sparkles and lights

That's how our house has felt this Christmas.  Our first Christmas in our new US home.  Lights all around outside, 2 trees sparkling, candles, sparkling twigs with tiny little lights on, fairy lights in the kiddos bedrooms.  I don't think I'll ever want to take all the decorations down come the new year.

A sprinkling of snow just before Christmas.

 Candy canes - a Christmas necessity in our house!

And a beautiful display at a local deli.

My very favourite Christmas decoration. 

A big sparkling reindeer head on canvas over our fireplace.

(Made by the Huzz)

Sparkles and lights.

Boxing Day table setting for lunch with friends.

Annual trip to the Zoo Lights at Oregon Zoo. 

Love this tree at the entrance.

A little holiday crafting.  So many cardboard boxes in the house

we decided to make some little sparkly roof houses for Ruby to play with.

New hat taking a trip to the Zoo Ligths.

Gingerbread house and lollipops in lights.

Our Christmas wreath.  An oldie but I still love it.

Hope you've been enjoying the Christmas holidays and relaxing as much as we have.

may your days be merry and bright

Soon I will be

Enjoying a glass of fizz

Fill stockings

Placing gifts under the tree

Setting the table for Christmas day breakfast

And then resting my head until those sleigh bells start jingling!

Wishing you all joyful days over the Christmas holidays.

B E L I E V E !

weekend scenes

Saturday morning I walked onto the beach to meet the Huzz and kiddos.  Thankfully I had my camera ready as this is the sight I saw within minutes of stepping onto the sand.  We've seen dolphin fins in the sea here before, but seeing this frisky one jumping out was amazing.

Pretty pink hut at the Postcard Inn.

8.30am doughnut breakfast on the beach after an early morning swim.

Great way to start a Sunday morning.

1, 2, 3..... 'Jump'.

Dolphin art display at Pier 60, Clearwater, FLA.

Hope you had a great weekend.

collecting shells

'Our' beach on this lovely spot of the Gulf of Mexico has so many pretty shells.

When we aren't bobbing around in the sea, which is the temperature of a relaxing warm bath,

we are all wandering along searching for perfect shells.

Along the way we find broken shells so thick you cannot imagine how big the whole shell would have originally been.  We find crabs, little shrimps, coral and pretty pebbles, and we're on the look out for a fossilised shark's tooth which are apparently in abundance around here (but not to us yet!).  

(Update on shark's teeth - we have 25+ now!!!!)

Our luggage will be a lot heavier for the home trip for sure!

end of a day on the beach

Lots of swim suits drying on the little white fence around our blue and white beach cottage.

Always the sign of a good day spent at the beach.

Hope your summer is going well.

More updates from ours coming soon!

go Team GB

Feeling so very excited for London (my home town) as host to the 2012 Olympics.    I'm sure you can feel the tension and excitement in the London air today as the world looks on.

Go Team GB.

summer so far

Week 6 of 12!  How fast did that go?  

Here's a few things the kiddos have got up to so far....

Catching trout and messing about on lakes!

Ice-cream indulgence with friends during our last camping trip

Digging a hole at the beach (as always) on a misty morning.

All the fun of the fairground at the 4th July St Paul Rodeo.

(Luca is up there somewhere sitting on his own - makes my tummy flip just watching it!).

Finding a beautiful day-flying moth.

Ready for skimboarding.

Another day, another doughnut!

Looks like a little fun has been had.

More to follow.

Hope you are having a fabulous summer.

home from camp

Just back from another camping trip.  I think we might have caught the camping bug!

Once again we stayed at the Nehalem Bay State Park campsite, right next to the wonderful Manzanita beach.  This makes for a fabulous location - beach walks, skim boarding, playing on the gorgeous sand.  As well as all that the State Park has to offer - a kids program with activities and fun run by the Park Rangers, playground, horse riding, bike riding, hiking.  Never a dull moment!

This trip we went with friends = 4 kids, two mums and our lovely Dutch friend and babysitter visiting us.   There was a lot a fun, warm weather, lots of s'mores, hotdogs, sitting around campfires, running around the campsite and playground, a few arguments between the kids  (but nothing that 15 minutes 'alone time' didn't sort out!), lots of scraps and bruises from climbing trees and making dens!   All those good things about being outdoors that made the kiddos not want to come home this afternoon.

Here are a few scenes from the past four days.

Hope you're having a fab summer.  Already we are heading towards week 6 or 12!