Mom in Brookings

Up until a few weeks ago, I hadn't seen my mom in just about 2 years.  Unacceptable.  But she came out to see us at the end of February, and I've roped her into coming in September too since she'll have another grandchild to see.  We spent 2 days here in Brookings and we did some cool stuff.

Brett was able to get us on a ride on one of the Coast Guard boats.  The gear is less than attractive, but it will keep you warm if you fall overboard.

We rode out to a lighthouse about 12 miles off shore.  I didn't get sick until we stopped near the lighthouse.  Although the sea was calm, you never would have known it by looking at that lighthouse.  The water was swelling so drastically it was scary - and beautiful at the same time.  There was a family of sea lions that were practically swimming on top of each other in the swells too, which was awesome to watch.

Here's Brett and the crew in full gear.  If you ever get stranded and need the Coast Guard to rescue you, this is what they'll look like.  Hard to miss in bright orange.



On the way back home, we got a chance to drive the boat.  Here's mom.

And then me.  I drove for quite a while and was completely paranoid the whole time that I would hit a bunch of crab pots.  They are really hard to see, especially with the wind blowing in your contact-wearing eyes.  We had gone to the beach that morning, so with these two activities we covered one of Brookings' best features: the ocean.  The next day we covered the second one: trees.

We went down to Trees of Mystery in California to walk through the redwoods.  It's a beautiful drive with trees on one side and ocean on the other.  Then, while you're walking through the trees, it's like you could never imagine being only a few miles away from the beach.

Us in the scary gondola that nobody else was scared of.  Those things never seem stable to me and I'm very afraid that it will plunge us to our deaths 100 feet below.  Needless to say, I don't think I'll ever go skiing.

Mom took this awesome picture of Kennedy and Noah sitting on a carved wooden snake.  They are both smiling.  At the same time!!  Next installment will be our trip to Portland that we took with mom.  Stay tuned!

Once There Was A Snowman

There was actually a snow day here in Brookings a few weeks ago, so we went driving up the river in search of enough snow to play in.  We found a really small area that was perfect for us.  Kennedy perfected her long awaited snow angels.  Noah really enjoyed the snow too, never really having seen very much before.

Of course, we had to build a snowman.  It was awfully small, but we didn't have much snow to work with.

He's adorned with Noah's hat.  He was probably cold after we left since we took it with us.

Kennedy managed to snap this picture of mom and dad right before we left.  I think she did a pretty good job.

Most. Amazing. Photo. Ever.

Patch Wars

Noah has issues wearing his patch.  Daddy has issues with Noah's issues.  Daddy decided to act.



He's an awfully happy prisoner.



Much to Brett's dismay, I made him release Noah's arms.  But the headgear stayed on for a couple of hours.

Driving Home

On the way home we drove on the coast so we could see as much of Oregon as possible before we leave (we'll probably be leaving in December).  We started by driving to Tillamook, where, I HAD to go to the cheese factory.

We have fun being dorks.  Especially if it includes free cheese samples.

Kennedy complained the whole time we were in the factory because all she wanted to do was drive this car.

Brett got mad because he had to be in the picture and I didn't.

Things we discovered about Tillamook:

1. It truly smells like cow manure.  It's slightly gross.

2. The cheese factory is hopping because there's nothing else to do in town.

3. The cheese at the Tillamook factory is more expensive than the cheese at our grocery store 7 hours away.

*Brett wrote a complaint about the price of the cheese and popped it in the suggestion box.  They then proceeded to send us a "thank you for your comment" in the form of coupons for cheese.

We then made a small stop in Newport for lunch and a trip to the aquarium.

Swimming with pirahnas.

How Brett got that stroller in that tiny tunnel on the floor that I could barely fit through is beyond me.

Annual Pumpkin Carving Party

We were sad this year that we live so far away from the Waddoups because for the last 4 years we had invited them over to carve pumpkins, eat dinner and watch a scary movie.  We had our party just with our family this year though, and we had a good time.  We ate pizza and watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown with Kennedy.  Our pumpkins turned out wonderfully too!  I'm really proud of mine.  Usually I just do your typial triangle eyes and smile, but I opted for something a little different this time and it turned out great!



Brett's is always extremely intricate and takes him hours and hours to clean and carve.  This year it was just as intricate, but I think he's speeded up a little bit, which is good, because we had time to watch a movie afterward too.  Here's his rendition of Frankenstein's monster.



Kennedy picked out the ugliest pumpkin in the whole bunch when we bought them.  It looked dirty because it's skin was more like a cantaloupe than a pumpkin.  She requested that a ghost be carved into hers, so Brett freestyled one.

The best part about her pumpkin though was that we let her color it with Sharpies.  She used purple and green, and somehow managed to color it for probably 30 minutes straight without getting a fume headache.  She is very proud of the end result and had a great time carving pumpkins.

Ocean World

We went to Ocean World this morning to have a fun day with our kids.  I know that Kennedy looks terrified in this picture, but I assure you she had a blast.  This aquarium in Crescent City, CA is small, but for how little it had, it was pretty cool stuff.  Our first stop (after the gigantic gift shop where Kennedy stuffed toys in the stroller while we weren't looking) was the tide pool where we could pet the animals in the water.

Kennedy loved petting the starfish.  She was even brave enough to touch an anenome!  The other little girl on the tour screamed every time she saw anything, so I was pretty proud of Kennedy.  Although Noah didn't pet anything, he did try to eat a starfish.

Then our guide asked for a brave volunteer.  After seeing what this guy had to do, I'm really glad it wasn't me.  He was asked to feel the sting of an anenome, but because they can't sting through our skin, he had to put his tongue on it.  And he did.

Yuck.  And just so we could take his word for it that his tongue got tingly.  Do you know how many people's tongues have been on that thing?  I'm sure it's clean, but I won't be licking an sea creatures any time soon.  Just so you have a better idea, he licked one of these.

Once again, yuck.  We went to see the actual aquarium part of the place next, which was definitely limited.  They had some fish, and a bunch of manta rays, including a baby which was really cute.  They did however have TONS of sharks.

There are 7 in this picture, and that wasn't anywhere near all the ones they had.  We even got to pet a couple of sharks after looking at them in the tanks.

I caught the fin on this one, and it was a lot harder than I expected.  They didn't feel very slippery either like you would expect.

Even though Kennedy had no problem touching starfish and anenomes, she wanted nothing to do with the sharks.  I think her face sums it up pretty well.

We had to take the obligatory picture in the shark's mouth.

There were also two harbor seals and a sea lion who did tricks.  She impersonated a shark and a dolphin, went down slides, jumped really high, and did double back flips.  Afterward, Kennedy wanted to ride on the jet ski ride out front, and she actually let Noah sit with her.

And of course we couldn't leave without getting a picture of Noah surfing.

Epic Camping Post, Part 2

The first time that I had a tin foil dinner was when I went camping with Brett.  I followed his instructions on how to put it together - ground beef, potatoes, carrots - and then I added a bunch of seasoning.  It tasted horrible.  I asked Brett if that was what they usually tasted like, and he said, "Yeah.  Just put a bunch of ketchup on it."  Great.  So now I was eating textured ketchup.  Not my idea of a camping meal.  So this time, I took it upon myself to create a tin foil dinner that actually tasted good.  I'm not one to eat things just for tradition - it needs to taste good too.  They turned out absolutely perfectly.

If you want the recipe (and trust me, you do) you can get it by clicking here.  Of course, we topped the dinner off with some Reese's smore's.  Brett is the master marshmallow roaster, and they were sticky gooey deliciousness.

Kennedy learned how to roast marshmallows (with Brett's help of course) and also how to skip rocks while we were there.  I discovered that I'm about as good at skipping rocks as Kennedy is.  But even though my rocks sank to the bottom of the river, I had fun eating smores with Kennedy all the same.

And she enjoyed her crackers, Reese's and marshamallows separately.  Once they were cooked and all together, she wasn't so sure about how she felt about the hot gooey marshmallow.  She didn't like how it stuck to her fingers.

My least favorite part of camping has always been the sleeping part.  Ugh.  I'm almost always so uncomfortable and I can hear the wildlife which usually freaks me out.  This time was no different, but there were some additions to the misery.  Kennedy decided not to sleep in the bed we brought her in favor of sleeping on the air mattress with us.  Or more specifically, on me on the air mattress.  And I was essentially sleeping on Brett because Kennedy kept squishing us over.  We were all sleeping on one half of the bed.  And to make matters worse, the campers next to us (they were actually quite a ways away, but it sure didn't sound like it) decided to have a dance party right when we wanted to go to sleep.  In the middle of the night I woke up to the Backstreet Boys.  And it continued for the next hour or so.  All Backstreet Boys.  But, in the morning we had a delicious breakfast and two happy kids, so all in all, it was a successful trip.

Epic Camping Post, Part 1

We discovered last Friday that you should actually be prepared when you go camping.  I was in the kitchen putting together our tin foil dinners, and we were pretty much all packed up, when Brett told me that all the campgrounds around here were full.  What?  So we had to wing it and find a campground on our own.  Luckily we found a good one not too far from where we had originally wanted to go.

When we got there however, we found that once again, we weren't prepared.  It cost $10 to stay the night at this place.  No cards.  No checks.  And we had $9.21 in cash.  We also couldn't find a pen to fill out the envelope with.  So we improvised.

We sincerely hope that the state of Oregon won't begrudge us that 79 cents.  We went ahead and set up camp anyway.  Brett, of course, being the master camper, did most of the setting up.

While he was doing that, I got to hold this cute little guy.

We also had to sit in our trunk because we don't actually own any camping chairs, and there were ants everywhere near the fire.  It worked out alright though.  We just know to be more prepared for next time.

Before we had dinner, Kennedy got hold of a bag of nacho cheese Doritos that we had brought with us and made complete mincemeat out of it.  And her clothes.  And her face.

She loved every minute of camping.  She really loved watching Brett build the fire, and he really showed off his boy scout skills!  He built the fire and it went out until it was only smoke.  So he started blowing on it.  I thought, seriously?  But here were the results.  Before:

And after:

Wow.  And next time I will show you what delicious foods we made on that awesome fire.  And the recipes will be forthcoming on my recipe blog as well.