THE GREAT DIVIDE
So as I mentioned in our Oregon post- we found out there were going to be some boundary changes within a few wards in our stake and we would find out about the changes the following Sunday. Well, the much anticipated Sunday came! Nobody was sure what was going to happen, but at least in Young Womens, I wanted to make sure I got my last word in, just in case this was my last Sunday with them. We went to the 3:00 meeting with SUCH anticipation, but not far into it, we were all so sad!! It was like one thing after another, like a ton of bricks each time. The whole releasing everyone that was changing wards with the power point thing was the hardest for me. I stayed strong until then. We found out that our ward that we have grown to love and thought we'd be spending the rest of our lives with, is splitting almost midway up our street. The top half was combined with the Creek View ward and the bottom half, we were combined with the Ponds Park ward. I have to say I think we got a good half of the ward and that the Ponds Park ward is going to be great, but it is definitely going to take some adjusting. I can't express how sad I am to lose a lot of the members on that side of the ward, AND my calling!! I don't want to leave the Young women. I'm not ready for that yet! The girls and Bradley and Luke were very unhappy and all of them shed tears. The cutest things though, Noah said he was only sad about losing our Bishop! He LOVES Bishop McGrath, prays for him EVERY night, so he really was bummed about that. Then, Luke turns to me as they're releasing Bishoprics and calling new ones and after not hearing Bro. Jacox's name says, "What about that other guy??" and I said, "Bro. Jacox?" He quickly said, "YEAH! What about HIM?" I then explained that he was on our side, he's coming with us, and his eyes lit up and said, "Oh GOOD!" So cute!! I guess I had been prepped for this a little, with all of Jami's speculation/calculations and LeAnn telling me that even though Bishop McGrath was not getting released, he may not be my Bishop- but I don't think I was as prepared as I needed to be for the whole thing. These things are so hard. I do have to say that no matter how hard it is, or how disappointing it is to not have the ward we thought we were going to have, there is something cool about following our leaders, sustaining a decision they prayerfully made, and carrying out the Lord's work in His way. It's all going to be alright in the end! We know that. 8-21-16
SCHOOL SHOPPING- NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON
Monday was our big school shopping day! I can't believe I took eight kids school shopping all at once! Three hours later we were still anticipating a trip to another store the next day and another one after Jr. High starts. It was very productive though. And who doesn't love buying a few new school supplies! 8-22-16
WELCOME THE WEBSTERS PARTY
Joseph and Peter, Beth's kids, were in town so Nate's mom threw a little party to welcome them here. It ended up being a lot of fun for everyone. We played Bunco, ate dinner, there was a splash pad and small pool nearby, and a playground so everyone just ran around to their heart's content. Good times. I wish I'd taken some pictures. 8-23-16
BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT AT KJH
I really don't mind the Back to school night at the Jr. High. It's really quick and to the point. We just walk around from class to class, following our kid's schedule and sit there for five minutes as the teacher explains whatever they feel like telling us (since you can't really go over everything in that amount of time). I like it because it lets me meet the teachers, get a feel for how they are, and a little idea of how the class is going to be. I like knowing who my kids are talking about when they talk about their classes. So this was a success. I just wish I could be in two places at once! Nate went with Kelly since I have met most of hers and I went with Charity. It was a good evening. I am SO excited for SEMINARY this year!! YAY! 8-23-16
BACK TO SCHOOL AT COLUMBIA
Back to school night at the Elementary school is not my favorite. I kind of hate it. A half hour in each class is just too much. I was so VERY happy with who we got this year, and I loved that Nate was there to keep me company (we left the kids at home), but really, a half hour in each class is just too long. I didn't have four kids and a newborn with me though, so I really can't complain. Mr. Denhalter and Natalie Chamberlain cornered me and were trying to talk me into being the PTA President for next year. I'm not sure I want to do that- have to think about it a little I guess. 8-25-16
FRIDAY!
Friday was the first day Nate and I had together with the kids in school. It was a nice, relaxing day. Nate worked in the yard, I got all caught up on dishes and laundry. So I guess we weren't exactly together through most of it, but it was still very productive! I even did my visiting teaching in the middle of it all. I hope we can get back to our deep clean Fridays... we'll see if Nate's overtime schedule will allow it. Maybe I will have to do it myself. 8-26-16
DADDY DAUGHTER CAMPOUT
They tried to cancel the Daddy-daughter campout since the ward was split, but thankfully our Elder's Quorum Presidency (Aka: Nate and Travis) decided to go anyway :). They had the site reserved and it was going to cost money to cancel, so they went anyway :). I was glad, for the girls, that they still got to go. The boys and I ended up going to IHOP for dinner then watching Angry Birds on Vidangel with lots of goodies from the Dollar store. Fun night for all! We hit Granny Annies in the morning for some scones before the girls and Nate got home :). Good times. 8-27-16
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Oregon Coast Maynes Style
We had an amazing time on our trip up the Oregon coast. After years of planning and anticipating this trip, it did not disappoint! I don't think I could have been prepared for how well it went either. There are a few things I'd do differently, given the opportunity (which, if Brent and Sarah actually move there- I'm sure we will :) ), but overall, things went so smoothly! I was relieved :).
Getting ready for this trip was difficult, since I came home from Girls Camp at noon on Saturday and we wanted to leave around 7:00 Sunday. I worked my patooty off trying to get laundry done, even got up about every hour and half to change up the laundry. This was difficult! In hindsight, I wish I'd just brought dirty clothes. We had a few places we could have laundered them. But oh well. I was SO TIRED the next day. We were unable to get ourselves ready and out the door before 11:00 (four hours late... fairly typical) and then I kept dozing off all the way there. It was uncomfortable to sleep even, and I'm not usually so sleepy that I can't stay awake, but this time- didn't have any trouble sleeping! Poor Nate, I think he was all alone in the car full of 10 people for a good chunk of the drive. Everyone did pretty well! I was impressed considering Noah and Erika were basically sharing a seat. The seating arrangement was actually kind of funny. Looking back, I think we were inspired. Charity sat in the back seat, on top of "the crack" (not to be confused with bumb crack) with Jack and Molly on either side. Talk about funny! I thought for sure she would get sick of this and want to trade sometime, but nope- she went strong the ENTIRE trip! Buckling both of them in at most stops. She was a real trooper! I think she and Molly got in some major bonding they've been total buds ever since and even Jack seemed to feel a closeness (not just proximity-wise). She kept them both pretty content. It was SUCH a blessing to have her help this way. The middle bench is longer so we thought if we cleared it of car seats (Jack and Molly) it would be more comfortable for squishing four kids onto three seats. Seemed to work. Noah and Erika get major points for sticking this out the entire time as well. I think Noah traded with Luke for only a small portion of the time. They were troopers with Kelly and Bradley on that bench as well. Everyone got along SO WELL on that seat! I was relieved. Then Luke sat up front between Nate and I. He's a funny one to have up front. Kind of entertaining. Played with his tablet and juggled chargers with Nate 90% of the time. He and I took turns using each other's shoulders :).
We passed the Salt Flats. As we drove through Wendover I reminisced and shared the story about the time Andrea, our guy friends and I went there for her CCR concert. I will never forget the look on Nana's face when I ran into her while she was playing the slot machines in one of the casinos there :). She was totally shocked to see me there :). And seeing the Tuellers... funny stuff. I bet they were more surprised to see me there than I was to see them :). Good times.
We stopped at a pretty junky rest stop for lunch. Felt a little weird in my Sunday dress making sandwiches in the middle of nowhere with freeway and trucks all around. But everyone was happy and got fed so all was well.
We ended up not stopping for church since that would have set us back quite a bit. With our late start we were already looking at arriving later than 10:00 pm, so we made the decision to skip it. Hopefully the kids don't hate us for that for too much longer.
We saw some beautiful scenery on this drive. We were going through some really winding turns and Nate came up with the analogy about how if we try to turn too soon, or too late, we will either drive off the road or into the mountain. Just like the Gospel, we have to do things in their time. Following the counsel we are given when we are given it. This was great after having received a call from Jami at about 1:30 informing me of the announcement that our ward boundaries were going to change the following Sunday! We were definitely speculating and wondering what the changes would be. Wanting things to be easy but knowing that sometimes the Lord likes us to be out of our comfort zone. That that is when we do the most growing. We were feeling motivated to take on this change with open minds and open hearts. Very anxious to find out what it was though :). And getting more and more stressed with each text of Jami's speculations :).
I spent some of the drive making Name pictures- the kind where you color around the letters with different colors- it's the only thing I draw :). I made one for everyone- very time consuming and passed the time nicely.
We saw a LOT of sage brush. I got out the old, "Over here on your right, you can see some _______!"(filled in with "sage brush" this time)
When people started getting restless I got out the Starbursts and looked up some Gospel trivia questions and we played a game. I was so happy with my idea to rather than give the person who got the question right the starburst, but let them choose who gets it, was BRILLIANT! We always get so much of the "but I had my hand up first" or "He always gets it!" and this really took care of that!
We came up around this bend and were shocked with this view! We HAD to pull over and take a few pictures! SO cool! Such different types of beauty on this trip!
Towards the end of the night, after many hours of driving, we did notice the fighting starting and not as much of the getting along. It was then that I realized we'd forgotten the boondoggle!!! OH NO!!! That was our survival technique on our Nauvoo trip! We knew we were in for it then... just kidding. Everyone really was just done.
We had planned and cancelled and re-planned this trip a few times this summer, thanks to our busy schedule, and were left with only seven days for the whole thing. So we knew we needed to cram a lot into each day, but we were really unsure of how long each thing was going to take and where we would want to spend more time... you know the dilemma... so we decided not to book every night with campgrounds and such. We did schedule the first night in a hotel so that we could have a more comfortable, easy place to sleep after driving for 12 hours. That was a good thing. Even though I did find out that I am slightly more germ conscious and freaked out by anything that could possibly have germs on it when I'm in a cheap motel than I am camping. Kinda weird. It really wasn't too bad and there ended up being three beds which we weren't planning on. We let Bradley, Luke, Noah and Jack have the king. Charity and Erika took the other twin and Nate, Molly and I had the second one. Kelly was dying to sleep on the floor for some reason and by the time we went to sleep Jack had parked himself on the floor as well, next to our bed. Looking back it would have made way more sense to have Nate and I on the king, with Molly it was super crowded. We both didn't sleep well thanks to our rested and refreshed baby who slept most of the day. It was actually a really horrible night, but we survived. I still think it would have been 10 times worse if we'd been camping/cold/on the ground, not to mention at least we got to shower in the morning. I was a little more conscious of when Molly slept after that a made sure to get her out more during the day as we drove so that she was tired at night.
In the morning we skipped the Lorna Doones (aka: Continental Breakfast) and grabbed some Subway. Kind of annoying, but it actually really hit the spot. Then we made our way up toward Crater Lake! We did pull off on this one spot to see the view down into the canyon. This is all from volcano erupting hundreds of years ago. I'm just totally fascinated by it all.
We stopped at a cute little waterfall called Vidae Falls. Let the kids and Nate climb up to the top. Nate got some really great pictures there.
Then looked through the brochures to find a hike that we could go on with a hurt knee and a sprained ankle! (Poor Kelly and Charity had a rough camp injury-wise, we didn't make it out unharmed. Although I am glad they weren't worse off.) I'll admit that Crater Lake was one of the least anticipated stops of the trip for me, but as soon as we stepped up to the edge of that cliff on our Sun Notch "hike", I was in awe!!!!
We stopped at the visitor center for some REALLY expensive hotdogs because the kids were starving. The things we do. I was really regretting my decision to just buy food as we go (meaning we were going to stop at grocery stores and get sandwich stuff and such as we went along to save on space- we had chosen not to take the trailer OR the basket so space was definitely limited). But we tanked them and drained them. Met a cool Pediatric nurse with a cute dog while we waited for potty-ers. She was awesome :). Anyone who tells me I'm already a nurse after having eight kids must be awesome! She knew we were either Mormon or Catholic :). I don't know why but that question always surprises me and almost makes me laugh. What if we were neither? I REALLY loved the Crater Lake! That was really awesome. Whoever told Nate we needed to see that and would regret not, (I think it was the Leavers?) was totally right. I'm so glad we did! The kids even loved it!
On one of our pit-stops we used a bathroom with a giant fly on top of it!! Pretty cool :)
So after that we headed on down to the Redwoods! I'm already forgetting details though, I can't remember a lot about that day. I think we arrived at the Florence Keller campground just at dusk, I dropped Nate and most of the family off and took Kelly to find some food. Just down the street and around the corner was the Walmart. It was kind of funny because I started panicking a little bit about getting lost and what I would do since Nate's phone was dead... bla bla bla... Needless to say, I made a big deal about remembering where to go. Kelly and I both felt relieved when we 1. found the Walmart! Felt like a fountain of clear, spring water in a dry desert (crazy I know). And I won't even try to describe my feelings of nostalgia when I got a wiff of the ocean coming in from the west. LOVE that smell! And 2. when we pulled into the campground (After a pretty strange one way street and a couple of U-turns of course), relief totally swept over me! I was very happy to see my family with whom I'd just been cooped up in our tiny car for almost two days straight :). Imagine that. They had set up the tent and built a fire in the amount of time it took us to buy dinner and breakfast for the next day. Pretty sweet. And can I say- I had expected California to have outrageous prices, even at Walmart, but I think things were actually cheaper! Mind blown. I think the coolest thing about that night was sleeping in the Redwoods!! We were right in the middle of all the tallest trees my kids have ever seen! SO cool! And it was a really fun campsite with lots of exploring places. I only wish we could have stayed there another night.
Some things we wanted to remember about this day were: the "banana peel slug" Kelly found- it was NASTY! "Jack pulling rocks out of his magic pocket" :). This makes me laugh just thinking about it. Throughout the day Jack found MANY different kinds of rocks and apparently thought he should save them! Well, he ended up with large pockets FULL of rocks! There was quite the pile when he finished emptying them. And from the way the laundry has been since we got home- I don't think he even got them all out! Cute though- everyone got a good laugh. Dad cutting wood with a rock and building a fire without matches or a lighter! Still a mountain man. During the night Molly had sat up and flipped herself upsidedown to me so when I woke up to check on her I found her bumb in my face and was totally confused- seriously had no idea what was going on and had to really wake up to figure it out.
The next day we made the longest stop we've ever made in a Walmart parking lot. We decided to go to Walmart and get lunch stuff and while Nate was in there he found our lunch plus: binoculars, shoes for Noah, socks and underwear for Bradley, AND a basket for the back of the car! Kinda funny, but we spent a good hour putting it together and hooking it to the car, then Nate spent another long while moving around all our stuff!! Holy moly was that a long drawn out process! Meanwhile the kids did REALLY well! So patient! Once we got that all settled, we drove down the 101 highway through more of the Redwoods. They are so majestic! It's so fascinating to me that Heavenly Father has let them grow so tall! So beautiful! Up to this point in our trip, I was really starting to feel the love from our Heavenly Father. For all the beautiful things we have on this earth! And it's all here for us to enjoy! I LOVED making scenery the focus of this trip. There really wasn't anything materialistic on this trip at all. That was cool. I had mentioned to Nate that we'd kind of covered all the bases this summer as far as entertainment goes. We did the family/traditional/sentimental in Bear Lake and Idaho, we did the material, fabricated fun of Lagoon, we did the camping and did the friends, and now we were doing scenery :). There was something else in there too, but now I can't think of it... oh! The thrill-seeking Jetskiing! Anyway- I was really happy to see my kids enjoying this trip as much as everything else. I am not sure I would have been the same at their ages. We of course stopped at the beach a few times that day too.
This was the day that we drove down to that one place- drawing a blank- and drove through the big tree! This was pretty cheesy, but at the same time pretty cool. I know it was cheesy because we were surrounded by asians :). I know it was cool because the kids' faces when they were coming through it. I didn't actually get to drive through, I was taking the picture, but still- very cool.
We ate our lunch in the Redwoods while the kids explored and climbed on everything. That was cool. I wish we'd been able to go on some of the hikes. There was one Emily had mentioned that I thought we could try, but not with our injured kids. Still- very beautiful, very awesome.
There was one beach where this (somewhat scary-looking) woman came over to me and advised me to get my kids out of the water. That the undertow is so strong they won't see it coming. I told her they were fine, they didn't really want to get that wet anyway, and she RE-emphasized her warning and then threw in that she'd seen tourist's children die doing what mine were doing!!! Freaked me out. So I ran down the beach with Molly in my arms chasing them because they started walking in the opposite direction of me, unknowingly of course, and made of fool of myself screaming after them... I was seriously panicking inside. Finally got their attention though and they came back. Very memorable. It was SUPER foggy at this beach.
We stopped at another beach that day when the fog was clearing that was super rocky. It was low tide and we were able to climb around the rocks and find cool things in the tide pools. It was really fun. The kids loved this. Bradley found a mussel (we found out how common they were later :) ), Jack found a black shell (Again, much more common as we went along), Noah found and "chucked" a crab! And we found all sorts of cool rocks. This is where I found all my cool little pearl like ones I want to make necklaces out of... where did I put those?? I believe this was Gold Beach. I think.
That evening we found the Indian Creek RV Park and luckily found an available spot! It was this night that I realized we were not going to be having cold nights! It was warmer during the day than it was at night! And not windy at all as I'd worried. Pretty awesome. This spot was pretty cool too, with a mountain side right next to us for the kids to explore.
We ditched our tent and stuff to go to a fun restaurant called Port Hole, right on a pier (with a Coast Guard boat right next to it I might add!) That was a fun dinner. I loved hearing the kids all getting along and having fun. Loving the view and watching the sunset. It really was perfect. Minus that Lukey's 3 fried shrimp didn't really fill him up... go figure. The kid needs to give up on the kid menu. Surprisingly.
We got up the next morning to see the tide pools, but kind of missed them. That was a bummer. We walked along this beach that looked like it belonged in the desert with how windy it was. The way the sand was blown and made cool designs. It was seriously SO WINDY though. Our blanket and Nate's shoes were almost completely buried after only a short little while. Kinda nuts. I didn't love this trip to the beach. Molly didn't either. However, Erika did find a sand dollar!
This was the day that we found the Face Rock Creamery! That place ended up being a gem! Nobody had even mentioned it when we were getting ideas of where to go :). We were desperate for something awesome to happen that day. Things had not been going real well. This was it! We were hoping for at least some ice cream, but ended up getting to sample a LOT of really fancy, really awesome tasting cheeses! Even my kids liked them! But they were really cool! I wish I could remember all of them. We did buy some of the garlic slayer (now I'm forgetting the name). And of course got some ice cream. We loved the little gift shop as well. That place was a great recharge for sure! We did some more driving, trying to get up to the North more since we'd heard SO MUCH about the things up north. We wanted to make sure we had enough time to see it all. We drove over several really cool bridges, went through an awesome lumber town, lots of lakes and beautiful views of the ocean, we stopped to see Bradley Lake :). Yes, I am that cheesy.
Then we went to the Sea Lion Caves! This was one of the things I had really been looking forward to. We stopped to eat our lunch and then as we were walking up to the place found out that there weren't any sea lions in the caves, but that you could see them from the viewpoint. Well, you have to pay to get down to the viewpoint anyway, so we just sucked it up and paid the overpriced fee for the tickets to go down to the caves. I have to admit this was really cool.
I loved seeing the sea lions even though it was from quite a distant, and the cave was actually really fascinating! Just too dark to get a picture. Although, I think Nate got some. I loved the view of the lighthouse from there as well! I think that's what made the ticket price worth it :). The kids LOVED the gift shop :). I think this was where Erika got her sea lion. We talked the other kids into waiting to get souvenirs because we were SURE the places we were going to visit up North were going to have cooler stuff. Boy were we naive. Sorry kids!
This is the day we got to Yachats (Yah-HOTS). I was really looking forward to Cape Perpetua. We found our campground and then found that it was full. Luckily Nate got bold and asked if we could just use some of the grassy area in the campground since all the nearby campgrounds were full as well, and the guy gave in and told us we could set up our tent next to his "pump house". It wasn't too bad- grassy and big- just no fire pit or table. Which we didn't miss in the least. We went down to the beach and played in the tide pools found LOTS of mussels in these ones. The kids LOVED it. And the rocks were really cool and fun to climb around on.
That night we went and ordered a pizza and while it cooked Nate and I went on a date :). Just kidding. We called it our date night because we would drive to a cool spot, tell the kids we were checking it out and then run out and look at everything together :).
There was a really cool beach, now I can't remember what it was- I really need to look at my map again- right next to a campground- this is where I want to stay next time. There were some really beautiful views and beaches.
We picked up our pizza and went back to our tent. We all laughed when as we were driving through the campground to our spot Jack goes, "Dad? Where's ours pump house?" He hears EVERYTHING! We all huddled around Nate's phone and watched a movie in our tent while we ate our pizza :). So cozy and such a fun feeling that night. I loved it. And of course fell right to sleep. This was a good night. Molly-wise.
In the morning we got up early because we had lots to do :). We went to Thor's Well during low tide like dummies and didn't really get to see much. Nate went down where you're not supposed to and scared the crap out of his wife. Naughty boy.
The Devil's Churn was too low as well. Somewhat anticlimactic. But we did need to get going. We grabbed some pastries at this cute little Bread and Roses Bakery in Yachats. Then headed up the highway to see some more sites. We stopped at Seal Rock (this is one of the beaches the funny couple looking for cool rocks had mentioned to us when they heard we were tourists), turned out to be PRETTY AWESOME alright! We pulled up and there's this ENORMOUS rock! So cool. The kids played in a driftwood fort, looked for shells and played in the sand. Kelly was hilarious when she asked, "What rock?" as we were walking down to the beach- the thing was seriously like 20 stories high! (I'll probably need to look that up to get the right numbers, but it was HUGE!) She's so funny. I loved hearing Noah talk about "Crabs and Barnacles".
Another cool little surprise that day was Newport! We decided to venture into the little port town and just drive through (We'd heard about Mo's and wanted to see how pricey it was, turns out VERY!). As we were driving (to see the Coast Guard station of course :) yes, I am obsessed. )
we could hear sea lions barking! Really loudly! It was a LOT of sea lions! So we hurried and parked and went down to the pier to see what was going on. There they were about 30 sea lions just laying on these platforms barking! The kids LOVED this! We stood there for quite a while watching them fight each other, sleep in funny positions, get knocked off, and swim. It was really fun! We couldn't believe nobody had mentioned this :). We saw a guy crabbing, that was cool.
Then we walked along the little shops- found the candy store and bought some taffy (Taffy Town taffy though... duh) and other treats for the kids. And Luke refused to use a dirty bathroom. I'm so curious how bad it was.
After that, we stopped at the Yaquina Head Lighthouse (not to be confused with the Yaquina Bay one). This was ANOTHER really AWESOME stop. Thanks to Natalie this had been the lighthouse I chose to see. I probably would have made this trip all about lighthouses if I'd thought the kids would enjoy them as much as I do, but I decided to just pick one. This is the one Natalie recommended. They do give tours, but of course we missed that. It was totally fine though because when we got out there to see it, we looked out in the ocean and could see WHALES!! Several of them! It was SO COOL!!! I had to keep telling my kids how lucky they are and that not everyone gets to see a whale out in the wild at their age! It's been 9 years since we saw the Balugas in AK! So cool though!! Then we looked down near the beach and there were more sea lions! Cool stuff. The lighthouse was really awesome as well, I only wish I could have gotten a different sky for the pictures- sunset, clouds, anything! Oh well.
We stopped at Devil's Punch Bowl on our way out of that town- kinda cool, but seeing more whales was even cooler :).
Things we want to remember about that day: Jack: chips and drive. Driving through Lorax Hills (that's what we named it- it looked like where the Lorax was filmed!) That night we had a little trouble coming upon a campground. We ended up in another RV park- this one was even less tent friendly and right next to a very busy road. So that was a bummer, but we parked and then made our way back out to the ocean for some tide pools. This beach was a fun surprise. When we first got there I was so disappointed and wanted to leave because again, it was not a very good tide pool beach. We were longing for tide pools! But with a little asking around I found out that there was a cool tunnel that takes you through this giant rock over to the other side where there were a lot of cool tide pools. I was SO RELIEVED when Nate held up a GINORMOUS star fish! Of course my camera had to die shortly after that :(, huge bummer, but hey- Nate got a bunch of awesome pictures that will probably top mine anyway :)! Someday I'm sure we will see those again :). Just kidding. I loved it when Jack said, "I wanna be alone." Weird kid. We let him play quite a bit by himself for the location. This was really cool though because the kids just went from rock to rock scouting out cool animals! I loved it! It was so fun to watch. They were having the time of their lives! Nate too :). Of course.
As it got later the tide started coming up and even though we had the tunnel to get back, I was a little worried about getting back to the car in high tide. But we made it. That beach was cool too because everyone was there with their families, campfires, playing ball... just looked like so much fun :). That night we grabbed some Burger King (yes, I know, my. plan. FAILED!!!) and watched another movie in the tent- good times. I must say that night was not as good as the night by the pump house- there was SO MUCH NOISE from the traffic!! But I will say I LOVED the shower in the morning. It was well worth the buck fifty.
So in the morning, we drove around the corner- we were less than a mile away- to Tillamook! This was a much anticipated stop, but was somewhat of a disappointment. I'm not gonna lie- I liked the Face Rock Creamery- as tiny as it was- WAY better than Tillamook! It was fun to see the machinery and stuff, and find out how cheese is made, but other than that. The samples were weak, and the gift shop was so packed with people, it was sort of a pain to walk through. Not to mention the line for ice cream... so not our favorite place. I did love Luke telling me that he likes the texture of the cheese there better than the other place with chocolate ice cream all over his face :). He cracks me up, "the TEXture". Funny boy.
Then we finally made our way to the beloved Cannon beach! EVERYONE had made a big deal about this beach and Haystack Rock. Well, maybe it was the crowds or the difficulty getting to the place, but I was deeply unimpressed with this beach! It was almost 100 degrees- the hottest it had been our whole trip, there were WAY too many people on that beach. There really wasn't anything all that great about it. It was super anticlimactic after all the talking we'd done about this place. We did miss the tide pools, which I know are spectacular, so that is a bummer, but really, this was disappointing. Haystack rock wasn't even as cool as Seal Rock in my opinion. Just sayin. Molly did love crawling all over the beach- that was fun for her- she's fearless when it comes to the water and the waves. We were there as the water was reaching high tide and so she got pretty close- that was fun. Poor Bradley tripped over Charity's foot (they had both gone way out in the water- Charity in her swim suit) and REALLY hurt his toes and top half of his foot. We were very worried about it for most of the time we were there. Luke and Jack built a lot of towers with the sand, that was fun to watch. There were some weird circles in the sand- I'm gonna go ahead and call them crop circles- I'm so curious where they came from :). Jack recreated some for me where we were sitting :). Kelly struggled at this beach just because of the sand. This whole trip she did really well with her anti-sand qualities and this was kind of the last straw for her, unfortunately. We left feeling somewhat dissatisfied to say the least. Oh well.
On our way further up the coast we stopped to see the Peter Iredale Shipwreck. Kinda cool. Although, it was so hot the sand was scorching!! I seriously burned my feet in my flip flops. I had to dip them in the cold water when I got down to the ship. SO HOT!! Only a couple of the kids got out here and seemed less than impressed.
About this time I decided we were close to being site-see-d out. You can only see so many things in such a short amount of time before you get overwhelmed I decided. So we started getting picky about what we would stop for. We did make it up to Astoria- again, slightly disappointed- not what we were expecting I guess.
I LOVED seeing the Columbia River!! That was beautiful! More Lorax fields. We finally (felt like a long time really- and we were racing the clock because we wanted to get to the hotel with time to swim- that was the whole point of getting a hotel!) made it to Portland and our Hampton Inn and Suites (I love those hotels! Best Continental breakfast on the planet! It's actually worth it to sleep there with the amazing breakfast- saves us money). We had a blast in the pool. Nate taught us all how to play a pool version of kickball. Everyone had fun playing with the noodles. Bradley skinned his knee and it was here that we noticed his foot might be worse than we had thought. It was fun that we had the whole pool to ourselves almost. With the exception of the guy from Michigan who said we made him miss his granddaughter :) when we apologized for being so loud and crazy. It was a fun way to top off our trip.
In the morning we pigged out on the breakfast. I loved how Kelly said it was like an old folks home in the room :). Lots of elderly. We had a hard time finding seats at first and felt a little awkward, but the food is so good :). Fixed everything :). Everyone had LOTS of breakfast! So, the rest of the day is a blur. I really can't remember much! We drove all day. We didn't really stop much. I can't even remember what we ate or where we did stop? Maybe someone else can remember. I did love Portland and wished we'd had more time there. Or taken some pictures! Man, it's like I lost my camera or something! It was RIGHT THERE, crowding out my feet! WHY DIDNT I TAKE PICTURES?!!! It was beautiful by the gorge of the columbia river. I loved the scenery the first part of the day. The rest of the day was less enjoyable. But the kids did great and all was well. Nate and I kept ourselves awake by trying to guess the flavors of our taffy :). Nate tricked us all and told us it was going to be a 13 hour drive, that we weren't going to get home until 11 or 12:00, but we pulled in at 8:00 and that was even with my lame detour- how lame is it that you have to exit to stay on I-84?!! Very. And with a stop at Little Caesar's for our LAST UNPLANNED MEAL! I was glad to get home with some of my energy intact. We needed to shower and get unpacked and such for Sunday the next day! What a busy crazy night that was!
Getting ready for this trip was difficult, since I came home from Girls Camp at noon on Saturday and we wanted to leave around 7:00 Sunday. I worked my patooty off trying to get laundry done, even got up about every hour and half to change up the laundry. This was difficult! In hindsight, I wish I'd just brought dirty clothes. We had a few places we could have laundered them. But oh well. I was SO TIRED the next day. We were unable to get ourselves ready and out the door before 11:00 (four hours late... fairly typical) and then I kept dozing off all the way there. It was uncomfortable to sleep even, and I'm not usually so sleepy that I can't stay awake, but this time- didn't have any trouble sleeping! Poor Nate, I think he was all alone in the car full of 10 people for a good chunk of the drive. Everyone did pretty well! I was impressed considering Noah and Erika were basically sharing a seat. The seating arrangement was actually kind of funny. Looking back, I think we were inspired. Charity sat in the back seat, on top of "the crack" (not to be confused with bumb crack) with Jack and Molly on either side. Talk about funny! I thought for sure she would get sick of this and want to trade sometime, but nope- she went strong the ENTIRE trip! Buckling both of them in at most stops. She was a real trooper! I think she and Molly got in some major bonding they've been total buds ever since and even Jack seemed to feel a closeness (not just proximity-wise). She kept them both pretty content. It was SUCH a blessing to have her help this way. The middle bench is longer so we thought if we cleared it of car seats (Jack and Molly) it would be more comfortable for squishing four kids onto three seats. Seemed to work. Noah and Erika get major points for sticking this out the entire time as well. I think Noah traded with Luke for only a small portion of the time. They were troopers with Kelly and Bradley on that bench as well. Everyone got along SO WELL on that seat! I was relieved. Then Luke sat up front between Nate and I. He's a funny one to have up front. Kind of entertaining. Played with his tablet and juggled chargers with Nate 90% of the time. He and I took turns using each other's shoulders :).
We passed the Salt Flats. As we drove through Wendover I reminisced and shared the story about the time Andrea, our guy friends and I went there for her CCR concert. I will never forget the look on Nana's face when I ran into her while she was playing the slot machines in one of the casinos there :). She was totally shocked to see me there :). And seeing the Tuellers... funny stuff. I bet they were more surprised to see me there than I was to see them :). Good times.
We stopped at a pretty junky rest stop for lunch. Felt a little weird in my Sunday dress making sandwiches in the middle of nowhere with freeway and trucks all around. But everyone was happy and got fed so all was well.
We ended up not stopping for church since that would have set us back quite a bit. With our late start we were already looking at arriving later than 10:00 pm, so we made the decision to skip it. Hopefully the kids don't hate us for that for too much longer.
We saw some beautiful scenery on this drive. We were going through some really winding turns and Nate came up with the analogy about how if we try to turn too soon, or too late, we will either drive off the road or into the mountain. Just like the Gospel, we have to do things in their time. Following the counsel we are given when we are given it. This was great after having received a call from Jami at about 1:30 informing me of the announcement that our ward boundaries were going to change the following Sunday! We were definitely speculating and wondering what the changes would be. Wanting things to be easy but knowing that sometimes the Lord likes us to be out of our comfort zone. That that is when we do the most growing. We were feeling motivated to take on this change with open minds and open hearts. Very anxious to find out what it was though :). And getting more and more stressed with each text of Jami's speculations :).
I spent some of the drive making Name pictures- the kind where you color around the letters with different colors- it's the only thing I draw :). I made one for everyone- very time consuming and passed the time nicely.
We saw a LOT of sage brush. I got out the old, "Over here on your right, you can see some _______!"(filled in with "sage brush" this time)
When people started getting restless I got out the Starbursts and looked up some Gospel trivia questions and we played a game. I was so happy with my idea to rather than give the person who got the question right the starburst, but let them choose who gets it, was BRILLIANT! We always get so much of the "but I had my hand up first" or "He always gets it!" and this really took care of that!
We came up around this bend and were shocked with this view! We HAD to pull over and take a few pictures! SO cool! Such different types of beauty on this trip!
For dinner we pulled over at a County Fairgrounds (can't remember where now?) and ate our cereal for dinner on the bleachers in front of a big grassy field. Kind of funny. I kept waiting for someone to come kick us out. And yes, I do realize how weird cereal for dinner is as a planned meal. I just couldn't bear the thought of sandwiches twice in one day. And we didn't want to break the sabbath even more buying food. Turned out to be the perfect stop though, the kids were running around a little, getting a much needed stretch, even found some cute little frogs! So turned out to be some fun memories.
We found out who can and who can't cartwheel :)
This made me want to get Noah into gymnastics- he's pretty dang good!
This made me think basketball is Brad's thing :). hahaha.... jk.
This is the frog Kelly caught. I have to admit it was pretty adorable. For an amphibian.
Nate trying to teach them how to do headstands :)
Towards the end of the night, after many hours of driving, we did notice the fighting starting and not as much of the getting along. It was then that I realized we'd forgotten the boondoggle!!! OH NO!!! That was our survival technique on our Nauvoo trip! We knew we were in for it then... just kidding. Everyone really was just done.
We had planned and cancelled and re-planned this trip a few times this summer, thanks to our busy schedule, and were left with only seven days for the whole thing. So we knew we needed to cram a lot into each day, but we were really unsure of how long each thing was going to take and where we would want to spend more time... you know the dilemma... so we decided not to book every night with campgrounds and such. We did schedule the first night in a hotel so that we could have a more comfortable, easy place to sleep after driving for 12 hours. That was a good thing. Even though I did find out that I am slightly more germ conscious and freaked out by anything that could possibly have germs on it when I'm in a cheap motel than I am camping. Kinda weird. It really wasn't too bad and there ended up being three beds which we weren't planning on. We let Bradley, Luke, Noah and Jack have the king. Charity and Erika took the other twin and Nate, Molly and I had the second one. Kelly was dying to sleep on the floor for some reason and by the time we went to sleep Jack had parked himself on the floor as well, next to our bed. Looking back it would have made way more sense to have Nate and I on the king, with Molly it was super crowded. We both didn't sleep well thanks to our rested and refreshed baby who slept most of the day. It was actually a really horrible night, but we survived. I still think it would have been 10 times worse if we'd been camping/cold/on the ground, not to mention at least we got to shower in the morning. I was a little more conscious of when Molly slept after that a made sure to get her out more during the day as we drove so that she was tired at night.
In the morning we skipped the Lorna Doones (aka: Continental Breakfast) and grabbed some Subway. Kind of annoying, but it actually really hit the spot. Then we made our way up toward Crater Lake! We did pull off on this one spot to see the view down into the canyon. This is all from volcano erupting hundreds of years ago. I'm just totally fascinated by it all.
aww a family picture!
We stopped at a cute little waterfall called Vidae Falls. Let the kids and Nate climb up to the top. Nate got some really great pictures there.
You can tell Nate's the real photographer in the family.
Then looked through the brochures to find a hike that we could go on with a hurt knee and a sprained ankle! (Poor Kelly and Charity had a rough camp injury-wise, we didn't make it out unharmed. Although I am glad they weren't worse off.) I'll admit that Crater Lake was one of the least anticipated stops of the trip for me, but as soon as we stepped up to the edge of that cliff on our Sun Notch "hike", I was in awe!!!!
Charity and I both let out a loud, "OH MY GOSH!" and "HOLY COW!!" (probably showing off our Utahn-ness) It was SO INCREDIBLE!!! I really don't know when the last time was that I saw something so breathtaking! I wanted to touch it so bad! And even more so now after hearing from Liesl that you can drink it!! It's the 4th clearest thing on the planet! It's 400 feet deep and is full of only snow and rain water. It's so clear you can see 100 feet deep clearly! So amazing. Wizard Island and Phantom Ship were cool and great for being able to tell that we had gone all the way around the lake.
We all just stared at it for a long time!
Unfortunately, I think Bradley was expecting a lake that he could fish in. He tried not to show it, but we could tell he was a little disappointed.
Molly LOVES birds! And look at her adorable toes!!
It's fun to see what the kids take pictures of when they have the camera- we did that a lot this trip. It's not easy to take pictures while you're carrying a wiggly 1 year old!
I loved talking about all the stats with the kids while we read the information packet and knowing that Bradley and Luke will probably remember everything about that place. It's so cool to think it used to be a volcano! We made the rounds and drove all the way around the crater, stopping at the extra little sites. We saw the Pinnacles, the Castle, both were just slightly uninteresting. Although, there's something really cool about a volcano and witnessing the destruction hundreds of years later even. Kinda cool how erotion will shape things as well.
I have not touched up these pictures AT ALL!!! That's saying A LOT!!! And yet they still don't quite do it justice!
these weird bugs- I wish I knew what they are
On one of our pit-stops we used a bathroom with a giant fly on top of it!! Pretty cool :)
Now that I'm looking at it, maybe it was a mosquito? It was on this pit stop that we discovered Molly's blow out! And when I say blow out, I mean BLOW. OUT! Poop everywhere. SO STINKY and SO MESSY!! Maybe this is disgusting (sorry girls) but full of nuts from the granola bars Nate had fed her all night (we were out of everything Molly friendly and very desperate in his defense)! SO DISGUSTING!!! Did I mention it was gross? Took me a good 20 minutes to "clean" her seat and get her changed. Poor Charity had to sit in the back seat with her stench. That's love!!
So after that we headed on down to the Redwoods! I'm already forgetting details though, I can't remember a lot about that day. I think we arrived at the Florence Keller campground just at dusk, I dropped Nate and most of the family off and took Kelly to find some food. Just down the street and around the corner was the Walmart. It was kind of funny because I started panicking a little bit about getting lost and what I would do since Nate's phone was dead... bla bla bla... Needless to say, I made a big deal about remembering where to go. Kelly and I both felt relieved when we 1. found the Walmart! Felt like a fountain of clear, spring water in a dry desert (crazy I know). And I won't even try to describe my feelings of nostalgia when I got a wiff of the ocean coming in from the west. LOVE that smell! And 2. when we pulled into the campground (After a pretty strange one way street and a couple of U-turns of course), relief totally swept over me! I was very happy to see my family with whom I'd just been cooped up in our tiny car for almost two days straight :). Imagine that. They had set up the tent and built a fire in the amount of time it took us to buy dinner and breakfast for the next day. Pretty sweet. And can I say- I had expected California to have outrageous prices, even at Walmart, but I think things were actually cheaper! Mind blown. I think the coolest thing about that night was sleeping in the Redwoods!! We were right in the middle of all the tallest trees my kids have ever seen! SO cool! And it was a really fun campsite with lots of exploring places. I only wish we could have stayed there another night.
You can't really tell in this picture, but our car was on a slight hill pointing down at our tent and for some reason in the night, I woke up in a panic that the car was going to crash into the tent and drive over all of us... hahaha!! Crazy.
The next day we made the longest stop we've ever made in a Walmart parking lot. We decided to go to Walmart and get lunch stuff and while Nate was in there he found our lunch plus: binoculars, shoes for Noah, socks and underwear for Bradley, AND a basket for the back of the car! Kinda funny, but we spent a good hour putting it together and hooking it to the car, then Nate spent another long while moving around all our stuff!! Holy moly was that a long drawn out process! Meanwhile the kids did REALLY well! So patient! Once we got that all settled, we drove down the 101 highway through more of the Redwoods. They are so majestic! It's so fascinating to me that Heavenly Father has let them grow so tall! So beautiful! Up to this point in our trip, I was really starting to feel the love from our Heavenly Father. For all the beautiful things we have on this earth! And it's all here for us to enjoy! I LOVED making scenery the focus of this trip. There really wasn't anything materialistic on this trip at all. That was cool. I had mentioned to Nate that we'd kind of covered all the bases this summer as far as entertainment goes. We did the family/traditional/sentimental in Bear Lake and Idaho, we did the material, fabricated fun of Lagoon, we did the camping and did the friends, and now we were doing scenery :). There was something else in there too, but now I can't think of it... oh! The thrill-seeking Jetskiing! Anyway- I was really happy to see my kids enjoying this trip as much as everything else. I am not sure I would have been the same at their ages. We of course stopped at the beach a few times that day too.
Why do they always throw Emus into the picture when there's a tourist attraction?? I will never understand that.
There was one beach where this (somewhat scary-looking) woman came over to me and advised me to get my kids out of the water. That the undertow is so strong they won't see it coming. I told her they were fine, they didn't really want to get that wet anyway, and she RE-emphasized her warning and then threw in that she'd seen tourist's children die doing what mine were doing!!! Freaked me out. So I ran down the beach with Molly in my arms chasing them because they started walking in the opposite direction of me, unknowingly of course, and made of fool of myself screaming after them... I was seriously panicking inside. Finally got their attention though and they came back. Very memorable. It was SUPER foggy at this beach.
I love how happy Nate is on the beach :)
I'm kind of not sure if she's smiling or crying in this picture now... still cute though :)
I think she sampled every type of sand we encountered on the entire Oregon coast. Hopefully the osmotic pressure from the salt kills most of the germs like I rationalize and think it does.
The girls are as bad as me :) Pictures of EVERYTHING :)
So we did it.
Not sure I like it.
Maybe I'm just bored with this pose now...
I do love Noah and Luke with their arms around Jack- so cute!
If only I'd separated the boys and girls... cuz I don't like that.
Oh well.
Charity must have inherited my cat-like reflexes! She grabbed Molly SO FAST! Impressive really.
I think I like it from the front better...
I think this should be our next canvas over the mantle :)
You'll notice I played around with the manual settings a lot during this trip. Kind of cost me in a lot of areas, but I got lots of practice, so that was good :)
We stopped at another beach that day when the fog was clearing that was super rocky. It was low tide and we were able to climb around the rocks and find cool things in the tide pools. It was really fun. The kids loved this. Bradley found a mussel (we found out how common they were later :) ), Jack found a black shell (Again, much more common as we went along), Noah found and "chucked" a crab! And we found all sorts of cool rocks. This is where I found all my cool little pearl like ones I want to make necklaces out of... where did I put those?? I believe this was Gold Beach. I think.
That evening we found the Indian Creek RV Park and luckily found an available spot! It was this night that I realized we were not going to be having cold nights! It was warmer during the day than it was at night! And not windy at all as I'd worried. Pretty awesome. This spot was pretty cool too, with a mountain side right next to us for the kids to explore.
We ditched our tent and stuff to go to a fun restaurant called Port Hole, right on a pier (with a Coast Guard boat right next to it I might add!) That was a fun dinner. I loved hearing the kids all getting along and having fun. Loving the view and watching the sunset. It really was perfect. Minus that Lukey's 3 fried shrimp didn't really fill him up... go figure. The kid needs to give up on the kid menu. Surprisingly.
We got up the next morning to see the tide pools, but kind of missed them. That was a bummer. We walked along this beach that looked like it belonged in the desert with how windy it was. The way the sand was blown and made cool designs. It was seriously SO WINDY though. Our blanket and Nate's shoes were almost completely buried after only a short little while. Kinda nuts. I didn't love this trip to the beach. Molly didn't either. However, Erika did find a sand dollar!
This was the day that we found the Face Rock Creamery! That place ended up being a gem! Nobody had even mentioned it when we were getting ideas of where to go :). We were desperate for something awesome to happen that day. Things had not been going real well. This was it! We were hoping for at least some ice cream, but ended up getting to sample a LOT of really fancy, really awesome tasting cheeses! Even my kids liked them! But they were really cool! I wish I could remember all of them. We did buy some of the garlic slayer (now I'm forgetting the name). And of course got some ice cream. We loved the little gift shop as well. That place was a great recharge for sure! We did some more driving, trying to get up to the North more since we'd heard SO MUCH about the things up north. We wanted to make sure we had enough time to see it all. We drove over several really cool bridges, went through an awesome lumber town, lots of lakes and beautiful views of the ocean, we stopped to see Bradley Lake :). Yes, I am that cheesy.
Then we went to the Sea Lion Caves! This was one of the things I had really been looking forward to. We stopped to eat our lunch and then as we were walking up to the place found out that there weren't any sea lions in the caves, but that you could see them from the viewpoint. Well, you have to pay to get down to the viewpoint anyway, so we just sucked it up and paid the overpriced fee for the tickets to go down to the caves. I have to admit this was really cool.
Twinners :).
I'm so amazed by the line from light to dark in the ocean- it's so straight!
I loved seeing the sea lions even though it was from quite a distant, and the cave was actually really fascinating! Just too dark to get a picture. Although, I think Nate got some. I loved the view of the lighthouse from there as well! I think that's what made the ticket price worth it :). The kids LOVED the gift shop :). I think this was where Erika got her sea lion. We talked the other kids into waiting to get souvenirs because we were SURE the places we were going to visit up North were going to have cooler stuff. Boy were we naive. Sorry kids!
This is the day we got to Yachats (Yah-HOTS). I was really looking forward to Cape Perpetua. We found our campground and then found that it was full. Luckily Nate got bold and asked if we could just use some of the grassy area in the campground since all the nearby campgrounds were full as well, and the guy gave in and told us we could set up our tent next to his "pump house". It wasn't too bad- grassy and big- just no fire pit or table. Which we didn't miss in the least. We went down to the beach and played in the tide pools found LOTS of mussels in these ones. The kids LOVED it. And the rocks were really cool and fun to climb around on.
so many mussels!!!
That night we went and ordered a pizza and while it cooked Nate and I went on a date :). Just kidding. We called it our date night because we would drive to a cool spot, tell the kids we were checking it out and then run out and look at everything together :).
There was a really cool beach, now I can't remember what it was- I really need to look at my map again- right next to a campground- this is where I want to stay next time. There were some really beautiful views and beaches.
We picked up our pizza and went back to our tent. We all laughed when as we were driving through the campground to our spot Jack goes, "Dad? Where's ours pump house?" He hears EVERYTHING! We all huddled around Nate's phone and watched a movie in our tent while we ate our pizza :). So cozy and such a fun feeling that night. I loved it. And of course fell right to sleep. This was a good night. Molly-wise.
In the morning we got up early because we had lots to do :). We went to Thor's Well during low tide like dummies and didn't really get to see much. Nate went down where you're not supposed to and scared the crap out of his wife. Naughty boy.
When I took this, I thought, "This might be the last picture we take of the best husband and father this world has ever seen!"
The Devil's Churn was too low as well. Somewhat anticlimactic. But we did need to get going. We grabbed some pastries at this cute little Bread and Roses Bakery in Yachats. Then headed up the highway to see some more sites. We stopped at Seal Rock (this is one of the beaches the funny couple looking for cool rocks had mentioned to us when they heard we were tourists), turned out to be PRETTY AWESOME alright! We pulled up and there's this ENORMOUS rock! So cool. The kids played in a driftwood fort, looked for shells and played in the sand. Kelly was hilarious when she asked, "What rock?" as we were walking down to the beach- the thing was seriously like 20 stories high! (I'll probably need to look that up to get the right numbers, but it was HUGE!) She's so funny. I loved hearing Noah talk about "Crabs and Barnacles".
Jack wrote his name :).
Yes, this kind of thing is genetic :)
(I'm referring to picking up EVERYTHING!! No matter what the risk :) )
Another cool little surprise that day was Newport! We decided to venture into the little port town and just drive through (We'd heard about Mo's and wanted to see how pricey it was, turns out VERY!). As we were driving (to see the Coast Guard station of course :) yes, I am obsessed. )
Does that say CRAP or CRAB? haha.
There it is!! I swear I'm going to be in the Coast Guard in my next life- so cool!
For Noah :)
we could hear sea lions barking! Really loudly! It was a LOT of sea lions! So we hurried and parked and went down to the pier to see what was going on. There they were about 30 sea lions just laying on these platforms barking! The kids LOVED this! We stood there for quite a while watching them fight each other, sleep in funny positions, get knocked off, and swim. It was really fun! We couldn't believe nobody had mentioned this :). We saw a guy crabbing, that was cool.
Then we walked along the little shops- found the candy store and bought some taffy (Taffy Town taffy though... duh) and other treats for the kids. And Luke refused to use a dirty bathroom. I'm so curious how bad it was.
After that, we stopped at the Yaquina Head Lighthouse (not to be confused with the Yaquina Bay one). This was ANOTHER really AWESOME stop. Thanks to Natalie this had been the lighthouse I chose to see. I probably would have made this trip all about lighthouses if I'd thought the kids would enjoy them as much as I do, but I decided to just pick one. This is the one Natalie recommended. They do give tours, but of course we missed that. It was totally fine though because when we got out there to see it, we looked out in the ocean and could see WHALES!! Several of them! It was SO COOL!!! I had to keep telling my kids how lucky they are and that not everyone gets to see a whale out in the wild at their age! It's been 9 years since we saw the Balugas in AK! So cool though!! Then we looked down near the beach and there were more sea lions! Cool stuff. The lighthouse was really awesome as well, I only wish I could have gotten a different sky for the pictures- sunset, clouds, anything! Oh well.
Little puff of water = whale!
We stopped at Devil's Punch Bowl on our way out of that town- kinda cool, but seeing more whales was even cooler :).
accidentally cool :)
As it got later the tide started coming up and even though we had the tunnel to get back, I was a little worried about getting back to the car in high tide. But we made it. That beach was cool too because everyone was there with their families, campfires, playing ball... just looked like so much fun :). That night we grabbed some Burger King (yes, I know, my. plan. FAILED!!!) and watched another movie in the tent- good times. I must say that night was not as good as the night by the pump house- there was SO MUCH NOISE from the traffic!! But I will say I LOVED the shower in the morning. It was well worth the buck fifty.
So in the morning, we drove around the corner- we were less than a mile away- to Tillamook! This was a much anticipated stop, but was somewhat of a disappointment. I'm not gonna lie- I liked the Face Rock Creamery- as tiny as it was- WAY better than Tillamook! It was fun to see the machinery and stuff, and find out how cheese is made, but other than that. The samples were weak, and the gift shop was so packed with people, it was sort of a pain to walk through. Not to mention the line for ice cream... so not our favorite place. I did love Luke telling me that he likes the texture of the cheese there better than the other place with chocolate ice cream all over his face :). He cracks me up, "the TEXture". Funny boy.
I see our cheese right there on the conveyor belt!!
Then we finally made our way to the beloved Cannon beach! EVERYONE had made a big deal about this beach and Haystack Rock. Well, maybe it was the crowds or the difficulty getting to the place, but I was deeply unimpressed with this beach! It was almost 100 degrees- the hottest it had been our whole trip, there were WAY too many people on that beach. There really wasn't anything all that great about it. It was super anticlimactic after all the talking we'd done about this place. We did miss the tide pools, which I know are spectacular, so that is a bummer, but really, this was disappointing. Haystack rock wasn't even as cool as Seal Rock in my opinion. Just sayin. Molly did love crawling all over the beach- that was fun for her- she's fearless when it comes to the water and the waves. We were there as the water was reaching high tide and so she got pretty close- that was fun. Poor Bradley tripped over Charity's foot (they had both gone way out in the water- Charity in her swim suit) and REALLY hurt his toes and top half of his foot. We were very worried about it for most of the time we were there. Luke and Jack built a lot of towers with the sand, that was fun to watch. There were some weird circles in the sand- I'm gonna go ahead and call them crop circles- I'm so curious where they came from :). Jack recreated some for me where we were sitting :). Kelly struggled at this beach just because of the sand. This whole trip she did really well with her anti-sand qualities and this was kind of the last straw for her, unfortunately. We left feeling somewhat dissatisfied to say the least. Oh well.
haha!! I thought I'd cropped those two bumbs out... good thing I don't know them. I'll try to fix that later.
On our way further up the coast we stopped to see the Peter Iredale Shipwreck. Kinda cool. Although, it was so hot the sand was scorching!! I seriously burned my feet in my flip flops. I had to dip them in the cold water when I got down to the ship. SO HOT!! Only a couple of the kids got out here and seemed less than impressed.
About this time I decided we were close to being site-see-d out. You can only see so many things in such a short amount of time before you get overwhelmed I decided. So we started getting picky about what we would stop for. We did make it up to Astoria- again, slightly disappointed- not what we were expecting I guess.
But we did get to go up inside the Astoria Column! That was fascinating! The kids loved that! I couldn't believe the view! And how scared I was! I was panicking inside with all my little kiddos 125 feet up in the air on this tiny ledge with only a railing to keep us safe! But it was REALLY cool! The steps to climb up were twisty- who doesn't love twisty stairs! Lots of fun. There were some carvings on the outside of it- some naked, so we won't look at those, but they show a lot of the immigration and the movement north- that's what that column is for. Kind of cool! Erika liked that it wasn't that long to get up to the top. Luke liked how easy it was. Jack peed in his pants :). Lovely.
360 degree view of Astoria!
I was so completely freaked out!!! Did I mention that?
This is the Columbia river
We did drive across the cool bridge into Washington just so that we could add another state to our repertoire. Then came right back :). Course we did cross over again later in the day on our way to Portland. For late lunch we stopped at Pig'n Pancake (kept seeing these- wanted to see what they were like :) ), basically a Denny's :). We were SO STARVING, so hot, we were all a little impatient with each other here. The restaurant's air conditioning was even out, so that's how bothered we were. They screwed up on some of the orders, brought Bradley the wrong thing, then brought out the omelet he'd ordered and switched, but insisted that he'd ordered the other thing, but why did they have the omelet if he didn't order it?? They were silly. Bradley had been so excited about an omelet, I'm glad he got it. Charity didn't get her salad until after her main dish and she begged for it, which was a bummer, but overall we made the most of this experience. Molly ate a crayon.
I LOVED seeing the Columbia River!! That was beautiful! More Lorax fields. We finally (felt like a long time really- and we were racing the clock because we wanted to get to the hotel with time to swim- that was the whole point of getting a hotel!) made it to Portland and our Hampton Inn and Suites (I love those hotels! Best Continental breakfast on the planet! It's actually worth it to sleep there with the amazing breakfast- saves us money). We had a blast in the pool. Nate taught us all how to play a pool version of kickball. Everyone had fun playing with the noodles. Bradley skinned his knee and it was here that we noticed his foot might be worse than we had thought. It was fun that we had the whole pool to ourselves almost. With the exception of the guy from Michigan who said we made him miss his granddaughter :) when we apologized for being so loud and crazy. It was a fun way to top off our trip.
In the morning we pigged out on the breakfast. I loved how Kelly said it was like an old folks home in the room :). Lots of elderly. We had a hard time finding seats at first and felt a little awkward, but the food is so good :). Fixed everything :). Everyone had LOTS of breakfast! So, the rest of the day is a blur. I really can't remember much! We drove all day. We didn't really stop much. I can't even remember what we ate or where we did stop? Maybe someone else can remember. I did love Portland and wished we'd had more time there. Or taken some pictures! Man, it's like I lost my camera or something! It was RIGHT THERE, crowding out my feet! WHY DIDNT I TAKE PICTURES?!!! It was beautiful by the gorge of the columbia river. I loved the scenery the first part of the day. The rest of the day was less enjoyable. But the kids did great and all was well. Nate and I kept ourselves awake by trying to guess the flavors of our taffy :). Nate tricked us all and told us it was going to be a 13 hour drive, that we weren't going to get home until 11 or 12:00, but we pulled in at 8:00 and that was even with my lame detour- how lame is it that you have to exit to stay on I-84?!! Very. And with a stop at Little Caesar's for our LAST UNPLANNED MEAL! I was glad to get home with some of my energy intact. We needed to shower and get unpacked and such for Sunday the next day! What a busy crazy night that was!
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