Family Vacation Day 4

Saturday, August 14, 2010
Dear Max,
Today we woke up to the most beautiful view of... FOG! I guess that's the downfall of staying on the ocean. The morning fog sure does hamper your view. We spent the day driving up to Cannon Beach, we took our time and stopped at all the scenic outlooks on our way. Including stopping for breakfast at Pig n' Pancake!

The view the next morning...Fog

Daddy with the morning Fog

This is how you got around on the trip. Our back horse of a dad had it all figured out.


This little monster....

Created this little mess at breakfast...

Including wiping out mommy blackberry. Fun times!

Our first stop was at Munsun Creek Falls. It was a good little hike up to the falls. It was funny, Daddy said that this was unlike any other vacation that we have taken before. He said he did more physical activity and wore more clothes on the beach than he has ever done on our past vacations. Oregon is filled with places to hike and even in August we were glad we had our hoodies!

Hike up to the falls

By far you had the best seat in the house

It's so beautiful

Our family at the falls

Our next stop was at the Tillamook Cheese factory. Unlike the Evergreen Aerospace museum, this place was a mad house! I have never seen a more poorly run museum in my life. It was MISERABLE! But we visited non the less. Only stayed about 15.5 minutes before we had all had enough.

We stayed long enough to get one picture!
Daniel and Uncle Geary

Instead we went across the street to a farmers market and stocked up on fruits and vegi's for the week and Aunt Jali found the best little seafood market on the side of the road with the most amazing fresh fish. After our little stop in Tillamook we headed up to Cannon Beach. We arrived at our beach house and our dear friends Tobin and Chi Yeun met us there. Grammie and Papa offered to babysit so us kids could go to dinner and visit. It was so nice of them, and the 6 of us really enjoyed visiting and talking about all the funny stories from high school and beyond. We've determined that Tobin and Daddy went to elementary school together, nuts! Tobin and Chi stayed with us at the beach house so we could hang out more on Sunday.

Exploring the breach house.

This is the restaurant we ate dinner at

This is the rooms that our family stayed in. It had a sloped ceiling with skylights. You didn't have much of a problem walking around, but daddy and I had about a 2 foot by 2 foot spot we could stand in, unless we put our heads in the skylights, then we could stand straight up. We laughed every morning as we would get out of bed, stand up in the skylight to stretch and then dip back out to leave our room.

Family Vacation Day 3

Friday, August 13, 2010
Dear Max,
Today we spent the morning in McMinnville. They have opened a large aerospace museum that is the new home to the spruce goose. We ate our blue and blackberries for breakfast and then headed out to the museum.

Our family took over the breakfast "nook" at the hotel.

I must say that the Evergreen Aerospace Museum was one of the most enjoyable museums I have been to. It is 3 huge buildings and it is not over crowded, it really felt like we had the whole place to ourselves, yet their were lots of people there. Lot's of great activities for the kids, yet plenty for the adults. We also got to see the Hubble movie in 3D. It was amazing.

The boys with the museum "golf cart"

Daddy and Max on the "hover craft simulator"

You think your such a big kid. It's funny, you always call Natalie, Baby Natalie, we are always reminding you that your only 5 months older.

Daniel in his own airplane

Natalie behind the wheel of the helicopter

Daddy trying to operate the flight simulator.

This is Max heaven! Lot's of buttons to push.

Our family with the astronauts

Riding the airplane ride. You loved it. You are such a big boy! It is crazy to think that you could be all by yourself on this ride. Mommy and Daddy behind the gate while you went up and down and all around.

Natalie hopped in for a ride for a bit, but she didn't last long. Flight is not her friend.

Out she goes!

Then if this museum wasn't cool enough - they even had a playground! Of course you were in heaven on the swings


Your swing partner, Natalie


Now, this is who should normally fit into the slide...

Not this! That's right, Uncle Geary went down the twisty tube slide. I was sure we were going to have to call the jaws of life to get him out. I was impressed he made it!

After the museum we drove to Amity, we visited a monastery there, where the monks make fudge. Yup, you heard me right. We went to Amity for Monk Chocolate. As we drove on the grounds their was a sign that asked that we respect their vow of silence. That is when we made the decision to keep you kiddos in the car and the adults would trade off turns going in for some fudge.

I snuck this picture while I was waiting in the car with you kiddo's.

Some of the grounds

Very peaceful and beautiful. And the fudge was great too!
You never know what your going to find in backwoods Oregon!

We then started on our little drive out to Lincoln City, Oregon. That is where we are staying the night. On our drive, we saw amazing countryside, including lots of Christmas tree farms and vineyards, it was gorgeous!

Christmas Tree Farm

The country side of Oregon

We arrived in Lincoln City, one of my favorite places. Our hotel was amazing. Right on the beach, and I mean that literally. Look at the view from our balcony.

Papa with the grand kids

Look - this is the view standing on the sand. See Grammie standing on the balcony. We had the two rooms on the right. It was so amazing. We figured that no restaurant could give us a view half as decent as what we could get here, so we spent our evening roaming the beach, watching the sunset and then getting take out from our favorite seaside restaurant Mo's. The best clam chowder! And who knew... you love clam chowder. I swear you have such an advanced pallet.

That is one happy Papa...The view, the grand kids. What more could a Papa ask for?

You taking in the view from the balcony

Uncle Geary and Daniel

Mommy, Max and Daddy putting our feet in the pacific.

Daniel and Uncle Geary doing experiments in the sand

Our family on Lincoln City Beach

You and Papa sharing a laugh

Look at Daniels beach chair made out of sand... so cool!

Natalie enjoying the sunset

This is the good life, freshly bathed, jammies and a bottle watching the sunset. This stuff only happens in the movie's!

So beautiful!

Good Bye Sun! We will see you in the morning!

Family Vacation Day 1 and 2

Wednesday, August 11, 2010 & Thursday, August 12, 2010
Dear Max,
Wow, what a week it has been! We just returned from our family vacation to Oregon. I will admit, I was pulling for Hawaii or Alaska, but after our trip, I'm so glad we went to Oregon. It was so beautiful and the perfect retreat from the heat back home. Here is a run down of our vacation....

Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Today we flew into Portland, Oregon. It's never good to start off your trip with a 2 and 1/2 hour delay, but at least we were together. Aunt Jali, Uncle Geary, Daniel and Natalie had met up with Papa, Grammie, Daddy you and I so all 9 of us got to wait together in the airport for our flight. The good thing about having a late flight, all the babies slept! We arrived late to our hotel, and were glad that we had chose to stay the Airport Embassy Suite, we were literally 3 minutes from our hotel.

Thursday, August 12, 2010
We woke up and enjoyed the full breakfast that embassy suites offers, one of my favorite things about staying at embassy's. We then headed into down town Portland for our city tour. Now in true Page fashion we didn't do just any city tour. We took our city tour by jet boat! In my opinion, the only way to go. By the end of the 3 hour jet boat ride, even you could say clearly... Hang on, Hang on, Hang on! We got to see the city and learn about the culture while having a crazy ride down the river doing 360's, how great is that! Oh and we put Gramie and Papa on the ends so they got soaked and we stayed relatively dry.

The kids watching morning cartoons while we get ready for our day

One of my favorite places, these homes were built literally on the water.

Papa enjoying the scenery

Portland

Max and Mommy

We went up to Willamette Falls

And even went into the lock system

After out tour of Portland we headed down to Sherwood, OR to see our dear friend Elder Jaden Cox, who is currently serving a mission in Oregon. Sherwood was only about 20 minutes outside of Portland. It was so perfect, he and his companion had taken a split p-day so they could spend some time with us. We met them at their apartment and decided to head out for some dinner at the outback. The outback didn't open until 4, so we swung into McDonalds and let the kids eat, so when we got to the outback we put all the kids at one end of the table, with the DVD player playing cars and all the adults at the other end. It was perfect, you were all fed, so you weren't hungry and the movie kept you all captivated for an hour so we could visit and get caught up. Elder Cox is doing so well. He couldn't believe how big you had gotten. I told him that when he gets home you will suddenly say, so this is Elder Cox that I pray for each night. After dinner we went to one of the members home that has this huge blueberry orchard, they let us go and pick blueberries. Which Uncle Geary was THRILLED about. Uncle Geary served his mission in Oregon and that is one thing he remembers is how much he loved eating fresh blue and blackberries. It was really funny, we were taking our time picking the berries and visiting, suddenly Papa comes around the corner and asks, how is your picking going? And holds up his gallon zip lock bag that is chucked full. You couldn't even fill a snack size zip lock with what I had collected! It was a great laugh and a lot of fun hanging out in the orchard.

Papa, Mommy, Elder Cox, Daddy, Natalie, Aunt Jali, Uncle Geary and Elder Wilde
not pictured and asleep in the van: you, Daniel and Grammie

Papa with his HUGE bag of blueberries

Daddy was really getting into it!

Uncle Geary, Aunt Jali and Mommy

Mommy with Elder Cox. So good to see him!

We then headed into McMinnville for the night. Now this is an interesting town... we stayed in a clean but "seedy" hotel. Not a lot of options here. Can't wait to tell you about more adventures tomorrow.