Wrap up Seabrook....

To finish out our posts in August, Mommy would like to do a follow up post on Seabrook.  She now has access to the beautiful Troy Preslar original photos and loved Aunt Rachel's post on the subject so much that she needs to do another! So here she goes.....

Some favorite moments...(I'm sorry lots of photos, 21 to be exact, but they need to be here!)

Seeing the Washington volcanoes for the first time.....

West coast sunrise, coming through the trees

It was really just so green and beautiful.

This amazing woman gave me my wonderful husband.

We tried wading but with the wind chill
you just didn't want to get too wet!

This is the first time I've been able to see just how HUGE
my braid is....I had no idea.

Had to get a picture of our souvenirs on First Beach!

See this woman next to me?  One of my bestest friends...
we were Twihards together.

I love this man.  It was a great vacation of snuggling with him!

The two who started it all.  Again, I consider myself privileged
to be part of their family.

Whit's skills in skipping rocks was quite impressive.

I was able to climb down inside this tree trunk,
almost like stairs to another world.....

We took the time to build our own gnome house.
There was a delightful trail to the beach where others had built
gnome houses too.

There is a slight detail lost here of a wonderful archway into the yard made out of crab claw!

Ours was the best..we think gnomes would have actually chosen ours!

We spent 4 nights in this beach house and enjoyed it's hot tub.

Due to a slight booking error, we were able to enjoy our first
night in this magnificent new home.  It was very pleasant.

Baby Lexi!

Our new little cousin, the first from our Larsen side, has arrived!  Lexi Jensen came into this world last night or really really early this morning I guess since the official birthday is August 29th (same as Michael Jackson, in case you were wondering!)

This little girl is gonna be so spoiled!!  She already has a gorgeous baby room, enough clothes for almost 3 new outfits a day, and two very smitten parents.  Aunt Angie is going to be a great Mommy.  We are so excited for her.

Cara and I have spent most of today begging to spend more time with the baby.  I think we'll try and sneak her home if Mommy doesn't!

I think I do a good job of looking like a proud big sister!

Cara does a great big sister impression as well...
take a hint, Mom!

A Typical Lull...

It feels like we've experienced a typical lull in our blogging.  Not much exciting has been happening.  We've just been doing our thing.  I don't turn 5 until the end of September so I didn't start kindergarten with the rest of my friends and my preschool doesn't begin until September 4th so we've just been playing.  And actually that's been a little hard because it's hot and muggy out and we've had a lot of rain and thunderstorms...actually just on Wednesday it only got up to 75 degrees because of the intensity of the rain!

We did get out on Grandpa's boat this week and I showed Mommy in person how I can get up on the wake surf board.  She keeps trying to help me upload that video with no success.  It's very strange. We actually spent a lot of time on the boat because the beach was gross this time.  Lots of dead things and algae.  Look at what we found.  It looks like a fish that died choking on another fish! Blegh!

Mommy also took a different video of me testing out my surfing skills so hopefully this one will upload.  This time they used the wakeboarding rope so I am pretty far back from the boat, but I loved it!

We also played at city pool again so that I could show off my diving board skills to Aunt Becca!

Oh my brave

Cara here.  I wanted to tell you what Siena's been up to this summer.  In the past, Siena might have been referred to as shy, timid, a little hang backish.  That child is gone.  She has been replaced by a boisterous, outgoing, talkative, dare devil.  Just a few examples of this in the last two weeks or so.

While Mommy and Daddy were freezing on the Washington coast, Siena and I got to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa and our aunts and uncles.  This meant we swam a lot, went to the lake, and probably climbed with Grandpa.  If you remember, on our last lake trip Siena and I tried out the tube and loved it.  This time the tube didn't make it out to the lake and we were both bummed.  However, Siena was determined to do something behind the boat. And she did.  She wake surfed!  She stood on the board will Grandpa drug behind holding on to the rope for her.  She did so amazing!

And then on Thursday, we played up at the Veyo pool again and she jumped right in to the deep end without Mommy being in the water and just kept swimming!  She even made a new friend and kept venturing out in water above her head.  That night we had a ward party at the good old St. George city pool and she shocked Mommy by readily agreeing to jump off the diving board.  No floaties, no life jacket, and Mommy was over be the ladder.  Her second jump off, she tried doing a trick!  She loved it!  Grandpa used to have to bribe Mommy when she was 5 and 6 to jump off.  She was promised slurpees at 7-11 if she would just JUMP! Not Siena.  She jumped without a hint of a bribe.   It's been fun watching her become brave.

The Romneys Do Seabrook

Guest post by Mommy:

We have just returned today from a glorious trip with Pete's parents, his siblings and their respective spouses.  No children for 5 nights and most of 6 days.  We missed them terribly by the end (well at least most of us!) but it was wonderful to explore the Washington Coast with his family.  It has been many years since they were together as their original family unit for more than just an evening.

We stayed in Seabrook which is a little planned community off of Pacific Beach, WA.  This actually translates into "middle of nowhere" on winding roads next to a cold windy beach.  However it was breathtakingly beautiful and had never been explored by anyone in the family.  Aside from some little hiccups regarding the eating establishments NOT found on this part of the coast, we relished in each others company, cozy beach houses, and picturesque forests.

We'll spare you a blow-by-blow of each day's activities, since a lot of it was either talking while driving, riding the occasional bike, or bundling up for a breezy sunset on the beach.  We did find a warm day at Lake Quinault in which we could sea kayak and sweat, but alas very few pictures were taken at this particular place!

Our Iphone pictures will have to do for now but we promise an updated post (or entirely separate post) of the wonderful pictures taken by fabulous Troy Preslar.

And of course, you can't travel to the Washington coast these days without making the all important stop:

We really did go.  And you know what?  Forks was a little charming...not quite what I expected and "Twilight"ed to the max.  I think every establishment had some sort of angle.

And then we also had to head to LaPush to First Beach....

Do you notice the bus?!
Not the only one of those running around!

First Beach actually had nothing on Second Beach.  Stephenie Meyer might have wanted to visit there again if she went at all because I think everyone would head to Second Beach. Man, it had a beautiful hike thru Washington Rainforest just to get down to it and then the rocks were so pretty! And you could camp right on the beach!

I consider myself privileged and lucky to have married into such a wonderful family.  Don't they just look like people you want to know?

7 years and counting.....

How fun is it that my parents 7th anniversary can also be our 450th post on the blog?  Pretty cool.  That's right.  Today my parents have been married for 7 years. Mommy and I watched all the slideshows from her wedding and how pretty she looked in her dress.  Which then turned into Mommy putting ON her wedding dress.  Which then spun into a thing Mommy saw on something called Pinterest in which you take a picture every year on your wedding anniversary so that you can watch yourself age.  Which then turned into Mommy asking Daddy to be a little silly.  Which then turned into me getting take pictures with the Iphones.  What do you think?

I take pretty good pictures, don't I?  These were just this morning! They haven't aged a bit.  Although with this anniversary, they have officially lived in our current house for the longest of those 7 years.  2 years and a half years! Wahoo!

Our Sweet Cara

As it was Cara's birthday, it's only fitting to do a "look at what Cara can do post!"  I think we have been pretty good at tracking all of the milestones but sometimes it's hard to even remember what Siena was like at three at all!

According to Siena:

Favorite movie: Susan (Monsters vs. Aliens), Dragon Tales, Signing time

Favorite food: banana smoothies

For fun Cara likes to: Hide and Go Seek

I like to play: Candyland with her

She likes playing in the mud, likes going to SLC, and going to the zoo.  She likes to play dress up.

According to the rest of the family:
Cara still has a very tiny voice.  It gets much tinier when she's feeling sad or shy.  Her "no" or "yeah" can be almost indiscernible.  She says her "s" sounds with a slight lisp that most young kids have.  We don't think it's a true lisp, but "Siena" comes out a lot like "Thiena" every now and then.

Cara loves books.  Loves loves loves loves LOVES them.  She will read to herself for hours.  She carries her scriptures with her everywhere.  In fact, I think we are currently missing a pair that she carried off.

Cara is very adept at Mommy and Daddy's Iphones.  She watches movies on Mommy's a lot of the time, but she can also access any app but loves "The Moron Test" and has memorized the first 6 or 7 moves in each level.  Kind of freaky.

Cara finally seems to have mastered the peepee potty training.  I'd only call us 50% of the way there on poop.  But we'll take it.  We're diaperless in this household.  (Oh yeah except for the 78 diapers Mommy bought the weekend before Cara potty trained herself. )

Cara loves to color.  (Mostly because big sister is obsessed with it.)

Cara is a solitary creature.  I don't think it's an age thing.  If kids are over, she prefers to find a different room most of the time.  Or is done playing with them much earlier than Siena and will wander away.  She sings and talks to herself at any given moment in the day.

Cara has became VERY moody.  And everybody knows it.  If she doesn't want to, is too hungry, or not interested, it's not happening.

Cara's favorite food is probably noodles with red sauce.  She still loves a good chicken nugget and will eat those salads, but she's really started turning her nose up at a lot of things, but she will always eat noodles.  (Siena's listed food for Cara is something I have no knowledge of!)

Cara likes to play the piano and sing!

Cara still sucks her thumb, but knows she's not supposed to!  (Suppose we should stop that now....)

Cara loves all movies.  She loves Disney, the Ice Age series, anything she can watch basically.  It's funny that Siena picked "Susan" two years in a row for Cara's favorite movie!

Cara appears to have become a lot braver.  She was willing to be pulled in the tube behind the boat today and enjoyed every minute and wanted more turns!

Cara has an awesome vocabulary according to Dad.  "Thank you SO very much." And last week on our canal floating trip, Cara was trying to express her reluctance to ride on a big tube and she said "Daddy I don't want to get on the behemouth!" (even now I'm in giggles!)

She also inherited her Mommy's talent for speaking with her hands. Example: Pointing her index finger up at you "Stay right there (stab finger for punctualizing), I will be right back (shake finger again)."

As of August 23, Cara was 27+ lbs (15%!) and 35" which is only the 8th% but gets her on her very first roller coaster, The Go Coaster and the Matterhorn in Disneyland.  Can't wait for our next trip!