Emma's Graduation Trip

I waited too long to write this post so some of the places names are hazy haha, but I want to remember it so here we go.  Emma and Hope planned a drive down the 101 but since Hope moved back to Utah I was the lucky one that got to go with Emma :)  She finished her last class on the 10th I do believe and we hit the road super early on the 11th of June.  4 in the morning seems to be my magic hour to drive haha.

Emma at Cape Perpetua June 2015

 

We stopped at Cape Perpetua first because we wanted to see a place called Thor's well.  Look it up it looks very cool.  We didn't end up seeing it because we didn't feel like hiking and we had to go all the way to Eureka California because that is where we made reservations at a KOA.  Anyway we just looked around and headed to the next cool beach we saw :) We stopped at Coo's Bay and this beach I do believe was the Gold beach?  The water was so bright and blue is was very pretty :)











I have never been to the Redwoods so it was fun to drive through them and enjoy the massive beautiful tree's.  Very amazing!

Emma and Lora, Redwoods 2015

    I am just now remembering why I stop blogging, I can never get the pictures where I want them and I have zero patience.  So this is what ya get.  The cool mansion above (If that is where is appears)  was in Eureka.  Carson Mansion I do believe, made his money from coal. We spent the night at a KOA just outside of Eureka, it was a cute little cabin and it was kind of fun.  Not too bad.

We hit the road bright and early again, there is a junction in the road where the 101 and 1 meet.  We split off on the 1 because we wanted to stay closer to the water :)  about where the junction was there was a sign for driving through a tree, we wondered if it was real or just a gimmick haha.  We followed the signs and went down this small driveway dirt road and this we paid 5 dollars to this scary looking lady and proceeded hoping for the best.  It was a one way loop and since we were the only people there we sat there and looked at this tree, the hole did NOT look big enough so we debated and then we decided to go to the gift shop and see if anyone had ever gotten stuck before.  The lady told us that a F250 got stuck once and I am not surprised!!  I felt like we barely fit!  It was a little scary but very very cool! Oh yeah I need to mention that after the Chandelier Tree we stayed on the 1 and the lady in the gift shop had told us it was windy twisty but we thought how bad can it be.....um it was soooo bad!  It took us 2 hours to go like 40 miles I do believe that was the distance....it just crawled by, poor Emma was driving and I think she got car sick it was a lot.  There were some cool little places but mostly just tree's.

I had googled things to see driving down the 101 and the Glass Beach was one of the destinations, so we went to see if it really truly was glass, well it is!  The sight I looked at told the history of the beach, it was an old garbage dump and all the glass was of course from the garbage and the beach beating against it.  Something they neglect to tell you is that the place still smell like a garbage dump, not a fresh one thank goodness but there definitely was a stink to the place.  It was fun to see and it was actually a beautiful spot I find it hard to believe that people thought is was a good place to dump garbage.

Next stop was San Francisco!!  I had never been here so it was fun to experience it with Emma!!

We went to a place called Fort Point to see the bridge.  It is an old military post built I do believe during the civil war, nope just looked it up it was built during the Gold Rush days to protect Americans.  Anywho it was cool to walk through and it gave us some fun shots of the bridge.  From that parking lot we walked up to bridge and walked half way across (Emma refused to walk the whole bridge) It was a fun thing to say I have done.  Ton's of people!  Very interesting to see!

Emma on Golden Gate Bridge! 2015

We spent the night at our scariest stop along the way, it was a KOA outside of San Francisco and we really did fear for our lives that night.  I am not sure if I was freaked out because Emma was or if it really was as scary as I am saying.  It was  a dumpy dirty place and that is all I want to remember about that.  We left super early in the morning and one shining moment out of that stay was the cute herd of sheep we got stuck behind LOL!  It was good I was with Emma because she would have stayed way back behind and not followed the sheepherder who was opening a way for us through the sheep, I hadn't realized she had never experienced that before.  It was  a good learning moment haha.   I loved the size of these succulents in San Fran, they were at the top of a hill by that cool staircase we are by.

I had no idea the Oakland Temple was so close to San Francisco (I really don't look at the map of California that much) any way just across the bay haha so we went there.  It was just beautiful and very interesting.  Cool story, the people from Portland were in the Oakland Temple district until the Seattle Temple was built and then of course the built the Portland temple, I thought that was fascinating.

Lora and Emma in San Fran 2015

Cool castle made out of drift wood

Emma at a place by Carmel by the Sea

This is a beautiful beach in the Julia Pfeiffer Burns state park.  It took us about two hours to drive here from Monterrey where we were staying.  I thought we could actually walk down to the beach but you can't and there were tons of people so it was a quick look and leave situation.  We drove across the famous Bixby bridge though and saw so many beautiful beaches and vistas.  We spent a couple of days in Monterrey, went to church in a cute little chapel surrounded by beautiful tree's and not far from a famous golf course Pebble Beach.  We didn't go there just because I am cheap and I don't care about Golf but anywho I went to Church close by and it was beautiful and was nice.  Funny thing we saw one of the families we saw at church at Disneyland haha, what are the odds huh!

From Monterrey we headed to our final destination Disneyland!!  Yay!  Hope flew in and went to Disney with us and we of course had a great time!  Who doesn't like Disneyland :)  I have to say I am not planning on going in the summer again though haha.  Oh yeah and above one of the things on our "list" was to see the Hollywood sign.  We drove to this place that said it was the best view and decided it was good enough for us haha.  All in all the trip was a huge success!  Emma was happy and that was what it was all about!!  Happy Graduation to her!  

Prom 2015

When I was in Utah I got a text from Emma saying she had been asked to Prom.  I couldn't think of who it could be since all her friends that are boys are on missions :) When she said it was Mac that had asked her I was a little surprised.  Mac just happens to be my best friend Angee's son.  So when I got back from Utah I told Angee I was totally shocked and she said she was too haha!

 Prom was May 9th and I got home May 3rd.  I bought this dress in Utah (I thought it would be easy to find a modest dress there, and it kind of was but sheesh Utah's moral's have declined!) and had it altered to sorta fit Jackie and I knew we would have to fix some things but long story short we would have been better off to just buy it and bring it to Oregon to be altered (the people that altered it in Utah botched it big time!)

 After all is said and done though the dress turned out great and Emma looks beautiful in that color and the whole thing went really well!!

 Emma couldn't get that boutonniere to stay in place so George had to fix it :)

 I think Mac was a little nervous :)

 But he warmed up haha

Mac, Emma, Emilee and Mike

 Mac and Mike have been really good friends for years so we had to get some good pictures :)

YMCA haha

 We were going for a serious look here, no matter what we did some one was always laughing.  It was a fun shoot :)

 She had a good time so all the dress hassle was worth it :)  I think this is the last Prom dress, Yay!! (I know I will miss her but not Prom dress shopping!)

Holidays 2014

Jackie and Dallin.  November 20th 2014

 After leaving Tayler at the MTC and getting my emotions under control we drove back to Jackie's house and picked her and Dallin up and headed home to Oregon. Dallin was a good little traveler.  We drove I think 8 hours to Ontario and stopped for the night.  We woke up to some pretty cold temps and snow, so that slowed us down some.  By the time we made it home all of us were tired of the car :)  Dallin really was an excellent baby for most of the trip, I think we had to stop twice for crying and the rest of the stops were for feeding him and diaper changes.  It was so nice having them with us.  I needed it and loved every second of our time together.

 This is pretty much how we spent the holidays :)  We just loves spending time talking and visiting and watching every single thing Dallin did :)  He was our celebrity, and a dang cute one at that :)

 Tyler drove up on Friday so he could be with us.  He took Jackie out on a date and I got to babysit!!

 Thanksgiving we all got together at Hope's house, we ate and played games :)  I love family time!!

 Oh my goodness that face just makes me laugh :)  He wants every one's phones :)

 We made gingerbread houses.  It was fun and I think they turned out pretty darn cute :)

Grandpa loving on Dallin 2014

 One of my favorite pictures!  He is loved very very much!!

 It was a very sad day for me when they left because then I had too much time to miss Tayler.  I definitely cried when they left but looked forward to Tayler calling me from the airport :)  It was a sweet couple of minutes.

Christmas Eve we got to skype with Tayler for about an hour!!  It was very nice and I enjoyed seeing how much he is growing and changing!  I am now looking forward to Mother's Day!! I loved spending time with our family :)