Summer Vacation to Oregon

Well, it was a wonderful family vacation, filled with fun with friends, activities, and the occasional meltdown or two. :) Here are a few pics that I am excited to share with all of you.

First, we spent Friday night at my favorite restaurant, the Marakesh with 3 of my best friends and their spouses. Great food, great company and a great time was had by all.

On Saturday, we went to Blue Lake Park in Gresham,
Here is Olivia, having a ball at the sprinkler park.

This is our Ally, who was affectionately referred to as "grumpy" on our trip.
Can you see why?

Sunday was spent with my good friend Martha and her husband Jesse,
and their 4 beautiful daughters.


Olivia, Jenna, Kylie, Ally, Emma, Mariah, and Logan (the odd man out).

The air mattress was apparently the hot spot to be.



Monday was one of the highlights of the trip for all of us.
We spent the day at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI).



Ally and Livy in the sand box...



Happy kids at play...



Daddy teaching Ally how do build a dam out of sand...



Daddy with girls and the HUGE T-Rex...



Tuesday we headed out to the coast for an over-night stay at Seaside beach.
We stopped on the way to pick some blueberries at a U-pick blueberry patch, which I thought would be so fun for the kids, turns out, not so much. They were done after 5 minutes... :)



Next stop, the carousel in the mall on the coast.
Here is Craig and the girls.



Olivia on her horse, or dog, or whatever animal it is supposed to be.



And my new favorite picture of Ally, who is a BIG horse lover.
She was most excited to ride the carousel.



Next, we visited the Seaside Aquarium.
Here are the girls touching the anemones, urchins and sea cucumbers.



Mom with Sleepy and Grumpy....



Dad with the girls and the sea lions.



Wednesday morning, we got up early and headed to Indian Beach (between Seaside and Cannon beach) at low tide, so we could see the tide pools. It was amazing. We saw TONS of starfish and anemones and other sea creatures. Olivia and I thoroughly enjoyed it, Grumpy, however, was not amused, she was more interested in building sand castles.



Olivia with the star fish.



Beautiful aren't they?



Logan's first touch of sand and salt water.



The beautiful Oregon Coast.



A great panoramic that Craig shot.



What we didn't get pictures of is Olivia face-planting in the sand, Logan crying for the entire 20 minute walk back to the car because I forgot his Binky, and Grumpy crying because she didn't want to be there, and then crying because she didn't want to leave. :)
We had so much fun that when we got into the car,
this is the scene 5 minutes after we started going.

Perhaps Grumpy, was really Sleepy in disguise. :)





In spite of all the crying, Craig and I both agreed
that the beach was the highlight of the trip.

And here is one funny one of Logan at a restaurant....
he was upset when he would drop his pickle.



Is that cute or what?

Even though at times, we weren't sure why we wanted to go on this long family road trip, in the end, we were so glad that we did. It was TONS of fun, and we want to do it again sometime soon. And we are SO glad to be home. :)