Summer is HERE!

Doesn't this background just SCREAM summer?!

Kesley missed her last week of school because of our trip. We woke up to this on her first official day of summer--5DAYS AGO! It was sick and wrong.

This is today after Gavin was officially done with school for the summer! How it should be! Nothing beats a tramp and a sprinkler.

This is Gavins melt your heart note he wrote his teacher. I wanted to keep it myself.We will obviously be working on some spelling issues, but he did this all on his own. He drew the picture of himself so she could remember his big teeth! I love the last couple sentences, "I like your smile. Do you like deer?" What a stud. He read it to me and when he got to the deer sentence he look at me and shrugged his shoulders and said, "I just thought I'd ask!"

Now...how long is summer?

Awkward family photos contest winner!

I cannot stop laughing at this! We had a big family picture taken at the 3rd to last goodbye party for my parents, and my mom asked this quirky lady from her ward to take a picture of all of us. Love this lady. I grew up with her as young womens advisers and stuff--but she is a not playing with a full deck...that's all I'm saying.

She gave my mom a disk with the pics and this little treat was on there. I call this:

"In the Hollow of His Hands"

Hi, my name is Maria and I am a FOODOHOLIC

We are home! (as of 3:30 a.m. this morning) I am already wishing I was back on the coast enjoying family, good friends and ENORMOUS amounts of food. I was thinking about my top ten moments of the trip and realized most of them revolved around food--butter in particular. We spared no expense and pretty much ate our way through our vacation! I haven't downloaded any pictures to my computer yet, so to fill the gap I will give you:

Maria's Top Ten Oregon Coast Moments In Food:

10. Depot Bay caramel popcorn--perfectly crunchy and chewy at the same time, every time.

9. Tillamook cheese! Why I felt the need to eat my weight in cheese is a mystery, but if everyone could please try not to use the word, "cheese curd" around me for awhile, I would very much appreciate it.

8. Amber's french dip sandwiches with sauteed mushrooms & onions on yummy french bread rolls.

7. Brent's famous pancakes with Daveys 'Pappy's Papsmear Syrup'. 4 ingredients: butter, buttermilk sugar & vanilla = the BEST syrup EVER!

6. J's Fish & Chips--a new find after all these years going to the Oregon Coast, but a MUST from now on.

5. Avocado Egg rolls with Honey-Cilantro dipping sauce. As Amber says, "They are their own food group."

4. Almond cake from "The Shops at Salishan" Nibbled on it and savored every bite as I thought about my parents--love you guys!

3. 124 cans of Diet Pepsi--not all consumed by me, but I think I'd be sick if I knew what percentage of that actually was consumed--by-- me.

2. Peanut Butter bars. Three pans full = 2 pounds of butter to add to my already overflowing muffin top.

1. Davey's Prime Rib at 11:00 p.m. one evening. Drooling just thinking about it!

p.s. The diet started this morning.

Encore presentation!

Because of its popularity (and documentation in pictures!) I am going to share a few choice views I have been enjoying this week...

Sand? What sand?

Hangin-out at the beach Hitchin a ride at Depot Bay
Hitchin a ride at Multanomah Falls
Hitchin a ride at Cape Mears Lighthouse

The tag saves the day at Heceta Head Lighthouse

It has been a great trip!

We are a happy family...seriously, we are.

We had an impromtu photo session this morning. 50 mile an hour winds and rain were on their way, so we ran out and tried to beat the storm. Thank goodness pictures don't capture all the screaming that went on between clicks... Gavin has the best smile in the world but, for some weird reason, he does this freaky smile for any formal picture setting. Between that and Brents crazy faces, we are relying on some Amber photo op magic for our perfect picture. She's probably going to kill me for posting this unedited pic, but I wanted to show you how talented she is. This is the before--the after will hang on my wall and show me looking 10 years younger and 50 pounds lighter--hee hee. Thank you Aunt Amber for being so patient!

Try not to start crying...

This is where we are staying for a week...

We are here for a week with Aunt Amber (who took these cute pics) and some friends. More pics to come!

All together again---for the last time in 2 years

The VanCott gene does not allow for just one final goodbye--to anything. What is referred to as "my lasty" is seen over and over again with diet sodas, donuts, saying goodbye to the Oregon Coast before heading home...the list goes on and on. With my parents leaving for two years, I think we broke some kind of VanCott record for the number "last goodbye" parties we had for them.

Last Saturday we had a big lunch and goodbye after the co-baptism/baby blessing. That wasn't enough, so we all came to their setting apart the next day to say our final goodbye. They went into the MTC the next morning, but we all knew they would be coming home each night to sleep in their own bed, so I'm pretty sure we all stopped in at least once to have one more good bye. That wasn't enough. They were driving off into the sunset for good on Monday, so on Sunday, which was also Mothers Day, we had ANOTHER FINAL GOODBYE GET TOGETHER!! (I think I am beginning to see what Brent means by "your family has a lot of get togethers...)

"My lasty" is not the only neurotic thing we do. The gene also forces us to follow traditions--no matter how absurd they may be. One of these traditions is to sing a little song every time we get together (usually before the prayer on the food). The song is called, "All together again." It goes like this:

We're all together again, we're here, we're here.
We're all together again, we're here, we're here.
Here we are, singing all together again,
singing all together again, we're here, we're here!

Profound, I know. We were going to sing this song, all together, for the LAST TIME IN TWO YEARS (very big VanCott moment) and I wanted to document it for posterity. Tragically, my stupid camera missed the first half of the song, so I made everyone do it one more time, only to run out of memory right in the middle of the song! Do things like this only happen to me? Here is the song--in two parts, but almost complete.


and part two
b

Funny thing--for all his complaining, this get together wasn't enough for Brent. He called me Monday morning and we loaded the kids up and headed to my parents house to catch them before they drove out so we could give them one more hug! Maybe it's not just a VanCott thing.

Miss you Dad & Mom!

The not so fun race

I kept hearing sniggets about a race coming up at school. It was called "The Fun Race." Gavin said he was going on a field trip that day so his class wasn't running in it, and Kesley came home with a note that said if any kindergartner wanted to run in it they had to have a parent run with them or they would be cheerleaders with the rest of their class. I didn't really think much of it after that.

The morning of the race Gavin told me he was just kidding about the field trip and Kesley announced that she REALLY wanted to run in it. "Really?" I said. "You don't want to be a CHEERLEADER with your class??? " She thought that sounded cool until I dropped her off at school...then I got the phone call. "Mom, I really want to be a runner, so can you come?"

I called Brent, and he decided he was going to come too. He also had a little surprise up his sleeve for both of them once they finished the race. On the way to the school I kept seeing signs that said "Slow. Runner on the road!" I started to get the feeling that this wasn't going to be a small little 'once around the soccer field' thing--this was something BIG. You can imagine the horror when we got to the school and found out the race was 2 MILES LONG!! Doesn't sound like much for someone who is in shape, but we are, well, you know...NOT. Brent was wearing jeans, I had on a hot sweat shirt--this was not going to be fun.

The first 1/2 mile of the race was around the soccer field. The grass was long and still covered in frost from the light rain during the night. I was pushing Jenna in the Jogger stroller and I have to say--I thought I was going to DIE! Things only got worse for me when the next leg of the race was UPHILL. Kesley was ready to quit, but I knew we had to be almost half way done with this thing, and I now had to prove something to myself--sorry Kesley, but you were the one who didn't want to be a cheerleader! We pushed hard up the hill and caught up to Brent. I was happy to see that I was not the only one who was about to vomit. Brent took the stroller and Kesley and I set off to catch up with Gavin.

It took me a couple of minutes to catch up to him. The second he saw me he BOLTED off like he had just started the race! That kid was hardly winded! He let me catch up to him and we ran together. I really had to fight back the tears. This kid was running 2 miles without even thinking about it, when a little over a year ago he couldn't even run 20 steps without falling over! What a blessing.

The last 400 meters were hard. We were back on the soccer fields and now it was an uphill slant. Gavin wanted to walk, but I told him we should finish the race running. My heart melted when he reached out and grabbed my hand and we ran the last 400 meters together. How many more years do I have left where he will do that? Most boys don't want to hold their overweight mothers hand and run in front of the whole school! I love that kid.

Both kids finished the race and mom and dad both had jello legs and burning lungs for the next two days. The kids loved their trophy's. Here they are with them and their #1 dad!

Bush-B-Gone

I hate all things evergreen--at least when it comes to my own yard. I hate the prickly bushes and the quills that fall from the trees and poke my bare feet. The builder who built this neighborhood back in the 70's had a thing for evergreen bushes. They are EVERYWHERE. Check out the neighbors yard in the background of these videos...ya...that about sums it up. I guess our front yard looked identical to that a couple of years ago. Hooray for the previous owners who footed the bill for the removal and also put in that little retaining wall!! That was some progressive thinking!

There are still quite a few ugly bushes here and there around the yard. These two bushes/trees that are in this interesting little garden? that runs up our driveway have bothered me since we moved in. While Brent was on a high from cleaning out the garage, I talked him into hooking them up to his truck and yanking them out for me! Good bye ugly bushes, Hellooooo strawberry patch!

Bush #1


Bush #2


Next year--good bye weird little driveway garden and hello big kitchen above the garage... hoping that if I say it out loud my wish will be granted.