Mini-Caramel Apples

Caramel apples are so yummy! But, who wants that much apple? Not I! So, instead of dipping the whole apple, we use a melon baller to make mini-apples. Perfect, bite-sized, ready-to-be-dipped mini-apples (Thanks for the fun idea Ash!). Mom and Dad were in town and I invited my Big Sis and 5 kids over and we had a Mini-Caramel Apple Party. We melted the caramel, balled the apples, poured the different toppings out on plates and went to town!Buddy getting ready to dip his mini-apple.

Bugs: "Where's my apples, Where's my apples?!"
Actually I think this was at the "I want more, I want more!" stage.

Big Sis trying out her crunchy creation. The caramel was really hot! The kids were pretty good about waiting until it was cooled off, but I think all the adults and big kids burned ourselves at least once because we couldn't wait to get that minuscule morsel into our mouths!

Loose Teeth

Buddy has been very excited the last few months, because his teeth are starting to come loose. He has lost three already! Unlike Big Sis, once Buddy gets a loose tooth, he wiggles it and jiggles it until it falls out. So, once he gets a loose one we know the tooth fairy is coming pretty soon.
The cool thing about this last one is his closest cousin (They are only 11 days apart) lost the same one! We had his cousin sleep over and I snapped a couple pics of their matching mouths.

After trying to get a cute picture and one that showed their missing tooth, I gave up. I decided it was either one or the other.

It's Finally Finished!

I have had this vision in my head of what I want the walls in my living room to look like ever since we have moved in. With the help of many, I finally have one of them completed! What do you think?So...Thanks Ashly for the idea, Thanks Hubby for cutting and hanging the curtain rod, Thanks Mom for cutting out the vinyl and Thank you School District for giving us Fall Break!

4th of July

Okay, I know this is totally out of order and really late, but I just found these fun pictures from the Fourth that I had to post.

Everything "first" in a new house is totally fun and this was our "first" time lighting fireworks at our new house! We invited some of the kids friends over and had a blast (no pun intended...okay, maybe a little pun intended)!
Bugs is totally ready for some sparkler fun.
"Hey, mine keeps going out!"Great shot of our friend, Sang-Jin, who was an awesome friend we miss dearly because he had to move back to Korea:(
But, at least we have this fantastic shot.

First Day of School

The first day of school is always so exciting. Everyone is so nervous and full of wonder: What will my teacher be like? Will I make new friends? Will I get a ton of homework? I remember waking up early on the first day and all my brothers and sister would get ready and go have breakfast. It was always crazy, but totally fun. My mom was so great and always drove us to school on the first day (until we got our licenses). You would always start the year with the best intentions, you know, I'm going to do my homework first thing when I get home, or I'm going to get straight A's (most of those are gone after the first week, but still it's a great way to start the year).

Once you get to school, it always smelled so good - like freshly sharpened pencils and new clothes. Can you smell it? I can. Actually, luckily for me I do get to smell it, every year! And lucky for Sis and Buddy they got to smell it too.So excited for Kindergarten!I didn't know pop stars went to elementary school! Oh wait, that's my adorable-Hannah-Montana-lovin' daughter starting 3rd grade.

The Craft Room

I had this brilliant idea about 4 months ago to take a picture of one of my rooms every week and spotlight it. Well, you can see how well that went. I did take pictures of my office/craft room before all my good intentions went the way of my size 8 waistline (you know, none existent except in my dreams).

One day I got a bee up my you-know-what and headed to IKEA. First let me say, going to IKEA is never a good idea when you have no real plan and no written budget for the project. It is amazing how fast $2-$5 items add up to $150! But, I did end up using everything I bought, so I was pretty excited. My hubby on the other hand was not super excited when I handed him the drill and showed him the stack of stuff he needed to hang. But, I think it ended up pretty cute. What do you think?Can you call it a craft room if you have never actually crafted anything in it? I guess all I need are some fun crafts to work on!

Tide Pools

This is the last post of our Washington Trip. To read it in order, go down to the Washington Trip post and go backwards, then you will get it in chronological order.

Just west of Sequim, you can go to these really awesome Tide Pools. We found lots of fun creatures and had fun climbing on the rocks. I felt like I was in the movie Goonies (which was filmed just south of here in Astoria).Buddy holding a tiny crab he found

Bugs with another little crab
Here is a sea urchin, you can't really tell in the photo, but it is this really deep royal purple!
A bright red sea star. We saw some huge star fish a little way off the rocks, but the tide had come in too far for us to reach them.
I just had to put in this totally cute picture of Uncle Rob. He is so photogenic, even with his weird facial expressions!

This is the last of the pictures from the Road Trip. We had a fantastic time and are totally glad we went. On the way home from Sequim we drove for two days straight and stopped in Baker City, OR for the night. It was really neat to see the scenery and how the landscape changed as we got closer to home. Amazing how different and foreign everything can feel when you are really not that far away from home. And, no matter how much fun you have on your vacation, it still feels sooooo good to come home.

Crabbin'

The last time Dad's family was in WA, they bought a crabbing license and went out to the shore and caught a whole bunch of crab. Well, they didn't really know what to do with it, so they gave it to some people. Then, that night they decided to have a crab feast and had to go out and buy a whole bunch of crab to cook. So, this time they decided they would keep the crab they caught. So off to Wal-Mart to buy a 1-day crabbing license and $17.50 later, we were ready to go catch some crab. Unfortunately, the tide was not as low as last time and they couldn't get out far enough to find any crab. Just like last time, they had to go buy crab for the big crab feast that night. Apparently it was pretty yummy (me not being a fan of seafood found a comfy little corner and took a nap) and everyone had their fill of Dungeness Crab.

It was pretty foggy and windy, but the kids and Dad had fun wading through all the muck and yuck.

Sequim

We did a ton of stuff in Sequim, since that was our actual destination on the Road Trip of 2010. We stayed there for four days. Now I know you're wondering "Who in the world goes on a vacation to Sequim, WA?" Well we do, okay!

Our first stop in Sequim was the Wild Animal Park. The animal park gets a lot of the retired Disney animal actors. They have all sorts of wild animals: llamas, zebras,
bears (these bears were so cute, they would smile and wave when you threw bread to them), elk, fallow deer, yaks, tigers, lions, bison and a whole bunch more I can't remember right now. The coolest part is that you can drive through the herds of elk, deer and bison and feed them bread through the window. We were totally prepared with towels draped over the doors (to protect from the slobber) and the kids were all next to a window (which conveniently put mom in the back seat center, as far away from the slobber as possible!). The kids were super excited at first, until the bison with their 15-inch tongues attacked us through the windows. By the end we were all screaming, "Drive, drive, drive!" Big Sis was on the floorboard of the front seat as far forward as possible, Bugs was tucked under a towel and Buddy was just laughing and chucking bread out the window. It was totally insane and crazy fun!

Big Sis checking to make sure all the animals are behind her and she is safe!

To give you a better view of what it was like, here is a pic of our aunt's car.Totally Awesome!

Forks and Port Angeles

In order to get from Oregon to Washington on the PCH you have to cross the Columbia River. It is huge! We got on this bridge and just kept driving and driving and driving. It was GINORMOUS!

I don't really know what is up with the pose I've got going on, but here's my "I traveled on the PCH for four days" picture! And if you have never traveled north of California on the PCH, here is what you are missing:

four to five days of this.
Dad actually said "You know I am kind of tired of this mountainous, tree driving" Can you believe it? My husband sick of pine trees!
On the way, I got to swing into some little towns known as FORKS and PORT ANGELES!
Yes Twi-hards, I was there!
Forks was hilarious. Every little shop on the Main street had some Twilight themed name "Dazzled by Twilight" or "Bella's Boutique". I just laughed the whole 30 seconds it took us to drive through the town (okay maybe it was a little longer than 30 seconds, but you get the picture).

Seaside

We didn't get into Seaside until late at night, so we checked in to our hotel (which I would like to add was the most expensive and the smallest room we stayed in the whole trip, but the bed was soooo comfortable and the shower head was awesome, so we forgave them for the tiny living space) and went for a little stroll on the boulevard. It was really cute, I felt like I was in a movie. On the right there were these little beach front houses (that I am sure cost a fortune) and on the beach to the left there were a whole bunch of people having bonfires. I've always wanted to have a night fire on the beach. I guess I will have to add it to my bucket list.

The next morning we tried to rent beach bikes and drive on the beach, we decided though that the kids were probably too small and they couldn't steer the bikes. Dad was pretty disappointed because that is what he wanted to do the most. He had so much fun doing it when he was a kid, that he wanted the kids to do it too. We figured they could do it the next time we came to Seaside. We did go to this monument where Lewis and Clark first saw the Pacific Ocean. My students will love this picture. So, instead of spending the day in Seaside like we had planned, we headed further north on the PCH and stopped at this totally rad beach in Gearhart. The sand is so fine that it packs down really hard and you can drive on the beach!We let the kids drive up and down the beach and made sure they didn't drive into the ocean. While driving up and down the beach we saw this bald eagle snacking on a some dead creature.Then on the other side of the beach, you could walk up and down and pick up sand dollars. Now, Aubrey and Robert had been there just hours before and picked up all of the whole sand dollars, but it was super fun anyway.Bugs looking for sand dollars.
After this we wiped the sand off best we could, added our gathered treasures to the garbage bag in the trunk and headed to our next destination: Sequim, WA!
(But on the way, we got to stop in FORKS!!!)

The Rogue River

The Rogue River

While we stayed in Gold Beach, we were able to go on a Jet Boat tour on the Rogue River. It was a blast! We saw a bunch of wildlife: harbor seals, bald eagles, osprey (a bird of prey) and river otters. We watched for black bears in the blackberry patches, but didn't see any.

Half way through the tour (at the turnaround spot) we stopped in the small town of Agness, pop. 173 (again, we were wondering, Where?) and had lunch. The food was great, the service not so much. I guess you don't learn a lot of social skills living in a place with 173 people. But, even with sub-par service the experience was wonderful.
The Rogue River is kind of cool, the pilot was telling us how it is split into 3 separate sections. The first part is the recreational section where people can build cabins and there is access to the river on both sides by road. Then the second section is the historical section (if I am remembering correctly) and nothing can be built or changed in that section so whatever is there was there when they passed the law. And the third section is the Wild section (actually I don't remember what he called it, but wild sounds good), this is the section where there is no development. The Historical and Wild sections have no access on the north side of the river except by boat. Kind of crazy, because we passed a few cabins and the people can't get to them unless they travel by boat! It was really neat to experience something so new and different! Even Buddy who hit his mouth on the front of the boat and bit a hole right through his lip had a great time!

On the way back down the river, the sun had come out and just like they warned us, the pilot tried, with some success, to get us wet! He would get going really fast and slam on the brakes and a big wall of water would rush over the front of the boat. Luckily we were in the very front row and had the windshield of the boat to protect us, so we didn't get too wet. The best was when he would flip a 360 though.

It's not the best view of what was happening, but you can tell it was pretty fun by the sound of it. Even Big Sis, who was deathly terrified of going on the boat the night before and all that morning says "I want to do that again!" If you want to see it from outside the boat, they have some pretty good footage on their website: Jerry's Rogue Jets
After our tour, we got back to our car, filled up on gas and headed up the PCH to Seaside.

Gold Beach

Gold Beach was beautiful! We stayed in a remodeled hotel on the beach that was pretty nice. As usual, as soon as we checked in we headed to the beach, except this time we put on our jackets instead of our swimsuits. The beach was unlike any other I had been to before. Instead of shells it was littered with all these amazing colored rocks. We all had to grab a few and after about an hour we had quite a collection. Although we had been to the lake, this was our first time in the Pacific Ocean (Bugs actual first time ever), so we let the kids play for awhile before we had to go fetch dinner.

Again with the Creepy Crawlies!

Dad commented that I was just glowing and I told him, "Well, don't you know the Pacific Ocean is where I belong!"

The Redwoods

AMAZING! I wish I could pick a better word to describe it. They truly are unbelievable. It is almost like you are star struck, because you've seen them in pictures, but then you are there in front of them and you just can't believe your eyes that they are really real (It's like the time we saw Michael Jackson at the Excalibur, but ten times better!). We debated where to go to see the trees, because I wanted to find a place that was kind of unknown to the general public, you know like a "secret place to see the trees", but couldn't find any so we decided to go drive down the Avenue of the Giants. OMG! It was so amazing (did I already say that). I can't imagine a better place to see the trees. It was so strange because you are just driving along the PCH and it just seems like it is lined with normal pine trees. Then, you see a sign to turn for the Avenue of the Giants (which is the old PCH) and you drive down onto this tiny little two-lane street and you realize that those normal-sized pine trees were the tops of these enormous monsters! Totally amazing! Along the Avenue there are the little touristy stops to see different trees. Here is one that had fallen that the kids could climb into. This was pretty cool, but the ones we found out in the forest that still had the roots attached were a lot more awe-inspiring. We just kept saying, "Can you imagine being here when this fell?" or "How loud do you think it would be?"
The boys are standing in the hole that this tree made when it fell. Can you see how huge the base is? We couldn't even get the whole thing in the frame! We found this part of the forest where you could park and go walk on this little trail, so you could really get out into the trees. At the beginning of the park, there was the "Founder's Tree". It was pretty huge, but if you walk to the back of the trail there is a tree that fell down in '93 called The Dyerville Giant. It has a 56' circumference at the base. HUGE! Here we are standing in front of it.
Do you see how ginormous!?! I'm 5'6", then my kids are above my head, and the dang stinking gigantic tree is still a good 3 feet above their heads. And it's on it's side! We just really couldn't believe our eyes. As we walked around we kept saying "Look over there!", "Oh, look at that one!", "Wow!", "Holy C-R-A-P (spelled out for the kids sake)!" After we walked around the little park, we stopped at one of the tiny roadside towns and had lunch. All along the Avenue there are these little towns. It is the strangest thing, you'll be driving along and see a sign like: Smallville
Population: 57
and you're looking around wondering "Where?" Then, you'll see a tiny little marketplace and a Tuff Shed with a "Smallville US Post Office" sign on it! So random, then you start to wonder what it would be like to live on the Avenue of the Giants. Could you ever get sick of seeing those trees? I don't think so. I know we didn't all day long.
After a really delish lunch, we drove down to the Drive-Thru Tree, paid our $7 and drove through a real-live tree.
The boys rode on the back of the car and thought that was pretty awesome. At this park they have a sign that tells you all of things you can tell from a cross-section of one of the trees. For example, wet vs. dry years, whether it grew fast (cause it was by a water source) or grew slow, and also how old the tree was. The tree by the sign was about 5,000 years old! It was here long before any of our recorded history. They had marked things on the tree like "The signing of the Declaration of Independence", "When Colombus sailed to the Americas" and stuff like that. Pretty cool.
Well, if you can't tell I thought the Redwoods were kind of unbelievable and if you have never been there, it is well worth the trip.
Next Stop: Gold Beach and The Rogue River

Reno and Lake Tahoe

After Lovelock, we headed to see Colette and Clayton and clan at their amazingly cute house. We had fun hanging out and the kids enjoyed playing with all of her kids toys. Then it was off to dinner, we asked Colette where we had "had to go before we left town", you know that place that nobody knows about, but everyone has to go there (kind of like The Purple Turtle or for Colette, Taco Amigo!). They took us to this little hole in the wall place called The Awful Awful. It was super yummy! After dinner, we headed to our hotel. The hotel was right on King's Beach at Tahoe. We checked in, changed into our suits and went playing on the beach.After playing on the beach that night, we showered, changed and drove around and found a hard-scoop ice cream shop for an after-beach-treat (isn't that the best kind of treat on the planet!). Then the next morning, we headed back out to the beach and Colette and kids came to play! Here are her cute babies.

The boys had fun finding tons of creepy crawly things to play with. Bugs drove a stick around through the sand and made tons of roads. While Buddy, Dad and Big Sis searched for crayfish. Tahoe is such a great place. We always say it's the perfect place for Dad and me, because it has pine trees (for Dad) and steps away is the beach (for Mom). We had a great time and later that afternoon we were off to our next location: Arcata and the Redwoods.