Our Oregon Trip.... FINALLY!

On July 3rd we headed to Oregon for our annual visit. We decided to drive and do it in one day. CrAzY! But, I would do it again. We loaded all the sleepy kids in the car at 3:30 a.m. and headed out. Thank goodness for car DVD players. Everyone did pretty well. We stopped a few times for meals and then about 5 we made it to Netarts. Yay! My grandparents rented us a beautiful beach house at Happy Camp. My brother Travis and his family stayed in it with us, and my parents.

Our first night there we stayed at the house and visited with everyone. We had a houseful. It was nice and relaxing though, and the kids were loving the house! We were exhausted and ready for some sleep after our long drive!

On the fourth of July we went and showed Jenny and Travis around to a few of our favorite places. Jenny and I got up and ran along the beach to Short Beach, a very neat place to see all the sea life! Then we took everyone up to see the Octopus Tree and Cape Meares. We had lunch on the bay at The Schooner. Dad had an oyster shooter, which everyone was pretty much disgusted by! That night we had a BBQ at our place and then headed down to the beach for an amazing firework show! Everyone on the beach had fireworks and once they all started going off there was a ton of smoke, but we had a great view of the people's on each side of us! And they had some awesome fireworks. Unfortunately it was a little loud for Jordyn and Pressley so they went inside and missed half of it. It was a great way to spend the 4th though!

While we were there we also visited the Tillamook Cheese Factory, and of course got a yummy ice cream cone, the Blue Heron for a little wine tasting and the petting zoo, and we ate lunch at Pirate's Cove, great food!

We spent part of a day in Pacific City at the beach and ate at the Pub. We love the beach here. It is always fun to bury someone in the sand. Ryker loved crawling around on the sand, but wasn't so sure what to do when the cold water would get him. The girls on the other hand threw on their swimsuits and dived right in! The cold doesn't bother them one bit! They had a great time running around.

We went to Short Beach a couple times. The one morning that everyone came with us was VERY windy! No one enjoyed it too much. So, we tried again the next morning and it was much better. Dad, Dominic, Tyson and I decided to hike over a large rock and go to another "short beach". It was so pretty! We discovered a cave, and all sorts of sea life. We need to go again with a flash light and see just what was in the cave, it was too dark to tell.

The boys all went crabbing one morning and the girls went out to lunch at Roseanna's. We had some yummy food. We finished up and went back to check on the boys to find them frozen and with only about 4 crab! A couple years ago when we went crabbing we got WAY more crab than we could handle, this year, not so much! They had a good time though!

We also spent one day hiking through the forest. It was amazing! The trees were HUGE! And we were right in the middle of everything! It was very pretty and amazing to have that kind of a view!

We had an amazing time in Oregon, as usual! Jordyn asks me on a daily basis when we get to go back. We need to make it happen more than once a year! It is so relaxing and beautiful up there! Thank you so much grandma and grandpa for sharing your little town with us and treating us so exceptionally well! We love you and your town!!

I have way too many pictures to put on here, and couldn't decide on only a few, so check here to see pics of the trip.