Our Halloween Adventure

Halloween was a full day for us. It started with a quick stop to HMart to fill up on all things Korean and then off to lunch. We found a great PHO place up in Beaverton and Sophie loved the rice.



After lunch we took the girls to the zoo to participate in the scavenger hunt. We had fun running all over the place and looking at the different animals. Our reward was a coupon for a free dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. We would have stayed longer but we had to head back to Willamette University so Eden could meet the author of the Heck books she was reading. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity.



After the book signing we came home to rest and then got ready for the big trick-or-treat night ahead. First we visited Gma Belle and then off to Grandma and Grandpaw's house. We stopped at some houses here and there and then headed back to our neighborhood to get more candy. The kids were pooped by the end of the night and they had a blast doing it. I have to say this was by far the most successful Halloween yet!

Getting ready for Halloween

We made little spiders to hang from our porch for Halloween. They are so cute and the kids had so much fun making them! We tried to make a spider web from white yarn but it just wasn't turning out the way I had imagined so we had to scrap it. On Oct. 31st, I get to look forward to my kids turning into a chicken, elephant, and a nerd! I can hardly wait!

Random update

I know it has been OVER a month since our last post so instead of writing, I decided to just put up a photo journal of what has happened since then.

In the mornings when we go to get Sophie up, her Ate has already joined her in her crib. They have so much fun together.Today was curly hair day. Eden wouldn't let me take a picture of her.

The result after the curlers were out. Isn't she too cute?

Sophia and Emma had a playdate with Eric. He lives just a few doors up from us and he is right between Emma and Sophie's age. They all have fun together.

Lolo teaching Emma the essentials in life... How to make vampire teeth from french fries

Lolo and the little girls spending quality time.

This is a video of our crazy jumping Sophie... She loves to jump!

Birthday Greetings and Labor Day Weekend!

My parents, sister and Yori came up for the Labor Day Weekend to celebrate my birthday and see the girls. They arrived at 4AM on Thursday morning of last week and stayed until Labor Day. Sorry, but we didn't take many pictures this time! We were too busy doing other things. :)

This was the scene that morning at 4AM.

It was really great to have my family over. Thursday was a recovery day for my parents. They slept until about 11AM, then we headed out at 1230 to meet Joy for lunch at Willamette. After that, just waited for Joy to get home, and rested some more!

Friday was a busy day! We went to the Oregon Zoo in Portland and saw animals! We started the day off on a little adventure, and found ourselves at the Biscuits Cafe. :) It was a pretty amusing time there! My mom was impressed that Eden ordered porkchops, pancakes, hashbrowns and an egg... and finished it all!! After the cafe, it was Zoo time! Eden, Emma, and Sophie showed Nanay, Tita, and Lolo where all the cool animals were! It was nice to see my girls having a great time with my parents and my sister!

After the zoo, we headed on down to Uwajimasdifpwidfoawefiho... the japanese grocery store. :) While Nanay and Lolo were grocery shopping, Emma, Sophie, Tita and myself (with the grocery cart) got boba and looked at the fishies in the tank. After receiving our drinks we headed off and looked for them. Emma kept yelling, "LOLO!! NANAY!"... it was the cutest thing to hear, and so funny watching all the other people looking at her. She's so funny sometimes!

After the grocery store, we picked up Joy and had yummy dinner! Saturday was my birthday! Papa made a yummy breakfast of beef steak, rice, and lumpia! It rained that day, but it didn't damper anything... except for Joy's surprise for me. Apparently, she had scheduled a helicopter lesson for me that day, but with the clouds and weather the way it was, they had to postpone it until another day. Thank you babes! It was definitely the thought that counted! So, instead of getting a helicopter lesson, Joy, Tita, Emma and I went to Toys R US. There, they bought me Guitar Hero World Tour! YAY! We pretty much jammed out until Joy's parents, Grandma, and sister showed up for dinner. The In-laws gave me tickets to the Blazers/Suns game! WOOHOO! We even invited our neighbors, Michelle and her son John over for some prime rib, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, pancit, lumpia, and whatever else we had. It was DELICIOUS! Thank you to everyone who came and celebrated my birthday with me!

Sunday was church day! It was definitely a blessing to see my parents and sister at church! They got to see where Emma and Sophie go during the service. After church, we went to Bridgeport and had sushi at Sinju! We walked around and had a great time inside Z Gallerie. We left feeling a bit tired, and went home and rested. It was a great end to a wonderful Sunday.

Monday was sad... We were THIS close to getting Yori to stay with us until October. He was such a good dog the entire trip and he didn't pee or poop in the house at all... until that Sunday night, because SOMEONE (hint hint TITA!) didn't want to take him outside before going to bed!! HAHA... Anyways, my family left at 7AM, and arrived in Pinole at about 4ish... We skyped w/ them and my relatives in VA.

Alas, the weekend went by too fast. Yesterday, Joy went back to work, and the grind continues on.

Today is my parents 31 year anniversary! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MAMA AND PAPA! We love you! It's also Eden's first day as a 7th grader! I had to do a double take this morning to see what she was wearing. She just looked so old!! I'll have to take a picture of her and update the blog so you all can see what she wore today. :)

Thanks for reading, and again I apologize for the lack of pictures. Take care!

Our Special Weekend Getaway!

August 21st marked the 4 year anniversary for Joy and me. It was hard to keep what I wanted to do for our anniversary a secret from her. She has a way of asking nonchalant questions that eventually give her enough information to figure out where we're going. This year, Joy's parents gladly watched our three girls for us while we took some time for ourselves.

The day started out like any other Friday. Joy got ready for work, the girls had breakfast and we dropped off Joy at 8 at Willamette. When we got back, the girls got ready for the weekend by getting packed. I got a haircut, then dropped off the girls at Joy's parents at 1030. I picked Joy up at 11 and we were off on our weekend adventure.
Our first stop was ULTA for Joy. She got an awesome new haircut! As if she could get any more beautiful!! I love her new haircut and her new confidence in herself. She's also 13 pounds lighter and looks better than ever!

Look at that smile, and that hair! YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL BABES!

After ULTA, we headed on down to Washington Square Mall for an awesome lunch and even better dessert!

Joy's there's-no-way-they-should've-made-this RED VELVET CHEESECAKE. Yes, it tastes JUST AS FLIPPIN' AWESOME AS IT SOUNDS.

My not-as-awesome-but-still-pretty-delicious Strawberry Shortcake. The vanilla ice cream in the middle was REALLY YUMMY.

After Washington Square Mall, we drove back down to Silverton. Our fabulous day was topped with with our stay at the Oregon Garden Resort! This hotel was just recently finished this year, with the lodge/dining area sitting above the gardens.

Our sunset dinner view of the garden. It was an amazing view!

The view from the garden, looking up at the lodge of the resort.

My love.

The next morning, it was breakfast buffet and check out time. After we checked out, we headed on down to the Oregon Garden to check it out. It's a very beautiful place. They have a lot of different area where they grow different plants. They're extending a lot of it too, which will make the whole place even bigger!

We had such a wonderful time, but we couldn't have had this without the help of others. Thank you again to Mom and Paw for watching the girls while we got our time alone. Thank you to my sister, for helping me orchestrate this weekend and keeping it (almost) a secret from Joy. :)

Lastly, thank you to my wife, my love of my life, Joy. Thank you for being you. Thank you for all that you do, for our girls, for me, and for everyone! You are a beautiful, loving, caring, and just AWESOME person. I love you so much.

Thanks to all of you as well. Thanks for reading!

Special Visits!

I know it's been a while since I've written on the blog. I give no excuse for this, other than I was lazy and relied on Joy to do it. :) I know, I'm terrible! A lot has happened since our last update, that's normally how it goes right? Well, I won't make you wait any longer, because here we go!

My sister came to visit us the weekend of the 14th! It was really fun, and it got off to a great start when I had to be reminded of when she was coming. We picked her up from the airport on Wednesday the 12th, and got frozen yogurt. YUM! There really wasn't much else she her plane came in late! Haha!

Thursday was supposed to be our super fun day in Portland, but timing wasn't with us that day, and we missed out on leaving early to do all that we wanted to do. So we just hung around the house and had fun with the girls!


We picked up Joy and had dinner at RAM (or eatatmommywork if you're Emma).

Typical Campos Family Photo...

Sophie got her first taste of CHOCOLATE CAKE

So, funny story... Eden and Emma were arguing about something on the table, and Emma accidentally spilled my sister's water... all over her! Here is how the conversation went afterward:
Daddy, "Emma did you spill Tita's water?"
Emma, "Yes."
Daddy, "Was it an accident?"
Emma (smiling), "Nooo..."

Friday was finally Portland Fun Day! Our first stop was to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). We took Inay through a typical day at OMSI with the girls, starting with Turbine Hall and ending in the Science Playground. Eden and Inay got to go through the CSI Experience where they pretended to be CSI on a hunt to figure out who the bad guy was in a mock crime scene. We had lunch at OMSI then headed to Powell's Books! After Powell's was an errand run at HMart, then back home in time to pick up Joy from work! After dinner we watched BFF, a filipino movie that Inay has pretty much got everyone to see. "Don't do anything... I wouldn't do!"

Saturday had an early wake up call with Dutch Bros! We headed down to Detroit Lake with Maw, Paw, and Lara for a day full of boating, fishing and over all relaxing!

Sophie having her first chocolate doughnut. Do you see a trend here?

Eden showing Emma the ropes on how to fish. Emma got a really cool fishing pole from Grandpa! It's a Spongebob fishing rod that has a sinking Plankton at the end of it. Every time Emma cast the rod and reeled it in, she kept saying, "I caught it, I caught it!" What did you catch Emma? "Plankton!"

Emma wanted to eat standing on the table bench. I didn't understand why Lara was standing though.
Albert: "Lara why are you standing on the bench?"
Lara: "Because it's the only way I can get the fork out of the box!"

Emma got to drive Grandpa's boat!!

OK, so where do I begin on this picture. No, Joy was not at a Michael Jackson lookalike contest. Joy was holding Sophie while everyone was at the shore trying to help Paw and me tie down the boat. Joy stepped back and tripped on a huge rock (mind you, the entire shore was covered in rocks). Her awesome maternal instincts immediately kicked in, and she covered Sophie with her arms and body. Joy took the full force of the fall, and Sophie didn't get hurt. But Joy's heroic act cost her a huge scrape on her left leg and a couple of cuts on her right hand (that was holding Sophie's head so she wouldn't get hurt). I'm so proud of my wife!

Most of the day was spent just relaxing, and having a great time. Lara caught a fish, Joy and I went kayaking on our inflatable kayak, and Eden made a couple of new friends. Emma played in the sand and threw rocks into the water. Sophie... slept... for most of the day. :)

After our fun time at the lake, we came home and had MORE FUN IN WATER. Inay brought up our pool that they got for us a while back. We inflated it in our driveway and the kids had a great time in it. Inay did too. Watch the video!

Alas, Saturday dwindled down and it was time to say goodbye to Inay on Sunday. She ended up taking a train from Salem, all the way to Emeryville! 16 hours, that's crazy!

Thank you Inay for coming up. We had such a great time! Can't wait to see the family for Labor Day weekend! Thanks everyone for reading!

4 years and still going strong!

Today Albert and I celebrate 4 years of marriage! I can't believe time has gone by so fast and all the memories we have built up already. Albert has planned a mini get away for us and this will the first time we will have been away from the girls over night since moving up to Oregon. We will probably talk about our girls the whole time... haha... Have a great day celebrating our anniversary with us!

Lazy summer days

The weather has been very nice lately (except today at 100 degrees) and the kids enjoy playing outdoors. Here are some photos of the kids and family enjoying our lazy, carefree summer days!