7/15: Crittenden Family Round-Up! The family reunion this year was super fun, as always. We decided not to camp out this year, so we just stayed at my MIL's house down the road that night. We drove up Friday afternoon and spent a little bit of time at Grandma's house with cousins and aunts before heading to the reunion. I took all of the family portraits that evening, and we had dinner, a talent show, a pinata bashing, and lots of fun and hanging out. We got to Grandma's house fairly late and still stayed up really late chatting with my SIL's and nieces. I think the twins went to bed around midnight and it was at least an hour later that we went to bed.
On Saturday, we had breakfast, the kids played a bunch of games (egg hunt, pin the tail on the horse, bean bag toss, stick horse races, and hula hoop contest), and we had hot dogs for lunch. We had awesome weather and had a great time.
They were the first kids there and Aunt Cindy set up this little fishing pool for them
Trying to learn how to hula hoop
Doing "hoop tricks"
She ran around doing "hoop tricks" for a long time!
Sloppy joes for dinner!
Talent show--out of the blue, she told me she wanted to do hoop tricks for the talent show. It was pretty cute and funny.
They sang the "Month of the Year" and "Days of the Week" songs from joy school for the talent show.
Since Avery did hoop tricks, Makenna wanted to do it, as well.
Pinata!!!
Swinging with cousins
Homemade root beer, yum!
Egg hunt (as in farm eggs, since it was a western theme reunion) :)
Pin the tail on the horse
Bean bag toss
Stick horse race
Prizes--Avery picked out a squishy lizard
Makenna picked out a dinosaur
Ending the day by getting soaked
After the reunion, we went to Grandma's house to see the kittens! My SIL's cat had kittens just a couple of days before we went up there for the family reunion. The girls couldn't stop talking about them and we have one picked out. :)
7/18: The twins and I left on a trip to the Oregon Coast with Kiki's family! We left on Monday, 7/18 and drove to Pendleton, OR
Lunch at Popeye's in Twin Falls, ID
Dinner at Big John's Pizza in Pendleton, OR
Swimming at the hotel in Pendleton
This girl. After eating dinner at the pizza place, we came back to the hotel and swam for a while, then showered. Right after our showers, Avery realized that she had left Blankie at the restaurant! I didn't even realize that she had brought it in there. We figured this out 10 minutes before the place closed, so I had to jump in the car and go get it. The things we do for our kids!!!
Blankie has her own pillow and blanket, ha ha!!
This turd gets a bed all to herself because the rest of her family is in one room and she is in ours but my girls both wanted to sleep with me and refused to sleep with Kiki.
7/19: Drove the rest of the way through Oregon. We stopped for a while at a rest stop and tried to go and see some waterfalls but they were CRAZY busy! We stopped over in Vancouver, WA to see Michael's brother's wife and we walked to a park and fed ducks with her. We got to our beach house a little late and put the kids to bed. They were too excited to be here to go to sleep!
Memaloose State Park
I-84 Columbia River Gorge Scenic Riverway
Burnt Bridge Creek Trail:
Do you see the spider?
7/20:
Oceanside Beach, the girls' first time on a beach and in an ocean; they LOVE the beach and playing in the sand! I had bought them a sand castle kit before we left and they had so much fun playing with it:
Kiki & her fam
Kiki, Carma, Me
The opening to the cave Kiki & her kids and Makenna and I walked through (Avery was too busy playing in the sand and Michael offered to stay with her)
The beach on the other side of the cave
I noticed a little raccoon in the rocks on our way out of the cave
My little collector was in heaven collecting all the shells she could!
Avery liked the sand crabs
Hard to see in this photo but those are all seals! This was right by our rental house.
Cape Mears Lighthouse:
Up in the lighthouse on the tour
Tillamook Cheese Factory:
Tasting cheese
Checking out the factory
Eating ice cream cones!
Cannon Beach:
Tillamook Rock Lighthouse in the distance
Tillamook Rock Lighthouse
Grilled burgers at our rental house after a long, fun day:
7/21:
Indian Beach (Ecola State Park):
Tillamook Rock Lighthouse
We drove to Astoria, hoping to see sea lions on the docks, like Jared and I did in 2005, but there were none to be found. We did eat some good seafood at a restaurant there, though:
Carma was completely disgusted that the girls and I were eating calamari. Makenna thought it was funny to keep teasing Carma with the calamari. :)
7/22: Left the rental house, stopped at Tillamook Air Museum and Yaquina Head Lighthouse (saw grey whales and harbor seals!), checked into a hotel in Newport, OR then walked to Newport Beach to play for a bit before sunset.
Tillamook Air Museum:
Yaquina Head Lighthouse:
GREY WHALE! There was another one way off in the distance, too.
HARBOR SEALS:
Harbor seals on the rocks in the background
MORE HARBOR SEALS ON THESE ROCKS:
Newport Beach:
7/23: We drove all day (on the road 11 hours, just stopping for food, potty, and gas); stopped for the night in Boise.
That morning: Bone head moment: I locked my keys in the car last night when we went and grabbed dinner. So we're waiting at the hotel for the locksmith (apparently the only one in town), which will be an hour and cost me $110!!! What a rip-off!!! Way to put a damper on our vacay. :(
Avery thought that was a volcano 😆 (somewhere in East OR)
Dinner at Pizza Hut on the border of OR and ID:
7/24: Drove the final 5 hours home!
Lunch at Burger King in Burley, ID:
Musings from our trip:
*Beaches are REALLY fun until they're REALLY not when it's time to leave--so much sand EVERYWHERE! Not pleasant getting the sand out of my girls' every crack and crevice! They sure had fun playing in the sand and cold ocean, though! They insisted on wearing just bathing suits when everyone else was wearing jackets!
*You bring 40 DVDs for your kids to watch on the long drive and they want to watch the same few several times! No more Coraline or Cat in the Hat or Elmo in Grouchland!!!!!!
*It is amazing how much my kids trashed my car (which was really clean before we left)--trash, paper, stickers, wrappers, toys, books, you name it piled on the floor of the car and food crumbs in every place. Even unfinished juice pouches just thrown on the floor. They had a little trash can in the back seat! Little heathens, I tell ya!
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