathe deep day by day, go with the flow (and sleep a little in between) with intensifying Christmas preparations that are beginning to be last minute. I suspect this year the holidays may genuinely feel like a vacation even to a professional homemaker.

This week I'm sharing just a few images of an ordinary day with Her Pinkiness and The Boy.

Windy and rainy? Here?

Lara, I'm sure you know by now that we just had the exciting gift of a visit from our cousin!  We accomplished a completely unprecedented number of things in a 72 hour period, so I don't think it was a very relaxing vacation for him!  Unfortunately we were so many places where we had to leave things in the car or didn't want to carry things, so I didn't even use my big fancy camera once all weekend.  But my new equally-fancy phone seems to have a fairly decent one, so I broke tradition just this once.
After some of my beach posts, our cousin mentioned that he really wanted to see the Oregon Coast on his next trip.  Even though the next trip ended up being in December, I wanted to take him just for the day.  It turns out that the weather called for a 100% chance of rain (really!) but we ended up having a bit of everything, and a LOT of wind.  (The fourth picture you can see the wind blowing the sand- it is so fascinating in person but hard to take pictures of!)  It was the perfect day. Well, I wouldn't have minded if ALL the cousins were there!
Sometimes it really bums me out that I have the BEST cousins but they are all so far away!