24 Olive Street

newport, oregon // documented

This summer we took a trip over to Newport, OR. We love the Oregon coast and there are literally tons of towns you can visit. We had gone to Seaside, OR a couple years ago, with little side trips to Multnomah Falls, Astoria, & Cannon Beach. This year I wanted our trip to focus on relaxing and just enjoying the coast but still wanted it to be within a day's drive. I also wanted an ocean view which meant staying away from the more touristy towns like Cannon Beach because they're more pricey. After some research I settled on Newport which is a small little town and not too touristy - perfect! We stayed at Hallmark Resort which I can't recommend enough. The staff was super nice and the rooms were just right for our needs.

Hello ocean view!!! Waking up to this view every day was heaven.

During our trip we went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, whale watching in Depoe Bay, Yaquina Head Lighthouse, and hung out on the beach (including smores on the beach which was totally cool!). It was such a nice trip and a much needed trip away from the every day 'stuff'.

I have tons of pictures from our trip (of course!) and after much thought I decided I'm going to do a 6x8 mini-album. However, I didn't want the trip to be absent from our family scrapbooks, so I did a couple pocket pages of my favorite photos. All pages created using the Noel Mignon Summer Lovin' Daily Diary Kit.

I didn't quite have enough photos for 2 full spreads so I cut down one of the pocket pages to fit my needs. The top 4x6 slot is a 3x4 card and photo taped together on the back.

And now I need to get to editing and printing the photos for my mini-album!

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4 days

It's only been 4 days since we got back from Disneyland. Sure seems like longer! Normally at this time I'd have PDD (post-Disney depression) but honestly we've been so busy with back to school stuff, sports, unpacking, etc that I haven't had a whole lot of time to think about it...which is good!!!

We had such a great time, I have over 2000 photos and videos to go through. I bought the Photopass+ ahead of time so I literally just finished downloading all of those photos (over 400!). I didn't want to forget like last time.

After we took 3 days to drive down we had one day for hanging out at the beach. After a 1200 mile road trip we needed it!! So we headed to Huntington Beach & got to swim in some pretty awesome waves. I actually have a couple pocket style pages that I created with the Pool Party kit from Noel Mignon. You can check out more here.

We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel this time which was ah-mazing. Our rooms were beautiful and spacious, the pools & water slides were so much fun (my kids loved it), and we ran into Goofy twice in the lobby!

Gotta watch out for those whiskers when taking a selfie with Goofy ;)

And the kiss goodnight on the headboard?? Oh man...only Disney could think of something like this!

When we arrived at our first hotel on the road trip home my 4 yr old walked in & said "where's the music??" She still misses that music box headboard!! Me too :)

Staying here definitely added to the Disney magic of the trip :) I'm glad I scheduled one day when we weren't at the parks so we could really enjoy the pools. I wish we could've had at least one more day...but don't you always say that about a great vacation?!! I don't know that we can afford to stay here every time but I'd definitely love to go back!!

I'll have more photos, blog posts, etc once I'm about to go through everything.

I also have my Show & Tell kit that just arrived today from Noel Mignon so I can't wait to dive into that & get scrappin'!!

As Mickey Mouse would say, see ya real soon!!

road trip!

Today I have a fun little travel "game" that I made for our upcoming trip to Disneyland! We're driving instead of flying this year - about 1200 miles - and I've found over the years that road trips with kids are much more fun when you make travel games.

So I created a fun "trip tracker" to hang in our van to track our drive! I found a similar idea online and then set out to create a more personalized one...using Sweet stamps of course!

First I cut out some tags with my Sizzix & then stamped part of the map stamp from the Across The Miles stamp set (I only needed the western side). Then I used the Blocked Alpha set to stamp some city names that we'll be stopping at (or at least driving through). This set is great for stamping out full words - I was even able to stamp out Sacramento all on one block!

Helpful tip - When stamping larger images it's easier to turn your stamp upside down and tap your ink pad on the image. It's much easier to get full coverage on your stamp that way!

After decorating my tags with some of the other stamps in the Across The Miles set I stamped one of the cute campers from the Campout set. As we drive along on our trip we can move the camper along the tags until we arrive at our destination!! To hang the tags I used some jute twine and clothespins that I decorated with some patterned paper.

As I was creating these tags my oldest daughter saw what I was doing & said "how cute!" And then she realized just how far our trip is going to be! Fun and a geography lesson :)

And here they are all hung up in our van:

I hope this inspires you to do a fun project for your next road trip! Until next time, be sure and follow Sweet Stamp Shop on Facebook and Instagram for more fun inspiration!!

hey there!

I realize it's been quite a while since I've blogged. I didn't realize just how long til I looked and...whoa, nearly 2 months??!! Although, I'm not sure if it matters. Anyone still following my little blogerooni??!!

Hello?? lol

If you're on Instagram you can find me @24olivestreet. I post there more frequently. And facebook here. But I really want to get back into blogging.

A couple weeks ago I was a vendor at the Fancy Farmgirl Vintage Market. Getting ready for that took up a lot of my time the past month. This show is a lot of fun and this year it was almost twice as big as last year. Great vendors, great customers, great time! And I was totally exhausted after!!

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Mother's Day was absolutely fabulous. I had mentioned to the hubs last week that I thought it odd that despite the fact that I love flowers and love to garden no one ever gets me flowers for Mother's Day {hint hint} So I got a gift certificate to my favorite nursery, great handmade cards, and a beautiful hanging basket.

Guess the hints worked ;)

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I've been working on lots of projects, like these for Noel Mignon:

More on my Disney travel journal here.

More on my "So You" mini-album here.

Noel's kits always have me inspired. They are filled to the brim with scrappy goodness (seriously, you won't find another kit club out there that gives you this much bang for your scrappy buck as these kits!). We have a Disney trip coming up this summer (so stinkin' excited!!!) and I'm planning on using some of the Pack Your Bags kits for another travel journal. We also have something pretty cool coming up this summer so if you're not following Noel Mignon head over to Facebook & Instagram to keep up with all of the latest & greatest news!!

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And these for Sweet Stamp Shop:

It's been so much fun getting back into card making & stamping again. I had gotten out of it a little bit over the last few years and it's been so much fun creating fun cards again!! Nicole always comes up with the cutest stamps every month. And the planner stamps...oh the planner stamps. Love them all!!

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So, despite the fact that we are in the middle of baseball season & counting down the days til summer vacation (and our summer Disney vacation!! Woohoo!!!) I have a lot more projects I'll be sharing here :)

California Adventure & Cars Land!!

Yesterday I talked about taking our first trip to Disneyland and Disneyland Park. If you missed it you can find it here.

I saved California Adventure and Cars Land for a separate post because there's just so much to share, especially with regard to Cars Land. So I'll get right to that!

Cars Land is nothing short of amazing. So on our first day in California Adventure that's the first thing we headed for. I will admit that a part of me worried it wouldn't live up to the huge expectations I had built up in my head.

I was so wrong!

You literally feel like you've stepped into the Cars move. No joke! Even if you're not a big Cars fan there is no way you won't be impressed with this. I will admit that when we rounded the corner to Cars Land I got a little teary eyed...almost like when I saw Cinderella Castle for the first time all those years ago. Cars was a big part of my son's childhood since the movie came out when he was just 2 1/2. We still have all the die-cast cars and now my little one plays with them :)

We got to see Red, Lightening McQueen & Mater driving down the street. We saw DJ's Dance n Drive (so fun!!). We rode Radiator Springs Racers many times during our trip. Mater's Junkyard Jamboree was so much more fun that we expected.

My 3 yr old squealed with laughter every time we rode it!

It is ah-MAZING how authentic everything looked! I could've just hung out there all day. In fact, maybe next time I just might :)

The rest of California Adventure was awesome as well. California Screamin' was such a great roller coaster. We rode it many times (thanks to fastpasses & parent swap).

Another favorite ride we rode many times was Tower of Terror. I loved how it was different from the WDW version (see, can't help comparing!).

We did get a chance to see World of Color. Great show but I have to say not everyone gets a great view. If you're not in the front of your section, chances are you're going to have an obstructed view. My son, who's about 4 1/2 ft tall, couldn't see half of it :( And we only had 1 row of people in front of us in our section. So next time we'll definitely get in line a bit sooner to make sure we get a better spot.

One of the things that was on my "make sure we get" list was a Mickey's kitchen sink. It's full of ice cream & toppings and you get to take the sink home! How fun is that??!

There's just so many things that make Disney parks great, I could go on and on forever! But this was just a tiny bit of our amazing trip!!

Next up, more fun Disney tips, tidbits, & fun stuff!

Our 1st trip to Disneyland!

How has it been 4 months already??!! I just went to a craft retreat over the weekend & worked on my Disney album and had so much fun reliving all of our Disney memories!!! We've been to Disneyworld many times but this was our 1st trip to Disneyland and it lived up to every expectation...and then some!

I spent a lot of time researching the parks (there are 2 parks compared to 4 in Disneyworld, not counting the WDW water parks) and hotels (there are only 3 Disney hotels in DL). Ultimately we decided to stay at a non-Disney hotel. I will admit I was a little worried about staying "off property". All we've ever known is WDW and it's all ecompassing magic staying on property. I was worried that it wouldn't seem "Disney enough".

Happily I was very wrong!!

We stayed at the Anaheim Fairfield Inn which was across the street from Disneyland and only about 5-6 hotels down the street. I forked over the extra money to have a themed room on a higher floor which just added to our Disney excitement!

The view from the balcony outside our room

I asked for and got the Toy Story themed room. Yes, it's essentially just some pictures on the wall, bedding, & shower curtain. But it added to our experience for sure. Having an upper level was great because we could see California Adventure from outside our door (in the photo you can see Tower of Terror, Mickey's Fun Wheel & California Screamin'...very cool at night!). The first night we got there we went to Downtown Disney and when we got back Disneyland had started their fireworks so we got to see that from the other side of our floor. Very cool!!!

We spent 5 days at the parks. Most people I asked said 2-3 days tops would be plenty but I'm so glad I opted for the 5 day tickets. Don't let the size of the Disneyland parks fool you...there is a LOT packed into those parks!!! I'm going to save California Adventure for my next post because Cars Land alone is worth a separate post!

We also had park hopper tickets but honestly there were only 2 nights out of the 5 that we utilized that, going to Disneland after California Adventure closed. So I don't know that I would pay the extra money for those again.

Walking into Disneyland Park was amazing (as is any 1st time to a Disney park!). I know a lot of die hard WDW people don't like Sleeping Beauty castle because it is much smaller than Cinderella castle. Yes, it is much smaller. But honestly, I thought it was so stinkin' cute!!

I tried to go on this trip with the idea that I wouldn't be comparing everything to WDW but sometimes it's hard not to. The thing I liked about our trip to Disneyland was that things were different. Even rides that both parks share were different. I loved that. It gives big Disney fans like us an entirely different and unique experience!

We spent 2 full days at Disneyland Park and 3 full days at California Adventure which gave us ample opportunity to experience lots of rides, shows, parades & meals.

One of our favorite meals was at Big Thunder Rance BBQ. It is served family style and let me tell ya, we chowed down!!

During the fireworks we got to see Tinkerbell and Dumbo fly!!! (Dumbo only flies in the summer)

Amazing!!!

Unfortunately, the Disneyland Parks only have 5 character meals (and 3 of those are at their hotels) so we opted to do the 2 that are in the parks. At the Plaza Inn character breakfast we got to me 9 characters!!! What Disneyland lacks in character meals they made up for in the amount of characters we got to see for sure!!

We also got to meet other characters that we've never met before, like Merida!

Merida was super sweet and took time to talk with all 3 of my kids individually :)

We also met Captain America!

So polite :) We wanted to meet Thor, too. But after waiting for CA we didn't want to wait in another line. Maybe next year when we go for my birthday...that can be one of my birthday presents ;) haha

One of the things my son wanted to make sure to be a part of was the Jedi Training Academy. We scoped out the times, made sure to get there a bit early, and I told Ben to jump, scream, & wave his arms so he'd get picked...and he did!! The big 'ol smile on his face was awesome!!! The little kids fought Darth Vador while the older kids fought Darth Maul.

He was scary looking!!! But Ben battled well :) I was so glad he got picked because this will be his last opportunity to try it (he'll be too old the next time we go to Disney).

One show that I would highly recommend was Mickey and the Magical Map.

Great show. Again, not like any Disney show we'd seen before. (It's also a great opportunity to take a break for a few!)

Disneyland Park was so much fun, filled with so many magical experiences! I think that photo says it all!!!

Next up - California Adventure and Cars Land!!!

Seaside & Cannon Beach

After visiting Multnomah Falls & Astoria (see my first post here) we headed over to Seaside which is where I booked our hotel. Seaside was a nice little town, not much to it, basically one main street with some shops & restaurants.

The first night we didn't do much but walk around a bit, eat dinner & check out the beach. We ate at PigN Pancake which didn't look like much but their pancakes were really good!

The next day we got to play on the beach which was huge...although the water was super cold. So we mostly hung out in the sand and made sandcastles. My older 2 kids did go & play around in the water a bit.

I couldn't go to the beach without taking Olaf. You know, since he loves all things hot :)

Our 2nd full day we headed over to Ecola State Park. I had read online that it had great views of Cannon Beach & Terrible Tilly lighthouse. I'm so glad we made the pitstop there because the views were absolutely beautiful.

I got a decent shot of Terrible Tilly lighthouse with my zoom lens.

My kids commented that it'd be so cool if they had tours over there. I agree!!

The first beach down there is Crescent beach & then beyond that is Cannon Beach.

You can see Haystack Rock way off in the distance.

I took the opportunity to get some good pics of all of us & the kids.

Christmas cards - check!

It didn't matter to me that we all didn't match. It didn't matter that my kids weren't wearing "nice" outfits. Whatever. I got some great shots of my kids & that's all that matters in my book!

After checking out the view we went down to Indian Beach which was a nice little beach. You had to walk down this little gravel path & then some stairs. We also got to see some little creatures in among the rocks down at the beach.

And check out what one of the kids (not my kids) "found" on the beach! And yes, he put her back (he said it was a girl, I have no idea!)

Then we came back up from the beach to have lunch. Check out some of our visitors...

They were so funny, when we would get distracted by one bird, the other one would try & inch in closer!

We also found some really pretty caterpillars crawling on some flowers.

I looked them up when I got home & from what I can find I believe these were Cinnabar moths. Funny how they actually turn into a black & red moth...pretty interesting!

Next up was Cannon Beach. If this looks familiar yes, this is another spot that The Goonies was filmed. Haystack Rock was pretty cool. Unfortunately, we missed out on heading out there where I guess they have people that show you the different "flora & fauna" living out there. Next time!

Cannon Beach was pretty neat because it had what seemed like little streams on the beach which I'm guessing were formed when the tide comes in and out. It was perfect because since they were more shallow my little one could splash around in them and it wasn't as cold as the ocean.

The only thing I didn't really like about this beach is that there wasn't any bathrooms close by. I'm talking, back up the stairs from the beach and down 3 blocks from the beach. Seriously, I've had 3 kids and I have Crohn's...I don't like bathrooms being that far away! I think the key to staying at Cannon Beach is renting a house/condo/hotel right on the beach for sure.

However, I did love the town & that there were more shops & restaurants and the town was very quaint. We noticed it was also a lot more crowded. We stopped in a candy shop where you could see them making the taffy. Pretty cool!

We will definitely check out Cannon Beach again when we have more time to check everything out.

So that was our mini-vacation to the Oregon coast! I'm hoping next time we can stay a few days longer so that we don't feel as rushed to see everything. And I would love to catch a sunrise or sunset photo on the beach! I'm also hoping maybe next year we can venture further south to Rockaway Beach or Newport. So much to explore!!

Oregon coast

Last week we headed over to the Oregon coast for a few days to soak up the last couple weeks of summer vacation. We'd never been so this was a sort of scouting trip for us to check it out, see what it's all about, see what we like/don't like. I told the kids I would love to make this a yearly "thing" for us, checking out different towns/beaches each year.

This year I settled on Seaside...partially because I did not plan far enough in advance and it was hard to find a hotel anywhere on the northern coast. Since we were only going for a few days I knew I didn't want to drive too far south & spend too much of our vacation in the van.

On our way we stopped at Multnomah Falls. I'd seen it on Pinterest enough that I knew we had to check it out. It was so beautiful.

Note to self - when checking out scenic waterfalls make sure the battery on your camera is charged. Duh!!! Yes, I had my iphone (which the rest of the pics were taken with), and it worked fine, and I did have an extra battery but it was all the way back at the van.

There was a bridge that you could walk up to & get a closer view of the falls. In the pictures the bridge looks much higher up! Don't get me wrong, it was still high. But not nearly as high as I had anticipated. Funny how photos do that!

I guess it was pretty high when you looked down.

Next we we headed over to the coast. But before hitting Seaside we took a slight detour over to Astoria to check out the Goonies house.

Oh yes, Mikey & Brand's house!!

No, I did not do the truffle shuffle!! haha

And when we got home we had to watch the movie again...and say "we were there!!!".

When we got out of the car to walk over to the house the first thing we heard was a ton of sea lions from down at the pier. I mean, they were loud!! So after seeing the Goonies house we went down to the pier to see if we could check out the sea lions.

Oh my word, they were funny!

And loud. And cute. And smelly (or so my 3 yr old said, she didn't like the smell! haha) Actually, I think all of their loud barking might have scared her a little.

This guy was Olivia's favorite cause he looked like he had a mowhawk :)

I posted a short video of how loud they were on my Instagram account if you want to go check it out. They were cracking us up!

Next up - Seaside & Cannon Beach

three

We are back from our awesome trip to Disneyland! The kids had their last day of school last week. And we had company in town that just left today.

Whew.

I'm tired!

Right after we got back from our Disney trip my littlest turned 3 yrs old.

We did celebrate her birthday a bit while at Disneyland.

We had her birthday lunch at Ariel's Grotto with the princesses.

She enjoyed that cake for sure! As you can see in the photo, part of the "Happy birthday Addie" was smudged cause she couldn't wait for me to take a pic before she dove in! haha

For those who are interested, I got the cake by ordering through Disney Dining (from the main Disneyland page). I got to choose what kind of cake, filling, icing, princess, etc. It cost about $35 and they have it waiting for you at whatever place you have your dining reservations at. We also did this at Disneyworld for my oldest when she turned 9 and it's pretty similar there, too.

I promise to share lots of our Disneyland pics once I've gotten through them (you can see some on my Instagram acct) but I'll share a few from Addie's birthday lunch. The food was good (a bit pricey at $40pp +tax & tip) but our waitress was not the most personable (which always sticks out like a sore thumb at Disney since most cast members are so awesome!). Despite that we had a nice lunch and we got to meet Ariel, Belle, Snow White, Aurora & Tiana.

Ariel gave the most interaction as did Snow White who made sure to warn us about those poison apples! Tiana was the only one that got a big grin from Addie :)

That Belle costume Addie's wearing I have saved since my oldest was 2 so it's over 10 yrs old. I haven't had the heart to get rid of any of our Disney costumes and I'm so glad I kept them!

It was a nice lunch but honestly it was the least impressive of all of our meals at Disneyland. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we did it but for the price we probably will skip this one next time.

So since we did her lunch at Disneyland we kept things pretty low key when we got home. I made her cake using my favorite recipe.

The birthday girl was mighty happy :)

She had definitely had a magical time turning 3!

Getting ready for Disney!

It always seems like when we plan a trip to Disney it's so far away at first.

And then before you know it the days are winding down and it's time to go!!

We've been counting down the days, planning, packing, planning some more!

What's funny is that I've been so focused on getting everyone else's Disney shirts & such that I just discovered that I only have 2 shirts for myself for the trip! I guess that's how it goes for us moms, huh??

I made some fun luggage tags out of some old park maps. And yes, they're Disneyworld but I don't think anyone will notice :) Since we've never been to Disneyland I didn't have of those park maps to use.

We're planning on celebrating my little one's 3rd birthday while we're there so I've already planned her princess birthday lunch at Ariel's Grotto. I'm bringing along her Belle costume that was actually my oldest daughter's costume...it's 10 yrs old if you can believe that! I just never had the heart to get rid of her Disney costumes and now I'm so glad I didn't.

I also made her a little skirt to go with her Jessie shirt. We're hoping to see Woody, Buzz or Jessie...or all 3 :) Toy Story is one of Addie's favorite movies. And for the rest of us, too!

We've been getting ideas for nails on Pinterest.

But as cute as the Mike & Sulley nails look I just don't think I'll be able to pull that off. I have a feeling I'll end up with my usual red with white polka dots "ala Minnie Mouse" nails! Totally fine by me!

I'm also packing up some little goodie bags for the older kids...snacks, gum, etc. I also put a gift card in there for them.

Every time we go to Disney they bring their own money and then I give them a gift card for spending money. That way they are responsible for their spending and when the money's gone...it's gone.

And I couldn't go on a Disney trip without adding a few other Disney accessories...

I'll have more to share but that's it for now!

By the way, you can check out more pics on my new Instagram acct here!