Oregon Adventure: Winchester Bay

When we booked our site, we thought this site looked perfect. Easy distance to the beach, easy access to the dunes. Well, if there had been any moisture in the sand, it would have been perfect. But there wasn't. Abe's truck alone could have made it to this site, but with a heavy trailer in tow, he got stuck. Thank goodness it was just a little way into the sand and my Dad had his truck to pull him out. It could have been bad. 

That little blue marker indicates where we were supposed to camp. Not happening!

After running around, looking at sites, and putting way too much energy into finding a spot, Grandma and I pulled the kids out of the car, Camille pulled up, and we headed to the beach! I left Abe to make the decisions and took our kids to see the ocean for the first time. 

 It took the boys a few minutes to not pay attention to the vast amounts of sand, and to look at the ocean and how it moved! There were awed!

I have never experienced a beach with this many sand dollars. We found several whole sand dollars every day! There were thousands of broken sand dollars as well!

Camille and Gregg came down with their boys. Bodie hated the cold. It was a little chili and he didn't like it for one second!

However, my boys could play, roll, plow, wrestle, and throw sand all day long!

When we said it was time to go they began walking to the top of the beach, only to be distracted by a giant log that they ran over to and made sand angels.

Such a beautiful place! I am so glad that we are able to create and share these memories with family!

Oregon Adventure: Day 2 of Driving

We woke up to a slightly foggy morning, ate some breakfast, and we were on the way! The drive was very pleasant. A lot of changing scenery and very pleasant children. Although, they weren't too excited about my choice of movie for them. "The Music Man" (the old one). It entertained in the beginning with all of the songs, but then as the story line progressed, it lost them. 

Next we stopped at Quiznos in Klamath Falls. What great customer service we had! I had a friendly exchange with the lady at the cashier. I mentioned how we were driving and getting my youngest to eat vegetables was nearly impossible. She then swooped by 2 minutes later with cups of fresh grapes for both of them. They were delicious and they gobbled them up! I looked for her when we were done to let her know how  much I appreciated it. She wasn't there. I am glad I gave a big thank you when it happened.

Camille's family and our family were always pretty close to each other. They continued to close the gap the closer we got. Perks of not pulling a trailer!

 I love how beautiful the trees are! It adds beauty and enjoyment to the drive! We also entertained ourselves with balloon animals and Abe kept his eye out to for A&W restaurants. He claims he saw at least one in nearly every town we drove by. "Eye spy with my little eye" is also a lot more fun because we had more than the dirt, sky, clouds, and lines on the road to guess from.

 

As we were about 35 minutes away, we hit road construction. Boo! And then I looked at Sawyer who finally decided to fall asleep...at 4 pm!

 Twenty minutes from our destination we saw tons and tons of Elk on a reserve.

 Reedsport is tiny and cute!

My parents made it to the marina about 10 minutes before us. Great timing!

Oregon Adventure

We have been planning this trip since October 2013. Tonight we got in the car at 7:00 pm to drive a little of the way to Oregon. The idea was to drive through Susanville and stop somewhere along the way. As I was checking places to stop, I noticed an article about a fire on the route we wanted to take. That meant we had to add an hour to our drive and go another direction. We made it to Alturas for the night and found street next to a church. I wish I would have taken a picture of me crawling over the atv's to get onto our bed. Perks of a toyhauler!

Crew: Primary Talk

Crew was asked to give a talk in primary. Now, let me just say I was excited and nervous for him. He has been given the opportunity to also say the theme and scripture, on separate occasions, earlier this year. The first he refused to even walk up there, and limp bodied it when I carried him up there. The next time he barely whispered half of it, with his eyes shut, and then he was done. So this talk was a big deal!! 

First we sat down and I told him the basics of the topic he was given. He then told me everything in his talk and I helped piece it together for him. I also drew some pretty scary stick figure sketches to help him remember what he was saying. After getting it memorized, I then said we were going to play "primary." I was a teacher in the audience and Sawyer was a kid. Obviously. He then practiced saying it in front of us without any help. Of course Sawyer had to practice his non-existent part as well.

Sunday came. I told him I would come down to the primary room for closing exercises, with his talk. When I got there I sat by him until they began. He was very excited and immediately sat in the "Talk" chair when he was asked. He was smiling, giving me thumbs up, and had a little nervous fidgeting. His turn came, he walked up to the podium, looked at me, took a big breath, and began. In his opinion he messed up the first few words and put his palm on his forehead and sighed. With some silent encouragement, he began again. He rocked it! Rocked it!!! He said everything loudly and clearly! I definitely had some happy tears well up as I overflowed with joy. That was something that challenged Crew beyond his comfort zone and he nailed it!

Hot August Nights

Farm life has been busy, busy! We did find some time to go check out the cars for Hot August Nights. It was hot and fun. It's always neat to see peoples' over-the-top vehicles! Carmen and Ernie joined in on the fun!

After checking out the cars we had to stop at Costco. Crew had been telling us he was so hungry so I took him into Costco while Sawyer slept in the car with Abe. Crew chowed down on a giant hot dog. We then all got back in the car to head to dinner.

It's a good thing Crew ate, because we had to wait on the highway for a long time before we could get past an accident . . . Then onto a delicious dinner.