Our Oregon Trip

           
On July 18, after a day of decision making, we decided to drive up to Oregon to visit my mother-in-law, in the hospital. She was not doing well, and the doctors told my sister-in-law that she will not make it. At 9pm we left in the Pathfinder with our 2 babies and our 2 1/2 year old niece and 11year old nephew. We left at night, so the kids would sleep, since we were going to drive straight through. Justin drove until 4am then I took the wheel as he tried to sleep. Around 6:30 am I watched the most beautiful sunrise. I took the opportunity to talk one on one with our Lord, asking Him to give peace to my family at this difficult time. Just a couple hours later, my mother-in-law passed away from this life.

Even though this was an extremely difficult time for Justin we decided to “make the best” of this trip and do as much as we could while we were there. The following is synopsis of our trip, full of funny anecdotes and pictures!
Our first morning in the car around 6am Alexis woke up in her car seat and pointed out each of the windows saying “ooh, ahhh, ooohhh” She was pretty amazed at the scene she woke up to.


Kaia serenaded us the entire trip with her made up songs. Like “Going bye bye in Aunty car..” Baby sleeping, Lexi wake up, Jeremiah wake up” “Aunty sleeping, when wake up we have fun”
Alexis would loudly read her book to all of us in the car… it was a hoot!
At a Rest Stop in Northern California, we saw a Mommy Dear with twin babies!

Once we left the rest stop, we took a wrong turn and ended up 3 hours south of were we should have been. This trip was already long!
”Aunty POOP!” Kaia announced to the entire car! (I’m sorry, I had to go!)
Once we got to Medford Oregon, and went inside Grandpa Bartlett’s, the kids went crazy! They were running around like they had been cooped up in a car for the last 25 hours! (oh, I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not… it was a long drive!)
We were a little apprehensive about taking Kaia with us, because this would be her first time without her mom. On top of that we would be in different surroundings. I am happy to report, she did awesome! She did great the entire trip. On 7-20-09, I told Kaia we were going to eat, then go in car and drive. She said “Yay, we go to Aunty house!” I said “no, we are going to beach to see mamma” She smiled big and then said “ahh, no, we go to Aunty house”
We stayed the night at Uncle Darrin’s House, and the twins were able to meet the other twins!
 
7-22-09 We met up in Lincoln City at Siletz Bay and spent some quiet time on the beach. Once I took the shoes off of the babies, so they could play in the sand, JB went running and Alexis started screaming. She screamed for a good 15minutes. Finally she calmed down as she sat in my lap. After about an hour she started playing with the sand, but never left my or aunt Jessica’s lap.

That night we stayed at Anchor Inn (built in the 1940’s), it was the cheapest place we could find. Luckily, they were under new management and just did upgrades, so it was pretty nice. Plus, we got free breakfast! JB said his 1st word at breakfast. He started waving and saying “hi” to everyone that walked by our table. So cute, that both my kids said “hi” for their first words.
 

  
 
Saying Goodbye…

Broiler Point, Lincoln City Oregon

7-23-09 I turned around and saw that Alexis had helped herself to a bag of apples. She ate a lot for such a little girl.

We spent most of the day at Mom’s house packing up some stuff in a U-Haul trailer. While Justin and his sisters packed, I was on kid duty. Nana’s house was a kid haven. LOTS of trees, sticks, rocks, shells, and stairs! The kids loved to climb the stairs up to her house but they would often fall.  For various reasons, we didn’t want the kids playing much inside, so keeping them outside was not an easy task. At one point JB “tricked me” and got around to the back stairs. Once I got to him and he saw me, he started belly laughing. He was so quick that i couldn’t get him and he kept climbing. He thought that was hilarious and he started laughing so hard he fell over. You know how people hold their tummies because you laugh so hard it hurts… that’s what he did. So funny to see a 16month old do it!

We took a break from the work and spent some time at the beach. We went to ‘D’ Sands Beach, next to ‘D’ Sands River – the shortest river in the world. This time, Alexis had fun…AS LONG AS SHE WAS HOLDING ON TO DADDY!!! She wouldn’t even go with me. JB once again loved it and ran around. He would have been swept out to sea, if we didn’t hold on to him, he had no fear.
     
 It was a very long day of packing, at 9pm I took the three little kids for a drive, in hopes they would fall asleep. By 9:02 they were all out! On my way back to the house, I saw a deer next to the road. I stopped to take a pictures, but a car drove up behind me, so I started to drive again. As I looked forward, another deer walked right in front of me and stood across the road. This time I did get a picture. Not a great picture because it was dark, but still cool!

7-24-09 We headed on home. This morning I told Kaia we were going to shower, eat then get in the car. She told me “mmmm… go beach!” I said, “no beach, we are going to Aunty’s house” she replied with “ Go beach, morrow” I informed her that we were going back to Arizona and there is no beach there. She said “Bye, Bye Beach.”
On our way to Medford we stopped at Amacher Park and the Umpqua River. We took the kids to see the fish ladder and then we had lunch and spent some time playing in the water.

     This kid fell on his face more this week than his whole life combined. He had so many scrapes and bruises, it was unbelievable.

Why Can’t I go down the hill by myself?

Our plan for 7-25-09 was to leave Medford and go to Crater Lake. Then we were going to meet Justin’s grandma in Redding California around 5pm. Now, here's what happened. The night before we left, we decided it would be more fun to see some waterfalls at Kallamath Falls. We were then informed, Kallamath Falls is just a bunch of lakes. So we rescheduled our plans and decided to stop at Mt. Shasta on the way to Redding. As we were driving near Mt. Shasta it didn’t seem to exciting so our plans changed again. I called Justin’s grandma and told her we were going to stop at Lake Shasta and play for awhile, then we would be there at 3pm for lunch/dinner. Them more Justin and I talked we realized we would rather get out of town earlier, so we could drive through San Francisco and see the Golden Gate Bridge. Since Justin hasn’t been there and the last time I was there was 20years ago. I called Grandma Pauline back and told her we were 39 miles away.  Once we got to ‘Perkos’ we were informed that they were not going to eat with us because they just ate an early lunch because they planned on an early dinner with us. (SORRY!) 
 After lunch we left for San Francisco. I got the address for the Jelly Belly Factory, thinking that would be fun for the kids. After figuring out the mileage, I realized we wouldn’t make it in time for the final tour. Bummer! At 6pm on I80 on our way to San Francisco, a trailer’s airvent rain gaurd, flew off the trailer in front of us and slammed into our car, it dented the bumper and hood and peices flew everywhere. Justin slammed on his brakes causing the truck and trailer to swerve. It was heart racing, but no one was injured, that we are thankful for! We flagged down the guy pulling the trailer and pulled off to the side of the road. We sat there waiting for the police, right across the street from the Jelly Belly Factory.  Because of this,  we figured we wouldn’t make it with enough day light to see the Golden Gate Bridge. Traffic was horrible, what should have taken 20minutes, took over an hour. We had 3 toll bridges to cross and because of the trailer we had to pay over double! Luckily and surprisingly we made it the the Golden Gate Bridge with plenty of day light and more than enough FOG!!! The fog was so thick we say nothing! We traveled 70 miles out of the way for nothing more than this story!

Our $8.25 Bridge Ride

“The Glorious Golden Gate”

  This picture is the scenic point, you know, the best place to get pictures… this is what we saw… literally, we saw nothing.
After that crazy adventure we had dinner at Panda Express. Orange Chicken has been a winner with all the kids, however this cook decided to make it a bit too spicy… none of the kids liked it. I have to say, this was a pitiful trip!

All the kids fell asleep right after dinner, so Justin and I considered just driving through the night. We would probably arrive @ home around 11am the next day. After about 3 hours, we worried we would be too tired to take care of the babies by the time we got home, also Kaia was very restless and was whimpering. Her nose was bothering her. Around 1am after stopping 6 different places looking for the best price for a hotel, we finally settled in at the Best Western. (This was only the best price because we received a “tip” that there was a coupon floating around at the travel centers) We received free breakfast in which Kaia spilled all over my lap and shoes. After breakfast we ran back up to the room to shower, dress, and pack up. Justin and Zach took a load of luggage down to the car. I flowed up the rear with the 3 little kids, down the stairs with an arm full of belongings. As we drove away, Zach yelled out “I forgot my pillow!” Justin then remembered we didn’t check-out either. We returned to our room, and Justin ran up the stairs to retrieve Zach’s pillow. As I watched Justin approach the car, not only did he aquire the bounty but he also recovered Zach’s blanket, the babies suitcase and my pillow. Guess we were in a hurry to get home!
After 61 hours in the car over 7 days, we were finally
Home, HOT, Home! (at least we have pretty sunsets)