What's a mom to do....

...when her kids are with their dad for 3 weeks?  Move into a town home and go on vacation with her parents of course :)  I was able to get a job down in Washington County at the end of the school year.  I will be working at Desert Hills Middle School teaching 8th and 9th grade math.  Kind of nervous but I hope it all goes well.  Then I was able to get a town home literally 3 blocks away.  So after I got back from Bear Lake, I put my dad and Jay to work hauling all my stuff from my storage units to my new place.  Then I spent the entire week trying to put the house together.  But of course I wasn't going to spend the rest of my summer break unpacking because you can only unpack by yourself so much.  I made sure that the kid's rooms were ready before I took on vacation.

My niece, Issy, was getting baptized up in Seattle at the beginning of August.  My parents had decided to take a trip up the Oregon coast and end in Seattle to be at the baptism.  They invited me to tag along since I didn't have my kids.  So I did.  And man am I so glad I did.  This trip was wonderful, well everything but the first day and a half and the last day and a half.  My dad had worked the Friday night before we left so my mom and I were in charge of driving all day Saturday.  We were heading to my Nate and Katie's house in Reno.  The drive from St. George to Reno is soooooooooo boring.  My mom and I would take turns driving.  We would get in the car and the gps would say that the next turn was 150 miles.  So we would alternate driving at the next turn.  We did get stopped because a helicopter had landed on the road.  We think that someone was getting transported by ambulance from one of the podunk towns but they called for the chopper and met it somewhere along the way.  But Nevada is a very boring state and I hope to never drive those roads again.  We got to Nate's house and was able to talk with them and the kids for quite a while.  We actually went for a walk to see how close they were to school and the park.  They also live really close to a mountain so they often go hiking.

We left their house Sunday morning and drove to Lake Tahoe.  I had never been to this Lake but I could definitely go back again.  It was so pretty and there were a lot of fun shops.  I actually got something for Aspen's hair.

After Lake Tahoe we drove over the mountains in California to get to the coast.  This drive was not as boring as Nevada but still not very boring.  It is a good thing I brought some books to keep me entertained :)  We started our adventure Monday morning by going to see the redwoods.  We chose to go to Avenue of the Giants.  This was a 30 mile stretch of just redwoods.  These trees are just amazing.  They are so tall and so big.  I had so much fun taking pictures with them.  The trees that have fallen down start rotting in some unique shapes and even the ones that are still standing have big holes that you can stand inside the tree.  We didn't even get to the actual National Redwood Forest but I definitely want to get back there again.

 

After the redwoods we started to head north to get to Oregon.  The scenery was just beautiful.  I took about 400 pictures on this trip and my dad probably doubled my count, at least.  (I am going to try and recap everything we saw but I am writing this 3 weeks after the fact).

 

 We first stopped at the Oregon coast visitor's center.  It was kind of a foggy day that morning so we couldn't see much of the ocean.  We did go on a little trail and found a cool hide-a-way built out of the trees.  We also stopped and looked at the largest Cypress tree.  After seeing the redwoods, this tree didn't look very large but I am guessing that for the type of tree it is, it is large.

We stopped in at Brookings.  I can't remember if we stayed the night there or just ate lunch there.  We attempted to do the Whaleshead trail.  For most of the coast, if you want to get down on the beach you had to hike down.  This particular trail was a steep climb down which meant a steep climb back up.  There was a rock out in the ocean that was shaped like a whale if you could make it past the trees.  My dad went all the way down to get a picture for my mom and me.  I had decided to go down to see it but my dad was climbing back up at that point so I just looked at the pictures.

We got to see Natural Bridge Cove.  It looked like the arch had just been carved out of the rock and really did make a bridge.

Umpqua Lighthouse

We stopped in at Port Orford where we ate lunch.  Port Orford is the oldest town on the Oregon coast.

There are eight lighthouses along the Oregon coast.  We stopped at the Cape Blanco lighthouse but the one day they are closed was the day we showed up.  We at least got a picture of it and later learned that this lighthouse was the only one that allowed visitors to get up inside the lens.

Heceta Lighthouse

 Playin' on the rocks :)

Yaqunia Lighthouse

We stayed in Coos Bay one night, which is the largest city on the coast.  The next morning we headed out to the Umpqua lighthouse.  We took a tour of it and could look up in the lens but that is it.  We also got to see the Heceta Head Lighthouse.  At this lighthouse, there was about 1/2 mile hike up to it.  We took a tour of this lighthouse as well.  On the way back down to the car, we took a slight detour and played on the rocks :)  So much fun to just climb around on the rocks, it would have been heaven to Colt.

Cape Meares

Tillamook lighthouse is on the rock way out there.

We also saw the Yaquina Bay lighthouse but the tours had closed by the time we got there.  We also saw the sign for the 45th parallel, the midway point between the equator and the north pole.  And we actually saw a sign in Idaho for the 45th parallel on our way home.

After staying in Lincoln city, we headed up to the Tillamook cheese factory.  It was interesting to see how the cheese is packaged and what the workers do.  I also learned that Tillamook makes ice cream :)  Couldn't pass up ice cream straight from the factory.  And it was good ice cream at that.  After the cheese factory, we stopped by one more lighthouse, Cape Meares.  This lighthouse is no longer used so we were able to get an up close look at the area around the lens.  I just find lighthouses fascinating and what was needed to keep them running.

We stayed in Seaside that night.  We did a little shopping and then ate at Dooger's.  I convinced my mom to order seafood.  She was hesitant to order it but I told her if you like seafood then you need to eat it at a place that gets it fresh :)  I think she was happy with her choice.  After we did a little more shopping in the morning, we headed out to Astoria.  We didn't stop and do any shopping but did see the big ships up close.

We headed to my cousin's house for the night.  I was finally able to meet Tylor's wife, Victoria, and his two kids.  Nicholas is 5 and just the cutest thing ever.  He was very excited to be going to school this year.  He was my little shadow while we were there.  We went to IHOP in the morning and Nicholas wanted to sit by me and then ordered the junior version of what I was having.  Tylor laughed because he usually orders the same thing every time he goes there.

After we left IHOP we headed into Seattle for Issy's baptism.  It was a very nice service.  Justyn baptized her and her Grandpa Bailey confirmed her.  I was finally able to meet Rachel's brother, Jason.  It was nice to see Justyn's kids while we were there as well.  After the baptism, my parents and I went across the street and did sealings at the Seattle temple.  This was the first temple that I had been to that had escalators :)  It was very nice to do some temple work again with my parents.

We headed out after the temple.  I can't remember the town that we stayed in but I do remember that there were quite a few churches in the town.  In fact, there was one across the street from our hotel.  Since the next day was Sunday, my mom wanted to go to church.  I told her no and that she shouldn't try to convince me to attend a different religion.  She claimed that it would be fun.  But I won and we didn't go.  However, this is where the Chris curse took over the trip.  We had stopped at a Taco Bell in Meridan, ID for lunch.  About two hours after we left, my dad discovered that he didn't have his phone. Not a good thing because he uses it for his business.  We called my cousin Ryan, who lives in Meridan, and he went to the Taco Bell to see if he could find it.  He couldn't :(  So my dad thinks that he put his phone on top of the car and then we drove off.  It must have fallen off the car and shattered on the side of the freeway.  So we were a little late getting to my Uncle Bob's house for the night.  We were still able to chat with them for a little bit.  We got to chat with Nancy even more in the morning.  She made us pancakes and they were delicious.

We headed out to go pick up my kids.  Aspen and Colt had no idea that I would be with grandma and grandpa.  They were really surprised when I came walking out of the bathroom.  It was so good to see them after 3 weeks.  I showed them some of the pictures from my trip.  I had taken Aspen's dolphin and Colt's Shamu on the trip with me and taken pictures of them at various places.  They thought that was so awesome.

When we got back to St. George, we had to hurry and unpack so my dad could leave and get his phone situation taken care of.  I told the kids to go put their stuff in their room.  When I got in there, the kids were confused as to where their stuff was.  I had them check in my room but they only saw that all of my stuff was gone as well.  I asked Aspen what that could possibly mean.  She said that we moved.  So we took off so they could see their new place.  I also told them about my new job and that we would be staying in St. George permanently.  The kids loved the house and especially love having their own rooms again.  But I don't think they could have possibly imagined that they had access to a swimming pool.  They went swimming that night.

All in all, it was a great way to end summer break.