We Love Visitors!

We were SO happy that my cousin Jessica got to come visit us a couple of weeks ago. She flew all the way from Utah to Seattle to stay with us, and we had such a fun time! Kirsten loved her! We went to the Pacific Science Center again and got some more pictures in the butterfly greenhouse, since it was rainy outside for most of the time Jessica was here. We also started watching Kung Fu Panda in the Imax theater since it was only $5 and included in our admission anyway, but Kirsten definitely did not last long in the theater. Bummer!

She was too wiggly to stay long in the movie theater, but she did love playing in the children's area again. It's such a great indoor play area!

We love, love, LOVE to have friends and family come stay with us. Jessica has already visited us twice since moved here and it's always such a great time. We're so glad she came again this year!

Things I Love Right Now

I really like it when I read product reviews on other people's blogs, so I thought I'd do some on mine! Here are some things that I am completely addicted to lately:

#1- The new Coldplay CD. It's awesome! I think their sound has really improved. I like a lot of their older songs too, but the new album has so much more of an edge and just a cooler sound. It reminds me a bit of U2's style, but updated and still unique. My favorite song from the CD is 'Viva La Vida.' Talk about a song that gets in your head!
#2- The chocolate mousse $2 dessert shooter at Applebee's. I could eat one of these every day! It's smooth, creamy, and completely fulfills my chocolate craving without being too much. It's the perfect cute little size.

#3- Hand soaps from Bath and Body Works. They have a 3 for $10 deal right now, and these soaps are so luscious and smell so yummy it makes you WANT to wash your hands all day! I love the lotions too of course. My favorite summery scents for the soaps are Coconut Lime Verbena, Midnight Pomegranate, Cucumber Melon, and Mango Mandarin.

#4- The perfect summer lip gloss- Victoria Secret Bare Bronze Lip Shimmer in the Golden Light shade. It's light, really moisturizing, and smells and tastes so good. It's very sheer, not at all sticky, and glides on really nicely. I keep it in my purse.

#5- Fabric softener! I didn't even discover fabric softener at all until this year, because my mom never used it when I was growing up and I just never thought to try it. I love it! My favorite is the Downy Simple Pleasures in Vanilla & Lavender. I love putting on shirts and just inhaling this fragrance.

I'd love to know what everyone thinks of these! Or any of your favorite things lately too.

Too Pretty To Pass Up

I thought I was done posting pictures from our Oregon trip, but I just couldn't leave these ones out! Oregon is such a gorgeous state. These were all taken in the Columbia Gorge Scenic Byway, about an hour outside of Portland and on the way to the Multnomah Falls.

So we had a great little trip! Another fun thing we did there was some outlet mall shopping. There is no sales tax in Oregon, so I tried to take advantage of that by finding Kirsten some new clothes at the Gymboree outlet. I wish Washington had no sales tax too!

Good Eats In Portland

Portland has some great restaurants! One of the most fun is Rheinlander, a German restaurant. All meals come with a fondue appetizer, and an accordion-player and singers go through the restaurant singing for the tables. Kirsten enjoyed it! She was fascinated by the music.

The restaurant's decor is SO cute, like it belongs at Disneyland right next to the Matterhorn ride or something. I love themed restaurants like this one.

Another fun place we ate at was Old Town Pizza, in a really old building reputed to be haunted. It was a creepy, cool-looking place, and it was fun to read the story on their menu about the ghosts and look around the restaurant.

This is what Old Town Pizza looks like at the front.

We love going out to eat, especially at unique places like these that we don't get to eat at often. Another favorite of mine, even though it's a chain restaurant and not so unique, is Fuddruckers. They just have the best burgers! They don't actually have any in Washington, but there is one outside of Portland so we ate there and enjoyed it a lot!

By the Seaside

For one day of our Oregon trip, we drove out to the coast. Oregon is such a beautiful state, and every drive through it is scenic. It was a really nice drive, and we headed through Astoria and then stopped in Seaside. Kirsten was so happy to get out of the car and take a ride in her stroller, seeing all the people and sights. I had no idea Seaside was the end of the Lewis and Clark Trail, until we saw this sign.
The beach surprised me by how huge it was. It's really a large beach! It wasn't beach weather at all, cool and cloudy, but at least it didn't rain on us. We didn't get to spend any time on the actual beach, but we walked around and saw the little town, ate lunch, and got some homemade ice cream.

I thought Seaside was a strange town. This picture shows what we saw on all the streets. . . a bunch of funny little vehicles people could rent and drive around. The rest of the town was a mix of restaurants, food stands, hotels, mostly tacky souvenir shops, and arcades.

I don't think you'd need to spend much time in Seaside, unless it was a really warm summer day and you wanted to hang out at the beach all day. We saw everything we wanted to see, including time for lunch, in about an hour and a half. I really wanted to find a Christmas ornament because I love collecting them from places we visit, but it was difficult to find one amidst the sea of cheap T-shirts, magnets, and mugs that cluttered all the shops. I did manage to find one eventually, but it was tough!

If you're going to drive on the Oregon coast, I do recommend stopping for a short time in Seaside and then continuing on to Tillamook, home of the famous Tillamook Cheese Factory. We were planning on going there again but we ran out of time. I was glad we went to Seaside though, since we had never been there before. It was a fun little stop on our trip!

Gorgeous Multnomah Falls!

On our Oregon trip, we drove up the Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway near Portland and went to see Multnomah Falls. This is actually the second-highest waterfall in the USA, although I'm not sure what the highest is. Isn't this such a beautiful waterfall? I loved it!

Kirsten had a really fun time at the waterfall too. She was fascinated by the roaring water and the spray from the water, and she was so glad to get out of her car seat.

Waterfalls are some of my favorite things to see on trips! Someday I'll have to go to Niagara Falls, and another one on my list I want to see is Iguassu Falls in Brazil.

Road-Trippin' With a One Year-Old: 101

Some things we learned on our first road trip with Kirsten, to Portland and the Oregon coast on Memorial Day weekend:

Lesson 1- The shorter the road trip. . . the better! This might not be true for a younger baby who might sleep a long time in the car. But for a wiggly one year-old, it's very true!
Lesson 2- Plan for lots of stops. More than you think you'll need! It's good to plan drives around nap-times, but don't count on a nap to be a normal length. Kirsten's naps in the car were usually around a half hour each, and never longer than an hour. And when she woke up, boy was she ready to get out of that car seat and take a break!

Lesson 3- A crawling baby is going to want to crawl. Period. She won't be happy to be stuck in the car seat or a high chair or even to be held for very long. She wants to get down on the floor and crawl, and that's all she wants. It's awesome if you can find restaurants or fast food places that have a baby play area or somewhere for them to crawl around. I wish there were more like that, because they're hard to find!

Lesson 4- Definitely plan to spend more time in a hotel room than you normally would. Kirsten loved exploring the hotel room, and we brought toys with us too so she could crawl around and play with them. She was much happier in the hotel than in the car!

Lesson 5- Let the hotel know you have a baby, and most will have a portable crib set up for you. We stayed at the Heathman Lodge in Vancouver, Washington, just across the river from Portland. Kirsten slept really well at night in the crib they provided.

Lesson 6- Take extras of everything and try to plan for anything. We had mixed up a triple batch of her formula ahead of time, but the cooler tipped over in the car and a lot of it leaked out and got all over. Luckily, we still had enough to last us the whole trip. I took more than we needed of diapers, wipes, outfits, bottles, bibs, spoons, baby food jars, snacks, and toys. It's better to take too much than need something and not have it!

13 Months Old, The Flu, and Other Stuff. . .

Kirsten is 13 months old today! Here's some of the new stuff from the last month in the life of Kirsten:
-She's finally getting more teeth! Two top ones are coming in, and one more on the bottom. She doesn't seem to be chewing food any better, so far, but I'm hoping that will come soon.
-She's not as scared of strangers anymore! She wasn't scared at all of my cousin Jessica or my friend Carrie who she met for the first time last week. Yay! -She went on her first road trip! Two of them, actually. I have a bunch of pictures and posts to do about those trips, but I'm way behind and still working on editing the pictures. She had already been on an airplane six times, but hadn't been on a road trip until this month.

-She got her new, big girl car seat and can now face forwards when she rides in the car! She likes it so much better. That seat is SO soft and plush too. It almost makes me jealous! Why can't adult seats be that comfy?

-She got the flu for the first time, just this week. And let me tell you, it was a nasty virus! I caught it too, just a day after she did, and both of us were pretty miserable for awhile and are just now feeling better. I hope to see no more flu for a very, VERY long time.

-She doesn't have many new accomplishments from this month, and she's still not walking by herself. But she's getting really good at "talking" and lots of things she says sound like real words. It's cute to hear her try to talk and I always wonder what she's trying to say.

Expect lots more posts to come soon about our trips!
Oh, and PLEASE leave me a comment, even if you don't know me. I love getting comments. At the risk of sounding like I'm begging. . . pretty please leave me a comment?

I've Been Tagged!

I got tagged by Merrianne and Spencer

3 Joys:

-Traveling, visiting new places, and experiencing new things
-Great music! Listening to it and playing it both!

-My cute little family (our kitties too, though they're not in the picture)

3 Fears:

-Losing anyone I love and care about
-Spiders! HATE them!
-My most irrational fears. . . Clowns, dolls (like the older kind that stare out of china cabinets at you with the big open eyes), and ventriloquist dummies. They are all freaky! I can hardly stand to even look at this picture! Does that scare anyone else???

3 Goals:

-Find the time to exercise more and get healthier
-Get all caught up with scrapbooks and photo albums (a never-ending task)
-Buy a nice house with a yard someday

3 Current Obsessions/Collections:

-Looking up details, attractions, and itineraries for trips I want to take and places I want to see. I love trip planning!
-Finding shoes/clothes that are really cute and actually comfortable too
-So You Think You Can Dance! I love this show!

3 Surprising Facts:

-I was in lots of ballroom dance competitions in college, and even won a couple trophies!
-I have a really horrible sense of direction and have gotten lost multiple times in my own home town.
-I’m incredibly adventurous! I’ve been to 16 countries total and have done some amazing things like riding an elephant in Thailand, scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, visiting the Parthenon and the Sistine Chapel, going to the top of the Eiffel Tower, black-water tubing through glow worm caves in New Zealand, and too many more to name!

3 Fellow Bloggers to Tag:

Rachel Gunnell

Tiffany Andrews

Jessica Barnum

Playing In the Pacific Science Center

While we were at the Pacific Science Center with my Dad, we spent quite a bit of time in the little children's play area. Most of it was a little old for Kirsten, but she loved playing and splashing with the water toys!

In the costume section, we found one that fit her. Despite my horrible fear of spiders, I thought she looked pretty cute!

Kirsten and Grandpa had an awesome time playing together on the slide and enjoying the musical instruments.

This was a pretty awesome treehouse! In about a year or less, I think she'll absolutely love going to the museum to play in all these fun things.