Summer VACATION 2010

We had a beautiful (and much needed) family vacation to the California Redwoods and the Southern Oregon Coast this past week. 7 days of gorgeous scenery, delicious food, incredible hikes and uninterrupted family time. What great memories. We just got home and I am already planning next summer's vacation!

Redwoods

This was my first time experiencing the Redwoods and it truly was awe-inspiring. We went on one hike called "Cathedral Trees," and I think that is the best description of these magnificent forests. The redwood trees really are like colossal, intricate, natural cathedrals reaching into the sky.

Me standing next to the roots of a toppled giant. Hard to even comprehend the scale of these trees - even when you're standing right next to them.

We did lots of hiking on this vacation. Well, Andrew and I hiked, that is. Amelia mostly wiped graham crackers on our shirts, cried, slept, cried, and yelled at things.

Don't let these pictures fool you. She was not an angel on this trip. We do, however, seem to have a disproportionate number of sleeping/smiling pictures from this trip but that is SOLELY because we are apparently more inspired to take pictures when she is sleeping or smiling than when she is screaming her head off, imagine that.

That being said, isn't she sweet when she's asleep!

We stopped on the side of the road to observe a herd of elk with their massive antlers. Very impressive. We thought of you Matt...

Amelia yelling at the elk. I imagine she is saying, "Hey, what are you eating over there? Can I have some?"

She loves stealing Andrew's sunglasses. Very hip.

This is her happy screaming face.

West Coast Game Park

Oh, don't mind us, we're just petting a couple of Bengal Tiger cubs. You know, like for real baby tigers. Yeah, we just pet them like they were regular house cats.

Amelia mostly screamed at them because she wanted their bottles of milk. She's such a mooch.3 week old baby black panther

King of the Jungle. We did not pet him.

Chillin' with some llamas.

This was a pretty neat little adventure. Apparently this is where they breed animals to be sent to zoos. It was kind of a weird little place, but pretty neat to be so close to so many impressive animals.

Southern Oregon Coast

The southern Oregon coast may have been my favorite part of this whole trip. Driving up highway 101 through Gold Coast and Port Orford, I saw some of the most beautiful coastal scenes of my life.

Tide pools in Bandon.

Come visit me and maybe I'll take you to some of these places.

Garden

It has been fun having a garden this year. This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago, so imagine these plants about 1.5 times bigger. Yeah, the pumpkin plant (on my right) is huge. In October we're thinking of strewing some hay on the ground, tying a wagon to Cash and charging local kids to come into our backyard for a hay ride in our pumpkin patch.

I'm also giving away zucchini if anybody is interested. I'm just about saturated with it and am afraid I'll turn green if I eat any more.

Like, remember when I turned orange from too many carrots? Don't worry, I only planted about 10 carrots total and they're kind of yucky, so I'm not in any danger of eating too many.

Hey Ya'll, we went to Texas

I feel so lucky that Amelia and I got to visit Matt and Lisa in Austin last weekend. It was so fun to be together and if I didn't have to wrestle a 16 pound monkey for a 7 hour plane ride, I just might go every weekend.

Here we are watching bats fly out from under the bridge, or at least that's what they were supposed to do. Local Austin-ites will tell you that at dusk, thousands of bats fly out in one big hoard from underneath this bridge. The night we were there however, the bats must have decided eating bugs was overrated because we only saw a few flutter by. It was still fun, of course. Amelia especially enjoyed waving at all of the people and charming strangers.

Here she is waving to people

Amelia loved all the fun toys Aunt Lisa had hiding all over her house.

Like her fantastic tupperware cupboard,

and the inside of her fridge,

and her Guitar Hero guitar,

and her pantry,
just to name a few...

Amelia really loved her Uncle Matt. I've never seen her take like this to anyone else, but as you can see in the picture below, she really loved him!

Maybe it's because he let her drink out of gigantic cups with him...

Or maybe it's because he played fun games with her...

Or maybe it's because he bought her this camouflage binky from Cabellas...

Yup, that's probably it. Here she is when Matt gave it to her - so excited to open it up.

It was so hot and humid so we went down to the pool one day after a hike. Amelia loves the water and has turned into a real water baby.

Of course she loves water when she can crawl all around and splash like crazy...

...but bath time is another matter. Actually she loves bath time, she just does not want to hold still for a second to get the soap washed out of her hair. The second you flip her onto her back, she is twisting, writhing and squirming to get free so that she can go back pulling every bottle of shampoo, conditioner, soap and shaving cream off the edge of the tube.

But such a sweet, clean face when we're done!

The coloring turned out funny on this picture, but I just want to say, I love Licketty's frozen custard. Yum, yum, yum.

Striking a pose

So fun to be with my sweet sister.

I love my family so much and hope we all get to live closer together someday.