Sunday, 05 July 2009

• Busy doings of late

  Jeff has been on vacation for about a week now, and returns to work tomorrow with a bang, having to be at Diamond Lake (quite a ways away from here) by about 7 a.m. He's already in bed, as is Jonah, the little dachshund we've been babysitting for friends this past weekend. Kind of cute... Jonah refused to use his bed the first night until we put it in the living room, but Friday, Saturday and tonight... he wants his bed on the floor by my side of the bed. Jeff is in turn adoring of the little guy and exasperated. LOL. I'm just very fond of him -- he's a little sweetie.

  Anyway. I've been absent from Xanga yet again -- but only because it takes time to sit down and properly do a blog entry with photos and photos do I have! Dear friends of ours from Las Vegas came to visit, staying in town for several days and then going to the coast with us before heading northward to Seattle for the rest of their vacation. Rob and Jeff have known each other for nearly 20 years, having worked together first for the Caterpillar dealership in Seattle, then together at the Cat dealership in Las Vegas before we moved on to California and then Oregon. Funnily enough, we had tentatively planned a trip down to Vegas this summer to see them, but it worked out better this way, especially since we might accidentally be heading to southern Idaho at the end of the month. We shall see though.

  Besides having guests in town, we've been minus both daughters.. Em and Sophie flew down to see their grandparents in Idaho for several days. I am missing them so much! The Fourth of July wasn't quite the same without them here. They left last Thursday and will return this Wednesday. I haven't gotten to speak to them... Jeff and his mom get to talking and that's that. Ah well. It'll be just me picking them up Wednesday morning and I'm looking forward to it.

  Pictures...

  

  

  I should start with the annual awards night for the girls' swim club. They both received certificates -- very nice. If they continue they'll get a plaque next year and then from thereon out they get a little bar each year to put onto the plaque. Kind of nifty.

  The rest of the pictures are from our trip to the coast with our friends. Rob hadn't been to the Oregon coast before (he's actually from American Falls, Idaho), and Teresa has lived most of her life in Las Vegas, with brief sojourns in Montana and northern Nevada. She'd never seen the ocean before from what I understand... which boggled my mind a bit because we sneaked over to the California coast and Malibu a couple of times while we lived in Vegas -- it wasn't that long of a trip really. Had to see some ocean...

  

  Devil's Elbow Beach at Heceta. Sophie's in the background with yet another "pet kelp".

  

  Thank goodness for $5 faux Crocs from Rite Aid. Where there is water, there is Sophie. This was also taken at Heceta.

  The wind was just incredible that day. Just before getting to Heceta we stopped at the overlook between the Sea Lion Caves and Heceta Head. Gusts of up to 35 miles per hour had been predicted for that day and guess what? One blew right up as several of us were leaning over to take pictures of the sea lions below. Whoo! One guy yelped and ducked down against the barrier, both girls screamed and scurried to the Toy and I just backpedaled as furiously as possible. We all agreed it felt like hands were trying to push us over the edge and to the rocks below. Yikes! So we didn't hike up to the lighthouse or climb up to the World War II lookout area at Cape Perpetua. Noooo way... LOL. We did stop at Devil's Churn though. The tide was just starting to come in and the waves began to get spectacular while we were there. Teresa and I hiked on down, and the girls and Jeff followed after. Rob stayed atop and enjoyed the view -- his knees are a little bad. Mine suck pretty badly, but I swallowed the pain because I'll be danged if I'm going to miss out on stuff. It was excellent exercise climbing back up anyway, and I discovered that I wasn't as out of breath this time around as I was the last time we visited. Yea!

  

  Foxglove.

  

  I should know what this is, but the name escapes me. Pretty though!

  

  

  

  The winds were getting big enough and the winds were strong enough that we got a lot of spray in our faces -- and got more than a taste of saltwater on our tongues. LOL

  

  Ah, my  dear one.

  

  Looking back down.

  And then it was off to Yachats and the Shamrock Lodgettes! We've stayed overnight in Yachats before, but at a different place. Jeff's been wanting to stay at the Shamrock for quite some time so we treated our friends. We were very lucky and got the last two bayview rooms and they happened to be side-by-side. Yea!

  

  We had a small fridge, microwave and coffee machine, two queen beds, television and a woodstove, plus a private patio.

  

  The star attraction was the Fisher woodstove that Sophie's standing in front of.

  

  Our view of the bay and Yachat lies beyond. It's a very small town of abou 960 people -- about the same size as Jeff's hometown.

  

  If we angled our chairs we also had a view of the ocean. Mwaha!

  

  Miss Em -- Teresa is just beyond.

  

  My girls.

  

  Looking toward one of the cabins one can rent as well.

  

  The Four Stooges as Teresa called us all. LOL.

  

  Outside our front door.

  

  A view of the building we were in -- four units per building.

  

  More of the cabins... we're hoping to snag one of of those for an entire weekend the next time around.

  

  The girls and I explore the bit of beach accessible from the lodgettes and we found this fantastic sandcastle. The creators came out again as we were leaving -- they looked worried that we might have been damaging it, but I waved my camera and that brought out the grins. Really, quite the architectural achievement in sand.

  

  We had enjoyed a lunch of clam chowder and fish 'n chips at Mo's in Florence earlier in the day, so we all munched on cold cuts, sandwiches, chips and pop we'd stocked up on. Those food items were a picnic lunch the next day too. Yum! After dinner, the girls, Jeff and I hit the beach again for the sunset.

  

  

  

  

  Emily and I took an early morning walk on the beach the next day. This was a tamer beach than the one near Driftwood Shores in Florence, but we just enjoyed poking around and talking quietly with each other. My girl is growing up and I'm savoring every second I get with her.

  

  

  

  That was my perch after we returned from our walk --nothing like a good, hot cup of coffee and a fantastic view to get one's morning off right.

  

  We hit a diner called The Blue Whale for breakfast. Excellent! Great service and really yummy food. We visited the Green Salmon later after we checked out of the Shamrock and discovered the smoothest, most excellent coffee I've had in a while. Wow! I cannot wait to return there! And they had some fantastic variations of green tea I want to try! The girls got to enjoy horchata con cocoa. We discovered horchata (rice milk with cinnamon and sugar) at a local restaurant a couple of months ago and this particular combination had the girls happily slurping for a while.

  

  Stopped at Smelt Sands for some more incredible waves before we headed up the coast to Newport.

  

  Where we finally got to tour the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse! We have tried twice before and it was always closed. I also learned how to pronounce it as the locals do: Yah-kwin-uh. I was trying to pronounce it the Spanish way. LOL! This is a view from the top of the stairs that lead the lighthouse "tower".

  

  

  

  The lighthouse worked for only three years before a bigger one was built at Yaquina Head. We hope to see that lighthouse on our next trip. The interior of this particular lighthouse was fun though... the house was small, yet efficient. I took pictures, but I guess I decided not to title them to show here. LOL. Sorry!

  We went to the marine center again -- only because it's free and we were running low on funds. We've yet to see the Newport Aquarium, but soon! Meanwhile, we got to see Amigo the octopus get fed. He's grown a lot since we last saw him and is less shy now. Teresa loves to eat octopus, but was absolutely enthralled by Amigo -- she'd had no idea how intelligent those critters are, or how much personality they actually possess. We parted ways eventually... after a visit to the Newport Bay Candle Company of course (and yes, I got Teresa one of the ocean scene candles). We followed them into Depoe Bay -- they had lunch at the Sea Hag, and we picnicked at Boiler Bay. When we traveled back through Depoe Bay I could see that a whale had been spotted, but Jeff kept driving. Next time... right?

  

  The next day we arose at 3:30 a.m. and took the girls away up to Portland where they boarded a plane bound for Boise, Idaho. I barey held it together as they boarded the plane -- we've never done this before.

  

  

  As parents Jeff and I were able to escort the girls to the terminal. The co-pilot greeted them and another little girl, and they got to board first. Pretty cool. I'll be there on Wednesday to welcome them back home.

  This holiday weekend has been a nice one. I did work Friday (oy! what a day!), but we had a very nice Saturday... watched the parade in Harrisburg (took Jonah with us: envision a very tall man with a very little dog and you have Jeff and Jonah, lol), enjoyed a barbecue potluck, had a dinner date at Olive Garden, then caught Quantum of Solace on Pay-Per-View. Jonah didn't care for the fireworks and Jeff eventually popped him into bed with us. LOL. We also picked pie cherries and black cherries -- today I got the pie cherries all processed since they're fairly fragile. I have two quarts of frozen cherry pie filling, and two one-quart bags of simply frozen cherries. I plan to make jam with the black cherries -- that'll happen on Tuesday.

  And that's it for now. Working tomorrow --plus two hours at Willamalane on Tuesday morning. Take care!

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