Year End Letter

Well usually this is a Christmas letter, but this year, it will be a New Year's letter. I cannot believe that today is the last day of 2010. How is it that we are already 1 decade down in the 21st century? It definitely has been one of the biggest decades of my life with all 3 of our children being born in this decade. I'm sure that the next decade to come will only get busier as the kids get older.

I hope this letter finds everyone well after all the Christmas festivities. We had a great Christmas. Of course, the kids were beyond excited and loved all their new stuff. It's crazy that what takes weeks to prepare for is always over in a flash. After tomorrow, it will be time to once and for all, take down all the decorations and throw out all the lingering cookies that keep tempting us and put Christmas away for another year. It's kinda sad, but this is when we should really remember what this season really means to us.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

With all the commercialness of Christmas, it is easy enough to forget about the "reason for the season" when we should be focusing on it the most, but I think that after the holiday, we really tend to forget because we become so focused on the new year and what we need to do and how we want to better ourselves. It is my hope and desire that we can really hold the Christmas "spirit" in our hearts all year long. It might be a whole year before Santa returns, but Jesus is with us 24/7/365 (366 in Leap years).

So onto the typical letter about what has gone on in our lives over the past year. I looked at last year's letter and saw that I did a month by month synopsis of our year, but I'm not going to do that again. It did excruciatingly long, and I'm sure most of you couldn't have cared less. I think I'll go back to the typical highlights for each family member.

First off, Dale and I really didn't have many highlights outside of our kids. We really are not that exciting. Dale is still with Brown and Caldwell and even with the economy, still staying busy. Given the ongoing situation with the economy, we are extremely thankful that Dale's job remains strong. Dale still enjoys playing indoor soccer every week despite his often sore feet and ankles. We have discovered that we don't hold up quite as well as we used to. Dale will probably tell you that one of his highlights this year was following World Cup Soccer. With the magic of cable and the DVR, he was able to tape and watch it just about non-stop for the month of or that it went on. Sometimes he would get up in the wee hours of the morning to watch a live game if USA was playing. It was fun to follow them and see them do well.

I had a few highlights or changes in my life over 2010. In February, I made a big leap and purchased a scrapbooking company, Scrapdango. It is an online monthly scrapbook kit club with a forum and gallery that joins a lot of women who all love scrapbooking, an online store and the monthly kits that I plan, put together and ship every month. It has been fun but a lot of work. I am in a pretty good groove now, and I'm hoping that it gets stronger in 2011. My other big highlight was turning the big 4-0 in November. Not only are we all moving into another decade, but I am starting a new decade as well, and I have to say that it is a decade that I'm looking forward to. 40 really isn't as bad as it once seemed. I had a fabulous 80's Prom party put on by Dale, my sisters, mom and friend, Heather. They really did it up, and it was so much fun to relive the 80's. It was a fabulous night and I was so happy to spend it with so many of my family and friends.

Like me making it through another decade, Hannah is just about through her first decade of life. I cannot believe that this January, she will be 10!!!! How has my little girl grown up so quickly? She and Justin celebrated their birthdays together last year with a swimming party, which was great fun and it was a nice easy party for me, but this year they want to go back to their own parties. She spent the first half of the year in hip hop dance classes and performed in her 2nd hip hop showcase in June. She decided to take a break from that this fall and do Christian Youth Theater. She hopes to sometime audition for a show and be able to participate in one of those. She is now in 4th grade and doing great as usual in school. She had another rough start to the year emotionally but settled in fairly quickly. She actually was in a combined 4th/5th grade class, but then, unfortunately, there ended up being too many 4th graders and they had to open up a new 4th grade class with a brand new teacher and Hannah was moved. I thought that was going to be tough, but she easily made the transition. She is on the safety patrol and has actually been named as a captain for next year and she did choir for fall and really enjoyed that. She is still very into fashion and is constantly drawing fashion designs, which are really quite impressive. She says she wants to go to college for fashion, so we'll see if that holds up for the next 8 years. She is very excited to be 10. Dale's hair is getting greyer and greyer as she gets closer and closer to becoming a teenager.

Justin will be turning 8 in just about a week. He is currently in 2nd grade in a combined 2nd/3rd grade class and is doing fantastic. Last year, he was a little behind on his reading but graduated out of the special reading class before the end of the year. They put him in a booster program at the beginning of this year, but he quickly tested out of that and is now reading above his level. It seems to really have finally caught on and he is often found reading books. He also loves math and science and says that he wants to be an engineer like Daddy when he grows up. He played soccer this fall and was on a great team that went undefeated all season except for one tie. His coach is actually the coach of the local community college's men's team and Justin really learned a lot. He is going to be playing again this Spring. We've never done spring soccer and are really hoping that it isn't THAT wet. Is that possible around here in the Spring? He also has become even more obsessed with all things skateboarding. He loves to watch skate boarding videos online and has aspirations to be a pro skateboarder. For Christmas, he got a little ramp and he's going to have his birthday at an indoor skatepark. He's got a lot to learn, but he's determined to figure it all out. I'm not sure if I'm ready for all the injuries that could go along with it, but I guess that's what it's like as they get older.

Owen is 4-1/2 and constantly keeps us all in stitches. The photo to the right pretty much depicts his personality spot-on. He is the family clown. You can see a little bit of this in the video clips I posted from his Preschool Christmas program a couple posts down. He is in his 2nd year of preschool and I am constantly hearing from his teachers how much he has grown this year. Last year, he wouldn't really participate very much but has really come alive in school this year. He even goes all day one day of the week and has a great time. I can't believe that next year he could be going to Kindergarten all day, every day. We do still have to work on his alphabet more. He just finally got to where he can right his name correctly. For awhile, he had the O, E and N down but always made his W upside down as an M, so he wrote "OMEN." Not one of those things you think about when naming your child--if they could somehow misspell their name as something not that great. Besides running around outside and riding his scooter with brother, sister and all the neighborhood kids, he doesn't really have any set activities. We tried to get him to do soccer this fall, but he insisted he wasn't going to do that. He says he needs to practice first, so he can be good. I think that someday he would be good in theater classes like sister because he is highly dramatic, but we'll see what he ends up wanting to do.

As a family, we took a trip around Oregon this year. We went along the coast to Florence and Bandon, headed west to Crater Lake and then to one of our favorite locations, Sunriver. We also took a trip over Spring Break to another favorite location, Cannon Beach, Oregon. After the flood of last year, that cancelled our annual snow trip to our friends' cabin in Snoqualmie, we were able to get back to that this February and are looking forward to it again in a little over a month. Dale and I also were able to getaway in November to San Diego with our friends, the Goves that just moved back down there. It has definitely been a good year with lots of great memories.

We hope that you all have many wonderful memories from 2010 as well and that 2011 is filled with many more of them. Many blessings to all our family and friends as we head into this new year and new decade.

I usually do a year end photo slide show, but I will be adding that later so come back and check it out.

Twas the Night Before Christmas...

and all through the house, not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse.

Wellllll, actually there is a mouse stirring in the house right now. I've seen it run across the living room a couple times. We have had this issue for awhile now and last year caught quite a few with glue traps, but they've caught onto us or something because they don't seem to work as well anymore. Think we need to figure out something else.

So, technically it is Christmas Eve, but really only 2:00 AM on the 24th, so there is still a full night to go before Christmas, and right now, I gotta go to bed because I know that the actual Christmas Eve is going to be a long night since I have yet to wrap a single present for the kids. Agghhhh! Now if I could only train these mice to help me wrap if they're going to be running around my living room at night.

At some point, I will be writing our end of the year Christmas letter and posting it here, so check back soon. In the meantime, I wish you all a very blessed Christmas.

Owen's Funny Antics at his Christmas Program

I thought everyone might enjoy watching some clips from Owen's Christmas Program at school. He was so sweet on his solo but then such a card during the rest of it.

Merry Christmas!!!

Owen's solo

Owen's Santa Hat Antics

Owen Playing with a Loose String

A Cute Reindeer Song

It's the Most Wonder-Full Time of the Year

I had hopes to blog every day in December but obviously that didn't happen given that it is now Dec. 18th and my first blog post of the month. Realistically, though, even though it's been a busy month, I really wouldn't have had anything to say everyday, but now that it's the 18th, there is a lot to catch up on.

At the beginning of December, we had to of course go out and hunt and kill our tree. We went to our usual tree farm. Thankfully after days of torrential rain, we managed to pick one of the only dry (and actually very sunny and warm) days to get it. Hannah was a little out of sorts because getting our tree was usually an activity that we shared with our friends the Goves that now live in CA. There are definitely a lot of things this month that will make us think of and miss them. We did find a great tree and got him home and discovered that it was a little larger than it seemed on the farm. We had to do a little trimming off the top to get it to fit and to get the star on top. We actually were able to put ALL the ornaments on it. Usually we have to pick and choose because we have a LOT of ornaments.

Decorating the tree is one of the kids greatest Christmas pleasures. Although, I'm sure one day I'll regret it when some prized ornament is broken beyond repair, I pretty much let them just have at the ornament box and start hanging them. I love the joy when they unwrap an ornament and have some memory about it. I do have to do a little rearranging of the ornaments when it's over because they seem to all be hung a little low and in one section.

After getting the tree done, it was time to tackle the whole house, which always takes me awhile to get motivated to do, but the house definitely is filled with the Christmas spirit.







I actually am having a fairly stress free Christmas season. I got all of my shopping done fairly early--just need to get one gift card, and I'll be completely done. Hannah has been my little helper elf and wrapped every gift that she is allowed to see. I still need to wrap all the kids' gifts, which I tend to procrastinate until the last minute for. Today we had a baking day and got lots of cookies made with grandma, and aunts and cousins here. I still have a little baking I want to do, but that will be a project for this week with the kids.

Here are all the cousins (except for baby Quinten) with their decorated gingerbread men.

One holiday event that we have been to many times is the Joyful Learning Preschool Christmas program. Owen participated in this for his 2nd time and this year, participated much more. Last year, I don't even think he would go up on stage. He even came out and had a solo part and was so cute. He then entertained us with his many antics while on stage. He pulled his Santa hat down over his head and kept playing with it, he pulled his choir gown up and "arranged" things, he got preoccuped with pulling a loose string from his gown and trying to bite it in his mouth. Of course, he had all kinds of funny faces. He is quite the character, but with all this messing around, he did manage to sing all the songs and do most of the motions that go with them. At the end of the program, Santa Claus himself made a visit. Usually our kids have reacted with terror at this, but Owen seemed unphased this year and I even managed to get a picture of him on Santa's lap. He whispered in his ear that he wanted Legos and then gave him a high five. Our little boy has definitely come a long way in a year. It's amazing to me that this will most likely be the last Joyful Learning Christmas program we attend for one of our children. We have been to so many over the year.

Well that is about all I have to post on for now. I cannot believe that one week from now, Dale and I will probably be sitting and recovering from the craziness of Christmas day and then another week from that, we will be ringing in the new year and another decade will be done.

Wishing you all a Merry Little Christmas!!!

Scrapdango Blog Hop Crop

It's time for the Scrapdango Blog Hop Crop to begin. You should've started at the Scrapdango Blog and from there gone to Audra, Celeste and then here. We have a wonderful new Design Team at Scrapdango, and we want to help you get to know them and to get some great challenges along the way and have a chance to win a wonderful prize of one of Scrapdango's awesome kits.

Now how this is going to work is that you need to follow the order of the blogs of each DT member given below. At each blog you will find a list of that designers favorite scrappy things and a few fun facts about them as well. Your challenge is to use 5 of those scrappy things in your layout and incorporate 2 of the fun facts as well. You get 1 draw for using the 5 favorites and 1 draw for using the fun facts. If you do this for everyone's blog...that is a total of 12 draws!

Once you have completed the challenges, you can provide a link to your project by posting a comment here and/or posting it in the Scrapdango forum in the Blog Hop Crop thread. All projects are due by midnight EST on Friday, November 19th.

You can earn extra draws by:
1. Posting comments on all 6 DT blogs.
2. Inviting a friend that actively participates in the hop (they should leave a comment saying who invited them)
3. Posting on the Scrapdango forum (provide link to blog hop thread here) something you learned about each DT member from their blog.

International members welcome to play, however...a $7.50 shipping credit will be given. Any shipping above the $7.50 will be the member's responsibility.

So your challenge is to use at least 5 of my favorite scrappy things on your layout for 1 draw and to incorporate 2 of the fun facts about me somehow for an extra draw.

My five favorite scrappy things are:

1. Journaling spots
2. The color combo brown and blue - check
3. Brown ink
4. Stickles - check
5. Little letter stickers - check
6. Thickers
7. Stars - check
8. Buttons
9. Chipboard - check
10. Sketches - check (I used a sketch from the Capture These Sketches blog)

As far as the fun facts about me:

1. Christmas is my favorite time of the year. (I did a Christmas layout)
2. 4 is my favorite number. (I have four quadrants on my layout)
3. I was a dancer and cheerleader growing up.
4. I love to travel and have to been to 13 countries.
5. I am often cold and live in fleece and sweaters during the fall and winter.

Here is the layout I made that utilizes 6 of my favorite scrappy things and 2 of my fun facts.

Now, you need to head to Laura's blog to see her challenge. Happy hopping!

Scrapdango Blog - You Started Here
Audra
Celeste
Heather <<<----You Are Here
Laura <<<----You Go Here Next
Lynn
Sandi

Celebrating the BIG 4-0 80's Style

This past weekend, I turned the dreaded

BIG 4-0!!!

To celebrate, we had an 80's prom. I came up with this idea quite a few months back but then I kinda decided against it. But then I did tell Dale and my sisters that I would like to do it, but I didn't want to have to plan it (I know, I'm such a diva), so Dale, my sisters, mom and friend, Heather went about planning it. I have to say that they did a fabulous job. I knew a little bit about what to expect but they did so much more. It really was a fun night with family and friends and a fabulous way to celebrate 40. I even got to be Prom Queen and have my own court. And we danced the night away to tons of 80's classics along with a few current songs. The kids really got into all the dancing and discovered how much they like Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice.

I feel like I should be posting some very philosophical or very meaningful message on turning 40, but I'm just really not that kind of a person. I have had lots of people ask me if I feel 40. Obviously, I don't feel a whole lot different than 4 days ago when I was still 39, but there definitely is something that comes with the age. There is a feeling of peace and security that I did not have at 30. Turning 40 is not as dreaded as it is always made out to be. I had a much harder time turning 30. When I turned 30, I was 2 months away from having our first child, I had been in a steady job for almost 5 years but was getting ready to quit to be a stay at home mom, and we were getting ready to move to Vancouver. The future was bright but very uncertain. In the 10 years since then, so much has happened. We did have that first child, Hannah and then two more. We moved to Vancouver and then moved again to the home we plan to stay in. Over those 10 years, Dale and I also have met many of our closest and dearest friends who have helped make the past 10 years a blessing. I think the main thing to reflect on as I turn 40 is how truly blessed I am by God and all the people he has brought into my life. It has been quite a ride, and I look forward to what is to come. So that is about as philosophical and reflective as I get.

Here is a slideshow of many of the other great pictures that were taken at the party.

Halloween Fun

It's been a week of Halloween fun. After much coaxing by the children and patiently waiting while Dad went away for business at the beginning of this week, we finally carved pumpkins on Wednesday. As usual, the kids jumped right in to start cleaning those pumpkins out and draw and carve their jack o' lantern faces.

Owen was especially excited!

Although once he started digging in, he wasn't so sure...

"Ewww" was his comment on the pumpkin guts and he chose not to do that so
sister helped him clean out his pumpkin...

after she finished cleaning out hers.

He did draw his own face, which Dad helped him carve.

And this was Hannah's face complete with eyebrows.

And Justin's scary face. Owen's comment was, "That's a scary mouth, Justin.
That's Awesome!"

Then more Halloween fun was on Saturday when we had the 3rd annual Halloween party. I wasn't going to do it this year, but apparently once you have a party two years in a row, it is a tradition and people will start asking over a month beforehand if you're having it again. My sister, Marcie, actually persuaded me to do it again, so everyone pitched in and brought goodies and we had another great party.

Before everyone else arrived, we got a photo of all the cousins in their costumes.

We played games like pumpkin bowling.

Owen is determined to bowl that strike.

And we did an eyeball on a spoon relay and mummy wrapping.
Everyone had a great time.

Trying to wrap someone in tp is not as easy as it looks.

Then finally, Halloween was here and the kids got to go out and trick or treat.

Justin was a stormtrooper

Owen was Optimus Prime

And Hannah was Cleopatra

The Jack O' Lanterns in all their glory

It was Dad's turn to take the kids out this year.

They of course came home with lots of loot to tide them over at least a few days.

Christmas Card Photo Shoot

Yes, I said Christmas Card Photo Shoot.

If you know me, you know that I LOVE taking photos.

I am OBSESSED with taking photos.

I take a LOT of photos.

My photography obsession has definitely evolved over the years. BK (that's Before Kids) Dale and I were really into landscape photography on our travels. We were always in search of that perfect sunset, that brilliant blue water, and that awe inspiring mountain shot. Of course, most of this time was (Gasp!) before digital photography, so we basically got what we got, and there weren't really any ways that we could change what we got. But now in the digital age, we are blessed to be able to see right away what we get, and I can also dramatically change the look of what we get by working some magic in Photoshop. Lately I have been playing with Photoshop more and more, and now I am also OBSESSED with Photoshop. The only problem with this is that now I am never happy with any SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera) shots. They might be a great shot and something I would normally be happy with, but now with Photoshop, there is always some way I can make it better. To illustrate this, let me show you a shot before and after.

Today I took advantage of a gorgeous, sunny fall day and a half day of school and took the kids into downtown Vancouver in search of a large red door that I have been wanting to get photos of them with. I decided that now would be a good time to get photos for the annual photo Christmas card. As usual, the kids weren't thrilled with me dragging them away for a photo shoot, but I bribed them with candy and ice cream afterward if they were good. All in all, they were very good, and I got about 230 photos. So here is one shot I got with the SOOC shot and then my Photoshopped version. This isn't the best shot because I don't want to show you the best now and ruin the Christmas card for you. You'll have to wait until December for that.

SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera)

Photoshopped

Did I tell you that I LOVE Photoshop?

I LOVE Photoshop.

Scrapping Again

Despite the fact that I adore scrapbooking, ever since I purchased Scrapdango just about 7 months ago, I have been consumed with the business side of things rather than the creative side of things. By the time I have time to scrap after taking care of forum stuff and making sure I have everything I need for kits and putting them together and shipping them out, I just don't have the energy or the inspiration to do anything creative for myself. My scrappin' mojo definitely took a long spring and summer vacation. Although slow in getting back into things, I hope that it has returned and will stick around for awhile. I already posted the tray that I made for our friends that moved, but here are a few layouts I've done in recent weeks. A couple of them were for examples I had to do for Scrapdango's School's In contest challenges and the Back to School one was using this month's Scrapdango spice kit, which good for me is already sold out.

This first layout is my favorite that I have made in a long time. I scraplifted a layout by Kerryn on Scrapdango because all her layouts just amaze me in how she can get so much stuff on her layouts without making it look crowded or detracting from her photos. I do not usually put that much stuff on my layouts, but I have to say I love how this one turned out. Meine Liebchen means "My Sweethearts" in German.

I wasn't as thrilled with this one because I think it does need more stuff on it, but it's done and I already have Owen's back to school photos for this year scrapped.

This next layout is another departure for me. I don't usually do such bold, graphic layouts, but I wanted to play with my new Glimmer Mist, which seems to be all the rage, and I have always wanted to use the lyrics from the song, "Seasons of Love," from the musical, Rent.

525,600 minutes. 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes. How do you measure, measure a year? I think that pretty much sums up how we should remember each year.

I hope that I will have more layouts to post soon. I guess one advantage of the weather taking a big downturn is that I'll hopefully be more motivated just to stay inside and scrap.

Owen's First Day of School

This week, all 3 kiddos were finally in school. Owen was chomping at the bit to go to school and that day finally came on Wednesday after Labor Day. For the first week, though, he only went for 1-1/2 hours for two days. Next week, that 3 hours at school will jump up to 10-1/2 hours. Whatever am I going to do with all my free time?

Here he is on his first day.


And of course he had to show off the new backpack. He was very excited to get a new Iron Man backpack and a lunchbag since he will be having lunch at school one day a week.


Here he is already settled in and playing at school. When I picked him up, I was told that he had a fabulous day. Last year, he wasn't so keen on participating in a lot of the activities, but it seems like a year makes a huge difference, which I knew it would. So proud of my little man.

In other fall news, Justin has his first soccer game of the season tomorrow. He just had his first practice yesterday and we're excited to see how the season goes because his coach is actually the men's coach at Clark College, the local community college. It also turns out that the coach lives right around the corner from us in a house that we once looked at buying before buying the one we're in, and his son who's on the team is a grade above Justin. It's a small world--or a small town anyway.

Well that's about all I have of interest right now.

TTFN - Ta Ta For Now

Season of Change

Well I cannot believe we are into September already. I mean seriously, where has the year gone? How can it be that there's less than 4 months before Christmas? Alright, let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'll worry about that later.

It is definitely a time of change right now. Besides a recent and fairly sudden shift in the weather--it is starting to feel like fall in the air--there has been a lot of other change. Hannah and Justin headed back to school on Wednesday. Neither of them were very thrilled for summer to be over, but Hannah had an especially difficult time as she has the past three years. I was really hoping this year would be different and there wouldn't be any issues, but she did get very anxious and upset starting the night before. I think we have determined that she just has a hard time with the transition back to school and the unknown of a new grade, new teacher, new classmates, etc. I think she was especially nervous because she was chosen to be in a split 4th/5th grade class this year as a 4th grader. Justin was also chosen to be in a 2nd/3rd grade class. Here they are on their first day in their new duds. That's the part of going back to school that Hannah does like, the back to school shopping, especially since she seems to be getting more and more into fashion.

Hannah really loved this shirt with the tie. She's all about anything with black and/or sparkle. She also has really determined she likes dresses, which is an about face from her previous fashion choices. When I asked why so many dresses now, her comment was "A girl can change, can't she?" Yet another example of change. My "little" girl has gone from girly girl in princess dresses and tutus, to a not girly girl that just about only wore jeans, to a new version of rock star girly girl.

Then we have Justin who is all about anything skateboard related including his style. All he wants to do pretty much 24/7 right now is practice, watch or talk about skateboarding. And of course he has to sport the look including the new Chuck Taylor hightops.

Now, there was one kid that was excited about school starting, Owen. Unfortunately, he does not start school until next week. He did have school visitation that morning and had to have his backpack and a packed lunchbag and get in on the back to school photos.

Now in addition to back to school, another major change was saying goodbye to our best friends of 10-1/2 years, the Goves. We became fast friends with them when they moved up here from California over 10 years ago. We were both pregnant with Hannah and Gabby at the same time and had them exactly 7 weeks apart. Those two have been best friends practically since birth. We then had boys just months apart who were great friends and Owen and Evie who were two peas in a pod when they were together. We spent so many holidays and events together over the years. They were like family to us, and it is so sad to see them go. They moved back to California, and only 10 minutes from Disneyland at that, so there will definitely be trips down there to visit. Before they left, we did get to spend a lot of time with them, which was good. I even gathered all the kids together for a little photo shoot and made a going away present.

I am not a sappy quote person, but did want to put something personal on the gift, so I found the quote "Make new friends, but cherish the old." I thought that was pretty appropriate. I know that they will always be friends of ours no matter how far apart we are. We will miss you guys so much but look forward to special visits in the future.

Alright, well I guess it's time to go to bed. Something else I'm trying to change during this season of change is my sleeping habits. I really need to be better about going to bed at a more consistent time and not staying up 'til all hours some nights.

TTFN, Ta Ta For Now

Our Summer Vacation around Oregon

Okay, we've already been back for almost a week, but I just now am able to blog about our trip we took last week. It was one of those vacations where you kinda need a vacation to recover from your vacation and also we took TONS of pics, as usual for us, and it took me forever to go through them and make a slide show. There are far too many for me to even post the best ones, but I will post a few of my favs. if you don't want to sit through the whole long slideshow.

We did leave the last day of July and headed south to Florence, OR along the coast. We camped 2 nights there in a the Jessie M. Honeyman State Park, which is a fabulous campground. Florence is not really your typical coastal town like we're used where you can see easily see the ocean pretty much wherever you are. Florence is the northern portion of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, and at our campground, we could easily get to the dunes, but to get to the water, it was an impossible 2 mile walk across the dunes. It makes me think of the horrible, torturous movie "Lawrence of Arabia" where the whole movie, they're just trudging across the desert. It would be "Lawrence of Florence" LOL :) Anyway, the kids did love to climb up and down the dunes, although getting up could be very difficult. Hannah, Justin and I actually did one hike up a dune that was SOOOOO steep that my legs and my lungs were burning by the time we got to the top. We did it just at sunset, though, and the view was gorgeous. Here are a couple photos from that excursion. Dale and Owen didn't go up because he didn't think we could get Owen up there. I was proud of Hannah and Justin for making it though.

Victorious!

The gorgeous expanse of dunes

The kids had a great time camping, and surprisingly, I did too. We think we might even be ready to do more camping. The kids loved roasting (or torching) marshmallows and making s'mores, riding their bikes around and just being in the great outdoors. We do need to get a few more things to prepare for more camping, though. We saw a lot of people who are SERIOUS about their camping.

We did manage to find the water at Florence. We had to drive there, and it was a hike up and over the dunes to get to it, but it was gorgeous. Again, the kids loved playing in the sand and also finding all kinds of shell treasures on the shore. Dale and I had a great time relaxing on the blanket just watching the kids.

Heading up the dune with their finds

Justin helping Owen up the steep dune.

Hannah's favorite find.

Our next stop after Florence was a little further south to another Coastal town, Bandon, OR. We just stayed there one night but it was a gorgeous stretch of beach that we had never seen before. There were lots of really cool rocks off the shore. Like Cannon Beach but on a much larger scale.

We loved walking along the beach and finding new shells, rocks, climbing on larger rocks and playing in the driftwood.

The gorgeous (although a little foggy) Bandon coastline

The kids posing in front of a cool sea arch in Table Rock off the shore

Just love this photo of Justin

Dale and kids with a cool giant tree root that washed up on shore

The next day was a long one. We left Bandon and drove about 2 hours east to Winston, OR where we visited the Drive Thru Wildlife Safari. Unfortunately, Hannah didn't feel too good during the drive--don't know if she actually had a touch of flu or just carsickness from the windy roads, but there was a lot of complaining this day. The Wildlife Safari was a little bit of a break, but it took us over 2 hours just to get through that. We did see some cool or interesting things as we drove through. Right at the start we came up to the giraffes and three of them were right in the road next to the cars. Two of them were dancing, or doing the "tango" as the kids called it. They were doing the tango alright. We almost had a little (or should I say big) health education lesson right there on the road. ;)

"It Takes Two to Tango"

This is just out my side window--they were close!

We continued on our drive and saw many other animals and then just as we were coming up on the elk and bison, the entire bison herd decided to walk onto the road and just stay there for 20 or 30 minutes. No cars were moving past them that whole time. Some of them got pretty close to some of the cars, and I was getting a tad bit nervous. Finally, they decided to move out.

Look at the huge guy strolling just a few feet away from our car!

We left the Wildlife Safari, and it was another 2 hours to our next destination, Union Creek Resort near Crater Lake. We stayed in a "rustic" cabin there right near Union Creek and the Rogue River. Dale and camped at the campground there years ago when we did a very similar trip before having kids. The Rogue River there is beautiful, and it is in close proximity to Crater Lake. Unfortunately, when we got there, Hannah actually got sick and really wasn't much up for doing anything the rest of the day, so we didn't do much the rest of that day. Thankfully, after a good night's sleep, she felt much better the next day. Unfortunately, though, then Justin didn't feel so hot. We did go to Crater Lake and got just a gorgeous view of it. You couldn't have been there on a better day with the bright blue sky and puffy white clouds and the gorgeous blue of the water (sorry Sharon and sisters--wish you could've seen it like this). Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States at over 1900 feet deep.

Crater Lake with Wizard Island

Last time Dale and I were here, we drove around the entire lake and hiked up to the top of the tallest peak overlooking the lake. Unfortunately, this time with Justin not feeling great and the kids not being quite as excited about the natural wonder as we were, we didn't get a chance to do that. We did a little drive to view a rock in the lake called Phantom Ship (can see a pic. in the slideshow) but then headed back to the cabin. We did do a little hiking back along the river where we saw Natural Bridge where the rushing Rogue River disappears underground in a lava tube and you can see it emerge on the other side. It's very cool. Plus we got ice cream at a cool shop at the resort.

After staying there two nights, we headed north to our final destination, Sunriver, OR, where we have vacationed the last 3 summers. The kids love it there and it was a very relaxing end to our vacation. We were there 4 days and really didn't have much planned besides riding bikes around the extensive bike trails and going to the pool. We stayed in a new place this year, which was extremely convenient right across from the Sunriver Village and a very short bike ride to the pool. And fortunately, the condo came with pool passes since it costs almost $50 for all of us to go to the pool one time. Since we had the passes, we went there all three days for 2-3 hours. We did manage to take one little road trip to see Newberry Crater where there are two lakes, waterfalls, a lava cast forest and some great views of the Oregon Central Cascades. We took the kids on a hike through the lava cast forest, which they thought was cool because they could find pumice and obsidian rocks to take home for their vast collections. Then we did just a short hike to some waterfalls, but by then, they were about done. Hannah especially I think was going to go crazy if she heard the term, "scenic vista" from Dale one more time. Their only concern was getting back to the pool.

So all in all, it was a fabulous trip, but after 9 days, it was exhausting, especially with all the moving around. We managed to pack a lot in that 9 days even with 3 kids in tow. Next year, we might tackle a tour around our own state of Washington or maybe even a trip to Yellowstone.

One last "scenic vista" of the Central Cascades

Of course, I had a ton more photos and here is a slideshow of just my favorites.