President's Day weekend at the beach

President's Day weekend is a tradition amongst the Anderson clan (Brandon's uncles, who are basically like his older brothers) and this year we headed towards the beach again. This is my third year joining the fam and it was yet another weekend to remember.

I made some cupcakes to celebrate Valentine's Day!


Hunter was as cute as ever in her newly purchased super discount clothes from Newport outlet stores. :)


Lots of relaxing went on, Maree and Jackson are too adorable!

Jackson missing her dad who went out the back door. I absolutely LOVE this shot, need to add that to my portfolio. ;)


We hit up the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, cuz it was free ($5 suggested donation) and super cool. The kids loved it. Below is a shot of Nate through a huge whale skull.

Jellyfish!!!
Jason and Nate with Andy and Alexa mesmerized by the tide pools.


Fish!

The kids being too cute hiding from something or somebody under a yellow submarine.


Earth!

Beach time!
This is all the daddies walking with their wee ones to the beach. I loved how this picture just kinda happened with me walking behind them. So cute.


Brandon and Hunter...






Jason playing football with Brandon.


And an Anderson weekend wouldn't be complete without dudes smoking cigars and drinking cheap beer in the hot tub. ;)

RIP Henna the Hen

Things have been busy busy the last month. It'll take me a few posts to get caught back up on all the fun stuff that has happened lately but I am going to get the bad news out of the way.

Sadly one of our chickens, Henna, was killed two weeks ago. We think it was a raccoon but we're not sure, it appears to have happened in the early evening when we were both gone. I noticed the next morning when I looked out to see the girls and I saw piles of feathers all around the yard. I won't go into details, but it seemed like a pretty bad death and thanks to Brandon for taking care of the body. Clarice survived by hiding under the shed. I feel terrible because for the last six months I haven't been going and locking their run and who knows if I had been locking it up if she would have been attacked. They just go in their hen house like clock work from dusk til dawn and we have never seen a raccoon around the neighborhood.

She was less than a year old. :( Here's a little picture montage of her time with us.


Hunter loved feeding the girls on the nice days in the last month.



Ever since it happened, Clarice has been sleeping in the garage either on the dog couch or on a shelf. She hasn't layed any eggs since the incident. Thinking we'll be getting her a new buddy soon. Her and Henna were so close. Poor girl.




(Yes, the dog couch can get nasty, but that's why it's a dog couch in the garage. :)

Henna and Clarice used to perch up on the swing structure, now Clarice is all alone. :(

Some nights Clarice will sit in the garage at the cat door and stare in at us whining (as close as a chicken whine I've ever heard) wanting to come inside and hang out with us. She's definitely a weird chicken. In the next month we're going to revamp their chicken run to be bigger so we can keep them in it while we're away and of course get her a new buddy.

Tea party!

Hunter and I went shopping for her first tea set today. It's 100% recycled. :) A cool line of toys called Green Toys.




Now we just need a little table to have tea parties at.

Willamette River

I've been off work all week watching Hunter while Teri is enjoying some down time in Mexico. We took a walk down to Rogers landing the other day when the sun was out for a bit. She was loving running around and gathering sticks and rocks.










Cora, Clarice and Henna enjoying the sun in the backyard...