The Armstrong Family made it to the beach!!!!

We found some business we had to do out there, of course, and then off we

went to play quite spontaneously!!

The Oregon beach is unique, I think. The Idea of "beach" implies the ocean and swimming or surfing... unless your a normal Oregonian family. Then you know to pack coats and extra shoes because you'll be bundling up against the cold wind and driving sand. If you plan on picnicing on the beach, you plan on eating a little sand - "sandy sandwiches" - because the sand never stays near the ground. That nice wind caries it right into the next bite your taking. Children always come running up with some amazing treasure to share and shake sand all over the picnic area, even if you hide behind a log. If you do find a nice log spot, pre-check for broken glass or some unfortunate find previous visitors forgot. Oregon beaches are clean, don't mistake me, I love them, but lots of people visit at all hours and you might have little ones, like we do.

We hadn't been to the beach for 3 1/2 years. I know! It's hard to believe! But there's a serious story behind that. When I was pregnant with Camten, Jeremy's dad had come to live in Portland near us for his last year because he had lung cancer. Looking back we wish we had understood more of the serious march of cancer. At the time we were frustrated with the grim acceptance of Jeremy's relatives, and we were trying to approach the situation with hope and, well, basically denial. The day he died we were at the beach. It just happened to be the weekend we went to the beach every year, and we had visited with him the day before... needless to say, we were caught off guard and the thought of returning to the beach to play was a little too hard to swallow for quite a while. That's how this little trip came to be Camten and Trinity's first trip ever.

Such a wonderful, fun place should not have such difficult mental connections, but sometimes life is hard and that's the way it goes. Our kids will never associate the beach with Grandpa Bob, but for Jeremy and I, it's not so bad to have such an amazing place as a anchor for our memories of him. It's definitely a majestic place. We won't push ourselves to play hard or stay long, but we already started building new memories. The beach is an important part of living in Oregon, and our children really enjoyed the visit. So did Jeremy and I.

The reason WHY we went to the beach was so important, I hardly know what to write about our trip!!!

We found a great spot that was super sandy and fun to play at. We brought a box of yummy food to eat that got all sandy, of course. We dug holes and found a bunch of shell treasures. We carried out a whole bag of shell pieces, I mean, Treasures.

We found a seagul... and then 50!! We had fun sharing the bread crusts left that we couldn't eat and watching the "me-me-me" crowd. One almost took a piece out of Jeremy's hand - I'm not sure which one backed off, but I think it was the seagul.

We're having so much fun, you'd never guess how busy we feel!!

Camten discovered the world of Hwy 35 in the Hot Wheels collection and has been watching the videos over and over and sneaking his brother's Hwy 35 cars when they're at school. If you know Camten, you know it's really hard for him to give them back, too. He wraps his little fingers around a Hot Wheels car and it's not easily pryed out. But Mom had a great idea! I checked on ebay and found some opened Hwy 35 cars up for bid! I didn't know how they would be a hot bid item otherwise I wouldn't have printed out a copy for Camten to carry around before they arrived... yes, I spent too much on little cars. But what was I to say to that beautiful face?! Next time I'll keep my ideas a secret until I know I can afford it!!

Trinity is rarely clean and huggable - she's often sweet and sticky and huggable just like her beloved bear! but this is one of those squeaky clean moments that friends and relatives never see, since I give her a bath before bed. So I got a picture to share the joy. :-) Just, we don't recomend that anyone else hold Bear. At least, not until I can sneak him away for a thorough washing!!

Camten's showing his stash of cars. It looks like a lot to me, and I hope you'll agree, because around here his stash is very small and beginner-looking. Shad assures me he has many more cars. Camten is picking out his favorites - see how a Hot Wheels fits in his hand? It's a little harder to love 6 at the same time, but he's practicing.

Aidan has boundless energy and boundless imagination to match. He is often moving quickly, running or spinning, and always with a descriptive story to match. After multiple "look at how my wheel's in the air, Mom" I try and get a verbal-only play by play for all the Monster Truck rallies. Here I believe we are looking at a Cyclone - or a "donut" for Dad.

One of our favorite Aidan imaginations is the Scorpian car with pincers and tail. Ever since Jon and Angie gave Aidan a bug book with cool pictures and poster and glow-in-the-dark bugs (which are his treasured pets), Aidan is fascinated with bugs. The Scorpian looks the scariest, so it's his favorite.

We also like the various speaker trucks and cars that Aidan comes up with. He loves speakers and especially big ones that bounce to the music. A shopping trip to Walmart, for example, is a good trip according to Aidan, if we can pause at the car speaker section for a moment. It inspires him for the whole day!

Shad is the nicest, kindest big brother around. I caught him enjoying a quiet moment all to himself - very rare, but highly enjoyed. He is usually the one to make peace between everyone and include them in his complicated plays. His favorites are cars, of course, Monster trucks, which are permanently set up right now, or adding tracks or tinker toys to the same theme. He can make a cool tinker toy car and jump it on his big, red jump (in the background there) so that it falls to pieces to Shad's complete delight. All the parts flying is really cool, I guess. They try to shoot their cars through the ladder rungs on the bunk or off the steps in the living room - whatever results in a good crash.

SMILE!! Nana comes to play and then Dad and Mom suddenly take off - what's up with that?! Trinity's new thing is to sit on people's laps... indefinitely. It's very cute initially. She loves to be held and carried everywhere. Her little face showed complete shock when I didn't immediately answer her upward arms request - she firmly believes everyone wants to carry her all the time. Even at church I'm hearing she likes to spend most of the playtime on someone's lap. Anyone want to arm wrestle me?!

We saw this rainbow right before we experienced one in our family... Shad accepted Jesus into his heart on March 4th. God has always been good to us as a family, and He will continue to bless us. His promises are always trustworthy - but seeing a rainbow so brilliant and so close was a stunning reminder - GOD IS AWESOME!!

WINTER SCENES......

We are on Myspace now!!! Come visit our sites!!

www.myspace/gm572

&

www.myspace/armstronglaura

Winter! Snow! Cold! January! Oregon!





Jeremy and Laura


outside the shop....









Shad... enjoying the snow.














Aidan... no school!!!














Camten... sipping hot chocolate.















Trinity... on her first sled ride ever!











Penny hanging out.

Dollar and Diamond in the snow, too.

Salty taking a bath. ?!

"Jesus, You are the reason that we celebrate Christmas"




It's hard to fit everything that we want to do inside one tiny month and still stop and remember why...

we make a manger scene to remember every year - maybe some year it will be fancy or more life-like, maybe some year we will figure out how to slow down and live December deliberately... but what if we never do?! What if it's always hectic and rushed?! What if we're always irritated at trying to fit too much into so little time?! Then we'll be glad that we started the phrase "it's all about the baby" when the kids were little and trying to figure out who Santa Claus is, and what presents they'd get. Even if we never really "get it", it's still... ALL ABOUT THE BABY! And frankly, isn't that a great picture of our lives? We try, sometimes we really pay attention and try, but that's no guarantee that we captured God's perspective or grasped His motives. The attempt is still refreshing.

With that, here is a glimpse into our reality of the Christmas season - and Aidan's birthday!


Here is the Town and Country we used while the insurance settled after the wreck - more importantly, on top of the minivan is our first ever Armstrong Christmas tree!! As a family we picked this fine evergreen and Daddy sawed it down and tied it up. We didn't head into the wilderness to find it because there was a handy U-Cut right here in Damascus.


Some day we shall have to write a book on Creative Ways to Make Money - here's one of the latest, but not our favorite: Buy clawfoot tubs off Craig's List and refinish them in our own shop and sell them for a profit. It's a good money-maker, if anyone's interested on learning how! Call (503)740-1755 to pre-order your instructional DVD now. (That would be idea #2 and less labor-intensive.)



Our new ride! A '99 Chevy Tahoe! We had a 3rd seat installed to fit our whole crew and then met a safety specialist at the local fire dept to make sure we were all buckled in as safely as possible. I learned a lot! and the specialist was very helpful and not critical of my past mistakes (which was nice) - actually ran into him at church later that night! Bonus!!



We have an annual tradition of making Gingerbread Houses - this year we teamed up to make two houses, Aidan and Mom vs. Camten and Dad, and a deluxe dog house from Shad. I didn't write "vs" by mistake either, it turned into a decorating contest! We demanded that our visitors choose the winner all throughout the season, and now I'm wondering why I even brought this up. Forget I mentioned anything. The middle one's the cutest by far, don't you think?!




Happy Birthday, Aidan!

We really woop up A-Bear's birthday so that he'll remember it after Christmas. He wanted a Cars theme, so he had a cool cake with Lightning McQueen and red balloons (and red candles, red ribbon, red sparklies if we count all the Christmas stuff everywhere, too, that totally fit in). This year we were happy to find him a cool ride with bumpin' speakers. Aidan loves speakers!! We have no idea where he got that.










We had a very nice, quiet visit with Grandpa and Grandma at their home on Christmas Eve. We were bringing quite the crowd all by ourselves, so it was nice to not be as overwhelming as we might have been. Even better, we got to have a great visit!! Camten had some one on one time with his Great-Grandma that he really enjoyed.




Here are a few highlights from our Christmas day...

Camten's first construction gift out of four!!



Trinity's first cell phone!







Cool head swag from Uncle Dwight and Aunt Kristi








Party time! at the chocolate fountain










I had to take a picture of turkey that turned out looking like it was off National Lampoons Christmas Vacation - mostly because I hope all my future turkeys look a whole lot better!!!!

WAIT!!! HOLD EVERYTHING!!!!

So, the last time our totally awesome blog was updated, we were sharing pumpkins?!

WHAT HAPPENED?!

Obviously, a lot! After Jeremy's birthday, Aidan had a Harvest Program in Kindergarten, we celebrated Camten's 3rd birthday, and then Thanksgiving... and then my birthday! and then I got in that t-bone wreck, so I got a new ride...


I am so not saying all that again, so I hope you got it all. If not, read my pix:




Jeremy's Birthday Party -










Aidan's Harvest Program -













Camten's Birthday Party -








New Dog, Diamond (with Dollar) -








Armstrong Family Thanksgiving -











Laura's Birthday -










Wrecked Windstar -









That's it for November, folks!!

Have a great day!

-The Armstrongs