Oregon Adventure 2011

Dave and I had another opportunity to go to the Oregon coast for business in the beginning of September. It was hard for me to leave Pepper behind, but really good for us to get away and spend some time (lots and lots of time..) together...trapped in a car..for HOURS AND HOURS. But seriously though, we had a chance to talk about anything and everything, and re-evaluate our goals and dreams. Running the business together has been amazing for our relationship. It's hard and grueling at times, but SO worth it. We love every minute of it. Here are pictures we took in Tillamook National Forest. 

We finally reached the coast and it was breathtaking, as usual. 

As you can see above, the fog was rolling in, 

and by the time we got down to the beach, we were completely in the thick of it. 

We went to Oceanside and had sandwiches at a little shop right overlooking the ocean, then headed down to the water with nothing but our hoodies and our camera (well, and the clothing on our backs, obviously). We were in thick fog cover and the beach was really cold. The water was even colder. The beach was really crowded for was Labor Day weekend. We walked along the shoreline, going north. We combed the beach for shells, found jellyfish, clams, dead crabs....

 and clumps of seaweed littered with..ladybugs and grasshoppers. I'm not sure what they were doing there but I'm sure they had their reasons. 

Hey look, it's me. 

Dave decided that this family (below) were ghosts of a family that was drowned in the ocean. He can be very deep and disturbed at times. 

Now, you can see how eerie it looks, the waves were angrily crashing against the rocks and the fog was cold and heavy. Dave and I, having no prior experience with the angry ocean, being naive Utahn's and all, decided it would be *fun* to race the tide and "go that way". So we went THAT WAY. It was getting later in the afternoon and we just kept going. We would wait for the tide to rush out and make a run for it, laughing and splashing, having a grand old time. We found all sorts of caves and crevices and we felt like two adventurers witnessing things unexplored by man. I suddenly realized that we hadn't seen people for a really long time..and that the water was getting deeper and stronger and it was becoming more difficult to race the tide. I now have complete and utter respect for the ocean. (I have not been that scared of mother nature since Girl's Camp of '99 when I got snowed into my tent and it collapsed on me.) I was able to make it back to a safe area without getting COMPLETELY doused (running as fast as I could through the waist-high waves, camera held high above my head), but Dave was not so lucky. He got trapped in a cave..

When he finally made his run for it, he was taken down by a wave and twisted his ankle attempting to avoid behind slammed into the rock face. It was intense. After we made it back to safety, Dave was triumphant.

A little bit humbled and shaken from our ocean experience, we decided to get out of that eerie fog and head up the coast to the Cape Meares lighthouse. We headed up the mountain and literally came up the road and out of the fog. This is what we saw. After a day of dark and grey, this was such a welcome sight!

 Here is the lighthouse..

 and the trail that leads to it..

 Last year when we came here, it was clear and the view of the ocean was INCREDIBLE. This time we could HEAR the waves crashing but could only catch glimpses here and there.

 Still so beautiful..this earth we live on..

 There were spiderwebs everywhere, strung with pearls of dew.

On our way home the next day, we stopped and looked at the uh...thing...what's this called?? haha Oh the Malad Gorge in Idaho, "The Devil's Washbowl". (I totally had to Google that just now.) Gosh, I didn't even want to get out of the car at that point, I had such a raging kidney infection that I was at the point of vomiting and whatnot. Fun times. But, I got out and took these dizzying photos from the dizzying bridge(if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about!)

We had such a great trip, it was refreshing, but we were glad to be back home with our babies. Maybe next year we'll go back with the kids! (But not until we get a bigger vehicle!)

Catching Up

I can't believe I'm almost 2 months behind on posting pictures! I guess I won't be getting the mommy blogger of the year award..booohooo. I have been working on this post for two weeks now and it's not going to be super wordy, just a lot of images. Our summer has been...interesting to say the least. I'm actually kind of glad it's over, we can move on to the next season and the phases that go with it. I'm sooo ready to move forward. But meanwhile, let's move backwards and take a look at just a handful of photos I took during the months of July and August shall we?

In the end of July, we got baby ducks! They were so much fun and so cute!! They are almost full grown now, it's crazy! (Pictures and video of them now coming on the next post!)

Pepper at 5 months

 Pepper was given a Jumperoo by her aunt Becky(my awesome sister)and although you can't tell by her deer in the headlights expression, she absolutely loves it. She spends ALOT of time in that thing. 

This is our attempt at making puff paints. I found the recipe via Someday Crafts and here is the actual link to the recipe if you want to try it. It was a mess but the boys loved it. 

Hyrum Dam

Playing with cousins at Grandpa and Grandma Hawkes' house. 

This is David's Dad and his brother Jesse whom we had never met and were so excited to meet. We spent an afternoon chatting and getting to know him and his girlfriend Paula and her motorcycle dog Cooper(who has his own blog, check it out!)

Jared's first day of 1st Grade!

Me. Because there aren't a lot of photos of me on here. I'm gping to make a better effort to be in more photos:)

THE END