Oregon 2017: Day 6 - Farmer's Market, Crabbing & Crab Feasting

Wednesday morning after breakfast we got ready and headed into town for the Coos Bay Farmer's Market.  We didn't know quite what to expect but it turned out better than expected.  It took us a little while to find a place to park, but once we did we were all excited to get shopping.

They had a lot of fun booths.  Most of them were selling fruits and veggies.  Others had crafts, and other random stuff.  We bought some strawberries, carrots with the green tops still on them (the kids thought they were super cool and loved them).  We found a lady who sold some really cute crafts and we bought a couple cute sea shell and star fish crafts for our bathroom.  I decided that I am going to redecorate our upstairs bathroom when we get home and make it nautical themed.

After we walked through all the booths we got some lunch at the food carts.  We got some pizza, a huge corn dog, and a BBQ sandwich with fries for all of us the share.  It was all pretty good and we even found places to sit and eat.
After eating we headed straight to the docks to check on the people crabbing.  We got the kids set up in some life jackets and then headed down the dock for some crabbing.

They had already caught 4 large crabs and had lots of pots out to catch more.  It is always so much fun to watch them pull up the crab pots and seeing if they have any keepers.
This year was especially awesome because Josh and Megan both touched a crab and Tyler actually held one.  He may have cried after, but he held it.  That is big progress for all three of them since last year they wouldn't even get close to one.

Allie was not interested in the crabs or crabbing at all.  So Tony walked around with her for a while before heading to the car to let her play there.  After the rest of us had enough crabbing fun we headed back to the car.  Then we went back to the cottages for a little break and to make some dinner.

We bought some steaks earlier in the week and needed to cook them up before they went bad.  We also had some corn on the cob and some rice.  It was a super yummy meal.  I thought that we would have a bunch of steak left over but all the kids gobbled it all up.  We were all hungry people.
After dinner we headed to my grandpa's house for the crab feast.  My dad, Kevin, and his boys took the boat out in the water and crabbed from the boat and they were able to catch over 40 crabs, so we had a lot to cook up.

We don't really eat crab in our little family so that is why we ate before we went to the crab feast.
It is always fun to watch them cook the crab and then to crack it open and eat it.  The kids were not interested in eating the crab, they just wanted to play with their cousins.
Tony was so nice to play with the kids again.  I took a picture this time of all the kids sitting around Tony waiting for him to make up a game for them all to play.  So fun.
Once we were all tired we headed back to the cottages for a good nights sleep.  Another great day on the cool Oregon coast.

Oregon 2017: Day 5 - Great Grandpa Clark's 90th Birthday

We all go to grandpa's house and John had the yard all decorated for our little party for grandpa.  It was super sweet that John did so much to make it look good.
Beside all our family we also had a few extra visitors for the party.  Dorthy (the mom of Bruce), Bruce (my dad's childhood friend) and his wife with two of their friends, and then John and Wanda (who help my grandpa).

We started off with each of us adult kids taking turns talking about grandpa.  Then my mom and dad took their turns.  Everyone did a really good job.  Their was a lot of laughing and a lot of crying.  My grandpa has had such an awesome and selfless life.  It wasn't hard to have many awesome things to say about the man.  He is a hero to all of us kids.

After the adults talked all the great grand kids stood up and sang "Families can be together forever" and "I am a child of God" to my grandpa.  They all did such a good job.  Tyler, of course, got a little misty.  He's so sensitive.

After the kids sang my mom got up and told us that my grandpa really wanted to give gifts to all the great grand kids from him.  So my parents went out and got each of the grand children and great grand children fun toys, treats, and travel items that went in a hand made bag (made by my mom).  They even had some money in each bag for each of us to go get treats at the candy store.  A favorite tradition for everyone.

John got some jars for each of us, so that when we find beach treasures that we'll have a way to display them.  Idea's were to put sand in them or sea shells.  We were all excited about the possibilities.
After that we all sang "Happy Birthday" to my grandpa and had cake and ice cream.  It was the perfect evening for a party.  It was perfectly cool.

My grandpa did so good throughout the whole party.  He was able to come out in his wheel chair and spend the whole time with us.  John said that this was the best that my grandpa has done in a long time.  His health hasn't been very good and most days he doesn't really get out of his chair.  But with all of us there it really got him motivated to get out and see everyone.

After everyone was done eating their dessert we cleaned up while the kids played in the yard.  The kids had a great time coming up with games and played so well together.  Tony even got into the fun and started making up games for the kids to play.  The kids thought it was the best ever and had so much fun playing with Tony.  I thought it was pretty funny because the other men were in the warehouse trying to get the boat ready for the next day and Tony is out playing with the kids.  It made me laugh.  It was super helpful to have the kids occupied and happy so it was much appreciated that Tony is so good with the kids.  They all really did have a great time running around the yard and just enjoyed being kids (even Tony).  It was a great birthday party for my grandpa.  I can't believe he's 90 years old.  I sure love him lots!

Oregon 2017: Day 5 - Rogue River & Lucas Lodge

We got up bright and early to get on the road to drive to Gold Beach where we were all going to go on the jet boats.
We made it early enough to do a little shopping at the gift shops.  We found some cute snow globes for Tyler and Josh that had sea turtles and dolphins on them.  Megan and Allie picked out mermaid stuffed toys for their gifts.  They were all super cute.

By that time the whole family had made it there and we all got together and took some pictures before getting on our boat.  We were all really excited to go on the boat and hoped to see many fun animals.
Josh wanted to sit by Papa G, so he sat at the end of our row with him and grandma.  It was pretty adorable.

Allie was a little nervous at first not knowing what to expect.  She sat with Tony and he kept her calm as we got going.  Once we were underway she realized that it was fun and started feeling a lot better.
Our driver was really good and we got to see some fun animals on our journey.  We saw lots of birds, a few eagles, lots of nests, and other smaller creatures.  I really wanted to see a bear, but we did not.

We got to our lunch spot, Lucas Lodge, and had a few minutes of hanging out before lunch was ready.
My dad was so nice to pay for everyone's lunch and we were all super excited to eat some yummy fried chicken with all the fixin's.

They called our group in and we took over half of their really big table.  They started us off with fruit, then corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and gravy, fried chicken, and yummy biscuits.  When everyone was done they brought out bowls of vanilla ice cream with or without a yummy blackberry topping.  It was very refreshing and delish,
We only had a few minutes to walk around before we were to be back down to the water for our boat to pick us up.  We all made our way down there and waited for a while for out boat, they were a little late.
Once they came for us we all piled back in the boat and got ready for our fun ride back.  The driver stopped a lot less on the way back and does a lot more spins and tricks.

Tyler wanted to sit on the side of the boat and get wet so I let him.  He got so wet!  With all the spins and tricks it got us all really wet.  Some people hid under the blanket and then other's of us just took it all in.
Allie loved the boat ride back at first until she got wet, she did not like that at all.  Tony would try and keep her protected under the blanket but she didn't like that either.  The poor girl was just so tired and not liking getting wet or being under a blanket.  It took a little while, but Tony did get her to fall asleep and then he put the blanket over her to not wake her up.
Megan had fun getting wet and after a while decided that she wanted to sit up a row with aunt Wendy until she realized that it was uncle Gabe who had their cooler of snacks, then she wanted Gabe.  Once she made her way to Gabe instead of asking for a snack she just snuggled her way into him and had a fun ride back.  It was pretty adorable too.

After we got back to the parking lot we got into our car and headed back towards "home."  We did have a couple stops we wanted to make before we got there.  First was to the jam gift shop.  It is close to Bandon and they have fun things that they sell.  We chose some of their surprise goody bags where you don't know what you are getting until after you buy it.  It did say on the bag if it was for a boy, girl, etc.   Tony even talked me into getting one for myself. I ended up with four shot glasses.  Super awesome.

After that store it was ice cream time.  We love the ice cream at the cheese factory in Bandon.  It is super cheep and they give you lots of it.  We all got some yummy ice cream and ate it upstairs of the building.  After we were all done we headed back to the cottages.  We didn't have a lot of time before we were to be at my grandpa's for his big 90th birthday party.

Oregon 2017: Day 4 - Tie Dye Shirts, Lunch, & Waterfall Hike

Our first activity for the trip was tie dying shirts.  So Monday morning after we all ate breakfast and got ready for the day we headed to Great grandpa's house. 

My mom bought all the kids and grand kids white shirts and then got tie dying kits for us to go wild. The kids who went to Grandma Camp were all experts at tie dying but the rest of us were newbies and had fun figuring out how we wanted our shirts to look.

After we twisted our shirts and put our rubber bands on them how we wanted then it was time to dye the shirts.  My mom had us put on the dye over a crab cage.  Tony helped Megan and Allie do theirs how they said they wanted it and then Tyler and Josh did theirs all by themselves. Once we were all done with dying the shirts we put them in bags to set until we were ready to wash them in 24 hours.  

After we were all done with our shirts we went to lunch at the burger and shakes place.  Kevin and his family came with us and the rest of the family went to a sandwich place.  We all got some yummy food and had a good time. 

After we all ate we went back to the cottages to get ready to go on our hike to the waterfall.  I am not a huge fan of hiking and being around cliffs and drops really makes me anxious, but I knew that the kids would have a good time.

It took us a little over an hour to get to the waterfall.  The road seemed like it would go on forever and you'd never guess that the road ended with a little state park with trails for hiking.  

We took the first trail to see the waterfall and it was kind of scary.  It was good at first but then it got pretty hard to walk.  I was starting to worry about one of my kids falling down the mountain side or even down the water fall or rocks...my mama bear brain was going crazy. 

The kids loved seeing the waterfall and climbing all over the huge rocks.  While they were doing this I took some pictures before having a full blown panic attack.  Their are just so many ways that kids can fall and get hurt that I wouldn't know how to help them.  I just kept worrying about them all falling and I just couldn't handle it anymore.  After I started crying my mom helped me get Megan and Allie down the trail.  I don't normally get like that, but something about waterfalls and trails worries me so much.

Because of how I reacted we decided not to go do the other trail.  We decided to start driving back to the cottages to have some dinner.  We did find out later from the rest of the family that the other trail was much easier with no big drops.  Darn, oh well.  

We got back and ate some dinner.  We then let the kids hang out and then when the cousins came back they played with them.  Then it was bed time for the kids and DQ later that night for the adult siblings.  A great way to end our first full day in Coos Bay!