You won't believe what we bought at a yard sale...

Before we get to our amazing purchase, here's me on a surfboard. Oh yeah! Sure, that's a wimpy wave, but we started skiing on the bunny hill, right?The boys were very impressed.McKay wanted to try it. He was game until the cold cold water touched his feet. Then he became a spider monkey and climbed up my arm. (That's a boogie board, not the surfboard I was using.)Different day, kind of grey. Suzanne took the boys to a different beach while I was working for the Man. The boys had fun at the beach that day, but they had a lot more fun with what we bought at the yard sale yesterday. There are a few more pictures to enjoy before we get to that.We helped the boys write their names in the sand. McKay did the "M" all by himself!Carter only needed help lengthening the leg on his "R". For some reason he'll write in the sand but not on paper. The last "R" really is there, it's just too light for this picture.There's a nice walkway up the cliff from Nye Beach and the boys like to stop on each of the dozen benches on the way up. They're about 10 feet apart. It makes the nice walk a very long nice walk.This is the view from those benches, but usually there aren't two cute boys there.Same pathway up from Nye Beach. At the top there's this tall spike that acts as a sundial (but no numbers, go figure.) and the boys like to climb up and hug it. I don't know why - that's just what they do. They decided to just stand by it today.The ridge they are standing on has this inscription: "Light is an appointment we all must keep when we are quiet and can find the way." That means that this sculpture was made by a Confucius wanna-be and nobody seems to know what they meant by it. Many-a-time we've walked past tourists staring at it muttering, "What it the world is that supposed to mean?"The boys have to bring their toys EVERYWHERE - to the store, to church, Carter even takes his dog to school. They decided the toys need to be buckled so they stay safe. They did this, not us.Carter introduces the family like this: "This is my friend Dog (the toy), this is my friend McKay, and that's my friend Mama and that's my friend Dada!" Cute, but it shows who gets priority, too.If it's too windy at the beach, the boys always love playing at the park. This is one of their favorite games. I stand at the bottom and roll the balls up and they roll them back. They like it best when both balls come at me at once so I miss one, then I have to go running to get it.The boys like to race ever since I read "The tortoise and the hare" to them. Carter tries to assign roles to McKay but McKay ignores him. My favorite part is how the race begins: Carter says, "I will be the bear!" (Because the bear had the starting pistol in the book) "Are you Marks? Get set... Go!"The boys are playing wall-ball, but really they're thinking, "Do you think the person reading this has figured out the amazing thing we bought at the yard sale?" "No, there's no way!"I think the boys are ready to show you what we bought... Scroll down.

"Oh my gosh!" you say. Yup. It takes up all the available floor space in the family room, and it's really loud because the pump has to run the entire time. But it blows up in about 20 seconds and the boys LOVE it! The boys spent the entire morning playing in it.

I don't know why Carter is yelling at McKay to stop, but this is what the morning looked like:

Come on up and enjoy the show for yourselves.

Visit from Idaho

To my side of the family: since we forgot our camera when we went to Cleone, we need you guys to send us pictures! We would have put up a post about the trip, but we didn't have anything to show! Please email them to me at gphill79@hotmail.com so we'll have some memories of seeing you all at the California coast. It's... fuzzy... can't remember anything...

Hello again from Newport! The boys had a visit from the Idaho cousins - left to right: Kobe, McKay (of course), Lexie, Kip (in arms), Kortland (holding Kip), and Carter. On a trip to the aquarium during the visit. This was the only picture where somebody wasn't blurry from moving too fast - these kids are active!
Here are some posed pictures of our little guys. McKay is so photogenic! There were others that will probably end up in Grandma Carter's frame, but I love this one of McKay. He's happy and playful, with just a little bit of mischief, and McKay with no mischief is no McKay at all!
Carter is also extremely good-looking (it's in his genes!) but he has trouble sitting for pictures. McKay had 4 shots, all with big smiles. Carter had a dozen but he's faking smiles in these three, blinking in those two, using his hand to spread his mouth into a smile in that one... you get the idea.
For any who are technically challenged, below is a video. Click the play button at the bottom of the picture. It's a rhyme that Carter learned from his Aunt Sherene. I had to be sneaky when I shot this video - I held the camera in my hand down low and told him I was going to take a picture of him later. But you can tell from his eyes that he knew it was there. McKay froze up if it pointed his way, so that's why it's a solo. If you listen carefully you can hear McKay providing back-up at his favorite parts.

Here's the closed captioning:
"Four little monkeys swinging in the tree, teasing Mr. Alligator, 'You can't catch me, you can't catch me!' Along came Mr. Alligator quiet as can be... SNAPPED that monkey out of that tree!"

Fathers' Day at the Stables

For those who read this post already, Suzanne asked me to add more pictures. Scroll down to see the updates.

For Fathers' Day we met our friend Gloria and her daughter Allison so the boys could ride horses again. It was Carter's third time, and McKay's first! In the past he was too afraid, but the trick was to not try to make him ride all by himself. McKay didn't want to get near them at first, but I climbed up and he allowed Suzanne to lift him onto my lap. Here's Suzanne and McKay a little later on Blue, with Allison adjusting the stirrups. Here's a video of Carter, being walked by Gloria. She was really patient with him, even obliging when he started giving commands: "Fast! Now stop! Now fast!"

Sorry you can't see his face. He had his hood up the whole time and there are no pictures where he doesn't look like a Jedi.

I was busy looking stupid - Gloria was trying to teach me to run on her black horse, Pixie, and I "accidentally" deleted a long video of me making kissing noises and shouting "Giddy-up!" while the horse walked in lazy circles and the onlookers shouted something about ballet dancing. Fortunately we did manage to get this ego-saving gem. Sorry about the sound - Newport is a windy city.

Family fun times

Hi, everyone! Since our last post, Suzanne and I took a trip to Disneyland. Here's the only good picture we have with both of us in it, in front of Big Thunder Mountain. Those things hanging around our necks are Dream Speedpasses, which we got for doing absolutely nothing! They count as a speed pass for 12 of the busiest rides in Disneyland and California Adventure Park, meaning we spent all day cutting in line! Oh yeah... we left the boys with Grandma and Papa Phillips. "Mommy and Daddy went to Disneyland and all we got were these stupid t-shirts."
We do try to make sure they have fun times. They get to whale watch in Depoe Bay (no whales were out this day.)
They got to go to the "Touch-a-Truck" activity put on by Lincoln City Parks - they got to climb all over a fire engine, a police car, an ambulance, a search-and-rescue helicoptor, and a garbage truck. Suzanne reports that Carter liked the garbage truck best. He was in the driver's seat turning the steering wheel when the worker raised the dump part. Carter thought he was doing it!
Inside the helicoptor.

Playing at the McDonald's Playplace. We don't like to eat there, but the slides bring us back anyway.
There was a carnival in town with overpriced rides. The boys were really excited to go on the Merry-go-round, so we shelled out six bucks and I got to ride free to keep them on the horses. McKay started bawling before the ride began, but I was thinking, "If I let him get off now, it's three bucks down the drain! Plus he might start to like it, you never know..."

Suzanne took a picture everytime we went around, and they tell a great story: McKay's face got redder and redder, mouth open wider, until this last one. I like to think he started smiling before the end, but this could just be relief that it was over.And since we're on the subject of riding horses, this was taken on the Saturday before Suzanne's birthday. A friend of mine has horses and was kind enough to lend them to us so I could make up for my dismal lack of thoughtfulness on Mothers' Day. My horse is named Blue and Suzanne was on Desi. We rode up and down Nye Beach for a couple of hours and really had great time.Hope you all enjoy the pictures.

In our New Home

Hello, family and friends! So that you all feel like you've visited, welcome to our new house! We apologize for not inviting you inside right now, it's a little cluttered.

Out back we've got a deck, or we did until Grandma Carter and I tore it out. I thought it would take a really long time, but I guess it doesn't take that long when the whole thing is rotten and waiting to fall over anyway. I started sawing through the boards to begin with, until Grandma showed me you could rip them off the railing with your bare hands! They came right off the nails leaving a nail-sized hole in the board and the nail stayed in the supports and beams!
This picture is from a little later on. Grandma is off to the right of this frame. Suzanne, Sherene (Suzanne's sister), Carter and McKay watched us from the sliding glass door (boarded up now). Five minutes after this picture was taken I moved to the edge (far left) and the floor crumbled underneath me. That's about a twelve foot drop, but luckily I wasn't hurt. Unluckily, I walked away and stepped on a rusty nail, so I took a trip to the doctor's office anyway. The next day it tried to kill me again by falling on top of me when I was pulling down the beams. The bruise on my hip was beautiful! You should have seen it.
Easter morning was pretty dull, but we had a terrific egg hunt the next day! Maybe it was just the excitement, but it took McKay a full minute to find that purple egg after we took this picture. Carter was quicker to spot them, but we made him leave the easy ones for his little brother. Maybe next year we'll ask the Easter bunny to hide them LOWER.
A good time was had by all! (And a good haul.)

To my siblings: Shame on you for not updating your own blogs!

Magical McKay

To set this video up for you, I often make small objects disappear when I don't want the boys to have them. They're entertained for a moment, which means they're distracted from the fact that I've just taken away their toy.
A few weeks ago, McKay started doing his own brand of magic tricks, with no formal training whatsoever...

Closed captioning: Gabe: "Here. Show me your magic trick."

McKay: "Where's marble?"

G: "Oh! It's gone!"

M: "It's gone?"

G: "Wow, that's amazing."

M: "Where's marble?"

G: "Oh! It's amaz... It's gone!"

M: "It's gone?"

G: "Where did it go?"

M: "Where'd it go?"

G: "You don't know? Wow, that was amazing, McKay."

M:"It's...it's...it's...on the floor."

G: "It's all gone...it's on the floor?"

M:"It's on the floor."

G:"Oh, ok. Go get it."