Oregon Coast Trip With the Hindmans

For our end of summer get-away, we spent a weekend in Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast at a beach house with my parents, Katy, and Jeremy's family.

 We left on Thursday morning and drove as far as Cascade Locks, where we had some delicious brunch and much-needed wiggle time at Charburger while overlooking the Columbia River.

 We met up with the rest of the family at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and had some ice cream while we watched them package cheese. I promise Sarah wears shoes sometimes.

 We arrived at the beach house in Lincoln City, and the kids couldn't wait to get down to the beach. It was really windy that day and the water was freezing, but the kids didn't care too much.

 Sarah loves making sand castles!

 Shortly after this, Sarah got smashed by a big wave and spent the next 20 minutes huddled on my lap under a towel. She has never been to a cold ocean before. After that, she mostly stayed away from the ocean and stuck to digging in the sand.

 Friday, we had some more beach time in the morning and then went to the tide pools in Lincoln City in the afternoon. We mostly found anemones and a few little fish.

 Searching for creatures with Grandma & Aunt Katy

 That afternoon, we did some shopping and whale watching in Depoe Bay. We saw several whales just off shore, which was really fun. Sarah was starving, so we bought her an ear of roasted corn-one of her favorite snacks lately.

 From Depoe Bay, we went back to Lincoln City for dinner at Mo's (yum!) and then back to the beach house. Kelson and I took the girls down to the chilly, foggy beach to fly the kite. The wind was perfect, and the girls loved it. 

 Sarah decided she needed to hold the kite on her own, and it got away from her. Kelson chased it down the beach and then dove to catch it just before it hit the water. It was pretty entertaining.

 Saturday, we spent the morning at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport. Our little Nemo-obsessed girl was in fishy heaven.

 Checking out the catfish, which Sarah dubbed "kitty fish" with Aunt Katy

 Touching a starfish and an anemone (where Nemo lives!)

 Watching the seals and sea lions

 Up close with an otter

 On the way home, we stopped to look at some more tide pools at Quarry Cove at Yaquina Head. It was cold, so I just had Sarah up on the beach with me, thinking she would be happy looking at the pools up on the rocks. I turned around, and she was in the water with Daddy, jeans, tennis shoes, and all. She didn't care one bit about the cold water. She was too busy poking anemones.

 She also loved finding sea shells to hand to Mommy.

 By the end of this adventure, she was not only soaked but also had a poopy accident in her pants (don't even ask me about the nightmare that is potty training), so we finally just stripped her, washed her off in the ocean, and then wrapped her in a blanket for the trip back to the car.

 Enjoying an Arctic Circle ice cream cone. 

A little more beach time, even in the cold. 

We had such a fun time with our family. So many good memories!

August Adventures

A few more adventures for the Mosiers before the end of Summer:

Our belongings FINALLY arrived, and we spent lots of time unpacking. We took a break from moving in to visit the Payette County Fair. Sarah loved seeing all of the animals, especially the chickens and rabbits. 

We went to a fruit orchard in Weiser and picked peaches. Sarah loved picking the peaches, but it took a little training to prevent her from dropping them into the box and bruising them to pieces. 

On that same day, one of Kelson's coworkers gave us a bunch of blackberries, so we had all kinds of delicious fruit to eat and process. We made blackberry peach jam, which is super yummy!

One of Sarah's favorite parts of visiting Grandma's house is that she gets to eat sugary cereal. She has mastered the art of getting every last drop.

We went to the Shriners parade, and the kids had fun eating candy and watching the shriners in all of their funny cars.

We went to the Baxter family reunion in Union. Sarah fell asleep on the way to the state park, so she had a nice snooze in her stroller while the rest of us built a boat out of miscellaneous junk for the boat building contest. Our boat, which Anne named Sally, won the race!

We finished the reunion with swimming and dinner at Medical Springs. Sarah loves playing with her Aunt Katy.

Story time with Grandma and all of the grandkids. These kids have the best grandma ever.

My parents and I had a yard sale, which turned out to be an immense amount of work. It will be a while before we attempt that again, although we did manage to clear out a lot of our junk treasures.

Sarah's cousins are very fond of eating Nutella sandwiches at Grandma's house. Normally, Sarah refuses anything that vaguely resembles a sandwich. I walked into the kitchen and found her making a Nutella sandwich for herself. She had found the Nutella, bread, and a knife and carefully spread the Nutella on before adding the second piece of bread. Even more surprisingly, she actually ate at least part of it. This girl always surprises me.

We ended our summer with a fun family vacation at the Oregon coast. Stay tuned for that post!

Fun in July

July was a fun month for our family. We have been enjoying our new home (which still has almost nothing in it because we are waiting on our very delayed moving van to arrive from Virginia) as well as spending lots of time with family in Baker. 

Kelson's sister, Jehana, and her girls stopped to visit us on their way to Utah and again on the way back. We had a great visit, and no one seemed to mind that we were camping out in an empty house.

 Sarah had her first ice cream cone. (She has had plenty of ice cream, but never had her own cone before). She was very happy with it and made surprisingly little mess.

 A few days later, I had to bribe her with a stop at Arctic Circle to get her to leave the library.

She also had her first tootsie pop at Grandma's house. I think it took her about 3 hours to eat the whole thing. She is out to discover exactly how many licks it takes to get to the center.

 It has been super hot here in Fruitland, so we have made plenty of use of the neighborhood pool, which is right next door to our house. Sarah would live there if we let her, so we usually have to bribe her with something to get her home without a fit. 

Getting to eat supper in the bath was a good incentive. 

 We celebrated Kelson's birthday, and Sarah was very excited to give Kelson his present. We bought him a copy of Robin Hood, and Sarah was telling him all week about "the fox movie" and that it needed to be Daddy's birthday so we could watch it. He was very surprised.

Traditional birthday dessert-strawberry pie!

 Miner's Jubilee parade. I was in the parade for my high school class reunion, and the family all had fun watching from the shade. Sarah got a balloon, so it was a good day.

 Grandma's most exciting new acquisition this summer was a bouncy horse. Sarah loves it. Apparently she remembered the rodeo queens we saw in the parades this summer, because she went inside to find a bandana and wrapped it around her neck to ride the horse.

 The next day, she added a flag to the ensemble. She is our little rodeo queen in training. 

Riding with cousin Will, who does not appreciate hugs.

 Daddy dozed off on the couch, so Sarah was nice enough to bring him a pillow, a blanket, and some friends to keep him company.

 One day, Sarah disappeared, and I found her in my parents' back yard tucked in on the swing singing to herself. 

My mom was going to stop by one afternoon, and Sarah was being stubborn about taking her nap, so I told her she had to go to sleep so that Grandma could come. That was sufficient motivation. She ran to put on footie pajamas (even though it was 100 degrees) and get a blanket so that she could have a proper nap. My mom should come to visit every day.

 We went out for a fun camping weekend with the whole family at Phillip's reservoir. Sarah would love it if we went camping every weekend.

 One more first for July- Sarah's first s'more. So much sticky fun!

 Sarah and Kelson both fell right to sleep at bedtime (Kelson in his work clothes), and we finally had to wake Sarah up the next morning. I wish she slept that well at home.

Enjoying some early morning stories.

Just a few of our wonderful summer memories!

4th of July Camping and Celebrations

We had the chance to take an extra-long weekend for the 4th of July this year and go on a little camping trip. We spent Friday night at Catherine Creek State Park and had a great time.

 It was really hot when we got to the campground, and Sarah couldn't wait to get in her swimsuit and go the creek. 

 The creek was pretty cold, but we are convinced that Sarah has no nerve endings in her feet. She doesn't care in the least what temperature her water is.

 Throwing rocks and mud in the water.

 Sarah was very excited that we got to walk over a bridge.

 During dinner, we started hearing a strange, metallic noise. We looked up to see a woodpecker banging on this stop sign. He kept at it for a long time. I'm not sure what kind of bugs he was expecting to find in the metal sign.

We made some yummy dutch oven food for dinner, and my parents came up to join us. Sarah went right to sleep in the tent at bed time. She has always loved camping. After she went to bed, Kelson and I had a relaxing evening playing cards and watching a meteor shower. We couldn't have asked for a more pleasant night of camping.

 We all slept in the next morning and then started another fun day. 

 Sarah spent most of her down time on this trip convincing people to read this stack of books to her, which was mostly composed of Little Critter books. It makes me happy that reading is one of her favorite things.

 After breakfast, we set off on a little hike. Sarah was pretty happy with the hiking backpack we picked up at a yard sale.

Such a beautiful view! I love my Eastern Oregon home! 

 Happy hiking family

Sarah thought the tent was a great playhouse and was not happy when it was time to take it down.

My parents and Katy came up to Catherine Creek that afternoon, and we all had a picnic lunch and some more creek time. After lunch, we grabbed ice cream in Union on our way back to spend the rest of our holiday weekend in Baker.

 We did our fireworks a night early because most of us had to go home before dark on Monday. Sarah thought the fireworks were terrifying at first, but then she decided they were "pretty lights" and wanted more. It looks like Kelson is holding a lit firework, but I think it was actually the candle we were using to light them.

 Helping Grandma open the fireworks

 We started off our Fourth of July with the Haines parade. It was a perfect day for a parade, and Sarah was thrilled with the horses and fire trucks.

That afternoon, we had a bunch of family over for a barbecue and (of course) homemade ice cream. Sarah has learned that Grandma's house + Summer = ice cream. It is a wonderful thing.

Sarah and I were even sporting matching patriotic outfits this year. Cute, huh?