Camping with the Young's

The first weekend in August we went camping with Sid and Chan Hei and Sydney. First time in a long time that we only had one child with us. Tayler was on High Adventure so Emma got to be an only child with both parents this time.
We went to Nehalem Falls camp ground, it is on the Nehalem river. It is very beautiful and since the camp ground is small there aren't very many people.
George thinks it is fun to catch crawfish, So he spent is time hunting (we released them after he caught them).


Lots of newts, they look cool.







Sid,Sydney and Emma floated down the river.
Chan Hei dubbed George the great white hunter :)



It was a nice time. I did find out for the first time that I am too old to sleep on the ground. We are now the proud owners of an air mattress :)

Heidi's visit

Heidi came to visit after the family reunion. She drove up with Emma and I. It was long but fun. On the way through the gorge area we stopped at the Bonneville fish hatchery, we fed the fish and looked at some huge sturgeon they have on display. It was a nice break and I think a pretty little location, who knew fish hatcheries could have something interesting to see and do?

While Heidi was here the number one thing on our agenda was to go to the ocean. So Jackie had the day off so we went. It was supposed to be cool so we didn't really plan on swimming hence the shorts and clothes instead of swimwear :) We played and had a good time anyway. I told the kids we would come back on another day since the forecast was better for later in the week.









While we were at Seaside we went to the Aquarium that is right on the beach. It's small but has some interesting stuff. We fed the sea lions and looked around then did some hands on pools.


Rode the carousel at the Seaside mall. Well the kids did :)





I wish I could remember the name of this store, it is full of hats and we always have a good time trying on crazy hats.
The forecast said it was going to be sunny and nice at the beach, so off we went. It was sunny for sure but I thought we were all going to freeze to death. Brrrrrr we didn't stay long, just long enough to get super cold and want to leave :)
My Parents drove up to visit while Heidi was here, we went and picked blueberries and then on Saturday we decided to go to the Saturday market in Portland. I've been told to go for years but we also heard there are a lot of freaky people there and since I'm really not a fan of freaky people I just haven't bothered......well I mentioned it to Heidi and she must be a fan because she said let's do it :)


Saw tons of crafty stuff, lots of people but really on the whole I give it two thumbs up. Not to freaky :)




I loved this art, it was very interesting to me, as you can tell it was made with numbers. Ha ha paint by numbers :)


Of course we had to eat, there was food everywhere. We actually got separated for a while because we all wanted different food, then the musicians were so loud non of us could hear our phones ringing or chiming and so it made things a little interesting getting us all back together but we made it. Oh one funny thing about the market day, I thought it might be smart to ride the max into Portland so we wouldn't have to find parking. Well it would have cost way way to much for all of us for one day so we drove. Josie had her heart set on riding the "train" so at the market we were in an area that is called fare less square, since it is free we hopped on rode the train two blocks and got off, I thought it was funny but it made her happy.


We all had a good time, it was a busy week but lots of fun!

North Carolina

We flew to North Carolina last week to spend some quality time with our sweetheart Hope. We wanted to be there with her when she got home, and help her get some things done that needed to be done, and let her show us around Jacksonville and Camp Lejune. After spending some time with Chief Robinson, the rest of the time was ours. One of the first things we did was to go see some of Camp Lejune, sorry no pics. While on base we went to the beach to get our feet wet. Wow the east coast sure is different than the west coast. The water is warm and nice, and the sand is mostly made of crushed sea shells.
Hope and her dad at Onslow beach on base.

The sand is kind of rocky and full of shells. If you scooped some up in your hands it was mostly shells with about an inch or less of sand on the top.

Helicopters flew over quite regularly doing some training maneuvers or something.

Driving around on base there were lots of these signs. Didn't see any tanks though.

Hope told us about this place that serves the best bbq so we had to try it. It was pretty dang good. Thig's stands for This Hog is Good Son.

Yum Yum North Carolina BBQ.

We also decided to go on a tour of the USS North Carolina. It was amazing. The tour is self guided so you can spend as much time as you want. I could spend all day there. And we almost did.

The big guns are enormous. They have a 16" bore and are 60' long, and there are nine of them!



Hope looking for something to shoot at.

The artillery shells are almost as tall as Hope.

Another thing we wanted to do is see the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean. We have seen it set in the Pacific Ocean several times. Pretty much the same only backwards, and just as beautiful. This is Onslow beach again.

Chief Robinson told us that you could find shark teeth on the beach if you were there early. So we started our search.

We found several, but none of them were very big. We talked to some older ladies that were looking also. They told us that they don't pick up the small ones any more, they only want the big ones.

We also went to TopSail Island to swim. It was a lot of fun. The water was perfect.

We had a wonderful visit with Hope, and it ended way to soon. It broke our hearts to leave, but we had to because the day after we got home Lora loaded up the girls and headed to BYU Idaho to drop Jacqueline off at school.