Scotland

I got to take my first group tour to Scotland/Ireland the past few weeks. It was way more work than I could have ever imagined it would be. The scenery was more amazing then I could have imagined (mostly in Ireland though) and I had a lot of fun. I learned a lot, things I'd do differently, and definitely had to push myself to grow. I've got a handful of other group tours I'm scheduled to take out in the next two years and so I'm definitely glad I've got this one under my belt to learn from for those!

Small village of Drymen, Scotland

Valley in the highlands

Highest peak in Scotland

Ruins of a castle on Loch Ness

Quaint city of Inverness

St Andrews Cathedral

Celtic Cross

Ruins of St. Andrews Castle

Grave of Tom Riddle and his son Tom Riddle - inspiration for names for JK Rowling's characters in Harry Potter

Cafe where Rowling wrote the first few books around the corner from her apartment

The Holyrood House or palace where the Queen stays when she is in Scotland

Cannon atop Edinburgh castle

Beach!

Ferry over to Ireland

Mary Poppins

Sydney has been working really hard for several months now getting ready to be in the Mary Poppins musical at the Elgin Opera House. It's finally performance time, and it is neat to see her hard work pay off. At one point when rehearsals were six days a week and until 9 or 10 each night AND THEN she got put in one more dance three weeks before opening weekend, she sat down on the kitchen floor and cried saying it was too hard, and she was too tired. She persevered anyhow and a few weeks later after her first show said that she felt so proud of herself when she did her dances on stage opening night. Even though she has danced for years, she has never been required to know all the steps independent of everyone else and held to such a high standard. I am super proud of the time she has taken to practice each of her dances every day for months as well as work on singing the songs and developing her acting skills. She still has three more weekends with three shows each. I'm grateful we have such a fabulous opportunity in our community so close by and that she got to work hard and find success in something she loves. We look forward to seeing her in more musicals in the future... after she takes a break for a few months she says ;-).

New School Year

Another school year is in the works! Sydney has Ms. Tams for her 4th grade teacher. This is Ms. Tams first year of teaching and so far Sydney is enjoying her time with her. Wynn has Ms. Manley, but she is on maternity leave until November so right now his temporary sub is Ms. McIntosh. He has already improved quite a bit in his reading and is enjoying his time. Abby has a new preschool this year called Shine Preschool with Miss Jenna. She is making lots of new friends and is really enjoying their music time. She has learned a lot of songs and is having fun..

Oregon Coast 2018

We decided to keep a bit of Andy's childhood traditions alive by taking our kids camping at the coast this summer. We stayed at the Barview Jetty campground in Rockaway Beach, Oregon, the same place he stayed as a kid even though he claims to not remember it :). I was so anxious to see the ocean since we got in late the night before that when Abby woke up at 6 AM to go to the bathroom, even though it was still pretty chilly and windy outside, we walked over to the beach in our pjs to see it. We got to do a lot of fun things over the next few days that were new to our family and old traditions for Andy like visiting Cape Meares and its famous octopus tree, buying tons of saltwater taffy and buying souvenirs at Flamingo Jims. Abby was most excited about flying her kite. We did that at Fort Stevens where we also visited the Peter Iredale shipwreck ruins. Wynn was most fascinated by that part of our trip and stayed to listen for the whole 30 minute presentation about it by the park ranger. Sydney loved making sandcastles and playing in the tide pools at Hug Point the most. They could've stayed there all day if the tide hadn't started coming back in threatening to trap us at the beach we'd climbed around a cliff point to get to. The newly renovated and bigger Tillamook cheese factory didn't disappoint and Andy got to get some of his favorite squeaky cheese on our way out of town (also a Shinsel family tradition). He even got to go to the Tillamook Air Museum which he remembers wanting to visit as a kid. Wynn and Sydney were super interested as she showed them around and told them all about the different planes, engines, rockets, and other aviation paraphernalia they had around. I was really worried about camping for 4 nights since we've never taken the kids camping for so long before but they did great. They went to bed easy and slept better than they even do at home. I guess we wore them out! It was a fun trip and were looking forward to doing that again to keep the traditions alive in our family too!