The long road home

It was a great week and as much as I wanted to stay and spend more time on the beach, we had to head home. It would take us 3 days of driving to get back to Vegas. We were driving down through California because we had to drop Mason off at scout camp just outside of Riverside. So for the next 3 days these two pics sum up what we are doing.


The kids did really well with all the traveling. Thank goodness for the TV and Nintendo DS. Chelsea was my co-pilot. She would text whatever i needed to other family members and helped me navigate. She did help drive a little bit (not as much as she wanted) but I found I couldn't rest even with her driving. When we got home I mapped out the trip and found that we had gone over 3500 miles and spent $540 in gas but the memories we created were PRICELESS!

Science Museum

After our boat ride we wandered into a science museum. We got lost in it for a couple of hours. So many hands on things to touch and experience. Chelsea and grandma loved the prenatal display which showed fetusus in all stages of development. Cord ran from display to display having a great time. Mason spent a lot of time in the robotics section playing 4 square controlling a robot arm. Brianna kept trying to see how long she could balance herself. This was an unexpected treasure. I wished we had more time to spend there but we were tired and needed to get back on the road.

Portland

Happy Birthday to me! Amber and Eric left to head for home, Maria & Tim rented a boat to go catch crabs, so my parents and I decided to go spend the day in Portland to celebrate.
The first thing we did was head to Washington Park to see their famous rose garden. I totally under estimated how cool that would be. Rows and rows of beautiful big roses.

But the main reason we went to Portland was to take a jet boat ride down the Willamette river. They warned us that we would "get wet" but I also under estimated how wet we would get. The driver would go really fast then come to an abrupt stop which would send a wave a water over the top of us. Cord did not like that and spent most of the ride hiding under a sweatshirt. The driver would also spin us around in a 360 deg turn which would soak one side of the boat. Along with the fun tricks, he showed us a lot of portland.

I want SMOREs

We had planned to head to the beach to build a fire and make smores but the wind kicked up, so we improvised. We huddled around the BBQ to roast the marshmellows. It all worked out well. Then we spent the evening playing games and just enjoying being together.

Free day

I'm so glad we had planned to be here for a week. But today we didn't have anything planned. While the kids slept in, I got up and went for a walk with my mom on the beach. We were looking for sand dollars. We found a bunch of broken ones, and I was lucky to find 1 complete one. A quiet walk on the beach was a great start. We all decided to kind of do our own thing. I asked the kids what they had really enjoyed and would like to do more of. They all voted to go back to Seaside. It was about an hour and 30 min away. I enjoy driving along the coast and seeing the beautiful views. Once we got to Seaside the kids wanted to do the rides again. This time Brianna was with us (last time she was busy shopping in a candy store with Kennedy). Just as much fun this time as yesterday. I thought the drive was worth it just to get another corndog (they were that good). In seaside they have an aquarium where they have seals you can feed. The seals must have been full because they just laid there as the kids threw fish at them. Brianna even had one land on it's belly but it just stared at her. The aquarium was nothing compared to the one we had been to in Newport, but they had this octopus that was cool. He was in a big pool that you could look down into. He was interesting (and ugly) to watch as he moved around his pool. Chelsea and Cord made some fun rubbings. After the aquarium the boys and I hit the beach while the girls did some more shopping. Mason tried to fly his kite again and built sand castles. Cord actually got into the water (he didn't care that it was cold). He kept chasing the waves and laughing. I stood there and enjoyed the moment of having fun with the kids. I just love being on the beach. As the day went on, we discovered that everyone had kind of ended up in Seaside as they were doing their own thing. We ended up all being together on the beach at the end of the day. I noted that even given the choice to be apart from each other we still chose to end up together. I guess that says something.