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.

CiCi getting her Mother's day presents

The kids giving me my Mother's day present 

Mother's Day poster from Olivia's school

Reading Brandon's story about me 

French toast and Mimoas on the deck

The kiddos on CiCi's front porch on Mother's day 2018

Olivia's fun in dance and gymnastics in the spring time

Olivia continued her dance and gymnastics classes at Westside Dance and Gymnastics.  She goes to Tap, Jazz, and Tumble class every Thursday at 9:30 in the morning.  She has made friends with the other kids in her class and seems to be really enjoying it.  She really likes her teacher, (teacher Jessica) and her dance recital music (Awe Coconuts! from Jake and the Neverland Pirates) and her dance routine.  She genuinely seems excited to go to class each day.  It also doesn't help that she loves her recital costume.  I got some cute pictures of Olivia and her class in their recital costumes just prior to get their pictures taken.  She did really well this year as it was her first year of dance and was invited to the more accelerated dance class next year.  We are going to try it this summer and see how she likes it.

The girls did their dance recital dance in their costumes

Tapping away!

Dancing to Awe Coconuts!

Watching Olivia at her parent watch session in June

Olivia also continued her gymnastics class with teacher Stephanie on Sundays.  We missed a lot of Sunday classes unfortunately due to Mother's day weekend and then the school was closed for Easter and the Sunday after Easter for a meet.  We were going to skip gymnastics this summer but Olivia wants to keep it up so she can perfect her cartwheel.  Speaking of cartwheels, Olivia can do them now perfectly and even some handstand/hand springs and round offs!  She has really taken off with the gymnastics and seems to love it.

Practicing hard on the beam 

Beam work!