Now that the weather has finally warmed up (we had a cold Spring) the kids are enjoying swimming and trips to the splash park. Here they are with their friend Courtney.
The also love the free wading pool at Howard Amon park. Nathan likes swimming too. Whenever he sees a swim pool he calls out "Baaa!" (for bath) and starts trying to take all his clothes off.
This month we also enjoyed celebrating Father's day with Jared. He is already a great dad, but since he asked for them, the kids gave him these parenting books.
Jared on Father's day with his sweet kids who love him so much.
Nathan is obsessed with shoes. Here he is trying on my new sandals.
For our family vacation this year we decided to break with our tradition of visiting family in Utah and Idaho and take a family trip of our own. We went to visit the Oregon coast and stopped to have lunch at this beautiful waterfall on the way. 
Once we got to the campground we set up the hammock first thing. This helped to keep the kids happy while Jared and I worked on the tent. Jared was excited to try out this hammock that his brother brought back for him from his mission to Brazil. Unfortunately every time he tried to lay down and relax, a squirmy little kid decided to join him.
Jared was excited to try out his new Camp Chef stove and took over my role as family cook. I must say I quite liked that arrangement. He treated us to pancakes and sausage and hot chocolate for breakfast the first day.
Here we are in the guard house at Fort Clatsop which is where Lewis and Clark spent the winter before heading back East on their expedition. It was fun to see this part of history and the girls were interested to learn from one of the workers how to make a fire without matches. Jared especially enjoyed the visit because he remembered visiting the fort as a little boy.
Here's another picture of me with the kids at the falls. You can't see it in the picture, but Nathan is staring at a little white dog. Nathan was more interested in all the dogs than he was in the falls.
As much as we enjoyed the fort, the kids just wanted to get to the beach. It was quite windy the first day, but as you can see Abby didn't seem to mind.
Later that day, we took a short trip down to Seaside where the girls enjoyed a carousel ride with their dad. After the ride Maddy informed us "This is the best vacation ever!"
We decided to enjoy some seafood so we stopped at Mo's for dinner. Here is the beautiful view of the Cannon beach haystack right outside the restaurant.
Jared enjoying the sitting and enjoying the waves by the beach. 
Nathan didn't care much for the cold water but was in heaven with all the sand.
He was happy to find some toy shovels that some kids had left on the beach.
Jared was wishing he had his trike like these guys to enjoy a nice ride along the beach.
Maddy loved building sandcastles with Abby and decorating them with seashells.
On Sunday Jared treated us to some of his fine dutch oven cooking.
SMORES!
On the drive home Maddy got a little bored in the car and decided to cover herself in stickers.
We stopped at the Portland Zoo on our drive home. Here are the kids trying out an Eagle's nest.
Taking a rest at the zoo.
This John Deere picture is in honor of their Grandpa Collett.
The kids loved seeing all the animals. Nathan liked growling at the mountain lion and bears and did the sign for elephant, bird, fish and monkey. After we left the polar bear exhibit Nathan wasn't ready to go so he jumped out of his stroller and ran back through a huge crowd and made his way to the window so he could watch the polar bears longer. He kept banging on the glass and saying "ber, ber."Here's a video of Jared flying his air foil kite on the beach. Hopefully it works for you.
