Oregon Summer Vay-cay

July was a whirlwind. It came and went so fast! This post won't cover everything because I was pretty terrible about taking pictures. I decided to live in the moments instead of always pulling out the camera for photo ops.

Our journey started the weekend of July 4th. We drove to Oregon to spend time with our families. It was really crazy that first week because there were tons of people around. We ended up doing several big group activities including a trip to the lake, a bbq on the 4th, and a big July birthday party on my Mom's birthday.

I've decided that I really hate sparklers. They are just so dangerous.

Neil was super pleased with all of his Minecraft loot.

The piñata was a hit!  :)

Later that first week we drove to the Tillamook Forestry Center. It's such a fun place to explore for a couple of hours. We listened to a Ranger talk about birds of prey, watched the video about the big forest fires, and hiked out back along the Wilson River. It was a slightly misty day, but not cold. It was so nice to breathe in the clean forest air. Afterwards we made the trek to the cheese factory for the obligatory grilled cheese sandwich followed by ice cream.

The kids and I had the chance to go trout fishing with Grandpa, Lincoln, and David. It was a pretty slow day for fish, but we did manage to get one in the boat. There were a couple of other bites. The kids all had the best time playing with the worms. They each had a handful of them and gave them names and made up all kind of games with them. It was a perfect day on the water!

Since I knew that we'd be around for the month of July, I signed the kids up for the free bowling program. We took advantage of that a few times. Neil really got into it this time. In the past he found bowling to be very boring. By the end of our vacation he was excited to go. 

We even had some fun at the batting cages. 

Of course on July 11 we had to hit up 7-11 for some tasty slurpees. We may or may not have gone to more than one.

Unfortunately, Chris was only able to be with us for that first week. The rest of the time we were hanging out with my mom and sisters. My dad left too for a family reunion in Minnesota. So, it was ladies' night all the time. (poor Jeff, Kee's hubby, he was stuck with a lot of estrogen)

Celebrating Neil's birthday at Red Robin

Claire had been saving all of her money for the last two years to buy an i-pod touch. She finally reached her goal! Yay! and Yikes!

We met up with friends at the park. Fun times at 53rd.

A true ladies' night at Papa Hydens in Portland. Delicious dessert and gab fest for four hours!!

Lots of cousin time!

An experiment with curls. 

We braved the beach on random weekday. We had been waiting for a nice day. Most of July was unusually mild this year. We were really hoping for a few hot days. Oh well. We had fun at Oceanside anyway. We hiked through the tunnel, played in the water, and played bocce ball in the sand.

Since we were so close, we had to stop for some ice cream! 

We hit up the library and fed the ducks.

We had fun at the family "camp out". The kids all got plenty dirty and all ran around like crazy until dark with glow sticks and a nice fire. 

We even broke out the marshmallow guns for a nice little fight in the yard.

Finally the weather started to warm up so we spent a bunch of time outside in the pool. This big pool was a hit!

Once my dad returned from his trip, we made a couple of more trips to Hagg Lake for some tubing. I really love being out there. It is one of my happy places. Just being out on the water is so relaxing to me. This time Neil was brave enough to ride the tube. He loved it!

More bowling took place.

We walked down to the fields near my parent's house where we found blackberries, apples, and pears to pick.

The kids had a blast spending the night in this camper in the back yard with Aunt Kee and Uncle Jeff.

On our last weekend, we headed to the Fair. It was fun to get a big ice cream cone, elephant ear, and walk around to see the animals. 

On our very last day Chris was back. He had come to help us make the drive home. We went to Hagg Lake one more time to see if his brother's boat that he built would float. It was a fun experiment. The boat did float, but wasn't very stable. He flipped it a couple of times. Time for some readjustments. The kids had a great time swimming off shore. It really was a perfect day out on the water!

The rest of our trip was spent hanging out with our family and friends. We were able to see a few of our friends which was really nice. Everyone was on their own vacations, so it was hard to line up our schedules. The kids did a bunch of crafts with Grandma Phillips, had a few sleepovers with aunts and uncles, and swam a lot! We saw a bunch of movies and played many games. I really enjoyed hanging out with my mom and sisters. I'm not sure how long it will be until we have another summer quite like it. 

Now we are home, and it's good to be back. Time to settle in and get things ready for the new school year. Grace and Neil have already started soccer practice. And so it begins....