First day of Kindergarten

Since we were in Oregon, today was Sawyer's first day of Kindergarten. We started off the day dropping Kent off at the airport for a business trip, picking up the dog from the kennel, and then racing (within the speed limit of course) to the doctor's office.

Sawyer got a finger poke for Connecticut's school health form and four immunizations. Let me tell you, he is a screamer! It was ridiculous. I would have smacked the kid if I was the nurse (no I never smacked anyone's kid as a nurse even though there were a couple that could have used it).

Then we got McDonald's to ease the pain of the shots.

After school we picked up Sawyer. His four shots have kicked in and he is a bit sore and emotional. He said school was boring. Then McKinley asked him about his shots and he started crying again. He wobbled the whole way home. We stopped and got a snow cone for his first day, but he didn't want it until 1 dose of Ibuprofen and 2 hours later.

Great timing on the shots mom!

Oregon Day 6

Going home day, and by the end of vacation I'm ready to go home to my own place.

Loved Oregon, loved where we stayed, loved the people I was with. I'm so glad we could do this together. We needed some together time amidst all the moving hulla-baloo.
I didn't have to clean my house all week for people to come and walk through at a moment's notice. In fact, one of my favorite moments of the vacation was coming back to the condo and seeing that the housekeeping had done all the dishes I had left. Lame I know, but it made me so happy!

Good-bye Oregon!

Oregon Day 5

I know we're crazy, but since we used to live there we had to drive to Seattle. What were we thinking? It's not close.

Anyway, we went to Pike's Place Market, ate lunch on the pier, and rode the elevator up to the top of the Space Needle. I wanted to take the kids on a harbor cruise, but someone was a party pooper. It was raining in Seattle of course. We did see the Blue Angels do a fly over Seattle. We drove by our old apartement and then back to Oregon.

At least the kids can mark Seattle off their travel lists.

My favorite part of Pike's Place is of course the fish stand, and the rows of flowers. These bunches were $5 each! I wish I could have bought one, but I didn't think they'd make the luggage trip home. We all (except Kent) got a flavored honey stick...yum!

It's raining so Sawyer didn't want to go get his picture taken.

The Space Needle of course. What a rip off, but you have to do it once if you're a tourist. I think this was Kent and my 4th time.

Such a fun town though.
Good-bye Seattle!

Oregon Day 4

Kent still had a migraine.

I took the kids to the Gearheart beach for 3 hours in the morning. They loved just going to the beach and playing around. I took my book and was able to read a little.

After lunch and a little break we went to Seaside a few miles south. The whole family walked the Promenade, played in the Arcade, swung on the swings on the beach, kids got an ice cream cone, I got an "elephant ear".

We finished off the evening with dinner and a movie back at the condo.

Seaside's beach. Lots more people than the Gearheart beach.

Oregon Day 3

This was a long driving day. We drove down to Newport (over 3 hours away). We visited the aquarium (which was fun, but not 3 hour drive fun), and the Yaquina Head Lighthouse (which closed 20 minutes before we got there...who closes at 4 pm?!). We were supposed to visit a couple of beaches down there, but high tide was coming in so I skipped it. We did stop by Depoe Bay for a few minutes. Just long enough for the boys to "need" to go potty in an outhouse. In fact Hayden decided to lay down on the ground inside said outhouse. On the way back to the car he touched a railing with bird poop. When we got in the car I saw one of his hands covered in something. I like to pretend it was the bird poop, but I can't shake the image of him laying down on the floor of an outhouse. Disgusting to say the least.

3 hour drive back. We skipped the trip to Florence which would have added 1 hour each way. The sea lion caves are overrated anyway.

The jellyfish looked really cool.

The boys were so excited to see the shark tank tunnel. Sawyer thought there would be bigger sharks in there though.


This lighthouse was so beautiful and picturesque. I was sad it was closed already. Kent reassured me there will be plenty of lighthouses back East though.


Oh and Kent had a migraine the whole day.

Oregon Day 2

Cannon Beach.


So beautiful. Although we had quite a hike to get out near Haystack Rock from where we parked. I wanted to be by the tide pools at low tide.

It was the perfect beach weather...I got to wear a sweatshirt instead of a swimming suit :)

The condo we stayed at had complimentary use of buckets and shovels. (And other stuff but we only used the buckets and shovels.)

A lone star in the tide pools.

Haystack Rock.


We waded out a little ways to see bunches of starfish clinging to the sides of the rock at low tide. We also saw little crabs, mussels, barnacles, and sea anemones in the tide pools.

We were loving the water, but it gets a little chilly.

The boys

and the girl

the tide pool area

We buried all three kids together up to their necks. It was nice.

Lovely day!

Oregon Day 1

We finally took my trip to the Oregon Coast. I remember going as a teenager and wanted to show my kids this piece of the world. We started with a new rental car with 4 miles on it and returned it with about 850 miles on it!

Day 1-Woke up really early to get to the airport and our 8:30 am flight. What was I thinking?!

Arrived in Portland, got our rental (a vehicle with 3 rows and I am in love with that now!), and drove to our hotel in Gearheart, Oregon.

We got to our hotel a couple hours early so we went to the beach a couple blocks away and played. The boys clothes got soaking so when the room was ready we had to do our first outfit change.

We stayed in a condo called the Fitzgerald Cottages. Gearheart was a quaint, quiet little town, and the beaches were very uncrowded. We had 4 bunkbeds for the kids, and a separate room for us, a living room, bathroom, and kitchen area.

Next we checked in, got settled, then went grocery shopping in Seaside. Had to stock that kitchen up. I don't really like eating out for every meal, besides it being expensive.

Back to the beach. Dinner. Watched a movie together supplied by the many dvd's in the condo office.

Bed.

No pictures today....weird.