Northwest Vacation

We decided to start taking some fun vacations instead of buying each other birthday and Christmas presents. This year we went over to the Oregon Coast and up through Washington and northern Idaho. It was 10 days and absolutely wonderful. It was nice to spend time as a family. The kids loved it and did great considering all the driving we did!

First stop was Bend, Oregon. We were there just in time for their Summer Festival. This was a statue the kids sat by on a bench... Kaden is looking inside his empty wallet.

Kameron definitely logged some serious hours in his backpack carrier! He did really well during the vacation, except for a few screaming spells in the car (which was expected!)

What handsome boys!

This is Newport, Oregon our next stop. We spent three days here. It's a town right on the coast. It wasn't warm by any means but we had a lot of sunshine and a good time.

These sea lions were sun bathing on the pier right in the middle of town.

That's my girl! Always pulling some sort of face!

Here we are eating Mo's famous clam chowder. It actually just tasted like potato soup. Way over-rated!

We went to the beach which is always the kids' favorite thing to do. You can't really swim here though. The water is ICE cold. It makes your feet ache when it touches them. Still fun to play in the sand.

I love this picture because it is the perfect example of my children's personalities. Kaden would rather work and do something productive and Ellie is a wild child who likes adventure and getting dirty. He wanted to build sand castles and she just wanted to jump in the water and run away from the waves. They couldn't be more opposite.

This is one of the two times a year Jesse wore flip flops! He walked very slowly and gingerly! Even the soft sand hurt his baby soft feet.

The coast was so green and pretty. It was a scenic drive.

If you strain your eyes that little white dot clear on that cliff is one of the lighthouses we saw.

We went to the largest sea cave in the world. You take an elevator down 300 feet and you can sit and watch the sea lions interact. It smelled so bad! This picture is outside and above the sea cave where the other half of the sea lions were. None of my pics from inside the cave turned out.

This is the tallest lighthouse in Oregon called Yaquina Head. They aren't as big as I pictured...

The kids were very helpful and always wanted to take turns pushing Kameron around. It's much easier having three children than one!

One of the coolest things we did was exploring the tidal pools. When the tide recedes it leaves these pools of water with sea life still in them. There were tons of star fish (below- who ever knew there were purple starfish?) crabs, mussels and anemone. We made Ellie say green anemone like twelve times because she said it so cute!

And now for the awful part of our trip! This picture below is the last picture taken with my new camera! Right after this picture I slipped on the rocks and smashed my lens. Luckily I was able to get the pictures I had already taken off of it but my camera is broken. For the rest of the trip we had to use Jesse's iPhone 4 which luckily has a good camera in it. Bummer...

The next day in Newport Jesse had booked a deep sea fishing trip. It was suggested by the captain that Kaden not go so I decided at the last minute to take the kids on a whale watching cruise while Jess was fishing all morning. We had a blast! We saw two whales, the kids got to throw out a crab box and then hold the crab they caught. We didn't get seasick at all. (All my pics from the boat are on our old iPhone.) When we got back to the pier and met Jesse he had had a much different experience on the water! He only lasted about ten minutes after the boat stopped to fish. For the next four hours he was leaning over the side of the boat puking his guts out. He threw up so hard he popped a blood vessel in his eye and strained all the muscles in his neck. Poor guy. He didn't even want to keep the crab he caught.

Next was up to Portland. Our plan was to go to the zoo. Or on second thought maybe not! We got stuck in traffic for an hour trying to get to the zoo only to find that both parking lots for it were completely full and the line to get on the shuttle buses was about 500 yards long, four people deep. I called the zoo to see what was going on and found out it was their busiest day of the year-- Discount Day. Who knew. We skipped the zoo and went to see the temple instead...

Then we were off to Seattle. We went to the Museum of Flight which was really interesting. Kaden and Ellie love airplanes so they liked it. This is a picture of the inside of the Air Force One from Pres. Kennedy and Pres. Johnson.

Our second day in Seattle we went to the famous Pike's Market Place. It's a huge outdoor local farmers market. There was some good food and BEAUTIFUL flowers for way cheap. I wanted to buy all of them but I hear flowers don't last long in a hot car.

Kaden couldn't resist but touch all of the fish he saw.

We made Ellie's day when we bought her a bag of cherries. She loves fruit!

Our last stop was in Coeur d'Alene for three days. We went to an amusement/water park one day. We were there for 11 hours and could have stayed a lot longer! Jess was brave and went on all the roller coasters. I did a few but I don't enjoy the crazy ones like Jess. The kids went on tons of rides and swam and then crashed at night. We played on the lake the next day and then made the long 7 hr drive home. It was an awesome trip. I wonder where the road will lead us next summer...