Claire turned 2! this called for a lot of celebrating! You know we never get through a birthday without having at least 2 parties, well in honor of Claire entering the terrible two's we had 3! one with the entire Corier clan at the Brender Canyon Farm, on with just G and G Corier at home and another with the Wright family in Seaside. We took the girls camping in a tent for the first time. Claire's face in this picture basically sums up how much fun we had :)
Here is the birthday girl at Grandma's table enjoying a cupcake :)
Violet in the tent.
Violet is a fan of Camping. Ever since we went on all our vacations this summer she has rotated her requests to go to either the farmhouse, the cabin or the tent. usually she will settle for the pool or grandma's house.
The girls playing in the tent either saturday or sunday morning.
Saturday in Seaside, we hit the beach! I am already looking forward to next summer so I can get my toes back in the waves.
View of a lighthouse from the beach at seaside. We saw some seals and a coast guard helicopter flew right over us. They didn't seem to be going very fast so we think they were taking advantage of a gorgeous day to do some "training" on their way to the crab shack.
V in her natural element.
Dragging Grandma and Grandpa into the ocean.
The moon was out all day, it was a little weird.
Mom and Dad on the beach.
Uncle John being cool.
We went to the aquarium and the girls got to touch star fish and urchins and anemones
we also fed the seals.
Claire doing a little birthday shopping.....no she didn't get a whole pile of purple furry somethings...I'm not really sure what those things are, they look like a combination of a bunny and a raccoon. We stopped at the outlet stores and got new shoes and some cool books. Seaside is a great place to take the kids. (just a suggestion if we are still looking for a place to go next year.)
Grandma made a hostess cake...we all thouroughly enjoyed this, I think some variation of this may be our go to cake for summer b-days so I don't have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen next to a hot oven.
Violet really enjoyed the cake! In fact she dismantled it while she was supposed to be taking a nap. We were all outside while the girls napped and when we came in we saw the destruction and Violet passed out on the couch with chocolate all over her face.
The cake after Violet attacked it.
The birthday girl opening some presents.
Taking a swing at the pinata!
Pinata's are hard to crack! I was really trying hard and I couldn't do it. Peter finally got it to go but, it took some effort. I think those ribbons are supposed to pull it open to make it easy for kids, but we wanted the authentic pinata experience.
We went to a restaurant called Camp 18. It's a few miles outside of Seaside. It is an old logging camp turned into a huge restaurant. The food was amazing.
We were all a little pink from the sun, and it was a great way to end a weekend at the beach.
I had the ribs, and the waitress didn't even ask me if I wanted a bib she just came over and tied it on me. I took it off and put it on Claire.
Claire got up really early Sunday morning to make cute faces at us.
I think it was worth getting up for.
Violet slept in that day.
she loved the tent.
We were a little tired, but we had a lot of fun.
When we got home we still had a few weeks until school started but Claire suddenly became obsessed with Violet's back pack and started wearing it around every day.
Violet on the other hand became obsessed with her swimsuits and began wearing them around the house everyday. Here is Claire trying to push Violet out of her photo shoot. These girls are such hams for the camera.
and I'm almost caught up on the picture posting, I just have a few end of summer pictures and Violet's first day of preschool!
I'm coming up on the end of the vacation pictures! well the Corier family vacations....there are a few more things from August and then I'll be caught up :) Our last trip together was the Corier family reunion at Camp Bethel. The kids had a blast, they mostly played in the sand and swung and spent a great day at the beach running in the waves and doing bumper cars (the grown up kids got to do bumper cars with the little kids because none of them are tall enough yet, we had fun too)
Here is Desmond ready to play!
This picture of Sam reminds me of that movie the Sandlot, because he is wearing dark jeans that are rolled up with his tennis shoes. 
up to bat
Wesley is ready to hit a home run!
The girls loved this little play set. They played on this thing for hours. If I had a backyard I would put one of these in there (do you think I could get an advertising credit or something for trying to sell y'all these play sets?)
Whether in the volley ball pit or at the beach the kids could not get enough sand! 
This was after we got home from the beach, we all got cleaned up and brushed all the sand off and the kids immediately went to play in the sand pit.
V playing in the ocean. She loves to run in the waves.
Wesley and Sam were trying to throw as much sand as they could into the waves, to try and build a wall or make the ocean smaller or something.
Allison chilling on the beach.
Allison in the pacific ocean....she is NOT a fan ( seems like she takes after her Aunt Katie, who prefers to experience the beach from the warmth of the car)
Emily and Allison
It was so fun to spend the day at the beach. I'm sad that Summer is ending and we probably won't go back to the beach until spring. Someday I want to live on the ocean, I love the sound of the waves at night, it is so relaxing.