My new camera

Ok so I finally broke down and bought a new camera. It is so frustrating blogging and not having photos of the events that we are experiencing. We were up in Oregon visiting my Grandma and Grandpa Escriva for the weekend to celebrate her 80th birthday and my parents were the only one who had a camera. So I drove into walmart the second day we were there and got an Olympus camera. It is nice because it is smaller that my other one and does everything it did, and this one has video w/sound on it. YEAH! So the wonderful weekend has photos and video of all of the fun things we did. My grandparents live on 10 acres in southern Oregon. So tractors were involved, my boys and there grandpa Teves got to mow the orchard and vinard and old corn patch. Erin, didn't want to, so she worked on the porch and staining the boards for the the new floor in the trailer. We got to sleep outside the three days we were there and enjoyed the beautiful stars, deer, owls and the bats. Yup, I said bats. They would come out at dusk to eat the insects. It was cool to watch. The first night, Danny was so curious about all of the noises. And kept asking what's that? Well I thought he had FINALLY fallin' asleep, because he had quit asking, and then I heard the deer coming through the back yard. Well so did he and in a very loud voice asked What's that? The deer bolted and it was pretty loud so it startled him and he sat up. I then replied,It was the deer, Danny. He said, oh and laid back down and was fast asleep. The deer didn't come back around the whole time we were there. (Good news for G.Grandpa's tomatoes)
The kids did have a lot of fun pulling each other around in the carts. Grandpa Teves had to do some minor repairs on them before we left. The other thing they had fun with was a compost ball. It was empty and they could crawl through the hole and roll each other around. Talk about funny!
While there we went to the coast to visit the Umpqua Lighthouse and go to Mo's to have some wonderful clam chowder. My younger two absolutely loved the chowder (two points for me on the fish food side) the other two wouldn't even try it. It was a cool day too, so the clam chowder totally hit the spot. We picked up a couple of souvenirs at the lighthouse gift shop, one of which was a 3D light house puzzle which the kids and I put together when we got back from the coast. It was so much fun. The coast was beautiful. The kids all want to go back, I hope our next coastal visit is Pismo.
Uncle Tim and Terry came to visit with Aaron, Rachel, Angie and Sam. It was also Aaron's birthday, (him and grandma share the same birthday) We had a really good visit with them and the kids enjoyed playing with their cousin Samantha. She is such a cutie and had the most beautiful curly hair.
On our way back home we took a detour to the Oregon Vortex and Mystery House. It was soo cool. A lot of optical illusions, but there is a phenomenon there that creates the appearance of becoming shorter as you go towards magnetic north. You can look it up on www.orgonvortex.com. The pictures are mixed in, but you can definitely see which ones are from there.
Our next stop was at my Uncle Donald's and Aunt Bernadine's. We had such a good time with them. We got there pretty late in the evening and my older two walked in a fell asleep on the couches. It was so cute. But the next day was filled with adventures, great conversations, and wonderful food. My kids made friends with the little boy Montana down the street and played the rest of the afternoon with him. We had a wonderful day with them and Dan, and are looking forward to there visit in October when Uncle Donald will be here for his high school reunion.
On our way home from there we took a detour and traveled around Mount Lassen and got pictures of the active volcano. It smelled like rotten eggs, but it was soo cool to see the activity. The boys thought it was awesome.

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All and all it was a great trip and I know the kids will remember well.