Pomerleau Family Blog: My 37th Birthday and a trip to Corvallis for Mother's Day weekend

My birthday fell on a Wednesday this year. Two days earlier, I found time to run to a camera store as there were a ton of Mother's Day deals going on on cameras and I wanted a new camera for my birthday. My old Nikon D3200 that I had bought 7 years ago for my birthday had unfortunately gotten some sand and mist in it from the coast and slowly had stopped functioning well. I took it to the camera shop over Christmas in hopes that it could be repaired and was told it was too far gone to be repairable unfortunately and my lens unfortunately was damaged as well and not salvageable. Anyways, I spent about the last 1.5 months researching cameras and which ones to buy. There were so many choices it was hard to choose. I finally settled on a mirrorless Sony A6000, which was a model that was about 3 years old but had won numerous awards. It was so much smaller and lighter than my old Nikon and I loved that I could take it with me almost everywhere. I was able to get a stellar deal on it with an extra lens that zooms quite far. I waited until my birthday to open up my present. I had a good rest of my birthday. I had a good work out in the morning and then met Sean for sushi for lunch. Sean made me yummy fish tacos and I got Marionberry pie from New Seasons for dessert. It was a good day! Here were some of the shots from my new camera:

That weekend was Mother's day weekend and we headed to Corvallis Friday afternoon. The kids were super excited to go to CiCi and Baba's house as we had not been there since Christmas. We spent a quiet evening at CiCi and Baba's house playing.

Swinging away at CiCi and Baba's backyard

Brandon being a weird unicorn

The next day we got up and got ready to go hiking at Mary's Peak. The kids were excited because Pumpkin got to travel in our car and she fit perfectly between the kids' carseats. Pumpkin was excited to go with the kids. We reached Mary's Peak and the weather was great. We hiked up to the top of the peak and the views were so pretty. Then we hiked back down and had a picnic lunch. After lunch, we headed off to another part of the peak where we were able to see more views of the valleys below. Then we drove back home and rested for a bit and then went out to dinner at Block 15 Brewery for my birthday dinner. We got to eat outside and the food was great. We had a lot of fun.

Pumpkin fit great

Hiking up Mary's Peak

Near the top of Mary's peak

Dad and Pumpkin-such a cute picture

Olivia and CiCi

CiCi and Brandon and Olivia

They love their CiCi

The kids and I Mother's Day weekend 2018

Olivia and I

Picnic time!

Olivia walking Pumpkin on the second hike

The top of the second hike

Brandon and Pumpkin

They sometimes get along

On Sunday (Mother's Day), Sean and I had a great workout first thing in the morning. Then Sean made a yummy's Mother's Day brunch of french toast with fresh strawberry sauce and we had Mimosas. We got to eat breakfast out on the deck. The kids gave me some really cute homemade Mother's Day presents from school including a beautiful watercolor calendar Brandon made, Mother's Day coupons from Olivia, and a cute Poster that Olivia made at school. We also gave Cici her Mother's Day present: Flowers and a Coffee mug with pictures of the kids and CiCi from the eclipse and other fun hiking adventures we did with CiCi and Baba. Afterwards we took the kids to the park and then headed back to the house for lunch. Then we had to pack up and go home. It was a really fun weekend.