Oregon Country

Last week I fully enjoyed my Mother's Day gift...a trip with the kids to my parents home in Oregon.  I LOVE Oregon, and as I said before, if Brett were with us, I might not have come back to Salt Lake City!
When we go to Oregon, it is usually for a family get together at the coast, it has been years since I have actually been able to just enjoy my parents home and spend time with them.  It was such a great time!

The first full day we were there we got up early to pick berries.  The kids loved picking berries and they were good at it.  After we got into the fields and started filling our buckets with berries it seemed like only minutes before we heard grandma and McKaleigh calling our names to head home, when in fact it had been hours.  We came home with more than 30 pounds of berries and spent the rest of the day cleaning them and getting ready to make jam.


 In this picture Colton and Alex are racing to catch up to grandma and McKaleigh out in the distance. I think they thought they might beat them to better berries, so they were hurrying up!

There is a little farmers market out in the country that we usually visit...because it has the best cherries I have ever tasted - and the best homemade donuts - and the best shortcakes (they are homemade too).  Here is a picture of the kids sharing a shortcake, right after we all had homemade donuts.  Oh, I might mention that if you can't already tell, if I lived in Oregon I would probably weigh 500 lbs!

All of our "loot"!  If you are wondering what Alex is doing with his hand...well, after eating a few pounds of berries himself - fresh off the vine, he is asking if he can have a tiny bit more!

My parents have a small neighborhood pool that we love to visit in the afternoons right before dinner.  The weather was just perfect around 3p.m. everyday to go over and take a little dip, or lounge and read a book and catch some rays!

 My younger brother David and his family still live in Oregon.  We spent a lot of time with him and his wife and their baby Charlie.  (I might add that Alex has never gotten attached to a baby like this.  He could usually care less...but he LOVED Charlie, to the point that he is begging Brett to have another baby...he even asked if we could buy one!  Every day he would ask my mom to call Aunt Sarah to bring Charlie Pants over to play).  We really enjoyed their company and wished they lived closer!

Here we are on a picnic at Riverfront park with my parents and brother's family.

 Feeding a family of ducks, naughty white geese and an assortment of fish some of our picnic.  We were limited on bread, but had brownies and Pringles that the ducks and fish quite enjoyed!

 Aunt Sarah, Charlie and I.

 After the park, we went over to David and Sarah's home to spend some time together, swim and have dinner...I wish I would have gotten a picture of the homemade pizza's that they made...I have the recipe and hope to be able to duplicate it, they were amazing!  Pizza number one was a cheese, mushroom and olive for the boys, but the second one he made was a pesto, sundried tomato, artichoke heart, olive one (I know, sounds gross right?) Well, let me assure you...it was so very yummy, but I am not sure I will be able to recreate Aunt Sarah's amazing homemade pesto sauce! 

One of Many dips in the jacuzzi!

 I really wanted to take the kids on a hike while we were in Oregon.  There are so many beautiful places to see and visit, but the kids wanted to go to the beach.  It is an hours ride out there, and the weather is always so iffy (cold, windy, etc..).  After studying the weather for the week, we decided on a day to go when the weather was supposed to be warm and sunny.  Well, the sun was out, but it was so windy that the sand beat your face, stung your arms and made it pretty... um not fun.  But we climbed the big sand dune - which is steep, collected a few shells, had lunch at the Pelican Pub (a family favorite) and after about an hour and a half, headed back home.

 Heading out to the large dune.

Alex was a climbing machine.  As we climbed, he talked about how fun it was going to be to run back down.  There were many kids he saw running back down the hill once they reached the top...and he was looking forward to that!

 We made it...McKaleigh was sketchy as to whether or not she was going to, but I am proud to say that the view from the top was beautiful!

 When we climbed back down, on the cliffs there were these huge rocks with climbing like holes, so the boys climbed up...they got pretty far!

 We love everything about Oregon.  It is always so sad when we have to leave it behind, but we have so many great memories (and jars of jam and bags of berries) to tide us over till next year!  Thanks for all of the fun Mom and Dad!