OREGON

Last year my parents planned an amazing trip for our family, including my siblings and their spouses and kids! So, May 2011, we all drove to Pacific City, Oregon.

(Below are some pictures we took, although since I can't quite figure out blogger, these are not in chronological order)

Beach House (Kitchen) - One funny thing about the beach house is that there were NO window treatments AT ALL!! Great views though!!!

You would never know from the front of the house how big it was!!! Needs a new paint job, but it was very nice.

This is the back of the house!! It was huge and very accommodating for our large family!

One of the family rooms (right off the kitchen)

Another view of the front

These deer were in our back yard (just some of several deer we saw).

This was the view from our deck.

This was our favorite!!!!

No one EVER got sick of the beach!! It was beautiful!!!! The view never got tiring. The ocean is so amazing!! Did I mention that we found tons of sand dollars (whole ones)!!!!!  Also, though the water was SO SO cold, the kids LOVED playing in it! Dax enjoyed the sand - for the most part!!! He was such a trooper for the entire trip!!! He had several sandy treats because he just loved putting them on the sandy blanket then picking them up to eat again! Funny boy!

This was taken at the Pelican Pub (The servers did a fantastic job serving all of us and especially catering to all the kiddos that were super crazy and noisy, but fairly well behaved!!! :)

This was taken on the porch of the Pelican Pub

Aren't they AWESOME!!!!!!!

My dad did a FANTASTIC job with pictures!!! It's pretty dang hard to take a perfect picture of a group this large! Though everyone got a little restless and anxious to start playing we were able to get all sorts of pictures!

These kites were awesome, but don't ask Jake to fly them!!!!

The AIR MUSEUM!!!

Their looks say it all!!

We saw this beaver cross the road - it was a BIG beaver! We wanted to get a picture when it was in the middle of the road but it took too long to get our camera out!!!

TILLAMOOK Cheese Factory!!

Love the Baby Loaf!

Happy Birthday Daxton!!!

The Wal-Mart cupcakes were pretty good, but the TILLAMOOK ice cream was the BEST!!

Here we're at the tide pools.  There was so much ocean life it was awesome!!! There were tons of muscles, star fish, tiny little crabs (I can't remember their official name), Hermit crabs, fish, and plenty of plants.  We played here forever!!!

This was at the Aquarium.  We're all looking at the shark swimming overhead! It was a lot of fun too we saw

Cape Kiwanda (This was like a big mountain of sand! It was fun to play in the sand - as seen above - but going down was a little scary.  Jake and Thayne ran all the way down and I was just waiting for one of them to topple over and fall the rest of the way.  I took it a little more slowly (probably too slowly). Dax missed out on this part - he was at home, with several others, already getting a good nights rest).

Cape Kiwanda is a popular place for whale watching, but that event wasn't really in season.  I guess we got lucky as you can see! We could see the whale's back a little bit too, but never got a good picture of it.

Eldorado Inn

Multnomah Falls

Multnomah Falls

Can you see Jake and Thayne????

Everyone drove separately and left at random times. Jake and I, knowing that the drive was going to be long, left in the evening so the kids would be able to sleep most of the way. We were one of the first to leave Utah - when we're ready to vacation, we're ready NOW! :) We drove 7 hours (until 2am - until our shoulders couldn't hold up our heads and our eyelids were like lead) to Baker City, Oregon. We hadn't made any hotel reservations because we weren't exactly sure where we would end up. Being in a smaller town in the dark with only a few hotels in sight made us slightly nervous. We headed directly to the hotel that was most appealing to our eyes! We did this with all of the nice looking hotels, but they were pricier than we wanted to spend, so we finally went to "Elderado Inn". It looked sketchy and smelled strange (but not smokey), but the man at the front desk was very pleasant and offered us a great deal! Plus they offered free continental breakfast! Our room was clean (though old and odd) and our bed comfortable (except for Thayne's arms and legs spread all over! :) On Sunday morning we had our breakfast, packed up, checked out, then found an LDS church and went to sacrament meeting (one other funny thing about our hotel is that it had an indoors swimming pool . The ward was very friendly, probably hoping we were a new family moved in! It was a great start to the rest of the drive we had ahead (another 7 hours). Though the drive was long, we saw beautiful scenery and listened to great music! The Columbia River was full of fun things to see (dams, tugboats, and trains). The kids were awesome!!!! Just a couple hours before our destination we stopped at Multnomah Falls.


By afternoon we arrived in Pacific City! My parents rented a beach house that accommodated ALL of us! Since we were one of the first to arrive we picked a room, unloaded our luggage from the car and just relaxed for a little while. Then we took a drive around the little town, found a local restaurant and ate, then went to the beach and walked around briefly.

Most of Monday was spent at the beach (Bob Straub). Most of my family ended up at the beach at some point that day, and except for a couple strangers, the beach was OURS!! We realized that May was the PERFECT time to vacation. The ocean water was freezing and it was cool outside, but we were blessed with sunshine. That made the sand warm, which is all anyone needs at the beach! The kids LOVED the water! They got right in it (clothes or swimsuit, whatever!?!) and played all day! They found sea shells, sand dollars, and other treasures along the beach. At one point, while Jake and I were busy enjoying ourselves, Thayne went out a little too far and got caught by an undertow. Luckily my brother Tim was near by and heard him crying. Tim helped him up and brought him to us! Jake and I had been so neglectful and poor Thayne had been so scared! He thought he was going to float away in the ocean, and really, he very well could have! Scares me just thinking about it! Jake and I learned our lesson and kept a closer watch after that. Thayne also learned not to stray too far out!

In the evening we went to Cape Kiwanda (that was nearby) with Chet and Janet and the kids. We had to hike up a huge sand dune. The view was beautiful!!! We were even lucky enough to spot a whale! One of Jake and Thayne's favorite memories from the trip was running down the sand dune! I was a nervous wreck going down, now looking back, I should have run too! I can handle a little sand in my mouth if worse comes to worse!

Tuesday was picture day! My dad spent a lot of time getting things just perfect for our pictures! Though it's just a hobby, he was awesome and the pictures turned out great! Everyone played on the beach once pictures were done! Grandpa and Grandma had bought kites for every family and we had fun trying to fly them! Some actually got them to fly, others (sorry Jake) tried our best! Later in the day we went to tide pools at Cape Kiwanda where we saw crabs, starfish, hermit crabs, guppy fish, muscles, and other sea creatures!

Wednesday began with balloons! It was Dax's first birthday!!! Thayne helped blow up balloons and we put them all over our room and then in the gathering area! We didn't actually celebrate until later though. We first drove to Newport where we went to the Aquarium with Janet and Chet (we ended up seeing everyone else there too! - except mom and dad). After the aquarium we went to the famous "Mo's". They have great sea food! It's a really fun place for kids too - they have toy sharks for the kids to keep that sit on top of their unused straw! Super YUMMY!!! Tim and Nicole we just leaving Mo's as we got there! After lunch we shopped along the bay. It was so fun going into all the little shops! That evening we celebrated Dax's birthday at the beach house. Nothing too fancy, just balloons, candles, cupcakes, and presents from Grandma and Grandpa!

On Thursday everyone drove to Tillamook! We went to the cheese factory. We went on the grand tour, tasted several pieces of cheese and shared some delicious ice cream! Then we went with Jon and Larissa to an Oyster shop. Here we saw workers shucking oysters. Dang, they shuck FAST!!!! I guess every now and then they find pearls that they get to keep! We ate lunch at McDonald's. Thayne (due to exhaustion of vacations) was throwing a tantrum, so I took him into the bathroom, pulled down his pants and gave him a little spank, explaining that we don't throw fits. It didn't seem to bother him at all so as soon as he was finished going potty I spanked him again. He replied, "What was that one all about?" I don't even remember what I said to that, but we all had a good laugh a little later!!! From there the four of us went to Meares Lighthouse (the smallest lighthouse in Oregon). We couldn't go to the top because it has been vandalized and was being repaired. It was windy and cold outside, so even though it was tiny we spent a while inside the souvenir shop looking at all sorts of things we wouldn't spend our money on!!! Next we headed to the Air Museum.  It was so much fun for the boys (all three). We got to see several older airplanes (inside and out). That night for dinner my parents treated all of us to a fancy dinner at the Pelican Pub! We're a big group and as we were all heading to the large room that had been reserved for our family we could hear people at tables commenting on our large family. One of the comments went something like, "I don't even have that many friends.."

Friday started with shopping (with Janet and her family) at the outlets in Lincoln City. We found a several great buys and could have found even more, but kids and hubby's don't love shopping as much as mommy's, so after a nice lunch at McDonalds (again...  this time with no tantrums :) We went to Bob Staub. Grandma and Grandpa had bought each family an octopus kite (super easy to get up on a windy day) and though Jake had a hard time getting it in the air (which put him in a bad mood), we got it up really high! After the beach we played all night at the house. The cousins all had a blast!!!! We all stayed up late...all dreading the ride home.

Saturday morning we woke early to get our things together and packed in the car. We drove 15 hours and arrived home at 1am Sunday morning!!!!!! It was exhausting.  We were all sad it was over.  It was SO much fun to spend time together! The best memories were made!

A couple of other things about the trip:

Every family was on their own schedule. A few things were planned for all of us together but mostly families were on their own. This worked out great since everyone had different ideas of things to do! Often we'd meet up with others at the beach house for meals and then head out again. And very often we'd end up at the same place!

Evenings at the beach house were spent watching movies (if we didn't get home too late), playing games (Boxers or Briefs was HILARIOUS!!!!!), or just visiting!