We had so much fun in the land of sand dunes, elk reserves and light houses.
I love this shot I got of Taylor running to the beach:
It was a bit chilly while we were there. I thought it would be warmer since we were so far south, but apparently we just missed the good weather. My dad said that right after we left, it got beautiful. The kids wanted to play on the beach again down here, but I wouldn't let them this time. It was so so so very cold and WET!
But one day as were were touring the area, we did stop to look at the beautiful ocean. I love the Oregon coast so very much and this place was so picturesque...
And turning around, this is what we saw:
Sand dunes for days! It's a popular area for motorbiking and sand buggies. We were going to rent Sand buggies and take the kids, but it was so cold and wet, that we decided to stay in the warm car, and just have a looksey.
Driving down the 101, lots of beautiful stops along the way:
A little bit more inland was this beautiful valley that is an elk reserve. It is amazingly beautiful. Anyone who knows my dad knows that this was the place he was most excited to show us! :) I did think it was beautiful, but the beach is definitely more my thing.
We headed down to Bandon one day for some Umpqua ice-cream. There is the Umpqua cheese factory that had some delicious cheese ( I got some honey-cranberry cream cheese that was to die for!) Also, we got these kid-sized ice cream cones. These were seriously the kid sizes. It was fan-freaking-tastic!!! :)
The pictures of this next little adventure of ours don't really do it justice. My dad had the great idea to take the kids to this petting zoo that they have somewhere down there. It is supposed to be the biggest petting zoo in the country and actually had some pretty wild animals (in cages, not to pet). , I went along with it. Not a big fan of animals, so I was hoping to stay in the car with Jackson while they took the kids. We pull up only to have my dad very adamantly decided that he was the one who would stay with Jackson in the car (he was sleeping). So, Kathryn and I go in with the two older kids. $17 per person was a freaking waste, but we begrudgingly did it...
The peacock was beautiful showing off for the ladies, whom were ignoring him. But we decided to buy these fun little ice cream cones full of seeds and animal food. You can toss the food on the ground and the animals will come over to you and then you can give them the cone too, once your cone is empty. Fun fun fun, we thought. Not two minutes into the stupid thing and we make a spectacle of ourselves. A herd of goat charge at us when they see we have all of these cones. Kathryn and Tucker run for their lives leaving me standing alone not sure what is going on. Taylor had walked up two steps to get a better view to see a tiger, and in the meantime they herd attacked. She's stranded on the top stair screaming bloody murder. Luckily Kathryn and Tucker have all the food, so the herd follows them when they run, and since I was just the photographer for the day, I start snapping pictures, all the while trying to save myself, rescue Taylor and see where the heck Kathryn and Tucker are going!
Here is the calm before the storm, Kathryn with all the food:
My finger must have just automatically started snapping away during the commotion:
And after, Tucker and Kathryn walking in a daze back to where we were. Not sure what had just happened. They both had gotten rammed by a goat and all we could do was laugh. I really think that everyone there had stopped and were just staring at us. We were quite the scene.
After that I was done. I was going to take Taylor, swallow the $30 I had just spent, and call it a day. But Tucker really wanted to see some more animals, so Kathryn, being a trooper, agreed to take him real quick and be done. Well, then Taylor wanted to stay, so we did it as fast as we could.
In the end, the kids ended up having a good time, and we have a fun story to tell, so I guess all was not lost.
And they got to pet a fox and learn all about incestual breeding. Thanks fox lady for the information! :)
We needed some time to recover after that adventure, and luckily we did get some down time in the hotel. It was conference weekend, and we got to watch all four sessions in our hotel. It was so nice that they had BYU tv. I definitely need to go back and read the talks, but it was so nice to relax and be spiritually uplifted!
Dog pile on Kathryn during conference:
Lots of swimming was done. Tucker begged to go swimming every spare minute we had. Early mornings, late nights, it didn't matter! He is my little fish and wanted to go any chance he could!
Jackson even got to go swimming for the first time. And why shouldn't he with that beach body!
Taylor was content just doggy paddling away in her floaties and I was content just hanging out in the hot tub most of the time, but Tucker wanted to play play play in the big pool, and did whatever it took to convince us to join him.
I'm so glad I got to enjoy the time with my big kiddo's though. I love that they are so fun to be with and we can enjoy our time together (for the most part) :)
This guy enjoyed watching his big brother swim:
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