When it came down to it, I realized that as much as I'd miss Tyce, I knew he was desperately craving some daddy time. He was going through a huge daddy phase and would get so sad every morning when he'd wake up and daddy had already gone to work. I just had to keep reminding myself this when I thought about not being with my little T-man for a few days.
Saying good-bye to him broke my heart...
How sweet is this picture of Tyce and Shaylie saying good-bye to each other?! Tyce and Shay had never been apart longer than a few hours! We knew they'd miss each other dearly...
It took everything in me to put on a happy face saying good-bye to my boys. I know, it was only for a few days, but I love these two with all my heart! Our family is not complete without all 4 of us!!
Shaylie and I left on a Saturday afternoon and stopped just one time in Eugene to stretch our legs and let some energy out. She was such a trooper for both trips down and back. She's my little buddy and chatted with me nearly the entire way :)
Scott took Tycey to Lakeshore (our gym) on Saturday afternoon to go swimming and then out to dinner:
We were so excited to get to Grandma Jan's house and see Uncle Jay!! ...along with the rest of the family, too :)
Uncle Jay meeting a very important person in our family...Shaylie's baby, Bella:
On Sunday morning, Shaylie and I had some special girl time together...
First, I took her into Ashland and we went to Lithia Park:
Walking through the market, trying on a crown flower lei:
Enjoying a fruit smoothie:
I took Shaylie to get her 1st pedicure! It was such a special and fun experience to share with my little girl :)
The first of many pedicure memories with my little sweetie pie:
Modeling her 'purple toes':
After our special girl time together, we headed back to Grandma Jan's and got to spend some quality time with Uncle Jay before heading over to Aunt Kolleen and Uncle Cory's house for big family/friend get-together.
Haha, I love this picture...Jay is doing his impersonation of Zaiden's sad face (see below), only he looks like a very old man! :)
Zaiden's cute little sad face before he starts crying for his momma:
Shaylie and Ray Ray really got some good bonding time together and are definitely very comfortable with one another, playing (and fighting) like sisters:
I couldn't keep these two away from the raspberry bushes, I'm sure they ate every single last one:
Siblings :)
Uncle Hal telling his 'wide mouth frog' story...I've heard this a few times growing up ;) After this trip, Shaylie will randomly tell me, 'Uncle Hal is so silly!' :)
We all celebrated Uncle Jay's birthday since he'd be back in S. Korea for his actual birthday (August 23rd):
Love this girl with all my heart!
Daddy and Tycen had a really fun-filled Sunday, too! They went to the zoo with Papa in the morning:
And they got to ride the zoo train, one of Tycey's favorite things to do!
After Tycen's nap, Papa and Daddy took Tyce to a baseball game in Salem, Oregon:
Tyce absolutely adores Papa, Daddy and baseball...what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon?!
On Monday, we all went to the water-slides at Emigrant Lake:
I took Shaylie down the slide one time and she decided she was done with it. I'm not sure why she was more apprehensive this time (when we went in early July, Shay went on the slides with us several times), but I didn't want to push it. Oh well, she had fun watching all of us adults race :)
On Monday evening, us girls went out to dinner (Uncle Jay fell asleep before we left and we didn't want to wake him since he'd had trouble sleeping with the time zone difference):
Shaylie talking to Tyce and Daddy while we waited for our food:
I know this isn't the most appealing picture, but I wanted to include it because it reminds me of how much Shaylie ate at dinner. She must've been starving because she devoured our seafood platter appetizer including calamari (her favorite of all), crab cakes, shrimp cocktail and some other sort of a seafood wanton. She also ate a hefty portion of her fish and chips, too. She must take after her mommy and love seafood!
Daddy didn't take any pictures on Monday but from the sound of it, they had another great day together. In the morning, Scott took Tyce to Esther Short Park to play baseball. They stopped by his office for a short time and then headed down to Jantzen Beach to ride on the carousel and have lunch. Tyce then went over to Grandma Kathy and Papa's house for a bit on Monday evening while Daddy had a short conference call. They also visited Grandpa Nibs and Scott's Great Aunties June and Eleanor, too!
On Tuesday, Grandma Kathy came over to watch TyceTyce swimming again. All in all, I'd say the boys had a very great time together!
On Tuesday morning, I borrowed Aunt Kolleen's single jogging stroller and took Shaylie on a run in Ashland. We started in downtown and ran across town to see two of the five houses in Ashland that I grew up in.
Harmony Lane house...I was born in this house and lived here until I was 7 years old...lots and lots of memories in this house! I shared a room with Jay and we played together almost all of the time. We had a huge back yard (at least it seemed that way as kids) and loved playing outside. The section with the bay window used to be the garage.
A lot more over-growth of trees/bushes than when we lived here:
Garden Way Park...this park is one street over from our Harmony Lane house (only about 1/4 mile). We spent a lot of time playing at this park growing up, although it's been completely re-done since 'the good ol' days' (thank goodness! :)
Barbara Street House...I lived in this house from age 10 to 13 years old. This was the house where we had our little dog, Sophie (she was a Pomeranian mix). I shared a room with my sister, Marisa, in this house. Katrina was already off to college, so there were four kids, one adult and one bathroom...poor Jay didn't have much time to use the bathroom living with five girls! The house was a grayish-blue when we lived here:
I wasn't sure how Shaylie would do on our run since it was the first time we've gone running without Tyce (and what a difference it is to push one child in a stroller vs. two kids)! She actually did great, I think she liked having my undivided attention and spent most of the time chatting and singing :) After our run down memory lane (haha ;) we stopped at a little coffee shop for a potty break and smoothie for Shaylie:
After a cool refreshment, we met Grandma Jan, Aunt Kolleen, Cousin Ray Ray, one of my besties, Jill and her son, Landan at Garfield Park:
Garfield Park has a neat water fountain the kids enjoyed:
After a little picnic lunch, we headed back to Grandma Jan's so Shaylie could take a nap. We also met back up with Uncle Jay, Aunt Mar and Aunt Katrina and were able to get a little more quality family time in before Shaylie and I headed back home.
Aunt Kolleen and Aralia taught Shaylie a new game:
It's always so hard to say good-bye:
I love this picture of my mom with all 5 of her kids:
We love you so much, bro! We miss you tons and look forward to your return home to the U.S. in about 6 months!!
Shaylie and I left S. Oregon around 8 pm. I thought it'd be good to drive in the evening so that Shaylie could sleep most of the way (well, Little Missy had different plans and decided she'd stay away until after we stopped in Eugene--just before 11 pm!). She did great, though, and apparently just wanted to take advantage of the last few hours of just us girls...she chatted most of the way :).
I was so anxious to return home to my boys! I missed them so much. I was feeling so much guilt about being away from Tyce and hoping he wouldn't wonder why I didn't take him with me. It was great to be able to Skype everyday on our cell phones, but it just wasn't the same without him every day. I wasn't complete.
The amazing thing about kids, though, is that they almost always live in the moment and rarely get caught up in feeling sad or missing someone. Keeping this in the front of my mind helped me to enjoy the one-on-one time I had with Shaylie, as well as the time I had with Uncle Jay and the rest of my family. Once again, a lesson learned from my kiddos...thanks Tyce and Shay! :)
