DARWIN is on his 12th year of teaching, currently at Springville High School teaching astronomy, geology, environmental science, and physics. He also teaches physics at UVU for a 7 week STEM summer school program for junior high students. He also teaches teenagers in our church ward. He's super busy, but still makes time to be an awesome dad and husband.
We seriously took a gazillion pictures of our trip to the Oregon coast last month. It's been hard to find time to sit down and start posting about it, especially because I had to quickly throw together a shutterfly book for Savannah this past week and that has taken over my precious, and very limited, computer time. So, here we go. Get ready for photo overload of our Yachats, Oregon trip! It's super hard for me to leave photos out. :)
DAY 1
We had the car all packed up after the girls went to bed August 8th. We snoozed for a few hours before waking up at 2am the next morning to begin our super long road trip to Vancouver, WA, where we would stay for the next couple nights. The girls did pretty well, and slept for at least the first few hours of our drive. We left our house and were on the road by 3:40am and they both woke up just before we hit Twin Falls around 7am. Savannah took a few short naps throughout our drive, but Aurora didn't. A day without a nap is always rough, but definitely not so fun when you're trapped in a car seat for 12+ hours in one day. Poor thing. The girls really did pretty awesome considering how long the drive was.
We stopped to fill up on gas at Costco in Twin Falls--we {heart} Costco!
Dar is an awesome window washer. Seriously. It was a necessity to wash the windows every time we filled up on gas.
With all the times I've been to Idaho, I've never been to Twin Falls. When we saw the Snake River Canyon as we drove over the bridge, we had to stop. It was gorgeous!
Love this beautiful girl!
A shot of the bridge
Isn't that so pretty?!
We saw a base jumper jump from the bridge. Cool.
The first of many family shots on our trip--poor Savy was blinded by the sun
A statute of Ira Burton Perrine--Aurora just called him "mustache". As we headed back the car she yelled, "See ya later, Mustache!" :)
Back in the car
Our BFFs let us borrow their portable DVD player (thanks again, guys!) and this was Aurora's favorite way to watch movies
Traveling with a not-quite-yet-potty-trained toddler is an adventure. We have some other good friends who let us borrow their awesome IKEA portable toilet for our trip. Aurora thought it was pretty much the coolest thing ever to be able to sit on a toilet and pee on the side of the road. On this one particular stop she got to watch a train go by :)
Just before we got to Portland, OR on Friday evening, we made another nice stop at a couple of Oregon's waterfalls - this one is called Horsetail Falls
[Don't mind the all-day-car-travel look Savy and I are both sporting :) ]
Down just a little further from Horsetail Falls is Oregon's most famous waterfall, Multnomah Falls
With as anxious as we were to get to Vancouver, it was a much needed stop at the falls to stretch our legs and let our restless munchkins get some wiggles out.
Love this girl!
She's a people watcher like her Mommy and Daddy :)
And, just to remind us how small the world is, we saw some friends from our old ward in Orem who were also traveling to Portland from Boise (we passed through them) that day and we ended up at the same place at the same time. Random. But totally fun. It was so good to see you, Brocks!
We made it to our destination and we were so happy to see Sean and Andrea! You guys were great hosts--thanks for letting us crash at your place an extra night!
DAY 2
Since we were so close, and when would we get the opportunity again?, we decided to take another short road trip up to Mount St. Helen's. So, we found ourselves in the car again :)
Both girls fell asleep on the way up, and we were grateful they took naps
I stayed in the car with them so they could nap longer while Dar went in to check out the Visitor's Center until the girls woke up
After naps and lunch we all toured the visitors center. It was cool to learn about the process of reforesting and the technique behind it. There were lots of hands-on things for kids and Aurora loved it.
Rori flying a helicopter :)
We learned a lot about Mount St. Helen's and its last eruption
LOVE the green!
We were a little disappointed, but not really surprised, to get up to Mount St. Helen's and find out we couldn't see the whole volcano because it was covered by a cloud--it's the "mountain" above Aurora's head. Aurora kept saying, "I found the 'cano!"
Turns out we drove home through Bigfoot country. Who knew he was so ginormous?!
That's all for now. Stay tuned for more of our awesome vacation!
With all the times I've been to Idaho, I've never been to Twin Falls. When we saw the Snake River Canyon as we drove over the bridge, we had to stop. It was gorgeous!
Love this beautiful girl!
A shot of the bridge
Isn't that so pretty?!
We saw a base jumper jump from the bridge. Cool.
The first of many family shots on our trip--poor Savy was blinded by the sun
A statute of Ira Burton Perrine--Aurora just called him "mustache". As we headed back the car she yelled, "See ya later, Mustache!" :)
Back in the car
Our BFFs let us borrow their portable DVD player (thanks again, guys!) and this was Aurora's favorite way to watch movies
Traveling with a not-quite-yet-potty-trained toddler is an adventure. We have some other good friends who let us borrow their awesome IKEA portable toilet for our trip. Aurora thought it was pretty much the coolest thing ever to be able to sit on a toilet and pee on the side of the road. On this one particular stop she got to watch a train go by :)
Just before we got to Portland, OR on Friday evening, we made another nice stop at a couple of Oregon's waterfalls - this one is called Horsetail Falls
[Don't mind the all-day-car-travel look Savy and I are both sporting :) ]
Down just a little further from Horsetail Falls is Oregon's most famous waterfall, Multnomah Falls
With as anxious as we were to get to Vancouver, it was a much needed stop at the falls to stretch our legs and let our restless munchkins get some wiggles out.
Love this girl!
She's a people watcher like her Mommy and Daddy :)
And, just to remind us how small the world is, we saw some friends from our old ward in Orem who were also traveling to Portland from Boise (we passed through them) that day and we ended up at the same place at the same time. Random. But totally fun. It was so good to see you, Brocks!
We made it to our destination and we were so happy to see Sean and Andrea! You guys were great hosts--thanks for letting us crash at your place an extra night!
DAY 2
Since we were so close, and when would we get the opportunity again?, we decided to take another short road trip up to Mount St. Helen's. So, we found ourselves in the car again :)
Both girls fell asleep on the way up, and we were grateful they took naps
I stayed in the car with them so they could nap longer while Dar went in to check out the Visitor's Center until the girls woke up
After naps and lunch we all toured the visitors center. It was cool to learn about the process of reforesting and the technique behind it. There were lots of hands-on things for kids and Aurora loved it.
Rori flying a helicopter :)
We learned a lot about Mount St. Helen's and its last eruption
LOVE the green!
We were a little disappointed, but not really surprised, to get up to Mount St. Helen's and find out we couldn't see the whole volcano because it was covered by a cloud--it's the "mountain" above Aurora's head. Aurora kept saying, "I found the 'cano!"
Turns out we drove home through Bigfoot country. Who knew he was so ginormous?!
That's all for now. Stay tuned for more of our awesome vacation!
1 comment:
It was great catching up! It is a crazy small world sometimes. Your daughters are so stinkin adorable! I'm so glad you had a great trip! You took some beautiful pictures.
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