Camping

Yay for summer! ;) We did finally make it camping, although it did get cut short a bit but that's ok. Our goal was to see Crater Lake, especially since Andy and I both had the realization that we both had lived in Oregon all our lives and have never seen Crater Lake except from an airplane. Not acceptable. So we decided we would change that and make sure our boys saw it too. We ended up camping at Diamond Lake, which is absolutely gorgeous! Just a beautiful campground, we went on a Monday and they have a whole section for just walk up tent camping, no reservations needed as long as they have space! Worked out well, we quickly found a spot and set up camp and got down to business, namely, dinner and then roasting marshmallows!

The next day we made it up to Crater Lake, and all I can say is wow. When you first walk up to where you can look out at it, it's amazing. Just amazing. Everyone should experience this! Wow! The water is so incredibly blue and not a ripple on it. It was a clear day, hot down at our campground, but up at Crater Lake it was only maybe 80-85 out. Much more tolerable, although I quickly found out that being that high in elevation, I burn even faster than I normally do.






And yes there were patches of snow! :) Pretty impressive, considering the heat wave the whole state was/is practically under! We had to find a spot of accessible snow because, really, who could resist a snowball or two in July??!!

The second night in our campground there was wild turkeys! They are not much smaller than my children.....

Andy did attempt to take the boys fishing, but only from the shore. Of course they didn't catch anything (not the best spot, too shallow) but it was good practice and experience. Besides, Andy figures out that it's probably best to only take one kid at a time if he wants to do any fishing himself. He spent all his time running back and forth between the boys, but at least everyone seemed to be having fun. There again, it was a beautiful morning....and the boys were thrilled to get into the water! Trust me, by 9 am it was getting pretty warm in the sun.

I wasn't surprised that we got nailed with thunderstorms given the heat, I was surprised at how much it suddenly cooled down (it was cooling down very nicely at night, sleeping was great! The kids did get a little cold though...) and then it started pouring down rain. While we were at Crater Lake the second time! The kicker of that was the entrance that we were leaving out of,ended up getting closed because of the road work they were doing and then the rain screwed it all up. So we ended up going halfway back around the rim and out a different entrance and then a long way back to our camp. We had already done the whole rim drive, and the extra part to the campground was beautiful, but we were also anxious to get back to our camp to see if we needed to pack up or not. We were soooo not prepared for any kind of rain, and a downpour was not particularly do-able for us.


We ended up packing up, (and Andy obviously had a little finger injury!) and decided to head out. But boy it was fun! I'll will have to add some more observations later.... ;)

Disneyland Part IV - OOOPS! No Flash Photography!!

Ok...So I had my camera with me and I was just snapping away in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and Andy proceeded to remind me that before the ride it was specifically stated that there was NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY. And I yell at my kids for their listening skills....

So why let perfectly (or not quite so perfect) good pirate pictures go to waste? ;)

Disneyland Part III - Characters

On the Saturday morning that we were in Disneyland we went ahead and did the "Character Breakfast" or I think the buttons the kids are wearing says it's "Breakfast with Minnie and Friends". Basically, it was a buffet of breakfast foods and many of the characters were guaranteed to be around for picture taking and autograph book signing. It's not cheap, (if I remember the prices I will post them) but in the end it was totally worth it. Especially for my kids, since wandering around the park for hours just to find all the characters was just not an option.

Gotta love the dayglo Tigger!! :)

When I get a chance.....I will scan the autograph books to show you Chip -n- Dale's signatures. They are very cute, especially Dale's because on his signature because somehow he incorporated his buck teeth into the signature!

My children's favorite character by far was Goofy. But that will warrant it's own separate post since there are plenty of pics and a few stories as well! And no, Mickey wasn't at the breakfast. We saw him but the line was so long that the kids didn't bother with pics or and autograph.

Disneyland -Part II--The Pixar Parade

Just because it was so cute.....


My kids loved this parade (and I admit, so did I!). It was very sweet and had all the "modern" Disney figures that my kids know and love. (I forgot to mention, the Pixar Parade is over in Disney's California Adventure) The selling point of course was the fact that "Lightning McQueen" and "Mater" were in it!



Of course they both liked the "Bug's Life" characters, even though they still haven't seen the movie! Don't worry....I think we are going to correct that situation this weekend.





And the gratuitous shot of how my children often made their way back to our hotel room. You are not one bit surprised, are you?

Disneyland - Part I

So it's probably going to take me forever to get some of these pictures posted but I will try my best!

These first couple of pics were taken the first day we were there. The only reason the carousel was an option at this point was because Matthew had not had a taste of the other rides. Once he started in on Space Mountain and Splash Mountain....there was no turning back!

Teacups again .....and there would be many more times. It was Mason's favorite!

Alice in Wonderland.....the kids enjoyed this. Andy was entertained in the fact that he figured this ride really would have been fun in college. And probably under an herbal influence as well!

Stay tuned for more.... ;)

Spring Break

Spring Break....yeah, that was fun. More than happy that it is over. Lets see if I can do a decent summary of our week of events: We did go to Great Wolf Lodge up in Washington, just north of Centralia. They have an indoor waterpark that was fantastic for the kids and I must say, Andy and I enjoyed the waterslides too! The kids had a total blast and went down countless slides and rides and rode waves in the wave pool. That said, the night before we left Mason came down with a cold. He still isn't over that cold! Nasty congestion, runny nose, etc. and he actually threw up three different times while we were there. Don't worry, only one of those times was in the waterpark (luckily, it was off to the side where no one was around anyway and not in a pool!). The other two were in the hotel room. All three of those fun incidences were a result of too much intake of liquid and too much coughing. (sorry for the details people!) But gee, he felt much better the day we headed home!



Oh and did I mention this place had only been open nine days before we got there?! Our room was actually fine. But Andy had a couple of conversations with people whose rooms were not fine and some even still had construction going on next door to them. But let me chat about the food options. Or lack of. O.k. so they have a grill/restaurant that was decent. But it doesn't serve breakfast. The breakfast choices pretty much was up to the "buffet". I am not real keen on "buffet" food... and we ended up having it for dinner the first night we were there and it pretty much made something like Old Town Buffet seem rather gourmet. It was terrible!!!! When Andy and I had lunch in the grill/normal restaurant, we were chatting with the bartender and another employee and they said basically that they were having trouble keeping people on the job and hired! Another employee told us that they "still had a few kinks to work out". Never a good sign. And do keep in mind, this little town didn't have much more to offer in the way of food. Oh, there was a McDonald's attached to a gas station....yum, yum!



We figured we would actually go back again, when the staff is a little more together and would probably do like Meegan did (yes, they were there too! What a fun surprise!) and come up and just stay one night. You can go in the waterpark early, before you check into your room, and you can stay in the waterpark later the next day after you check out. And head back to Centralia when you need food!



So we came home on Thursday, and it was snowing on and off. It snowed while we were at the waterpark too but that is indoors and warm and I didn't care as much. But by Thursday afternoon, I had had enough of being cold. Little did I know, I would still be dealing with the cold even today! argggghhh....not liking snow at all at this point!



Oh and here is a fun one, we knew before we left that our outdoor kitty "Cozzy" wasn't feeling well. He was just kind of acting under the weather but we figured wellllll we will take him to the vet if need be when we get back. We got back and we realized later that evening that he wasn't eating or drinking. Not good. So Friday morning Andy calls the vet and we manage for a 3 p.m. appointment. Well, the cat didn't make it to that appointment. Andy came home from work early to take Cozzy and we had to search for him in the garage (I had kept him locked in there and it's were he usually sleeps anyway). Couldn't find him right away, but when we did, he was against the back wall and already stiff. Pet deaths suck and I have to say, this one caught us completely off guard. I'll have to do another post later with a few pictures of Coz.



So Andy took Coz to the vet anyway to have him cremated and we will get his ashes back in a couple of days. (That was a fun one to explain to the kids too!) Poor Matthew had a rough night on Friday with that one. And to top it all off, I was hoping for a bit of good luck for the weekend--totally wishful thinking, on Saturday Matthew had a nasty earache. To the point were on Saturday night he was doing nothing but crying and working himself up just about to hysterics. Lucky for me (and Matthew) I remembered I had kept the bottle of (prescription) eardrops from the last time the boys had bad ear infections. Plenty of Motrin and eardrops for Matthew the rest of the weekend and I was actually sure I wouldn't send Matthew to school today but he seemed ok to go. We even went to gymnastics like normal so maybe it will heal on its own. I am hoping.....



So it is official. This spring break sucked. And I do not want a repeat of that anytime soon!

And just for fun....these were taken at the end of the school week, just before spring break started. Mason had actually had a minor incident at preschool were he managed to cut himself on his finger. It was a pretty good cut, and really required the band-aid to be on at all times for awhile, which was problematic for Mason until we dug out the "Tattoo" bandages. These things are genius! And then Mason was more then happy to show off his "ouch"!

T is for "Tour" ...as in the Keith Urban tour of course!

So back in SEPTEMBER.... (yes I am slow but nothin' ya'll didn't know!) my girlfriends Crystal, Anne and I went to see Keith Urban in concert on Friday the 15th and then on Saturday the 16th went up to Seattle and saw him again. What fun!!!! The Portland show was so great....our seats rocked! I think we were something like 17th row on the floor and we were near enough the "runway" that he has going down the middle of the crowd on the floor that we could get right up front. Such a cool experience! The Wreckers opened the show (and I admit I knew very little of their music but they were entertaining) and I was still figuring out my camera when I took the picture of Michelle Branch and Jessica Harp.

Most of the time when Keith Urban was on there was a giant screen in the background that basically showed what was going on .....in other words it made for a trippy picture!

The next morning was a bit rough in trying to head for Seattle. We were all still quite tired and yet jazzed up for the coming evening and we also planned a little bit of shopping in between. On our way up to Seattle we stopped in Olympia to visit a mall that had a Steve and Barry's store. Since we do not have one in Portland, the point of this visit was to check out the new Sara Jessica Parker line of clothing titled Bitten. What can I say...we were girls with no children with us and felt we needed to indulge in a little fashion! Actually, the line of clothing is affordably priced although it seems what we ended up buying the most of was the accessories. Lots of earrings, cute sunglasses, etc. Then it was off to Seattle to get dressed for our evening! We stayed in downtown which was of course expensive but splitting it 3 ways helps. At this concert we didn't have as good of seats, although they weren't bad either. We just weren't down on the floor.

The amazing part of this concert was that while it was really good, it wasn't as good as the Portland show! Which really shocked me...I think I just assumed that for some reason they would either be about the same or that Seattle would be even better. I guess it was just a weird notion on my part. In Portland, the band and Keith actually played a bunch of improv stuff. Not original music but just covering some past hits of various artists. If I remember correctly, they played Billy Joel's "You May be Right", Steve Miller Band's "The Joker" with all the band members taking turns at verses, Tommy Tutone's "867-5309/Jenny, Jenny" and Violent Femmes "Blister in the Sun". Which I loved, since I was impressed that a country artist would even know who the Violent Femmes are! We got all of that on Friday in Portland and then on Saturday in Seattle we got almost none of that and about a 25 minute shorter show. But it was still all good!

Sunday morning (or very early afternoon by the time we were with it!) was for shopping and shop we did. Lots of retail in downtown Seattle and plus there was Pike Place Market. I love this place. A food lover's paradise. I could go back daily for weeks just to try all the different foods and eateries. And I had to kind of keep my purchases to a minimum, because whatever I bought I was going to have to haul around with me since we left the car at the hotel until it was time to go home. Pike Place is just amazing...even on Sunday afternoon(with typical Northwest drizzle) the place is packed full of people and food and street artists and performers. I very much enjoy the vibe there!

We didn't buy or eat anything at the "Three Girls Bakery" but we enjoyed the sign! The one very important thing to do while we were there was to visit the original Starbucks (opened in Pike Place Market in 1971). We do like Starbucks and the 3 of us girls have done quite a bit of bonding over coffee! It's actually quite different inside from all the other Starbucks, dark wood paneling and floors and very tiny. But very busy and worthy of a picture outside!

So not the best shot of me and who knows who the guy is in the pic but I did say it was crowded! :) A very lovely trip with very lovely friends....

And coffee/Starbucks makes everything better!! This is according to Zoe, Meegan's daughter who is one smart girl when she told this to her mom. I can't quite remember the exact story but I heard about it today, and now I may have to force Meegan to blog about it because it was really cute!