The Coombs Family

Both of my kids were so sick for two weeks straight! The doctor said they both have croup. What is that? Good question. It's when kids cough and it sounds like a bark. Then after they cough, they gasp for air and you think they can't breathe. Both of my kids also threw up many times over the past few weeks. If they run and play too hard, look out! They slept with us in our room for the worst nights because we were worried they could not breathe very well. They couldn't really take any meds, and just needed a humidifier and cold air on them. They were tested for mono and some other stuff too because they have high fevers, no energy, no appetite, and are just laying around. Shelby got her blood drawn and she watched them do it. She loved it. She keeps asking to go back to the doctor. I think it's because she got a popsicle and a sticker, but it could have been the needle. She can't stop talking about them taking her blood. She definitely gets that from her dad. No ...

Our little man is now officially two-years old. We celebrated his birthday by spending a day together with just the four of us. Caleb, Shelby, Calvin and myself took off to Portland where we spent the day. We went to the Children's Museum by the Zoo and let the kids play for hours. Calvin is the perfect age for that place and both kids had a great time. One of his favorite parts was riding the bus there: Next up, we went to a motorcycle store. Calvin (and mostly Caleb) love bikes. He got to sit on them, shove his hand down exhaust pipes, and make cool sounds. We stopped at the water park in Wilsonville and let him play until he was exhausted. He and Shelby ran around like crazy. We didn't plan anything the whole day and just drove around and stopped whenever we thought of something fun. The next day was Father's Day so we combined a party for the dads and Calvin. Unfortunately both of my kids started to get really sick. The whole singing and cake episode was p...

My kids love the zoo. I don't know why we don't go more often. Maybe because we always have to go on a Saturday when there are 9 million people there! Calvin was far more interested in the train. Shelby loved the animals. Caleb and I just laughed at the kids and tried not to lose them with all the crazy people. Calvin hated the tractor, which was pretty funny. Shelby drove it no problem.  Do you see the bear? It walked right in front of the kids over and over. They loved it!

We finally got to take our anniversary trip, one month late, but we made it. This year we did not plan a single thing except for the babysitter. We had my brother and his wife come stay at our house with the kids, and that was all we needed to worry about. Caleb and I talked about many different places to go and the morning of our trip we agreed to drive up to Seattle. We found a hotel on my phone while we were driving, and called and booked the place. Amazing all the research you can do online while driving. We stayed in downtown Seattle where all the action is. We never pulled our car out of the parking space. We walked about 10 miles every day and got to do everything that we wanted to. I shopped in the mornings while Caleb slept in. I'm not very good at sleeping in, so I did the girly stuff while he slept in our silent room with blackout blinds. We went to lots of cool shops, restaurants, motorcycle stores, hiking store, tourist stops, and just watched people. The weather was p...

Caleb has been "self employed" now for the past year and had not paid taxes all year. I had no idea what to save or how much taxes would amount to, and neither did he. We played it safe and saved $23,000. We knew we probably overshot a little. He did put over 40,000 miles on our car last year, gets a break for food and insurance expenses. We have kind of turned into hoarders with money lately anyway. Not knowing what our future holds and where Caleb will end up working, we just keep saving.  Our tax guy just left our house at 10 pm on Sunday night, the night before taxes are due. I wasn't sure what to expect but Caleb has saved what he could.  Drum roll please......... we owe $349 to federal and get $400 back from state. So basically, it's a wash and we saved lots of money for ourselves. Without any hesitation, we are leaving this weekend to celebrate. We previously had planned on going this weekend for our anniversary trip that we have not had time to take. Now we...

Nothing better than a sunny day in Oregon for Easter. We went to my parents house all day on Saturday, church and to the in-laws on Sunday. The kids hid eggs, found eggs, ate chocolate, and had lots of fun. My sister and I even went for a run before we over-ate. Good thing too because the food was amazing. Glad to spend it with family. Sunday was especially fun because my in-laws have baby chicks they are raising. My kids got to play with the chicks, chickens, dogs, and cousin Isaac. Fun day for everyone.

When Calvin was 13 months old, we took him to the eye doctor as part of his other head diagnosing appointments. The doctor said he had a good chance of being near-sided and that we need to follow up. I took half the day off work and drove up to Portland so that he could be seen by a pediatric doctor. I am glad we did that because the doctor knew exactly how to handle a kid that was Calvin's age. They had fun toys in the room and ways to keep his attention. He could not see at all after they dilated his eyes, so it was one crash after the next. Then they told us his diagnosis -5 on the right and -8 on the left. I wasn't sure what to make of that, but she said it was really bad. We couldn't pick out any glasses in Portland because of the time of day, so we waited until Caleb could go with us. I took him to a place in Salem and Caleb and I were cracking up trying lots of different glasses on him. He HATED every single pair. It was hilarious. We knew that keeping glasses on him...