Summer

I've been taking a blogging break since we arrived back home in Oregon, but here are some photos of the places we visited this summer.  We were in Bend for the first part of summer, then traveled north to Salem, Seaside, and Seaview, Washington.  

Summer was a mix of fun and hard.  I had continuing health issues that didn't seem to want to ease up much, so that painted everything with a different color.  Life can be difficult to enjoy when you feel terrible.  BUT, this post is not about feeling terrible!  It's about what we did this summer.  So let's go!

Before we left for our little loop north, we spent Independence Day with my family in Bend.  Jackson got to light the fireworks for the first time this year.  These milestones are a big deal to a man-cub.

I did get a video of an exciting thing that happened during our fireworks show!  We found ourselves under fire and had to run for it. 

We were in Salem to visit one of my besties from high school.  We hadn't seen one another in too long and we had such a great visit.  We did a five mile hike here, at South Falls.  It was long and I was sore for a week after, but it's always so much fun to be with my Em!

Jax and Abby were fast friends.

We did a few fun things in Salem, but the thing I'll remember most is this amazing shortcake from Willamette Fruit Co.!  It was better than it looks, if you can imagine.

When we made our way to Seaview, we drove into Astoria a few times.  After watching the movie again, we all wanted to see the Goonies spots.  We just loved the area!  We climbed to the top of the Astoria Column and checked out some other things there.  It was a great visit!

In Seaside, we were surprised by the summer crowds.  Like, very, very surprised.  The place was packed like Disneyland, which was a big bummer for us.  I don't know why I was surprised, with Portland being close by.  It makes sense that everyone comes over to Seaside during the summer.  We visited the aquarium and walked around to see all the shops, but with it being so packed with people, we mostly just hung out at the campground.

When we drove over to visit Jeff's family, we got to hang out at the beach one day.  It was windy!

Always makes something with whatever materials she can find.

This is out of order, but my wifi at this campground is terrible and it would take all night to move these pictures up to with the rest of the Seaview, Washington pics.  So here are some more from that stop!

Lucy is an excellent digger!  She didn't like Jordan burying Jax in sand, so she kept coming over and trying to dig him out!  It was funny.  She seemed very concerned about her boy disappearing under the sand.

Haha.  She's like, "Gotta get my boy out of the sand!"

Jordan stuffed Jackson's shirt with sand, so when he stood up, he had a sand tire around his midsection!  Lol.

This bridge separates Washington and Oregon.  It's very long!  Unfortunately, the seagulls and black birds like to fly all around it and end up getting hit by vehicles a lot.

Walking to the shipwreck.  We told the kids we were going to find One-Eyed Willy's ship.  (Goonies references were heavy at this stop, naturally.)

Then we went back to Bend for what we thought were our last appointments.  (We were very wrong, but that is a story for another blog post!)  Right after we arrived back in town, Jordan turned 14!

And she got another piercing in her ear!

There were more outings and other happenings this summer, but I'll just leave this post where it is.  Stay tuned to hear about all the RV drama that followed this, the schedule changes, and months waiting to hear from the Lord about the path forward!  Good stuff.  Hard stuff.  But like most hard stuff, good.