The last few days in Oregon

You can guess that since I have fallen so far behind, it was finally time to make a slide show of just a portion on the remaining 150 pictures of our trip (Yes... we are obsessed with the Oregon Coast). I narrowed it down a bit and here are some of my absolute favorites. It was great. The sun actually came out. We toured and hiked and had roasted mallows and jumped in the sand and had an all around great time. We can't wait to go and do it all again.

Thanks Duane and Natalie for hosting us and showing us a great time.

Oregon Coast- Day 4

Our 4th day in Oregon was the day that we planned to head to the Coast for a few days... and look who showed up just in time to go with us!

Nana and Vatti

(they also brought Bridgett with them, and even convinced Martie (my step-grandma) to come too.)

First stop- Cannon Beach, or "The Cannon Ball Beach with the Haystack Rock" as Gavin calls it.

We were pretty excited to be there if you can't tell. We had to run in the freezing cold water just to show our enthusiasm.

Henry was not a fan of the wind, so he was a bit sullen and mopey at Cannon Beach. You can tell that he was the one born in Utah.

Next stop was a nice little hike to Smuggler's Cove. We did get lost a few times and Vatti had a root jump out of the ground and trip him, but it was all part of soaking up the green.

Caleb and Vatti watching the surfers brave the cold.

From there we headed to the beach house that Nana and Vatti had rented for us all to stay in together in Rockaway Beach. It was so fabulous to be right on the coast, and so nice to all be together. (Thanks Parents!)

Kaylee and Henry headed right into the sand to get filthy and start building castles.

Natalie showed off a few of her skills with the sand dragon. Vatti and Gavin gathered the shells and seaweed for all of his details... and supposedly Duane helped with the sculpting, but I was cooking dinner and didn't witness it.

Pretty Cool.

Nat also helped Bridgett decorate her sand turtle.

At the end of our first day is was still windy and cloudy and even rained a little, but luckily we had a diverse coast experience and have more to show as I continue to sort through the pictures and load all our readers with the full experience. :-)

Day 3- Portland Temple and Remembering

I obviously fell behind on my trip blogging, but the wait will be worthwhile.

Day 3- Caleb and I went to the Portland Temple early in the morning. Since this is where we got engaged, we had to find the time to go to a session while we were in Oregon. Duane was nice enough to take care of the boys for us, even though he had to wake up really early. We didn't take any pictures there, but here is a little blast from the past to remind us why we love Oregon so much.

At one of our favorite spots on the Oregon Coast.

Caleb called this- "Taking the Plunge" (He actually got the outfits, as you can see since mine didn't fit, and orchestrated the whole thing.) Good Times.

Somewhere there is video of the whole event, as well as some excellent footage of Joe wearing the white dress and jumping with Caleb from cliffs that I wouldn't dare. We'll round those up for another day. :-)

Sweet Home and Swimming Hole- Day 2

For the second day of our trip we went to one of our favorite places ever... Sweet Home. Here are a few of the reasons we love it so much. Some of our favorite people live here, or near here. Here are a few of the Bastings that we got to see.

Seth, Donna and Amber, and a little glimpse of baby Molly.

One of the other things that we love about coming to Sweet Home is getting to swim in some super fabulous swimming holes. The first place that we hit was a cliff jumping spot along the Santiam River. It is glacier run-off, so very cold, but usual quite clear. The water is too cold and deep and the cliffs too high for all of us to brave the jumps. So we split in to two groups.

The Spectators.

And the Jumpers!

Duane

Caleb

Our second swimming stop was to the kid friendly spot. One of the few near Foster Lake that you can walk in to the water. Amber and her boys met us there to play. Grant and Henry had lots of fun throwing rock in the water at everyone else.

One high... One low.

Henry and Dad just swimming around.

The last swimming stop was to our favorite place of all... The Weigh Station... and also a beautiful little hike to the jumping spot. This place has the warmest water (still a shock of cold), and so many jumps from all levels for everyone. It was just as good I remember it.

Look at that fabulous form.

Double jump. And Natalie's first cliff jump ever.

We also got to hang out at Donna and Jim's house, which is our other favorite Sweet Home stop. We have so many great memories of being with them. We were so grateful to get to see them and get to spend time enjoying their company.

Trip to Oregon- Day 1- Portland

First Stop- Voodoo Doughnut... a crazy doughnut shop in downtown Portland that specializes in making crazy loaded and surprising doughnut combination.

Henry's had cotton candy on top, and pink sprinkles... he looked a bit sick after eating the top off. Duane's was covered with Captain Crunch Berries, and we had everything from Butterfinger chips, to Oreo pieces... we were on a sugar rush for our next stop.

Then we took a trip to the Rose Gardens. There were more roses than I ever would have known existed. We walked around enjoying the colors and trying to keep the kids from running people over.

We were constantly surrounded. Pretty cool.

Duane and Natalie off in a cluster of roses.

Cardon Family Fun

We have been staying super busy having some of the Cardon extended family in town since the end of July. Caleb's parents and his sister, Crystal (with her family) have been visiting. We have done a lot of hanging out and also tried to get out and have some fun together too. I forgot my camera for a few things, but here are some of our fun moments in the last few weeks.

We took a trip to Farm Country and did lots of feeding corn to little animals.

This was Henry's "favit baby goat."

Some wild muttin bustin...

Gavin and Mals scrounging for corn on the ground next to the baby horse and the sign that says not to feed the baby animals any corn... Good thing Rachel was watching out for them.

Lots and Lots of jumping and bouncing.

We even went on a good Utah hike.

Papa carrying Henry, with Libbie, Caden, Mia and Gavin.

Macy looking beautiful in front of the wildflowers.

Stacy and Mia leading the pack.

Gavin was pretty much in this spot for most of the summer... as close to Libbie as he could be... he has pretty much started a Libbie fan club. Luckily, she is such a great girl and so nice to him and all the younger kids, that she doesn't seem to let the "Libbie worship" go to her head.

After the hiking, we went swimming... and I should have had my camera out for it. It was the first time in a month that we had taken Henry swimming and he was a maniac. He would through a dive ball off the highest step and then say, "I get it." and pinch his little nose like he was going to just dive right into the 3 feet of water and get the ball from the bottom of the pool. He was so crazy, I had to stay quite close to him and even then he was asking me to toss him under the water and to watch him put his own head in. Finally he did walk off the step into water above his head, and luckily Stacy was moving quickly and yanked him back out. He didn't even swallow any water when he did it, and came up not acting the least bit worried. From now on we teach him to swim and keep a close eye on him.

Zion Nation Park- The Subway

Zion National Park is one of my favorite places on earth. When we drive there, I can feel myself becoming a bit calmer and more at ease, the closer we get. Something about that place just speaks good things to my soul.

Last week, We had the chance to go there with some of Caleb's family do hike that Caleb had gone and tried out with several friends a few weeks before. It is a difficulty hike that requires a permit, and do to Caleb's careful study of the trends of the permit process, he was able to score two this summer.

The first time he went, along with several other guys, he took our friends the Newlands, so that they could help him navigate the climbs and repelling portions. Needless to say, that out of the over 600 pictures that the group of 6 men took, there wasn't much that actually showed us the challenges that we would be up against on the hike... Turns out that is probably a good thing, since I don't think I could have convinced both of my sister-in-laws to come if they had known exactly what we would be dealing with. Our group consisted of Caleb, Me, Jeff (C's Dad), Crystal and Rich (C's sister and hubby), and Nathan and Stacy (C's brother and wife).

In the end, we all survived, and also conquered some fears and showed strength and ability. While, I didn't go into this with any specific fears, like swimming or repelling, it was still fun for me to do something that challenged me, and a type of hike that I have never done before.

We were colder than we would have ever thought possible in Southern Utah in August, and when the wind picked up, we used up a lot of energy just violently shivering. This is the moment that the wind started in full force... luckily we still had the warmest and driest half of the hike to go.

The slide show is long, so congrats if you made it all the way through, but it does show some fabulous moments and some great memories. We were so blessed to have a wonderful Grandma and Aunt Rachel and Uncle Brennan who were willing to care of all 9 of the kids while we were gone.

Happy Birthday to a Handsome Husband

Doesn't he look thrilled to have all this attention?

Mallory and Gavin are pretty excited about it.

Hope you had a great day. We love you.