Other Happenings This Month

 Now that I have blogged about the biggest events that happened this month now I'm going to go back through the month and share some smaller events (although some of these smaller events were a big event). 

On Wednesday the 11th of August (just a couple days after our Oregon trip) was the big day for Jack to get his braces off and now he's sporting a retainer. He just has to take it out of his mouth when he eats food or drinks anything besides water to keep it clean.

Braces on...

Braces off!! But wearing a new retainer.

A shot without the retainer.

And the girls were having a little fun one day on the hoverboard. It was pretty darn cute with Charlotte giving Alice a piggy back ride...in style!

Friday the 13th was a very special day, not unlucky at all in fact, because it was the actual anniversary of my in laws and they got together with mostly family and a few close friends to celebrate. The crazy thing is that the day they got married 50 years ago was also on a Friday! The back yard was set up with tables and decorations in the same colors as when they got married. We ate lots of good food including grilled steak and chicken along with different salads, veggie tray, fruits and desserts. We brought chicken ramen salad and frog eye salad and brownies. I enjoyed holding my niece's 3 month old baby, Gwen and then just visiting here and there. Then watching others visit and have a good time. I was so much in the moment that I didn't get many pictures but here are a few from that evening.

The welcome sign in the front yard.

We watched a slideshow of pictures of them throughout the years with their children and grandchildren. Then they did the cutting of the cake and yes they did smash it into each other's faces! I got a video of that.

After cleaning themselves up they got up and spoke a little bit about each other and their family. It was a great evening.

Just as we were about to leave for home I got a quick selfie with my mother in law, Gaya. She looked especially beautiful that day since Shauna did her hair up nice.

Jack really wanted to earn some money so he could buy a special Lego set so he called my grandma (GG) to see if she had any work for him to do. She had him come over on Wednesday the 18th and pull weeds around her garden. I can't remember if he did anything else but he earned what he needed to and then had me take him to the store (after he took out enough for tithing). 

He bought himself a Super Mario Lego set.

This boy loves Mario! And this particular Mario is electronic so it lights up, his eyes move and it makes sounds and music.

The very next day was the first day of school for the 4 oldest kids (Thursday Aug 19th). We did a little bit of shopping that week to get some supplies and shoes for those who needed it plus a few other clothing items. I would say that Garrett and Charlotte were excited but Nikki and Jack not as much but they did all enjoy seeing friends again.

I saw an old friend of mine post something about school and I knew that she was going to be starting a new preschool this year at her church building which is the Christian Faith Center across the street from West Middle School. She has been a preschool teacher at the Rec Center for years. I was thinking about putting Alice in preschool but wasn't really sure and by now most preschools are filled. I went ahead and sent her a message asking if there were any spots available. She sent back some voice recordings saying that there were some spots available and filling me in with other information as well. I was a little hesitant because of the cost being $175 a month but after talking to Curtis about it I really wanted her to have something. So I signed her up and I'm not only hoping that it will help her with learning alphabet and numbers, etc but to also help her in her speech. We went to a parent meeting Friday the 20th to meet her teacher (there are a team of teachers so Alice did not actually get my friend as her teacher but that's ok). They also went over expectations and handed out a handbook. It's kind of neat because my friend is a big Jesus supporter and not afraid to say it so part of their learning will be from bible stories, etc. Alice's first day of school was on Monday the 23rd. She goes Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 8:45-11:45am. So far she loves preschool!

This was at the parent meeting. They were doing the alligator song I think.

On her first day of preschool.

Her teacher is the one by the door holding the cones. The other gal is an assistant for her class.

The same night that we had the parent meeting Curtis and I decided we wanted to do a puzzle so we did my Multnomah Waterfall puzzle. It was a lot more difficult than we thought it would be because of some very odd shaped pieces. It was a 500 piece puzzle but did not finish until the next morning.  We put it on the mat so I could roll it up and take it to my dad's to glue it and frame it so I can hang it up. We still haven't done it so it's just sitting my my closet. It was fun to change things up from watching a movie on Friday night to doing a puzzle together instead.

I think that's all I better put in this post. It's already pretty long but at least I'm getting caught up again!

Butterfield Oregon Coast Trip (Day 4)

Our Sabbath morning started out quiet and peaceful. Ricky and Jenna left early to go visit her brother up in Portland. Wendy and Steve decided to go do some shopping. We thought Jeanie and Glen went with them but much later they came out of their room. Mom and Dad, Shauna, John, Casey and Amber all went to church in Newport I think. Curtis and I decided to stay back at the house so we could watch the broadcast of my nephew Blake giving his homecoming talk in his ward. We cleaned up the kitchen and table areas while waiting and listening. Blake gave such a great talk. I'm so glad we didn't miss it! After they returned from church some of us participated in a Come Follow Me lesson discussion and I heard some things that I needed to hear. It was great.

Later we drove over to a beach that was much softer sand but also much more packed down so it was easier to walk on so I decided to wear my walking shoes this time but brought sandals just in case. Mom, Dad, Amber and Casey came with us. This beach I believe is 5 miles long and a very beautiful beach! This is where I started to do some beach item collecting. I found a few shells and a pretty rock but it was nice to just walk around and enjoy the beauty and the fresh air and sun. There were very few people there also.

Looks like natural bricks.

They had lots of clay rocks like this with shells inside.

On the way back to the house Curtis mentioned the idea of going to a beach to get a big family picture by the ocean. He wanted to go back to the first beach we had found because there were some big rocks over there as well and it was a pretty area. 

All the girls.

My in laws with 6 of their 8 kids.

The whole group.

Capturing a sweet moment from the ones who have been married for 50 years.

This was supposed to be just the boys but looks like Jeanie and Amber didn't realize they were in the shot.

After getting pictures we all went back to the house to figure out what to eat and work on the puzzle some more. Some of our group had gone previous days to see the Devil's Punchbowl and I wanted to check it out. I was not prepared for how windy it would be! We had to go at a specific time so the tide would be low enough to get over there. We still had to remove our shoes and walk in a little bit of water but it was cool because that's where I saw a bunch of crabs and a star fish. We also did some more beach combing trying to find sea glass and agate rocks. I also picked up a few smooth rocks and some cool looking muscle shells that I thought the girls might like.

They have a view area from the top for when the tide is high but I was so anxious to get down there when the tide was low that we never saw it from up above.

See how windy it was and I didn't bring any hair elastics or a hat. What was I thinking?!

A tiny water fall right at the beach.

And a beautiful sunset on our last night there.

The rest of the night was filled with some clean meat off crabs to pack them home. Some playing games and some working on the puzzle. We finally decided at the end of the night that we might as well just put the puzzle away since everyone was leaving early the next morning. I took it apart but in big pieces so that maybe Shauna and John could finish it later or at another family function. 

This is as far as we got.

Here's one of the puzzles I picked out from souvenir shopping.

This was the first one I picked because I love water falls.

Here's what I collected off the beaches.

I forgot that this was another one of my souvenirs I bought when shopping on Friday morning. It even glows in the dark. I placed it on our piano for now.

It was a great trip and we made it home around 4:30 mountain time on Monday and it gave us the chance to relax a bit. It will be fun to go to the Oregon Coast again next summer with the kids and most of my family for another Tony Norton reunion. 

Butterfield Oregon Coast Trip (Day 3)

 Saturday morning (Aug 7th) everyone split up to do their own things. Ricky and Jenna went with us to go find a beach with sand that we could walk down to. On the way out of Depoe Bay we saw a lookout area so we pulled over to check it out. There was no access to a beach but we were fortunate enough to see a whale in the distance several times! We would wait to see a spray of water and then the whale would surface so we could see the top of it. 

This was the first time we saw the sun since arriving in Depoe Bay. It was a nice break from all the clouds and fog.

Can you see the little spray of water back there? That's our whale!

We continued to drive a little further until we found another spot to pull over that had a sandy beach. We parked and hiked down some steps (which was beautiful) to get down to the beach. I was the only one who wore sandals so that I could walk in the sand and water. Some of the sand was nice and soft but most of it was bigger pieces of sand that didn't bother my feet at first but after awhile it bugged me. It was still a beautiful spot. 

Silly brothers

We found a couple of little crabs in the rocks. I think it's actually called a rock crab.

Saw this tree and had to get a picture under it.

Hmmm, crazy how nature does these things.

Our next adventure for the 4 of us was to go horse back riding but we had time to back to the house to eat and for me to change clothes before heading over to Lincoln City for our ride. The place we went to was called Rock Creek Stables. We were originally going to go with Amber and Casey also but they had called and said they didn't have enough people working to be able to go with 6 riders. Amber and Casey decided to bow out since they had already paid to go crabbing the day before. Out of the 4 of us that went I was apparently the most experienced rider. I had gone on two other horse back trail rides in the last 5 years. Curtis went on one of those but the other he stayed back to watch Charlotte who was only 4 years old at the time. Ricky and Jenna had never been on a trail ride and maybe sat on a horse once or twice a long time ago. The people who worked here were very nice and did a good job but unfortunately Jenna just did not have the right confidence and ended up falling off her horse toward the beginning of the ride. It was a good thing that they made all of us wear helmets. Her horse saw Ricky's horse start to go faster and so her horse went faster to where it was running a bit and Jenna fell off. I think it really scared her when the horse started going fast and she didn't remember to pull back on the reins to stop the horse. Fortunately she was just bruised and sore, nothing broken but she had decided that she was done after that and waited for the rest of us. They were able to take her back to the corral on a truck and get her checked out. Meanwhile, the rest of us carried on. We had one guide at the front of the line and one at the end of the line. When we got up the mountain a little ways it started to rain lightly. It started to cover my sunglasses. At the top we stopped for pictures and let Ricky switch to his cowboy hat just for pictures. On the way down I finally had to have the guide carry my sunglasses because they were getting to wet to see well. They said this is the first time it's rained in a month. There were a few times on this ride where even my horse scared me, almost running me into trees and what not. Her name was Rosy and she kept wanting to be up in front when we were in the middle but it was still a fun ride.

We made it to the top. Curtis and I had brought hats to wear but when they said to wear a helmet we just left our hats back at the beginning in a tub bucket. Ricky had a back pack to carry his in.

Riding Rosy and Neo

Feeding the horses treats after the ride and giving them love.

I think he was hoping I had some treats.

After getting back to the house from our horse back ride we hung out for a bit playing games and working on a new puzzle that John and Shauna had bought. This one was more difficult because of the colors in it as it was an African animal scene. Then we had to find a restaurant that was willing to take all 14 of us. We found one South of us in Newport (which is the same town we did our shopping in) and were able to get in just before closing time. Many people in Oregon were wearing masks but at the time it was not mandatory for any place that we went. It was like going back in time because almost nobody wears masks in Idaho. Although, now a couple weeks after our trip more people in Idaho are wearing them again.

The upper level of the house had a game room with ping pong, pool, and foosball with some sitting furniture. I think the only game that was played was ping pong. This is Casey and Curtis.

Curtis and Shauna

Others down below working on the 2nd puzzle.

Curtis liked to read his book (The Lord of the Rings) at the end of the day. I caught him asleep while holding his book. I brought my book but I preferred working on the puzzles. This was a bedroom with two full beds. We just pushed them together to make a big king size bed. We also had a bunk bed in our room that we used to hold our luggage.

It was a busy and adventurous Saturday and we were ready to slow down for Sunday to enjoy the Sabbath.