Human life is purely a matter of deciding what's important to you. ~Anonymous

The other day I was talking to a friend casually about our plans for the weekend and I mentioned that we were heading to the coast with some friends for a couple of nights.  She replied, "You are going somewhere again!  Can I be part of your family?"  I smiled and said, "I do have a pretty good life!"  The more I have thought about that over the last few days, the more I agree with it.  I do have a great life and I would like to think that there have been purposeful decisions that I have made, along with Joe, that makes it a great life.

One of the things I love is going places as a family. Getting away from our life and home somehow makes the time off we have together on the weekend longer.  Do and seeing new things or old favorites has always been something we like and it is becoming even more fun as we get to experience things with Taelin.  Our time is going to go fast with her so we are going to live it up now while we can.

Here are some pictures from our trip...

I love those smiles

We stayed at a new place and there were some cool tide pools on the beach.
Joe can not resist a chance to climb on rocks.

She was trying to tell me how big the ocean was.

Why is it so dang hard to get her to look at the camera
when we actually have a chance to get a family picture?!?

The view from our condo balcony.  We slept with the window open both nights!  

My friend Tiffany texted me while we were there and wanted to know if we were at the coast.
She had seen the picture above that I had posted on Facebook and she recognized the
view because it was out her window too!  She and her husband we staying just two hotels down!
We were on our way out of town but she and her husband came down for a little bit
and her husband snapped this picture of us!
We don't always see each other much so it was a great random treat to see her!  <3

In addition to spending a lot of great time together, I actually got to spend a couple of hours by myself which doesn't happen a lot when we are traveling. (Thank you Joe!)  Since we were going to the coast, I took the opportunity to do something I have on my list and have been wanting to do since we moved to Oregon.  Glass blowing!  A few years ago, I bought my sister a glass blowing experience at Jennifer Sears Glass Art for her birthday but for some reason I didn't do it with her.  What was I thinking?!?  Anyway, I was planning on making a float but when I got there, they had a couple of new things that weren't on their website so I decided to make a votive candle holder.

It was a very cool process and Andrew, my guide for lack of a better term, explained things step by step and gave me a chance to do something along the way.  While there were a lot of the technical things I couldn't do, I made a lot of the decisions along the way. I did get to turn the glass, add the color on, turn the glass again, make the swirls in the glass and then of course got to blow!

It took about 40 minutes but it went by so quickly because there was so much information.  Because I was by myself and was actually doing it, I don't have any pictures of me doing things but I did take a couple at the end after he cut it off of the metal pole and was applying the base.

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Finished product at home!
While it makes a cool candle holder it also made the perfect vase for tulips! 

It was kind of spendy, which is why I think I always have talked myself out of doing it, but I am so glad that I did it now.  A candle holder/vase is actually something I can use all the time!  It was a great experience and will remember the fun I had every time I look at it!