Camp Creek

WHO:
Marc & Anne - Billy & Torie

SIX Girls:

Keagan, Milee & Kayle

Taryn, Grace & Reagan

WHAT:

3 day camping trip

WHEN:

Friday, August 15-17, 2008

WHERE:

Camp Creek Campground-Mt. Hood

WHY:

To have fun, of course!

You are silly mom.

Dad & Grace fishing (unsuccessfully) in the creek.

Taryn & Mimsy

Playdoh Creations

Taryn & Keagan asleep in the tent...alone...they made it all night.

Day one: Set up camp - Temperatures topped 100 degrees.

Day two: Hiked and explored the campground. Hit Trillium Lake to beat the heat.

Day three: Explored Frog Lake...yes there is a reason it is called Frog Lake.

My favorite part of the trip...aside from spending time with fun friends...was experiencing:

2 Good - 2 Be True Massage

Featuring the skilled hands of Keagan & Taryn.

It will cost me a movie date later this fall.

Can I say...

TOTALLY WORTH IT!

Sokoloski Day Spa?

One empty flower bed, +

one shovel, & one watering can, +

one Gracie =

&

&

Thank goodness for water warmed in the hose and a huge bucket of warm water to get her 'cleaned up.' I had promised Grace she could make a mud bath this summer. Today was the perfect day to make good on my promise...it was nice and warm...not too hot. She loves the squishy stuff that is evident. Reagan got into a swim suit and gingerly put her ten toes in and decided that she wanted NOTHING to do with the mud bath. She certainly is my girlie girl.

Henley Class of 87' & '88

My OLDER sister and I got to have our 20 year reunion together. The class of '87 didn't get one put together last year, so they joined us this year. A great time was had by all...and the sister didn't wake up feeling terrible either morning.

What sisters look like after 20 years:

What cheerleaders look like after 20 years:

What three friends look like after 20 years:

What a husband at a 20 year reunion looks like:

Aquatic Center

My Grandma, (in San Diego), always buys our family an annual pass to the Pendleton Aquatic Center for Christmas. We have been using the pool regularly every summer for our kids' entire lives. It is part of what we do. This summer we have been out and about and haven't gotten to the pool as much as we would like. We did just spend a wonderful afternoon playing with some of our 4-H friends.

• The Coffman Family have three girls.
• The Coffman Family has their own 13 yr. old Taryn Lee...she is their oldest.
• Our oldest Taryn Leigh is now 11.
• Their middle girl is 11. Her name is Megan Nicolle.
• Our middle girl is 8. Her name - Grace Nicole.
• Their youngest girl is Amy. She is 8.
• Our youngest is Reagan...at 6 1/2.
• Kerrie teaches - I teach.
• Shawn hunts - Marc hunts.
  

We haven't spent a lot of time - all together. But I can easily imagine adventures that we may have in the future.

The Dearing kids also came to the pool. The cool connection there is that I graduated with their Aunt Julie from Henley in Klamath Falls. They are in the 4-H club also.





This pool day was special, as Grace passed the swim test for the diving pool. She didn't decide to go off the diving boards...but she did go down the big drop slide a lot!





At one point, Reagan couldn't find us. She saw all our stuff...but couldn't find us. I was taking the pics of Grace in the big pool. Reagan knows she isn't supposed to go to the deep pool without a grown up, so she found a life guard, and they paged me. She had pretty big crocodile tears welling in her eyes when I picked her up from the office. The lifeguards fell for those baby blues and gave her a big ice cream to make her feel better.





It was a wonderful day.

More Vacation...

I had planned long posts with vivid descriptions. I planned, apparently, that when I got home I would sit for 3 weeks straight to get that original plan executed. I did not come home and sit. As a matter of fact, I'm barely sitting right now...we have been on the run constantly. So here I will present:

Rapid City: The Cliff Notes Version

Reptile Gardens: A cool reptile zoo. There were huge 200 year old tortoises, snakes, alligators, etc. The girls enjoyed this destination. It was the first place where we could get out and move around a bit.

Crazy Horse Monument: The Interpretive Center here was wonderful. They had a nice restaurant, gift shops, and piles of rocks from the site that kids could bring home. Someday, if/when they ever finish, I would like to go back. Maybe not driving the next time. We stayed for an evening laser show. That wasn't the greatest for three sleepy girls and two grumpy grownups. The lights were cool, it was just past our bed times.

RUSHING @ RUSHMORE: One terrible travel decision we made was not taking the kids to the hotel water park the day we arrived. We had stayed out too late at the laser show, so we went straight to bed. The next morning Rushmore was on the docket...but all the girls could think about was the wonderful water slides back at the hotel. We did walk all the trails, but did not do a tour. I ended up buying a book to learn all those cool historical facts. Someday when the girls are studying the presidents, I can pull out the book. They won't forget being there...but they won't remember learning anything while they were there.

Rapid City Water Slides and Petting Zoo:

Taryn woke up sick one day. Marc took Grace and Reagan to a petting zoo in the morning. We were hoping she would feel better in the afternoon for the water slides. No such luck. Poor Taryn sat under a tree while we all ran about having fun in the water. She was a great sport about it. That is a huge perk to having kids a bit older. This would have never been possible a few years ago.

The Crystal Caverns:

This destination was a little too adventurous for Miss Reagan.

In order to get to the crystals you needed to climb down 168 VERY

S

T

E

E

P

Steps!

It was too much for Reagan, so Marc stayed up top. Now, I am not a big fan of heights. I am not afraid I will fall. I fear seeing my kids fall. Soooooooo. I walked backwards down the steps and Grace was next looking into my eyes and Taryn following with a death grip on the hand rails.

Reagan is pretending to be a bat in this picture in a cave at the top of the cavern.

The Lemonade Ladies

Last year, on July 17, Taryn's 10th birthday, she received a hand-built lemonade stand. We had many successful sales. This year, due to all the wonderful travels and adventures, we had not yet set out the stand. Until today!

Taryn's Treats was again open for business. It took a lot of sampling for us to find a perfect recipe for our fresh squeezed lemonade. Taryn and her sisters also sell fresh baked cookies and candy. Their specialty is the strawberry lemonade. (Remember all the June strawberries? Some were frozen especially for the lemonade stand.)

Total Sales: $32

50% = College = $16
25% = Charity = $8
25% =Fun $ = $8

Taryn isn't responsible for buying her supplies. We do that for her. We also will make a $5 deposit in Grace and Reagan's college account for helping and another $5 for their fun money. Once Taryn 'graduates' her stand for bigger and better jobs it will become Grace's Goodies and then eventually Reagan's Refreshments.

I am feeling terrible about my lack of blogging effort lately. But there have been just too many other important activities to occupy my time. I vow to at least upload a few pics of each event and jot a note or two, so that I don't forget about all our wonderful summer events when school roles around. My worst lack of blogging offense was for Taryn's birthday.

Miss Taryn turned 11 while we were on our trip home from Montana. With some of her funds from last year's lemonade sales, and her profit from Max, she wanted to purchase my old laptop from me, to call her own. Not knowing how much life is left in my old laptop, we decided to surprise her with her own desktop computer. She had agreed to 'trade' a birthday party with friends, for a nicer gift. In Missoula we gave her a puppy mouse pad and told her about her computer waiting at home. We told her she had to contribute all her fun money she had saved. She stated, and I quote, "I got a new computer. I only had to pay $200 and my parents paid the rest. The best part is I am still filthy rich!!!" I guess, in a way, she is. All my girls have been blessed with birthday/Christmas money from family to have nice little nest eggs growing for college.

Happy Belated Birthday Taryn. We love you, our little entrepreneur.

Journey to South Dakota

Day three of vacation took us from Uncle Pete's in Billings to Rapid City, SD. We were not in a big hurry so we stopped to do a few Geocaches on the way. Marc isn't a big fan of Geocaching, but when we are traveling he tolerates it since we would need to make stops along the way for snacks/gas/potty...etc. I had taken some time and really got lucky with the caches we decided to grab.

Our first stop was at a really cool Historical Museum in Hardin, Montana.

The Museum has many buildings that the kids could explore. They loved that the church and school had bells that they could ring. There was a large shop with many old cars and farm equipment.

Our second geocache site was Taryn's favorite: The Vore Buffalo Jump in Sundance, Wy. You can click the link if you want more information. There was a natural sink hole that the Native American's used to hunt buffalo. The scouts would run behind and herd the buffalo to the sink hole up to 300 at a time. The herd would be going so fast that death was immanent. The site was found when a highway was being built. The land owners acted quickly to protect the site. There is a small interpretive building, a port-a-potty, and two volunteers that help explain the site and answer questions.

Marc's favorite & least favorite route stop for the day was at Gillette, Wy. It was his favorite stop because we were able to gas up for $3.83 a gallon. Our highest gas prices were right here at home in Pendleton. Kinda pathetic that we could gas up cheaper in remote Eastern Montana than here at home.

The unfortunate part of this stop was the major road construction and lunch incident.

We had pulled in to get lunch and gas up. The second we were off the ramp we realize we had pulled into MAJOR ROAD CONSTRUCTION...at a major intersection (imagine Southgate construction at 7:45 am when they were working on the new lights.) It was too late to change our minds.

We went through the drive though and I was passing out food to all the kids...the co-pilots main job. I neatly wrapped Marc's sandwich so he could eat it. He had his Mt. Dew nestled between his legs. Any way, just about the time we accidentally pass where we are supposed to get back on the freeway Marc takes a bite of his sandwich which gets stuck part way down in his throat.
Simultaneously, Marc is trying to merge with a blue-haired old guy while opening his Dew. He swallows...hoping to dislodge the bite gone bad. Unfortunately-for all of us-the Dew goes down the wrong tube and Marc starts puking! EVERYWHERE! Dew flew out of his nose-chunks of sandwich hit the windshield-I was grabbing a sack for him to barf into-as he got us back onto the road.

Now with the excitement over (after I have wet-wiped everything in sight) I decide I can begin to eat MY lunch. My duties of feeding everyone else were finished. It is then that I realize, not only did the restaurant give me the WRONG salad and the WRONG dressing, but my fork kit is in the BOTTOM of the bag that Marc had just hurled into. Oh well, I had lost my appetite anyway.

With the big excitement over, we continued, uneventfully to our destination, Rapid City!