Coast and Crater Lake (Aug 5-10)

Sunday the 5th after church and after I taught a lesson on Unity in Relief Society I might add, we headed to Diana and Jed's to spend the night.  We thought that would help us get a  head start on our trip to the Oregon Coast.  Diana had a nice dinner for us when we got there and then we played Skyjo.  I had this amazing hand.  I don't think I'll ever be able to do that again.  It's always fun when Jed and Scott play with us too.

We had to get a selfie before we headed out the next day.  We sure love this family!

We had to have our traditional stop at Multnomah Falls.

For some of us this was our first time to VooDoo Doughnuts.  I loved their VooDoo doll doughnut but I thought M&W's maple bars are better.  I had to get some pictures of their cool box.

We stayed at the Red Lion hotel at Seaside.  They messed up on our room and we didn't have two queen beds so that was kinda frustrating.  Kacie and I had to sleep on sofa sleeper.  The next night was better.  We spent some time on the beach and Brady had fun in the ocean.  We then got some pizza before going back to our hotel.

The cold waves got us right when we were taking the picture. haha!

So much for telling him not to get wet! haha!

I sure love these three...

Scott cracks me up!

On August 7th we drove up to Astoria.  This was a first for all of us.  We all fell in love with this town.  I love how unique and colorful all the houses are.

We saw the Goonie house from a distance.  Then we went to the Astoria Column.

That was a lot of stairs to the climb but it was worth the view from the top!

We ate lunch at a little hidden gem called the NW Wild Products.  They mainly sell fresh fish but they also have a little cafe and the food was so good.  Scott had a tuna melt and I had a crab melt.  The kids both had the fresh catch of the day which was red snapper fish n chips.  There is very little sitting so we had to sit by a couple of rock hounds buying and selling rocks.  It was fun visiting with them.  After we drove across the famous three mile bridge into Washington.  We stopped at a little rest stop that talked about Dismal Nitch the place that Lewis and Clark had a lot of trouble on the Columbia River.  After we got back to Astoria we saw a 3D movie about aircraft carriers.  It was pretty cool.  We also learned about all the ships that have sunk here at the mouth of the Columbia River because of all the sandbars.

We found this after we watched the movie!

All the Goonie stuff we saw!

NW Wild Products

So many cool old houses.

I sent this to Boise State and they posted it on their Travel Tuesday post on Instagram.  I thought it was pretty cool.

After we went to Astoria we went to Cannon Beach for quite awhile and all loved it!  I think we found our new favorite spot. 

We had a great dinner at Mo's at Cannon Beach.  

When we left there were bunnies everywhere, it was crazy.

Before we left Seaside we had to go back downtown to their candy store for some salt-water taffy and some fudge plus Brady got a giant lolly-pop.

The problems with using a timer...a blade of grass blew up! haha!

We had to stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory to get ice cream and cheese curds.  We couldn't believe how crowded it was.  We've never had to stand in line to taste the cheese before.  We then went to Woodburn to the outlets and did some shopping.  Kacie got hit with some diarrhea so that was a bummer.  We think it might have been from the ice cream.  We then went to Bend to spend a couple of nights there. The next day we got some donuts at Delish Doughnuts, they were pretty good.   We then headed to Crater Lake.  We were a little bummed by the smoke, but we were lucky we got there when we did because when we were leaving you could barely see the lake.

We stopped at their gift shop at a got a few souvenirs before leaving and this is what we saw.

 

After we got back to Bend we went to eat at the Olive Garden then the kids did a little swimming.  The next morning before heading home we did a little school shopping at Kohl's.  We had a great trip!

Brady's

Kacie's

Tammy's

Scott's

Movie and More Birthdays...

Friday July 20th Scott and I took the kids out to eat at Red Robin and then we went to see the second Momma Mia show at the new Reel Theater in Caldwell.  We loved the movie and especially the fancy theater with the reclining seats and the huge screen plus the 40 speakers.  The sound and picture was amazing.  It was so fun!

Monday the 23rd we celebrated Josh's birthday with hot dogs and slip n slide.  We got him a toy semi-truck.  I'm pretty sure he had fun!  (I had to add dad to his cake.)  The next day we went to the Owyhee ward party with Mom and Dad and then went back to their house to watch the Trek movie that mom gave him for his birthday.  We gave him a new blue western shirt and I made some German chocolate bars with the left over frosting I had from Gerald's cake.  They were really yummy too!  Barbara and Vaughn and Tara also came over.  It was a nice evening!  Happy Birthday Boys!!!

Gerald's 78th Birthday...

We celebrated Gerald's 78th birthday.  We had sloppy-joes, and Wanda's amazing potato salad.  I made his cake and Scott said it was the best tasting cake I've made so far.  I made the coconut pecan frosting from scratch and boy does it ever make a difference so I guess all the time that it takes is worth it.

Looking pretty good for seventy-eight!

It's always fun when we can get togheter!  Kacie and Brady went to Ron and Stacie's house after to watch Love Kennedy.  Taylor watched it at BYS and then got to meet the real family from the show and she wanted the kids to all see it.  It's fun to see my kids having fun together,

Blackbeard the Pirate & Thunder-egg Days...

Brady and I helped at the Thunder-egg 2K fun run.  We sprayed the runners with water by the football field.  We then went to watch Weston and Lori's kids in the Blackbeard the Pirate play at the Four Rivers Cultural Center.  They all did a great job.

Trenton the Parrot...

Tessa the Crocodile...she has quite the personality for acting!

Abigail the Sailor

And Jaynee the Bluebeard.

Later that night Scott, Kacie and I went back to the Thunder-egg days and ate a rib dinner to help those affected by the vandalism at the Hilltop Cemetery.  We enjoyed visiting with Steve and Kris, Jason, Ron, Ryan and Taylor plus others from the community.  We walked around the booths, ate got some drinks and then headed over to the football field to watch some BubbleBash Football.  I was surprised how much fun it was to watch.  Kacie had a friend playing on the Les Schwab team and they won!  Teniele was nice to bring Brady in for the fireworks.  They were really good.  It was a busy, but fun day!

July 6th...

 Mom's Alder family reunion was this weekend at Diana's house and she still wasn't feeling up to traveling from her surgery.  So dad went with Teniele and her boys and we stayed to help mom and keep her company.  We ate good food, played games and watched movies to help keep her spirits up.  She was very disappointed to miss out so hopefully we helped. 

Another adorable picture Alexz took of Kingston.

Independence Day...

We woke up with no plans to celebrate the 4th but then Steve called and said he had extra tickets to Roaring Springs so once Scott got done working around noon we headed over.  Ron and Stacie's family also went as well as Stephen, Ferrell, Kendall, Steve and Kris.  It was fun to hang out all together.  We were the last one to get there and so we were also the last ones to leave around 6:30.  We then got some dinner at Blaze Pizza again.  Then we headed home before going to see the Ontario Fireworks.

Alexz took this adorable picture of Kingston...

Sure love this cute family!

This was the only picture I got of us so I had to play with it a little! 

 I sure love these people!

After the firework show we went back to Ron's house and Steve had a few fireworks to set off.  I thought it was funny when Ron thought it would be better to put the cones on a ladder.  I guess there is a first for anything. haha!