Summer Fun

Last Wednesday, Ronan turned 13 months old! In my opinion, this past month Ronan has been happier and cuter than ever. His personality reminds us of Brielle at the same age - happy, adventurous, funny, and loving. As he gets older, he's becoming more of a playmate for Brielle. At times she gets frustrated with him, but for the most part, she loves interacting with him and misses him when he's napping.

Every night, Brielle gives Ronan a good-night kiss. As a baby, his version of kissing is giving a big, open-mouthed, wet kiss. Brielle laughs, "Not THAT kiss!"

Given all the sunny weekends recently, we decided to take a day trip to the coast.

Brielle entertained Ronan in the car with her "poopy" humor.

We were shocked when we arrived at the ocean and the temperature was about 20 degrees colder! Luckily I had packed some "emergency" jackets, but I really didn't expect it to feel cold. Here's a (normally) gorgeous shot of an Oregon cliff at the coast...except for the fog.

We took a short walk out to a coastal lighthouse.

We had hoped for better beach weather, but we worked with what we got. Ronan fell asleep by the time we stopped at the beach, but Brielle and Daddy got some time to play on the sand.

Last weekend, we took a family trip to Oaks Amusement Park in Portland. It's really an impressive and fun place. Even when it gets busy, there's still room to park in the lot, and there are so many rides that there's no wait or just a few minutes' wait for any ride, even on a sunny Saturday.

There are plenty of scary, fast adult rides for the kids to enjoy in the future. But for now we focused on the numerous kiddie rides.

There were a few rides that Ronan could go on, including the train...

...and the carousel.

Way to match with your zebra, Brielle!

Going to Pump It Up has been a tradition for me and Brielle. When Ronan was a young baby, I'd take him in a carrier and he'd fall asleep. But now that he can walk around, he enjoys visiting PIU and playing with Brielle or walking around to explore the inflatables.

He also enjoys going down the slides on Mommy's or Daddy's lap.

This past month, Brielle finished up her "Beginning Classical Ballet" class. Even though she's enjoyed her previous ballet dance classes, she honestly wasn't as interested in this one. The teacher focused a lot on form, whereas the previous classes encouraged the kids to dress up like a princess and dance around freely with props. Brielle is really good in a class situation, paying attention to the teacher and following directions, so we thought she might be interested in this more advanced class...but she wasn't. We're not sure if the "I need to be a ballerina" thing was a phase or not, but we'll continue to enroll her in a variety of classes to see what interests her.