More of our fabulous trip :)

We drove an hour to the beach and took a hike up to the Heceta Head Lighthouse (the brightest light on the Oregon Coast.) You can see Jonathan standing by it. I have a fascination for lighthouses. The view was great, and we saw seals swimming down below. It was gorgeous, overlooking a perfect little beach nook.
(You can't tell a whole lot from this angle, but I'm showing a bit more lately.) :)

We took a tour of the lighthouse - have any of you ever been inside one before?

(Inviting any captions for Emily on this one.)

I thought it was super cool.

The big kids on the hike. The other two were in a pack or stroller.

Playing at the beach was awesome. Jonathan was so excited to get to the water. "I've never seen such an ocean!!"

Happy dare devils. Seth was all about getting as high as he could.

It was so cool as the tide started going out, and we could see the river running out into the ocean. We found a ton of cool little shells. I think Kari gets the award for the coolest intact one. Once you find a cool one, the search is kind of addicting. . .

Flexing picture by John. :)

It was an awesome day. And the weather was so perfect that none of us even got sunburns. Top it off with a stop at KFC where we all sat 'round a table and dined proper :), and then sleeping kids on the beautiful drive home. Let's just say this trip tempted us to move to Oregon. :)

Oregon = Garden of Eden

Because their state weed is blackberries!! They grow everywhere. As in, wild, all over the place, even in the median of the highways. More than you could ever eat, and then some, any time you want. I can handle that.

We picked a ton one day and John made some killer cobbler (with some of the ones we didn't eat while we were picking.) They sent us home with a ton too, and we've made blackberry cake (layered like cobbler,) and also some awesome blackberry pancakes (whole wheat and oats with blackberries is so NICE) and we froze the rest.

And the forests there are like nothing I've ever seen. The ground is covered with ferns and clover and a hundred other plants - you really don't see the ground, and the trees have moss growing on them. So green.

We had a great picnic here and played down by the river.

Note the wild blackberries. Just out of reach. . .

The pictures on this post have all been by a fish hatchery that they took us to (Mom and Dad and Sara went with them too when they came up.)

There were a kazillion fish in the hatchery, and the coolest part was an observation pond with 5 and 6 foot sturgeon swimming around, and trout that you could feed little pellets to.

The baby trout were especially spunky and made huge splashes trying to win the food over the other fish. I loved the reactions from the boys.


And it was so crazy to see the fish all jump out of the water.

It's just pretty up there. And Adam and Kari knew all the cool places to take us to play.

The best family vacation EVER.

We spent the last week up north visiting Carrie and Tanner and then Adam and Kari. Aside from a few hitches, it was perfect. I'm going to blog it in pieces, so it's not too huge. :)


The first day we spent with Carrie and Tanner, chillin in the evening and morning, and watching the kids play. Seth was inseparable from Liam. Then we went out for a grueling game of frolf at a cool course nearby.


Tanner and John were incredible. Tanner has a killer long shot. He ended up beating John by one lousy throw. And Carrie had the forsight to bring popsicles for a treat afterwards. We even got to stop at a Jack in the Box, a necessary stop since we are so deprived here in Utah. (I got Mary's favorite.)

After traveling 14 hours up to Oregon, a trip of 3 little hours to Idaho seems like a cake walk. We're planning to go back up there in a few weeks for a Labor Day fishing trip. :) Take some lessons from the pro.

A bit of quick thinking

Jonathan has discovered the art of compromize.

We don't do this very often, but this week we had to switch our Family Home Evening to another night. Jonathan was highly disappointed. But he recovered and said it was just fine if we didn't have very much time for FHE. He said, "We could just do part of it maybe. . . like. . .the treat part."

We love heartbeats!

We had our heartbeat appointment and heard our first sound from the little one. It's so cool. It's like his/her first shout-out to the world, "Here I am in here!" I love it. I just want the doctor to leave the mic there for a long time so I can just enjoy hearing the baby for a while.

Super cool experience, every time.