First and foremost I would like to take a few moments and express my gratitude for all of the soldiers, both past and present who have fought and died for the freedoms we have today. I salute you for your willingness to stand up and defend our country. I know the current missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are not very popular, but hopefully you know that we still respect and appreciate the job you do. Thank you to you and to your families for the tremendous sacrifices you make.

I haven't written on my blog for quite a while. Mainly I haven't felt much like talking. There are many stressors in my life at this time, and I have tried to focus on dealing with those. I also struggle with what to write on this blog. Sometimes I feel like I should address technical topics each day in helping to share any knowledge I might have with those who read this blog in hope that it might help you., or that you can respond to my entries telling me how and why I am wrong. As I've said before that is one thing I really appreciate about my team. We are all respectful how we treat each other, but not afraid to argue a subject to ensure a good decision is made.

I also want to write more about my wife and kids so that our relatives can know how they are doing since many of them live very far from us. I try and use the tags appropriately so that anyone with a desire to read my random thoughts can only look at subjects they are interested in.

This was a good weekend for the Churchward clan. I took Friday off and we went down to the Oregon coast for Memorial Day weekend. We rented a house in Waldport, Oregon, just south of Newport and had a great time. For any that are interested the place we rented is known as The Waves House and is a really nice place to stay for a few days. It is about 5 houses from the beach, but is up on a hill so the views of the ocean from the living room are spectacular. They also provide many of the amenities that are often overlooked and make a vacation better. I would highly recommend this house to anyone looking to get away for a few days and likes the scenery of the ocean in the Pacific Northwest. While we were there here is how each day went.

Friday - We left pretty early in the morning, drove down to Portland, and then cut across to Tillamook. We had lunch at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and took the tour. In some ways it would of been a bit better if we could of had some time to look at more of the displays, but with small children we only had a short time to keep their interest. From Tillamook we drove down the coast through Lincoln City, Depoe Bay, and Newport before reaching the house. After unpacking and letting the kids play for a bit we went into Waldport and purchased some groceries. That night we had a delicious BBQ out on the front porch and enjoyed the view of the ocean.

Saturday - In the morning we took the kids to the beach to play for a bit. It was overcast and a bit cool, but the kids had a great time in looking at shells, creating and destroying their sand castles and digging holes in the sand. While the twins slept we played the game of Life with the kids. Sarah seemed to enjoy it, but Matthew just wanted to spin the wheel and move his car around the board. After lunch and nap time we went into Newport, did some shopping and went to dinner at Georgie's Beachside Grill. The kids were great and the food was excellent.

Sunday - We had the kids vote and they decided that we would go to the Oregon Coast Aquarium this day. I have read some excellent reviews of the aquarium, but in truth I didn't think it was that great. Much of that could be related to the kids acting up a lot while we were there. I will say though that the shark and Japanese spider crab exhibits are very good though so I did feel like the admission price was worth it. We stopped at the Lighthouse Deli, and got some fish and chips to go which we ate at a picnic site overlooking the beach. That afternoon the kids and I took a walk on the beach and attempted to fly a kite. This was to give my wife a break, but also a good chance for me to spend time with all of the kids. Joshua fell asleep on the way back though so I got the fun of carrying him while trying to keep an eye on the other three kids going back to the house. Each of the nights we were at the house Becca and I were able to get some time in the hot tub, and relax and recover from the day.

Monday - One thing I would do different next time is just extend the vacation through the holiday and come back on Tuesday. It kind of sucked to drive home on the holiday, plus we had a lot of work to do in the morning to get everything packed, the house straightened up, and on the road. Since we had gone to the aquarium on Sunday we decided to go south and see the Sea Lion Caves prior to heading home. In retrospect I would of reversed the days of these activities since the aquarium was on the way back to Seattle and the sea lions weren't. We had a very nice drive along the coast though and US101 offers some amazing views of the coastline. After leaving the sea lions we drove down to Florence and then cut across to Eugene to catch I-5 for the trip home. We finally pulled into our driveway just after 11 p.m. and got the kids to bed and unpacked the essential items. Then we quickly went to bed ourselves.

In conclusion I felt like we had a very good family vacation. I am not sure I would choose to rent a house again, at least not in the near term. That is not an indictment of the Waves House by any means. It was really a perfect choice for what we were looking for, and the owners have done a great job in setting it up. I think Becca described part of the problem perfectly by saying the house was kid friendly, but not kid safe. There was an excellent selection of toys and games for the kids to play with, but also some breakable decorations we had to put up and out of reach quickly. I also didn't like the fact that we had to wash all of the linens before we left. It seems like they would have had multiple sets so that they could be changed out with each guest. I think with older kids though a rental house would be a good option, especially with the increased space and privacy over a hotel. On the plus side though we did have multiple bedrooms and a full-sized kitchen which saved us money on dining out. We limited our eating out to once per day which helped keep the trip costs down.

I really haven't been very good about writing recently. I am under the gun to complete some projects and really just haven't felt like writing recently. I did want to take a few moments to catch up on some events this week though on the home front.

The 1st Grade classes at Sarah's school had their end of year performance/graduation ceremony last night. It was a lot of fun to see and while I am not normally in favor of these types of graduation exercises I could tell that Sarah had a good time. Here is a picture of our soon to be 2nd grader.

I also got a picture of the twins together (Jacob in front and Joshua in back). As you can see they didn't quite enjoy the festivities as much as Sarah did. It was bedtime after all.

It has been a busy week for us. On Monday night we had our weekly Family Night together with Becca teaching a great lesson. Tuesday was the parent group meeting at Sarah's school. Wednesday is scout night, and last night was the graduation. We also have things tonight and tomorrow so we certainly are keeping busy. I really need to take some time to smell the flowers so to speak, but that can be difficult. In any case, we have bee keeping busy and trying to have a good time.