June and July-to-date

Reverse Chronological Order:

Kier-bear has been under the weather lately.  Like all summer, actually.  After several weeks of grouchiness and some ear-touching I had him seen.  He had fluid in his ears but it wasn't infected so we left it as-is and were told to treat the discomfort/pain as needed.  A few days later (last weekend) we left for the mountains and Kieran was NOT a happy boy.  We didn't have a thermometer to check, but he felt really hot too.  And he wasn't eating or drinking much.  Yesterday's temp check said 100.4 so I took him in again and one of his ear drums is "bulging".  He has what Asher was just treated for a few months ago. Yet another blocked Eustachian tube.  I guess that makes 3 of the 4 kids with this problem so far.

So, he's on an antibiotic to prevent the infection he's susceptible to, and hopefully that will clear things up like it did with Asher. In the mean time, the little guy suffers from the pain and is seeking some extra snuggles from Mama.  In fact he's been quite the Mama's boy lately - seeking me over Daddy.  Not gonna complain about that aspect.

 

P.S. See those curls?  He had the straightest hair ever, then all of a sudden this warm weather is curling it.  I'm hoping the warm part is a coincidence and it's actually just turning curly on it's own, but that seems unlikely.  So we'll just enjoy the cute curls while we can.

Over 4th of July weekend we took the opportunity to camp for the first time as a family of 6.  It was... hmmm.  No, it was good.  I reserved a spot earlier in the week and found two whole camp sites available within a 3 hour drive of us among ALL the campgrounds in Oregon.  We ended up at a very popular campground, actually, plus it was a prime location in the campground itself, so there must have been a cancellation that we took advantage of.  It was at Loon Lake between Reedsport (Coast) and Roseburg (Valley).  It was a gorgeous lake, apparently well kn.own for water skiing and other boating and swimming.  Our particular site sat just above the beach.  Which meant it was quite loud all day - campers and day-users come in droves and bbq and play their music and such.  If you are camping to "get away from it all" you would have been very disappointed.  In our case, as we went camping for fun, and since our kids are noise-makers themselves, we were o.k. with it.  Plus the view from our site couldn't be beat.  We weren't, though, prepared for the noise of the campground at night.  There was one group playing their music full blast and singing along at the top of their lungs until well past midnight.  I was pretty ticked at their rudeness and baffled that the camp host never attended to that.  By the second night, which wasn't so bad, but still had people all over the campground talking and laughing loudly, and playing music, I'd decided that this campground is just a party one.  And I promptly tuned it all out and fell asleep.

Kieran, being sick, had a rough first night.  The noisy campers had all turned in around 2am, then at 3 Kieran woke up.  I took him to the car where he sucked his thumb but never did fall asleep again. I gave him medicine but nothing seemed to help.  He started fussing again at 4, so I tried putting him back in his bed where he fell asleep until like 11:30 that morning.  But between the unexpected noise in the first half of the night, staying up with Kieran, and my other kids waking up around 6/6:30, it was a no-sleep night.  Also mine and Brian's air mattress apparently has a leak.  Hah!

He spent all of about 10 minutes over the 2 1/2 days enjoying the beach.  Mostly he was just unhappy.

While Dad sets up the tent, the others will play!  Dinner time meant the lake was empty.

The lake is sort of zigzag shapped.  We were on one end, so it curves around those mountains in the back right.

Kieran at church a few weeks ago

Marching out the door to church, Hollyn was ready.  She had her snack, her bunny, her baby doll, and of course the cow hat.  Check.

 A few weeks ago the kids and I went and visited my sister Shannon in Tricities Washington.  We had a great time!

Awww.  Kinda sweet when she's sleeping

Actually smiling.  Woop!

Fun splash pad and playground next to the library

More camping pics

Made it to the waterfall

 On the last day of school some girl friends and I stayed at a beach house.  SOOOO much fun!

We've taken advantage of the Kidzbowlfree thing a few times.  They're getting better.

Hollyn's eye Dr. at OHSU wanted me to email a picture of her eyes so he could decided whether or not to see her or just treat with Ibuprophen.   Thought ya'll might want to see the Browns Syndrome in all it's glory.  Weird, right? (Her right eye is correctly looking at the item, the left eye isn't moving up as it should)