Home. Sigh.....

We've been home from the beach for a few days and already I miss the weather. Can you believe the weather was better at an Oregon beach, than in the Rose City?? Crazy. Yesterday was my birthday and with it being the first day of summer and the longest day of the year, the sun was out and it was perfect! Of course, I had to take the kids to pick out something for me (a bead for my bracelet) and my cake. Super-Hero doesn't do too well in the party-planning arena. But that's okay. I was able to listen to the kids argue for 15 minutes over which bead to get me. Doesn't matter that I had made a list of the beads I liked and any of them they chose would have been perfect! The store-owner was super sweet and patient with my kids and assured them that whatever they chose I would love. When I'm not embarrassed by them, I actually do appreciate their thoughtfulness.

I'm still trying to get the house back under control. I made the silly mistake of imagining coming home to a clean house. After all, four of us were gone for a week and most of the messiness comes from three of the four who were absent. I'm playing catch up with laundry (even though three suitcases came home clean and two were filled with dirty clothes) I'm still tearing through the mountain of dirty clothes. Romania and Egypt started a Sports Camp through our church, so I drop them off every morning and run around doing errands. Then in the afternoon, try to fix dinner, put clothes away, help straighten rooms and get Romania ready for a baseball game. Oh - I also spent time at the DMV on Monday. My driver's license was expiring on Tuesday and I completely forgot about renewing it. It didn't help that most of the paperwork was going to be difficult to find. You have to prove you're a citizen, your full legal name, full address and social security number. It was never this hard to renew a license before - I've gotta thank illegal aliens for making this process more complicated. I emailed Super-Hero while we were out of town to have him find my birth certificate and last year's tax forms. That would cover my name, social and address from the tax form and my legal citizenship from the birth certificate. He couldn't find the birth certificate anywhere. I went to the closest (I thought) open DMV office after dropping of the kids at Sports Camp. They would not accept the documents I had as enough to renew my license and the woman almost cut up my license right there! But she decided since it actually expired on the 21st, she would give me a "pass" and hope that I could find the documents I needed to prove who I was. I spent most of the afternoon looking through the files I could. But Super-Hero had locked the file cabinet in the garage and I couldn't get into it. I even asked Holland to try to pick the lock (he's done it before on door knobs!), but it didn't work. I was totally in a panic because I knew my birth certificate wasn't in there. The other document they'd accept was a passport, but I knew mine had expired years ago and wasn't sure how long past the expiration they would accept it. The DMV person told me five years past expiration and I went to England in '98 for my brother's wedding. Thankfully, Super-Hero found the passport and I raced out of the house while he got all three kids ready to head out to Romania's baseball game. Craziness.

The office I went to for the second trip to the DMV was a lot closer. I thought they were closed for renovation, but they weren't. And they were open 'til 6, so I had just enough time to get there and pray that my documents were enough. I was in and out in 10 minutes! Whew!! Got a temporary license (my mug on a piece of paper) and a hole punched in my card since it expired. So glad I got that taken care of. Here's my warning to everyone who has to renew in the next few years: look for your paperwork NOW! I can't believe how hard it was to find everything.

The Beach!

We've been in Seaside for almost a week and I do NOT want to leave! It has been so much fun. We've played so many times on the beach, I've lost count. The house we rented is just fabulous. The owners have done an amazing job with some remodeling and it still has all the charm of an old house (I think it was built in the early 20's). We've had fun talking through the floor to the kids! There are vents on the first floor that you can see through to the basement. Whenever someone is talking, it's hard to tell where they are in the house. The little ones like to stand downstairs and just talk like you're in the same room!

My nephew is playing in a beach soccer tournament, so my sister, my mom and I rented a house in Seaside where the tournament is taking place. We decided to come the week before the event. It's been amazing - the weather has been so kind, the kids have had a great time and we've made some special memories during the trip. A friend I've known for over 20 years (we used to work at a Christian Conference Center in Cannon Beach) still lives in Cannon Beach and I try hard to see her when we are able to come to town. This week was a crazy schedule for her, but she was able to make time on Friday to meet us at 7 in the morning to go hunting for sand dollars at low tide. She said this particular beach was usually just littered with sand dollars. And they weren't broken! I have never seen a sand dollar with all the fuzzy stuff on it. Only when they're dried up and broken. We walked around and found so many different sizes and colors of sand dollars. And Holland was even able to catch a razor clam! Some guys were clamming when we got down there and one let Holland dig and then pull the clam out and keep it! He was so proud! What a great experience! I'll post some pictures of our adventure later when I have time to make a cool slide show. We leave on Sunday and I want to stay the whole summer!!!

What we witnessed this week is truly proof of an amazing God!