What a wonderful, whirlwind weekend!

Whirlwind weekends are best showcased in pictures, right? Here come a LOT of them!!! Our busy-ness actually started a little over a week ago and I'll include those pics, as well!

Brady turned 12 last week!!! It blows my mind that my second born is already 12! The timing of his birthday didn't allow for a big party, but he had a new friend stay the night and they had a great time being boys and playing video games and eating treats. He got a few Halo MegaBlocks sets he'd been hoping for and was happy as could be.

And Ben turned 16 this week! Talk about making me feel old. My man-child is officially old enough to drive... and date... and ACK!!!! I'M OLD!!!!!!!!! His birthday was during the school week so no party or anything, but I did take him some Panda Express for lunch at school, and then he picked sushi dinner with just Willy and I as his birthday meal. When we came home we opened gifts and he was surprised to receive an electric guitar for his birthday. He's been learning guitar at school and loving it, and had mentioned several times how much he'd love an electric. Thank goodness for Craigslist and decent-condition used items!!

Thursday night has become football night in our family! Ben is playing on the JV football team at his high school. With no real football experience behind him and with us arriving too late for Ben to participate in spring camp or summer practice, we wondered if they'd even let him join the team. He had to pay his dues and get 9 practices under his belt before they'd let him play in a game so he missed the first two games of the season but has been playing since. Every week he gets a little more play time, and this week was his best week yet! Perfect timing, too, because Nana and Papa were coming to town and came a couple days early just to see him play! In the last few games Ben has gotten to play mostly just in the 4th quarter when his team is decimating the opponent. This week though? He was playing in the 2nd quarter and got to play both offense and defense! He's getting more confident, getting really strong and he's getting playtime because of it! It's been great fun to watch him grow. His team annihilated the opponents this week, 42-7.

We LOVE this picture that Papa snapped! Look at Ben (#83) charging through the line toward the quarterback!

Big win!

Our footballer! #83

Friday, Molly woke up with an announcement of the puking variety... Yay. Sick girl. Definitely changed our plans for the day. We ended up spending most of the day hanging out at home. Fortunately, Nana had brought plenty of activities for the kids as she always does, so they had plenty of fun! They made eyeball drinking glasses, tie-died Halloween t-shirts and ate lots (and lots!) of sweet treats. In the afternoon the grown-ups snuck away and caught a screening of Gravity on IMAX in 3D. It was so intense!! I'm not usually a fan of the 3D thing, but for this one it really worked. Such a well-done movie!

Saturday morning we crossed our fingers for decent weather and headed to the Oregon Coast. When we got to Cannon Beach it was overcast (typical) and drizzled a bit. But after a little while the clouds cleared and we had gorgeous blue sky, fluffy white clouds and sunshine! Still on the chilly side, but we were able to get our feet in the Pacific again and that felt wonderful. We explored the tide pools around Haystack Rock, dug in the sand, flew kites and jumped "rope" with a giant seaweed tentacle and just had a gorgeous, happy family day! We've been wanting to get out to the coast as a family but hadn't made it out there yet. Having Nana and Papa here gave us just the right excuse to take the day trip and show the kids the beauty of the Oregon Coast. It was a PERFECT day for it!! And thankfully Papa and Nana took plenty of pictures for us. We downsized to just one camera recently and this was the first time I really REALLY ached to have a camera at my disposal the whole day. I tend to take people pictures while Willy takes shots of the landscape and environment. Having only the one camera meant one of us was missing something at any given time, and that was hard! I think we may need to reconsider this whole one-camera gig. In any case, thank goodness for some candid shots that Nana and Papa took and shared with us!! Here are some fun pics from our fun excursion!

Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach

Nana and Papa and the kiddos

Spotting starfish hanging out on the rocks.

Giant colorful starfish. So cool!

Tide pool exploring.

Wandering around the tide pools

Ben was unafraid to get a little wet.

Mollzadoodle

Brady Boy

Toby-wan Kenobi (Or Toby for short... as written in the sand :) )

It's all about writing her name these days. Happy Kindergartner.

Let's go fly a kite

Nana found a giant seaweed tentacle and we had great fun jumping "rope" with it!

Girl's got hops!

Even Willy got in on the jumping action.

Molly's first time flying a kite :)

Even I flew the fancy kite for a while. Two handles is fun, but tricky!

Toby needed a little help from Daddy.

Wrestle!

Willy's work... gorgeous Oregon Coast.

More of Willy's photography

Nana and Papa headed back to Portland and we headed farther up the coast to Fort Stevens to see the wreckage of the Peter Iredale at sunset. Willy took some beautiful shots! Here are a few of my favorites.

Little more family fun time. Ben Ben and I :)

The sand at this beach was almost black and the kids managed to make complete messes of themselves :)

Molly even had sand in her ears... LOL

Ninja Brady 

Girl taking flight

Toby's sweet form

Ben didn't want to get dirty but couldn't resist the call of the sand hill

After a good night's sleep, we excitedly woke up Sunday and got ready for church. It was a BIG Sunday for our family! Our ward boundaries have recently changed, which necessitated a lot of change in leadership and assignments. Willy has been called to be the 2nd counselor in the Young Men's presidency. I've been called to serve as the 2nd counselor in the Relief Society presidency. But the coolest thing about the day was watching my two oldest sons advance in the priesthood. Ben is now a priest, and Brady is now a deacon! Ben was ordained first which then allowed him to stand in the priesthood circle when Brady was ordained. That was a pretty amazing thing to see! Willy gave the blessings and we were so grateful to have Papa stand in both circles and help with the boys' ordinations. Sometimes living far away from family is hard when we have experiences like these without family member support, so it was especially neat to have Nana and Papa there to support the boys on their special day.

After church we got some quick family photos. (I am in fall colors heaven here in Oregon!!!!)

Much more typical Campbell family shot.

So happy to have Nana and Papa here for the weekend

The men of the day

The most memorable moment of the day was definitely when, right after Ben's blessing, he stood up to shake hands with the men in the circle and hug Willy. I sometimes think Ben doesn't understand his own size and strength. He lifted his arms to hug Willy and managed to just about clean Papa's clock. He basically punched Lloyd by his left eye on his temple! Ben sent Papa's eyeglasses flying and Papa almost buckled. He told us afterwards that he literally blacked out for a quick moment and we definitely all witnessed it as he started to topple but then came to and shook it off. He saw stars, the poor guy!  (Thank goodness Papa didn't have a concussion or something though! I wonder if he has a black eye or a bruise? D'oh.) This is Papa "getting back" at Ben. He was a good sport about it all, but we'll never let Ben live it down, that's for sure! 

A wonderful whirlwind weekend!! Happy, happy times!!