Saturday, August 25, 2012

Fort Stevens State Park {August 24-25}

For years, we have been meaning to go and have a camping trip at the beach with our own little family.  We finally were able to fit it in this summer.  I had a hard time finding a campsite because I went to book it so late, but I was persistent and got on every day to see if anything had become available.  We got extremely lucky, and one morning there was a yurt available for the weekend we wanted!  I hurried and booked it, and we were excited to go and spend the weekend at Fort Stevens State Park, which is the most northern spot on the Oregon Coast.  (And we didn’t even have to pack our tent!)

We left on a Friday afternoon, and packed tinfoil dinners to cook when we got there.  Shane got the briquettes going, and our dinners cooked while we unloaded the car.  The boys had fun riding around on their scooters and finding the items for the little scavenger hunt I made for them (thanks Pinterest).  The dinner was delicious, and we even made a peach cobbler in the Dutch oven for dessert, which was yummy except that I forgot the whipped cream to go on top. 

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Sleeping in a yurt is always great – nice and warm with the space heater, and (somewhat) comfortable beds to sleep on for all of us.  The best part?  The set up and clean up is so much easier!

The next morning, we had some croissant egg and ham sandwiches for breakfast, and then the boys played around a little bit on their scooters and explored the campground while we packed up. 

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Hanging out in PJ’s in the morning.

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Afterward, we headed to the beach, which was a little bit crowded but still nice. We had some lunch, and the boys had fun playing in the sand and down by the water. Shane took them on a walk down the beach to explore, and they were especially excited to find a whole sand dollar. Landon kept asking how much we could sell it for – he wanted to know if it would sell for a dollar. :)

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Davis always loves to throw the sand for some reason.

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Davis and his sand beard.

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They have a shipwreck on the beach from the early 1900’s, so we walked over to see it.

After the beach, we decided to drive up to see where the Columbia meets the ocean, then over to Astoria.  Our final destination was Seaside to explore the little shops and eat some delicious clam chowder at Doogers.  Unfortunately, 2 miles outside of Seaside, Davis all of a sudden threw up.  We cleaned him and still continued with our plan, but he threw up in the restaurant too half and hour later, so we had the waitress bring our whole meal to go and we ate it in the car.  Luckily, I had given Davis and bag and I could tell he was getting sick, so I hurried over and we got it all in the bag.  The restaurant was so loud that no one seemed to notice. 

The drive home was pretty rough, with Davis throwing up five more times, then several times all night long.  We were glad it came on at the end of our trip instead of the beginning though!   Even though it had a not so great ending, we were glad we could go on this last vacation before the end of summer!

Saturday, August 18, 2012

August Potpourri

I asked Shane what I should call this post of random picture of August besides the usual “miscellaneous.”  He suggested “potpourri,” so we went with that creative title instead.  :)

Extra Jobs:

In addition to their usual daily chores, Landon and Davis had an extra job that I assigned them each day this summer.  It ranged from dusting to cleaning the toilets (their favorite, strangely enough).  One day, their job was to clean out the fridge, so I caught some pictures of them at work.  James wanted to join in and help (can’t remember why he had stickers all over his back).

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From the picture in the middle, you can see James is an aspiring fridge repairman.

Smoothies:

One of our favorite afternoon snacks is a strawberry-blueberry smoothie.  I caught a few pictures of James with his smoothie mustache one warm summer afternoon.

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Sandbox fun:

The sandbox is still a favorite place to play at our house.  Some afternoons, the boys will play out there for a long time together!  It’s in a great location too, because my mid-afternoon, the fence shades the sandbox, so it’s a nice spot to play.

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Grandma visit:

My dad went to Africa to do some language training with the peace corps, so my mom came up to visit for a few days while he was gone.  The boys were excited to have a visitor for the last week of the summer, and I was glad to have someone else around to help entertain the boys!  Here’s a picture of them playing a game of Chutes and Ladders with Grandma.

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Saturday, August 11, 2012

Morris Family Coast Trip–Last Day {August 11}

Saturday morning, it was time to pack up and go.  We had some yummy breakfast and then spent the morning taking down our tents and packing everything up.  On our way back to Ashland, we stopped at Jedediah Smith State Park for some lunch and to play in the river.  The kids especially had fun catching little tadpoles in the water, and Jake, Dave, and Shane initiated Bryce in the jumping-off-the-rock ritual. 

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Landon giving a thumbs up for the yummy breakfast burritos, and relaxing in his camp chair before we packed up to go.

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James making a silly face with his juice box, and James and Ryan playing together.

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Eating lunch in Jedediah Smith State Park.  Love those Redwoods!

The next group of shots are all of catching tadpoles down at the river.

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It was another great year at the Oregon Coast!  We can’t wait to go again!