Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Beach ~ Summer Vacation - Day 3


We took our time waking up and re-packing Monday morning, and it was nearly 11:30 by the time we finally left Phi's house. Of course, I never did get a picture of Phi's family, or his house or even the general area - definitely something I need to work on!

Anyway, once we got on our way, we stopped for lunch at a Sizzler restaurant. They have an awesome salad bar and the salad bar isn't just greens either! I think the best part about lunch that day was it cost us $2.00 to feed three kids. Someday restaurants will realize that a two or three year old can sometimes eat more than an average adult... but I'm not about to point that out anytime in the near future! After lunch we hit the road again, stopping only to fill up with gas when we saw a good price.

We got to Lincoln City, Oregon around 3pm, and the kids were beside themselves with excitement. As soon as we got our room keys, and found our room all three of the kids gazed in awe at the ocean. We had our very own balcony overlooking the beach and it was wonderful to be able to leave the sliding door open a little at night just to hear the crashing waves and enjoy the freshest sea breezes. But I'm getting lost on tangents here and that will only end up in a terribly long-winded post, so back to the beach...

While Sir and I took turns unloading the car, the kids stayed on the balcony and stared at everything in sight. They tried hanging various limbs off the balcony and at one point PC lost his soother. At least it only fell the three stories down to the grassy area instead of even further to the beach below. After quite a fuss from the kids, we figured out what the problem was and Sir made the extra trip to retrieve the fallen pacifier.

When we finally got the car unloaded, Sir ran out to get some milk and other basic grocery items and while he was gone the kids and I checked out the beach. It was really windy that day and PC wasn't too sure about walking out in the sand and wind while monstrous waves crashed only yards away. Dolly, on the other hand wanted to try everything out. Were the waves wet? Hmm.. let's see.. Can you run on the sand? Ok, let's try... What happens if I chase the seagulls?... and so on. Between the two of them going in opposite directions (Dolly heading out to sea and PC trying to figure out the fastest way back to where we came from) and me juggling Emma and the camera as I tried to walk on the sand without getting sand in my runners, I didn't get any pictures taken on that excursion.

I did get some pictures of the beach from our balcony once we got back to the hotel, and that evening I even managed to get a few shots of the sunset. You don't realize how difficult it can be to take pictures until you have three kids needing your attention at the exact moment the most stunning sunset is unfolding. Oh well, I may not have captured the most stunning moments of the sunsets while we were there, but at least I got something!

After dinner, and once the kids were finally settled in bed, Sir and I set up the folding chairs on the balcony and relaxed until it got too cold to stay outside.

Well, I was going to lump all three days at the beach into this post, but that was before I realized how long it would end up being, so I'll stop here at the end of our first day at the beach and leave you to imaging the sounds of crashing waves and the scent of sea breezes lazily wafting through the white gauzy curtains.

And hopefully I'll continue my narrative of our vacation in the next day or two instead of letting another week or two slip by un-posted. Summertime is such a busy time, but how I love the summer!

Friday, July 04, 2008

Phi's House ~ Summer Vacation - Days 1 and 2


Saturday, June 21st marked the beginning of our first family vacation. After staying up into the wee hours of the night packing, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed Saturday morning early enough to feed the kids breakfast and finish collecting the last minute items for our trip. So, instead of being on the road by 9... we were finally on our way at 11:30.

The first adventure was the hour+ border line up. We even dashed through the Duty Free store to save a bit of time, but it was already almost 1pm by the time we actually made it into the US. Then upon seeing the gas prices in Blaine, we opted to only buy enough gas to make it a bit further south where we'd fill up a bit more economically. We grabbed some lunch at Jack in the Box around 1:30, and then continued on to Burlington to fill the gas tank for the first part of our vacation.

We made it to Phi's house in Gresham, Oregon around 6:15. Emma and PC managed to take some sort of a nap on the way down and that was a help. Sjo made a wonderful dinner of cornbread muffins, chips and a Mexican casserole that PC absolutely loved. He looked over at me after his first bite or two and said, "Mama, em NUM!". It was kind of cute to see him so delightedly surprised, and it was a nice change from making him swallow at least three bites of a meal for once. He even had seconds!

Before and after supper, the kids discovered the playhouse out in the yard. While the boys happily piled handfuls of gravel on the deck, Uncle E kept Emma busy dodging his broom. She wanted to investigate the drop off at the corner of the deck to see how the gravel was doing in case it needed company.

Sunday morning we went to meeting with Phi and his family. Dolly was too shy to say her verse even though she actually knew it well for once. She met another little girl that shared her first name, and they both thought that was great. Dolly was the center of attention since she was the newcomer, and she loved every minute of it. It was fun to see her so included by the other little girls around her age. We went back to Phi's house for lunch and had another delicious meal that even included a jello dish that the kids loved. Then there was a Strawberry pie for desert complete with ice cream! I think by that time, our kids wanted to stay at Phi's house forever. After lunch Phi showed Emma how the dishwasher worked and then it was nap time where everyone got to get a very relaxing nap.

After Gospel, I got a picture of Dolly and H-Rose and then I tried to take a picture of Em and Emma (another little girl that shared the first name of a daughter of mine), but Emma was tired and fussy and wanted Mommy to hold her... not take a picture of her.

H-Rose (almost 5) and Dolly(almost 3½)

Emma (9mo exactly) and Em (just turned 2)

Then I got a picture of three 3 year-olds, one of which was born the very same day that Dolly was. She's the one next to Dolly and is Em's big sister.


Dolly and Damaris ~ they share a birthday, and both have a sister named 'Em'.

Then we went back to Phi's house and had a light supper before heading to bed so we could continue our vacation in the morning!

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Summer Vacation - 2008


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Well, we're back at home (as of 11:30 Tuesday night). We were gone for 11 days, 10 nights and traveled somewhere around 1,100 miles. I'll be posting about the trip and I'm sure I should be able to come up with some good pictures since we only took 470 of them while we were gone!

Anyway, I need to go switch the laundry again and I still have kids to feed and unpacking to finish, but at least you know I didn't drop off the end of the earth or something like that.