Jim's Creek

This week flew by for us! We can hardly believe it is Friday again and time for another adventure. Today we wanted to go check out Jim's Creek. It is a navy base but also has hiking and camping. The boys were excited to take Oliver on his first outing and he was great in the car.

On the way we passed this beautiful covered bridge.

Jim's Creek was easy to find and took us about 30 minutes to get there. We got a late start because Darrick got held up at work so we tried to see as much as we could before it got dark. It gets dark by 4:30 pm.

The camp grounds were nice. They had sites for tents, RV's and cabins you could rent. They had this huge Alpine Tower that the boys can't wait to try when the weather is warmer.

We stopped at the playground to run around a bit.

Then we hiked a bit on a trail. It looks like we are hiking in the dark from the pictures but it was light enough for us to see!

Jim's Creek looks like a great place to spend some time this summer!

We also want to proclaim our love for Cadbury. Every Easter we cannot get enough of their candy they put out called Cadbury Mini-eggs. They are very simple milk chocolate eggs coated with a crunchy sugar coating in pastel colors.

The other day I was shopping in Albertson's and saw these:

They are the exact same things but in Christmas colors! Thank you, thank you Cadbury and now we must go stock up on them before the season is over, because we already finished the whole bag!

Oliver

If you know us then you know about our history with dogs. In short, it has not been good. Most of our problems have stemmed with discovering that Jacob and Darrick are allergic to dogs and not finding the right type of dog for us.

Since then we have been doing a lot of research. We discovered that there are just a few breeds that are hypo-allergenic.

We have visited the Everett Animal Shelter a few times but did not see anything that matched our need. You can also check their website to see what dogs are there. On Friday night we looked at the website and saw a miniature poodle named Caramel. We were excited because that breed is hypo-allergenic.

We had commitments Saturday morning but as soon as we could we got to the shelter hoping he would still be there and he was! He was a stray they found on the streets. We spent some time with him and were very impressed. We all agreed he would be a good match for us. After we said yes, two other families came to adopt him. It is so rare to find such an expensive breed at the shelter. We all decided to change his name to Oliver from one of our favorite movies "Oliver and Company".

It has been four days now that he has been here and it seems like he has always been with us. Jacob has such a love for animals and has always wanted a dog. We all decided that Oliver is a family dog but Jacob is the owner. He is a great dog! But the best thing is that he does not shed!

Yesterday we took him to get groomed and cleaned up. The groomer kept telling us what a great dog he is and that she is so surprised we got him from the shelter. Oliver is 2 years old and house broken and we are so glad we found him! He is a keeper!

Time to Celebrate!

We decided that every year to celebrate Naomi's adoption day we would have pizza and then an ice cream cake! She was so excited when she saw that the cake had the Disney Princesses on it! She wanted to make sure that her piece had Cinderella on it-her favorite Princess. Happy Adoption Day Naomi!

Happy Adoption Day!

It is hard to believe that a whole year has gone by since we adopted Naomi! God has blessed us so much as a family and we can't imagine life without our sweet girl. She brought "more girly-ness" to our family and has brought out the softer side in all the boys. Finally having a daughter is better then I imagined! We love you Naomi!


Here are some of our favorite pictures of Naomi from the past year!







These next few pictures were taken at the orphanage before we adopted her. They are so precious to us because they are the only pictures we have of her before she came into our lives.