The Coombs Family

Caleb and I are buying a practice called Sunnyslope Dental. It's here in South Salem and very close to home. We went out to dinner in March this year for our anniversary with some friends. Dave Swiderski and his wife Stacy. Dave said to Caleb "If you know you want to own your own practice, there is no better time than now to do it. Don't wait. It makes it so much harder and it's great to call a place your own". Caleb and I went home that night and stayed up late talking about what if, what would he do, when is the right time. The next night he was gone and I looked on the internet just to see what was out there. I saw on OHSU's website that Lisa Garlock had posted that her dad was selling his practice. We know Lisa well because her husband David was in Caleb's graduating class at OHSU. He specialized in orthodontia. Caleb just went to Colorado to visit them at their new house where they also bought a practice. We had no idea Lisa's dad was ready to sel...

We decided to hit the road for Thanksgiving this year and go to Utah. Caleb's parents live there now, his sister, grandpa, lots of aunts and uncles. I also have quite a few family members there, my cousins and some aunts and uncles. I drove myself with the three kids on Monday and Caleb came with my parents on Wednesday. Driving there with the kids was actually pretty easy. It was around 14 hours to get from Salem to Highland Utah where Jocelyn lives. We got there around 8:30 at night since we lost an hour due to time changes. The kids were in heaven as soon as we arrived. Jocelyn's house is amazing and Shelby had plenty of girl things to play with. Tuesday we met up with Jessica and all of us went to a kid museum. It was so much fun. The kids explored and we spent hours there. Calvin stayed the night with Jessica because he is in love with his cousin James. Wednesday we hit the road back to Logan and got to stay at Jenny and Kurt's. Jenny is Caleb's sister and their ho...

Shelby turned 8 this year. We had laser tag birthday party with around 20 kids. She had a blast and the rest of the kids did too. They were so sweaty by the time they were done playing for an hour. We had pizza, cake, and went home and took a nap! She's going to get baptized over Thanksgiving when we go to Utah. Caleb's parents just moved there this summer and it's the perfect reason to make a trip to go see their new house. Shelby didn't want a lot of presents for her birthday. She said she doesn't want to be too spoiled. She's getting pretty particular about certain things. She got a gift card for Fred Meyer awhile ago and she didn't want a single toy. I couldn't believe it. It was a sign that she's growing up for sure. She wanted to look at jewelry and makeup! Oh no! I'm afraid she gets that from me. The weather was crazy this weekend for her birthday party. The neighbors fence blew down in multiple spots. It rained a bunch and the wind wa...

Took the kids to Bauman's Farms again to get their crazy donut, pumpkin, tractor, animal loving ways some fun. The kids did everything there. We took Rhoda's girls with us and I think they had something for all the ages. It's such a huge mess of people that I was afraid to go and just wait in lines all day. But we got right into everything and had a blast. The weather was warm, sunny, and we all were exhausted when we left. Four hours is a long time to be at a pumpkin patch! Well played Bauman's, we will see you again!

We decided to head out the door to Sunriver the last weekend before school starts. It was full of all the regular adventures we have come to love. We went with Jen and Tyson Scott and their three kids. We were there Friday through Monday and it was a great time away from work and home responsibilities. Here we are the first night on our first ride to the duck pond. Something new that we haven't done before is take the lift at Bachelor up to the top. It was FREEZING cold on the lift. We brought all the clothes we could and blankets and we still froze to death. Luckily you can buy boiling hot hot chocolate at the top and sit by the fire. The kids got to do the bumper cars, so did the dads. Play miniature golf. Jump on huge trampolines. Climb rock walls.  Jump in bounce houses. The men went fishing and caught some fish. They mostly stared at the fish and begged them to bite their flies, but they did catch a few. The women did some pretty amazing puzzles and talked ab...

For Ronin's first birthday in January we got family pictures. Time flew by and I never picked up my disc of all the photos. Now I finally have them. Here's to my baby turning one, and my amazing family putting up with fancy clothes and posing for pictures.

My cousins Jessica and Jocelyn brought their families and came to Oregon for my nephew Logan's farewell. What made it a bonus is that it was also Jessica, Rhoda and my birthday. Hence the R2J2. We named this special week and decided we would celebrate each year a new place. From now on, we will try to make it a week together more often than not. This year we went to the Oregon coast, we hiked Opal Creek, we ate way too much food, we stayed up late laughing, and we spent all our time together. Here are a few highlights from our trip. We toured Tillamook cheese factory. The kids found it amazing. It was pretty cute and I haven't taken the kids before. They were impressed and now they want to buy Tillamook cheese or ice cream whenever we shop. So I guess the marketing design around the tours is paying off. Tony and Jocelyn wanted to go to a lighthouse they went to when they were married, so we toured that. And we got to see the octopus tree, which is actually pretty cool. ...