Camping - Newport

This summer we went on our longest camping trip to date - three nights!  We'd certainly love to make it longer, but we'll take what we can get.  For this trip, we headed to the coast.  We wanted to make our way down to Coos Bay.  As our trip drew near, we kept a close eye on the weather and were sad to find out that the first night of our trip was supposed to be super rainy and windy!  We know that's no fun in a tent, so we searched for any available yurt along the coast.  Reservations for these state park yurts and cabins fill up quickly.  The closest one I could find to our destination was just north of Newport - over two and a half hours away.  Oh, well, we can have fun wherever we are.  

This is Beverly Beach, where our yurt was located.

We always enjoy a trip into Newport.  We love to go to the docks and watch the sea lions.  This time though we were delighted to see our very first jelly fish swimming along in the water!  It was so fun to see it swish around.

The kids had so much fun spending the night in the yurt.  Boy! Were we glad that we made that decision!  It rained and poured and the wind was SO LOUD!  I was so glad we weren't in a tent for all that.  

The next morning was bright and sunny.  We made our way to the lighthouse there in Newport called the Yaquina Head Lighthouse.

We were able to take a tour of this lighthouse and even climb to the top of it.  Lincoln and I didn't much care for the winding, climbing, narrow staircase so we opted out.  I'm actually glad I did though because I was able to see Ethan and each kid as they peered out of the lighthouse from the very top.  I think this is Maria you can see waving from up there.

You know, I was thinking, some people might think I missed out by not climbing to the top of that lighthouse and seeing the view of the coast and ocean from way up there.  But to me, it's all about perspective.  For some people, the top of the lighthouse is the perfect perspective, adventurous and vast.  But for me, the perfect perspective was looking up from below.  Seeing each of my kids faces as they spotted me from on high and excitedly waved to me, that is the perfect spot for me.  I loved it.  It excited me more than the alternative ever could have.

Soccer

This is the second fall the kids have played soccer.  Many in our community get together on a volunteer basis to put on this short, free, but fun soccer league for the kids.  My favorite part about this program is that all the kids from 4 to 12 all practice and compete in the same location at the same time (on separate teams according to their age).  It makes for a pretty crazy field, and, with the way the field is divided up, the little ones end up with pretty small playing fields, but it's been a great way to introduce our kids to soccer without having to drive here and there and every which way and who knows what time.  It's also been fun to see how the kids have improved from last season to this.  

Lincoln made HUGE improvements.  He seemed pretty uninterested last year.  This year he was right there in the middle of the action all the time.  He loved it and did his very best.

Hudson had great fun both years, but I think he is ready to move on to a more competitive soccer league for this year.   It's been fun to see him work hard and develop more confidence in his abilities. He always works hard and takes it seriously.

Libby is the most fun to watch.  She has a blast and is a ray of sunshine in every practice and every game.  She basically serves as soccer player and cheerleader at the same time.  She loves meeting new kids and getting to know them.  It makes it hard for her to be aggressive when she's a friend to everyone!  She's constantly moving, even when the ball is not in play.  She pushes herself hard, ending up completely worn out at the end of each day.  I loved watching her play, giggling and smiling the whole way through.

There's Hudson in there, black shorts with blue stripe, in the middle of that mess.

Ethan and the kids after a great game.  Ethan got to be Maria's coach both years.

I think Maria is also ready for a more competitive league.  It was so fun to watch her improve so much over the two years.  She was definitely our most improved player.  It was especially fun for her dad, as her coach, to see her get more aggressive and go for that ball!  She did a super job!

The kids absolutely love soccer.  It's great that they get this opportunity to play and learn and grow and have fun.  It's basketball season now.  Hudson just started his first year.  He is beyond excited and is loving every practice!  Maria was supposed to start basketball this winter too, but she got pneumonia instead.  Poor girl!  I feel especially bad - she got it from me!  Let's just say, this hasn't been our best winter.  The Christmas season and the new year has been spent being super sick and convalescing for half the family.  We definitely look forward to healthier times when we can use our bodies again!

Timothy Lake

At some point this summer, I think it was in August, we went camping.  It was just a one nighter, but we had a great time.  We started out by camping at Summit Lake . . . or what we thought was Summit Lake.  Apparently, and we didn't know this until later, there are actually two Summit Lakes in Oregon.  We saw the pictures online of the other Summit Lake and thought it would be a great place to go canoeing.  Imagine our confusion when we showed up at this Summit Lake and it looked more like a pond.

This Summit Lake that we went to is close to Timothy Lake.  It has a pretty rough campground and the sites are mostly walk ins.  I didn't particularly enjoy hauling all our camping gear from the car, through the forest, to our site.  I suppose it wasn't too far, but still.  I'm spoiled I guess.

One of my favorite things is lying in the tent looking  up at the trees and sky.  I can never resist getting a picture of that.

I don't actually have any pictures of the Summit Lake we went to.  Not sure why I didn't get any.  In the morning we decided that it might actually be more fun to canoe around Timothy Lake, which was pretty close.  We ended up being pretty happy with that decision.  Timothy Lake was a great place to canoe and play in the water.  We all had a blast.

None of the kids had been canoeing before.  They thought it was so great.  They all loved it.

This girl loved floating in the lake with her life jacket on.  It was pretty cute.

The kids got a chance to paddle the canoe around without Dad's help.  They sure loved that!

It was such a great day at the lake.  It was hot, but not too hot - just right where I was, sitting in the shade.  It was a Saturday, so there were quite a lot of people there, but as you can see, not too many to  keep us from having a great time.  We definitely need to go back and canoe again.

Grist Mill and Ape Cave

This summer we had a chance to run up to Washington to visit the Ape Cave near Mount St. Helens.  Ethan found this nice little grist mill for us to visit on the way there.  It was fun to explore and see the working mill.  

Close to the Ape Cave is this quick little hike called the Trail of Two Forests that shows what happens when lava flows through a forest.  

Here we have a lava cast that formed when the lava flowed around the trees.  The kids had great fun crawling through these lava casts.  The had to do it again and again.

Here they are with their Aunt Kimberly who was visiting at the time.

After this short hike, we went to the Ape Cave.  The Ape Cave is a 2.5 mile long lava tube formed around 2,000 years ago.  The eruption that formed this lava tube is special because it was the only known basaltic eruption from this volcano.  Basaltic lava is common in Hawaii but not in the Cascade Range.  I also thought it was interesting that a logger discovered the cave in 1947 but the cave wasn't explored until the early 1950's by a scout troop.  They are the ones that named it the Ape Cave in honor of their sponsor the St. Helens Apes.

I don't have any pictures of our walk through the cave.  There were a lot of people going through that day.  And it was dark.  And, I don't really enjoy being in caves so I wasn't really in the mood to get out my camera.  But the kids had fun.  I'll admit, it was pretty interesting to walk through such a long, huge tube.  But I will also admit I got a little bored.  Cave, cave, cave, all the way to the end, then you have to turn around and walk back out.

I do, however, love seeing all the different things there are to see in this world.  I've been in such a small part of this world, but what I've seen is amazing.  I love that we try as best as we can to explore every inch of where we are. We have done and seen so much in our three years here in the Pacific Northwest, and there is still SO MUCH left for us to explore.

Track Time

I know it's January and a new year, but I'm behind in my blogging so here we have something from July.  This summer the kids had a chance to try some track and field events at a local high school. 

Hudson tried a lot of different events.  It was a fun surprise to find out he is great at shot put!  He's small, but he's strong.  He won first place in shot put both times he competed.

As we knew she would be, Libby was great at running.  One first place and many second places.  

Maria tried hurdles.  It was fun to see her try even though most of the girls she competed against we a lot more experienced than her.  She did a great job!

Hudson did great with the high jump as well.  He's short, but he's a great jumper.

Lincoln actually did pretty well with the shot put for his age.  Here he is doing the long jump.  He had   such a great time and took it very seriously, always trying his best.

They all had a great time and loved getting a chance to try out these different sports that they had never done before.