Our Trip to the NW Coast-Part 2

So here's the second half of our Spring Break trip to Washington and Oregon. Again, there are a lot of pictures, so I won't say too much.
North Head Lighthouse
This is a random trail we found (trying to be adventurers) and below is a little salamander friend we found along the way. He was kind of creepy, but very slow so we got lots of pictures of him.
And here is his friend the Slug. I almost stepped on him. Gross!
The picture below speaks for itself.
Cape Disappointment Lighthouse
Kite flying at Cannon Beach again.
Have I mentioned how cute he is!?!? Love him!
Our adventurers pose.
Depoe Bay, OR
This is one of our favorite places to eat . . . EVER! It's just south of Newport, OR in South Beach. It's just kind of a hole-in-the-wall place connected to the side of a gas station, but it's listed on CNN's list of the Top 10 Seafood Markets in the nation. A lot of their seafood is so fresh it's caught that morning. Although we stopped a lot along the way, we drove 3 hours to get here. After we ate we turned right around and drove 3 hours back to our condo.
Our hotel in Seattle (gotta love priceline.com).
Mikey took this picture off a pier in Seattle. Isn't it cool?
Fresh Alaskan Salmon at Ivar's Salmon House. One of the best meals of my life. I'm drooling now just thinking about it. Oh my!
Mikey got pretty gutsy taking these pictures of the homeless man above and the long-haired dude below. I don't think we were as conspicuous as we thought with the photo below. But I love that he and I are doing the same pose.
Pike Place Market
Mikey buys me flowers every Easter, it started the first couple weeks we were dating. I think he got a little carried away this Easter! ;) The flowers they were selling at Pike Place Market had been cut from the fields that morning and were very inexpensive. So we stocked up and brought a bunch home in a cooler the next day.
Space Needle
This expression above is very sincere. It's my expression shortly after I dropped my in-laws' beautiful camera and I thought I broke it. Luckily, only the filter was a little scratched and it was a quick, easy fix, but until we could get it fixed I was sick!
Woo woo!
The drive home!
We're a little strange.
And the flowers made it home safe and sound!
We had such a fantastic trip!

St. George Here We Come!!

Hopefully we'll find some sun there,
because it's sure been hiding around here! :)
We're looking forward to a chill, relaxed week hanging out with my parents, my sisters Lynette & Heather, and their families.

Our Trip to the North West Coast-Part 1

Back in April I posted about how Mikey and I were going on an adventure up to Long Beach, Washington for Spring Break. But once we got home we bought a new computer (yippie!) that was a lemon (boohoo.), and after Mikey spending hours, and hours, and hours on the phone with tech support, they finally sent us a new computer! So, finally I'm back into the blogging world a little more and ready to post about our awesome trip. Buckle up, though. We borrowed 2 nice cameras from Mikey's parents and went a little picture happy (is 1,582 pictures considered "a little"?). Don't worry I narrowed it down (some). So, since "a picture's worth a thousand words," I won't write a ton in these next couple blog posts. Enjoy!

This is a random stop along the drive through Oregon where we decided to stretch our legs.
Yet another random spot in Oregon. This was an art installation between the freeway on and off ramps. We were a little tired of the car at this point.
Still driving . . .
. . . and we made it to Long Beach! This is the darling condo my grandma let us stay in. It was so cozy and just a short walk from the ocean.
And this was our lovely car for the week (that we want to be our car FOREVER!). We had the misfortune/luck to get in a small car accident before we left, so we recieved a nice discount on a rental, and this just happened to be what they had available!
He's so cute!!
Mikey took this photo above . . .
. . . this is a photo I took of Mikey taking the photo above. . .
. . . this is a photo of the water that came in while Mikey was taking the photo above . . .
. . . and this is a photo of what Mikey's pants looked like after the water came in while he was taking the photo above!
Notice anything interesting about the refrigerator picture? Yeah, those are keys in there. We looked EVERYWHERE for those keys, and low and behold here they were. I must have left them there when I was unloading groceries, but I have NO recollection of it. Weird.
This is a place in Astoria, Oregon we call "Daffodil Hill." It's just an old lady's front yard, but it was so beautiful we had to stop and take a few pictures . . .
. . . and then she came out and caught us! But she was so sweet. She talked to us for like 10 minutes and was so flattered that we stopped to take pictures of her flowers.
Cute Mikey taking artistic photos.
This is in one of our favorite spots in the world, Cannon Beach, Oregon. Mikey saw these blossoms in a parking lot and told me to jump out and take a picture. "Yes sir!" ;)
Haystack Rock
When we planned this trip to Long Beach, WA we had no idea we were just an hour north of our favorite Cannon Beach. We were so happily surprised!
When we came here for the first time last August it was a little chilly and overcast.
This time it was a lot chilly and sunny!Me carrying around a flower we kidnapped from Daffodil Hill.
Mikey taking the picture below.Well that's it for today! There's one more post to come!

FREE Chocolate!

So I saw this a minute ago on a blog I check frequently, fabulesslyfrugal.com, and thought I'd pass it on. Every Friday through September, Mars will be giving away coupons for free chocolate starting at 9 AM ET. They give away 250,000 coupons each Friday. Who doesn't like free chocolate?? Click here for the Mars Real Chocolate Relief Act coupon! You can only get one coupon per email address per Friday, with a total of 4 coupons per household during the whole promo. When I registered it told me I can expect to receive my coupon in 6 weeks. Oh the anticipation!

School's Out for SUMMER!!

Day 2 of Summer and it's completely awesome. I had such a fun year teaching this group of third graders. I honestly teared up Friday morning as I was hugging them good-bye. I totally will miss this year and this group, but did I mention that IT'S SUMMER!!?? I guess that a pretty good consolation. :)
Friday morning after we bid our darlings good-bye, the faculty and staff all packed up and headed for Mimi's Cafe for "Viking Island Survivor." At the end of each year there are always a few changes. Teachers retiring, transferring to different schools, staying home to be mommies, and we have to say "good-bye" to some sweet friends. So this year our reading specialists arranged "Viking Island Survivor" as our way to bid those leaving farewell. Someone read a tribute to each person leaving and then after each tribute we "extinguished their torch" (which consisted of everyone making fizzing noises) and someone announced that, "the tribe has spoken." It was really cute. I'll miss seeing those friends every day. Hopefully they'll visit every once-in-a-while.

My fun principal, Sylvia