when cousins come to town

we had sam's brother's family come stay with us for a few days this last weekend & got to play tourist/tour guide in our new city.  there were lots of late nights watching movies, lots of eating out & yummy treats, touring downtown & riding the train, going to the zoo & trying to find ways to keep cool in near 100 degree temps.  it was a blast.

the boys had so much fun playing with their cousins & were happy to have other kids around to play "zookeeper & paleontologist" with them.  tears were shed when the cousins had to leave & we're all already looking forward to the next trip.

thanks for coming to visit nielson fam!

the scientist & the lens

this post serves two purposes.

1)  parker is obsessed with science stuff.  volcanos, history of dinosaurs, geology, crystals, fossils, animals, etc etc.  he says he wants to be a zoologist, marine biologist & paleontologist when he grows up.  ok bud.  anywho, his latest obsession is this volcano science kit he got for his birthday which includes a few rocks formed from volcano eruptions.  one is a geode you can crack open to reveal crystals inside.  we finally got around to cracking open his geode tonight.  the most exciting part to parker, being the sweet little guy that he is, was that there are now two pieces of his geode... one for him & one for elliot.  love that kid.

2)  i got a new lens.  i picked up the sigma 50mm art this last week & took it outside to play this evening.  trying to shoot lifestyle stuff at 50mm is throwing me for a loop, guys.  i'm SO used to my 35mm.  and when i shoot weddings i shoot my 35mm & my 85mm and use them both very differently so figuring out this 50 is totally challenging me.  i guess it's good to mix it up?  also i feel like the color & exposure is just... off.  i haven't shot a picture with it yet that just WOW'ed me.  but i'll keep playing with it & am determined to figure it out.

so. enjoy a few pictures of parker cracking open his geode & me trying to figure out this freaking lens.

camping // the boys first time!

we were always pretty daring when it came to doing things when our boys were babies.  our kids have flown countless times, spent a crazy amount of hours in the car on road trips & they've spent more nights in hotels than i even know.  but one thing we were never brave enough to do with babies was go camping.  camping with a newborn?  nope.  with a crawler?  yeah freaking right.  even last summer when elliot was just shy of two years old it wasn't even on the table.

so this was our summer to break them in.

and it turns out they are at the perfect age to take camping.  they LOVED it.  they were giddy about their sleeping bags, they packed their own backpacks full of the things they wanted to bring & were just so excited about the whole idea of it all.  and thank goodness they are both old enough to understand the whole "take your shoes off in the tent & zip it up behind you" thing because my ocd self just doesn't do dirt & bugs in my sleeping bag.  but if i had a penny for every time i reminded them of that i would probably have a dollar.

we camped at oxbow regional park just outside of portland.  it's like twenty minutes from our house & sure your closest couple of camping neighbors are just a stone's throw away but it was just right for our first-timers.  it's right on the sandy river & has plenty of safe water-play river access.  there were lots of woods the boys could safely run through within eyesight of our camp & the wildlife were used to all the people so there were lots of deer sightings.

we had good company (sam's parents, sister & her husband), lots of good food (obviously a given when camping) and amazing weather.  we had so much fun that i've spent a good part of my day looking up tent trailers on craigslist so we could do this kinda thing twice as much with half the work.  hey west coast road trip, we're coming for ya!

so much fun.

june // is it summer yet?

it sure feels like it!  splash pads, tank tops, popsicles, bbq, repeat.  not too shabby.

we're taking the boys on their first camping trip & we're all getting pretty excited.  their sleeping bags were out on our living room rug for days so they could practice & every trip to the grocery store now includes walking the camping aisle just to make sure there isn't something new & cool we need for our trip.  we'll see how this goes.

i have once again hit a wall in my working out & clean eating.  what even is that?  like life just gets busy & it's the first thing to go.  late nights, slow mornings & poor meal planning have all made me so unmotivated.  it's just so much easier to not do it all.  but ugh, i'm feeling sluggish & lazy & something's gotta give.  i just have ONE MORE WEEK of my kayla itsines 12 week workout guide & my body is just like "nope." i have to push through that somehow & just get it done so i can start it over or i will never forgive myself.  get it together amy!

i went to the ingrid michaelson concert last night totally last minute.  i had a friend text me literally on her way there to see if i wanted to go & it just so happened i had gotten dressed & done my hair that day so i thought why the heck not?  you can't waste a good hair day & i mean the alternative was flopping down on the couch & having a lazy tuesday night (not that there's anything wrong with that).   it was a blast.  i only know like three or four of her songs but i'm a music fanatic so obviously when we pushed our way down to the front row & were like ten feet from ingrid & her band & the music was amazing, i cried.  i'm such an emotional weirdo!  but sometimes it just feels good to remember you're a person who is more than a mom & you love love & somewhere deep inside you there is still a free spirit who loves concerts on the grass & whatever crap you're dealing with, it's all gonna be alright.  ya know?  it was good.

so now i'm surfing the venue's concert calendar for this summer to see who else i can catch there.  maybe becoming a groupie is still in the cards for me!  don't we all aspire to be that chick who's "with the band?" just me? ok.

have i mentioned our june has been a sun-filled blast so far?  enjoy some of my favorites from our (not quite yet summer) summer so far.