Oregon - Day 5: River Fun

Uncle Boyd heard that their was some good places in Oregon to do some gold mining.  So we decided to have a go at it.
We drove over an hour to a river that was known to have some gold.  We found a good spot for us all to hangout and watch the men try to find gold.

The kids loved playing in the water.  I wasn't very well prepared for the river.  When we left the cabin it was cold and foggy and so I thought it would be too cold at the river and they wouldn't want to go it the water.  Stupid me.  How could I forget that when it's cold and foggy on the coast that if you drive 10 minutes inland it clears up and is nice.

So because I didn't have swimsuits for my kids I just let them get their clothes all wet.  I knew I had some emergency clothes in the car that they could change into after we were all done.
We all brought coolers and food to make lunches at the river.  We ladies all had our chairs to sit on and we had the kids eat on the rocks.

The kids loved playing in the water and exploring the area.  Next time we want to bring tubes and float on the river.  It was the prefect spot for that.
The men were not very successful on finding gold.  They thought maybe they found a little spec of gold, but who really knows.  I think that they had a good time trying and that's all that matters.

Once we had enough river fun we got the kids all changed and loaded back into the car.  We stopped in Bandon and got some ice cream at their local cheese factory.  It is really good ice cream for a very good deal.  It''s only $2 for a kids size and that is really big.  So we really like it there.  Good ice cream for a good deal, can't get better then that.

"How do you like it here, Josh?"

Logan and Tyler catching tad poles.  Stories of childhood right there!

Baby Jenny, Betsy, Gavin, Wendy, Julie, and someone's legs.  Hanging out in the shade watching the fun.

Oregon - Day 4: Great Grandpa Clark's 89th Birthday

My Grandpa Clark turned 89 while we were there.  He isn't used to having very many people around.  It is usually just him by himself and then the neighbor guy comes over everyday to help him with his meds and check up on him.  My dad also flies down about every other month for a weekend to help his dad and check on the properties.

So since he isn't used to people and kids, especially, we try not to bother grandpa too much.  We go in an say hello and that we love him and then we have the kids play outside.
My dad went and got him a cake and and ice cream cake and we got him to come outside to sit with all of us.

We all sang Happy Birthday and had some cake.  After we were done eating before my grandpa went back inside we had each of the kids give him a hug.  We reminded them to give a soft gentle hug and the kids were so sweet.
After that grandpa went back inside and the kids continued to have fun play outside in the nice cool Oregon weather.  They all had so much fun playing together and on the sand rail.

Oregon - Day 4: Family Pictures

My brother used to work for a t-shirt making company and he thought it would be fun to get us all matching shirts for this trip.  He put on them "No easy way to Coos Bay" because this is something that we have always said in our family.  With Coos Bay being on the southern coast of Oregon it just takes a long time to get there - about 15 hours to drive.
We had lots of compliments on our shirts and even people who wanted to buy some for them selves.  Each family had a different color and we decided to wear them all this night because it was my grandpa's birthday and we were all going to take pictures with him.
We took the pictures of our family at the RV park that we were staying at and it made for a really cute background.  Such a cute family I have!

Josh

Tyler

Megan

Allie

Teagan, Michelle, Julie, Kevin, Wendy, Sherri, and Grandpa Clark.

Teagan, Michelle, Julie, Kevin, Wendy, Sherri, Papa G, Great grandpa Clark, and Grandma Kim

Oregon - Day 4: Beach Fun

Megan and Josh playing in the water.  Julie and I set up our chairs and sat watching the kids play for hours.  The weather was perfect!  We still couldn't believe just how nice and sunny it was.

Josh was so happy to finally be able to play in the water.  It was so cold.  It literately hurt my feet it was so cold to me.  Kids are tough.

Megan loves the water and the sand!

Megan and Tyler at the beach.  Tyler wasn't really into it this day.  He mostly played in the sand by himself while the other kids played in the water.

Tyler enjoying looking at the water.

Oregon - Day 4: Raising the Roof

One of the properties that my grandpa owns needed new shingles so my dad asked the guys if they would put them on while we were all in Oregon.  Of course we said yes.
So the men all went over to the property in the morning and got working on the roof.  Us ladies stayed back with our kids for an hour or so before we all went to my grandpa's house to watch them work and let the kids play.
The house is on my grandpa's property so we were able to hang out at his house and watch them men.  They had a couple nail guns and even a couple of the older boys up on the roof.
While the men were working on the roof we enlisted the little kids into picking up the extra shingles that were thrown on the ground and putting them in a pile.  Papa G gave them all a dollar for helping and that is when we headed to the candy store.

The candy store is a little store on the end of the street that my grandpa lives on.  We used to go there when were a little with cans that we would exchange for money and then we would buy candy.  So it has a lot of history for us.
It's fun to have our kids have the same traditions as we did.  Except this time Papa G is giving them the money.  They don't take cans anymore there.  The kids loved doing this.

We let them all choose which treat them wanted that was around a dollar.  My dad gave us adults some money to make up any overage the kids might have.  We of course had to show our goods after we bought them.  It really is such cheap fun for everyone.

After we walked back to grandpa's house we let the kids play while we ladies watched the men work some more.  The kids were all playing so nicely together and having so much fun.  Megan loved having older girls to play with and loved tagging around with them.
It took the men until after 1:00 pm to finish the roof.  After they were done my dad took us all out to lunch at the DQ (Dairy Queen) that was up the street.

There were a lot of us and we pretty much took over the whole store.  I think we left one or two booths open for other people.  The kids loved eating lunch with their cousins.  It was very interesting to see which cousins sat by each other.  Not always the ones that were closest in age.  It is nice that they all like each other so much.  We all had a good time eating our lunch and ice cream.

After lunch we went back to the cabins to put Allie down for her nap (which was very late).  The kids wanted to go to the beach so Tony showered and stayed with Allie while I took the kids to the beach.  Tony was ready for a little down time after all the roofing and ended up taking a nap with Allie.   They were both very tired people.

Oregon - Day 3: Coos Bay

We got up Sunday morning and let the kids play with their cousins a little more before they had to go to church.
We said our good-byes to the Steenblik's and then it was back into the car for us.  We figured we would drive to Eugene and have lunch.  We wanted to get some gas so we decided to just go to the Costco there and eat lunch too.  Tony and I wanted something besides a hamburger.

After that we were back on the road.  Allie took a nap and we watched way too many episodes of Phineas and Ferb.
We got into Coos Bay about 3:00.  We decided to go straight to our little cabins/cottages and get unpacked.  We were the first ones there from my family.  They were at my grandpa's house waiting until they could check in.  I was able to get our key and we started unloading our car.

They others came soon after and it was a full out Clark family party.  Kevin and his family were the last ones to come a couple hours later.
After we unpacked our car we wanted to go to the beach.  It was beautiful weather that day!  We couldn't believe just how nice it was.  The kids all love the beach.  Since it was Sunday we told the kids to stay out of the water.  That was very hard for Megan and Josh to do.  They would get their hands all sandy and then want to "just wash them" in the water and then end up getting wet.  It is hard to not touch the water at the beach, but we wanted to still follow the no water on Sunday rule.
Speaking of breaking the Sabbath, we knew that we needed to go to the store and get some dinner so after a while we had the kids come back and get cleaned up so we could go.
We decided to go and get some dinner first.  We went to Kozy Kitchen.  It's a diner and the food is pretty good but it took forever.  They were pretty busy and I think that a bunch of us came around the same time so it took like 45 minutes for our food to come.

The kids were surprisingly good while we waited.  As good as they could be.  I felt bad that it took so long but the food was good and we all had plenty to eat.
After dinner we went to Walmart to pick up the food that we would need for the week.  By this time we all just wanted to be back at the cabins with the family, so we rushed through the store getting the essentials and then then checked out.
We got back to the cabins and most people were finishing up their dinners and getting their kids ready for bed.  We decided that was a good idea and got our kids in their pajamas.  I had Tyler, Josh, and Megan sleep upstairs together on the bed and we made Allie a bed on the floor outside of our room.  We knew that she wouldn't stay there all night but Tony really wanted a place for her to start out and that worked out good.  Tony and I were definitely ready to climb into bed and get some sleep.

Oregon - Day 2: Bend

We liked our hotel room in Boise.  It had two queen beds and a sofa bed so it fit our family perfectly.  The breakfast was pretty yummy and the kids even got to pick out a prize from their treasure box.  After our yummy breakfast we got all checked out and packed back into the car ready for the next leg of our trip.

The kids did good in the car again.  Allie took a good nap after we got lunch in Burns.  We stopped at McDonald's and let the kids play for a good long time before we ate lunch and then got back on the road.

We got into Bend in the early afternoon.  Cora was still napping so we had all the kids play in the garage and front yard.  They had lots of fun playing with their cousins (and their toys).  Even a neighbor girl came over and played with the girls.  I think they liked being out of the car and moving around.

After a while they wanted to go back inside so we headed in the house.  Nate came home from work and we had a good chat with him and Amy.  We decided to take the kids to the park.  It was the same park that we went to a couple times before and the kids loved it.

We wanted to do pizza for dinner so Nate and Amy picked up a cheese pizza for the kids and Tony and I picked up a couple better pizzas for us adults.  After eating we let the kids play more.  Nate and Amy have a big family/play room that the kids loved.

Then it was baths and bedtime.  The kids had a really hard time going to sleep.  They were having way too much fun.  Amy even sat the kids down and read them stories.  It was pretty cute to see them all around her listening to the story.  Allie was busy playing on the air mattresses and didn't pay much attention to the books.  Uncle Nate was super fun with Allie throwing her up and landing on the air mattresses.

We had the boys sleep in Matt's room on their big sack-thing and Megan and Allie slept out on a air mattress with Tony and I.  We watched the Olympics for a while and then went to sleep.  Tony and I were pretty tired.

Oregon - Day 1: Boise

After the kids all woke up and got ready we finished packing the car and then started our drive towards Boise.
We were all very excited to be starting our big trip to Oregon.  We decided that we would take two days to get to Coos Bay so that we wouldn't have to drive super long hours each day.  So Boise was our first stop.
We checked into our hotel and then got changed into our swimsuits to go swimming in their really fun pool.  I was bummed that I didn't bring my camera to the pool so I didn't get any pictures of the kids playing in the water.  We had the whole pool to ourselves and it was so nice.  We had so much fun playing with all the pool toys and being silly.  Allie was done swimming first so Tony took her up to the room to get her bathed and dressed while the other kids kept swimming.
After a while I decided it was time to get the rest of us cleaned and changed.  When we were all ready we got back into the car and headed to Costco.  We needed gas and we needed to pick up a dessert for a BBQ that we were going to at my cousin Mandy's house.

After Costco we headed straight to Mandy's. She also invited her two sisters that live close.  It was so much fun to see my cousins and their families.  I love my extended family and truly don't get to see them enough.  The kids had fun playing with the other kids and have asked to go back there next time we are in town.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel to put the kids to bed.  We were all pretty tired and it didn't take too much time for us all to be sleeping.  It was a good first day of our trip.