The last day we had in Oregon we went to the beach right by our Airbnb. It was a beautiful day! Although it was only 65 degrees it was sunny. We brought our kite and everyone had a fun time flying it. It was a red squid with long tentacles:
Josh and Daniel had fun metal detecting. They only found a hex wrench and a few bottle caps, though:
Again Matthew HATES being cold, HATES the sand, and HATES the wind, but what can you do?!
The ocean water was about 50 degrees so pretty cold. Josh and Daniel waded into the water, but didn't really swim.
However, they did find a jelly fish and put it in a bucket to show everyone. Here's the jellyfish:
More kite flying:
While the kids were preoccupied Aaron and I walked around on the beach and found at the north end of the beach there were tide pools. I got pretty excited. I love tide pools. I found lots of interesting creatures stuck to walls. Here's a starfish that was half way off the wall, but still stuck enough you couldn't take it off/pick it up:
I got carried away in looking around and didn't realize the tide started coming in. DOH!! By the time I realized the tide was coming in, the path back to our beach set up was full of water. To get back we had to wade through it up to our bums. Aaron was not too happy with me, but at least I got to see some more tide pools--haha! Here's Aaron trying to wade through the water cussing my name because he is loaded down with a cell phone, electronic keys, etc. while he's trying not to get wet or fall. He wasn't too happy with me especially since the water was FREEZING!! This picture didn't even show how deep the water got on the way back:
Josh can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and did so when he sat down for two minutes on the beach blanket:
Sarah and Noah had a fun time playing in the sand:
They started digging a pit:
Sarah took a break after a little while, but Noah stayed with it. I have never seen him so motivated and sticking with a one project for so long! I was quite impressed with his tenacity. He ended up spending most of his day at the beach seeing how deep he could dig that hole!
Daniel and Sarah would occasionally come by and help for a few minutes, but Noah was the main worker on that pit:
You can't tell, but by the time we were leaving the pit was up to their chests which is crazy!
Aaron couldn't walk around a whole lot since his ankle was super swollen and quite painful so after walking around the tide pools with me he was done for a bit. In my exploring I did find a cool tunnel. I took Daniel, Josh and coaxed Matthew to come along with me to check out this tunnel.
I was excited to find it went through the huge cliff to the other side. It was about 50 feet long and was pretty dark. This is what it looked like on the inside. We just had to go towards the light--haha!
Matthew didn't like walking through the dark, but I stayed with him, encouraged him to keep going and we all made it through. Matthew was glad to be out of the dark:
The other side was another BEAUTIFUL beach that was completely empty. It was pretty awesome! We explored for a bit, but saw the tide water rising so we didn't stick around for too long since we didn't want to get stuck over there.
The whole beach was gorgeous and we were the only ones there which was awesome!! Here's Josh and Daniel exploring. Matthew wasn't a fan so I stayed back with him sitting on a rock.
Matthew was more than ready to head back when I said we needed to go--haha!
On the way back towards the tunnel I found another tide pool. In all the tide pools/walls we had seen all of the star fish were stuck on the walls so much there was no way to get them off even though I tried every time I saw one. I was super excited when I picked this star fish up from this tide pool and it came without a problem. Wahoo! I took it back to show Aaron, Sarah, and Noah.
Matthew wanted me to take a picture of him holding it so he could show all his friends:
After showing everyone I did go back and release the starfish into a closer tide pool, though.
As our beach day was winding down Josh, Daniel and I went for a long walk along the beach. It was really pretty and fun walking along the shore:
When we packed up our stuff to go back to the Airbnb, we realized we had just enough time to make one last run into Tillamook to grab one last round of ice cream. They closed at 5 and we got there at 4:45 pm. Phew! It was just as good as the time before--we love ice cream!!
After we got back we started dinner for the kids. Aaron and I wanted one last round of fish and chips. When we got to the restaurant he decided he wanted the burger more, but I still got my fish which was pretty tasty. We also tried out the fried fresh cheese curds from the Tillamook Dairy as an appetizer. It was good!
The rest of that night we packed everything up. We woke up the next morning and loaded the car up to come home. We drove the 8 hours to Boise and spent the night. The next morning we drove by the Boise Temple.
We then drove the 5 hours the rest of the way home. We drove 2537 miles on this trip and it was a bunch of fun!
However, our vacation fun didn't end there....we are all starting the second round of peeling skin from the sunburns we all got on the beach. It is hard to remember to apply sunscreen when it's not hot outside. DOH!! Sarah was pretty impressed she was able to peel such a large piece of skin from her previously sunburned thighs--bleh!
My face and arms are on their second round of peeling, too. However, I have some sweet tan lines on my feet from my sandals--haha!
It was hard to come back to reality. Monday morning Aaron went back to work and Sarah started Weber State Prep which is a summer STEM program for high achieving kids. Usually it is held on Weber State Campus, but due to Covid this year the program is held online via daily Zoom meetings. She has four different classes a day--Career Awareness, Problem Solving, Logic, and Engineering. We don't have a home office so she set herself up an impromptu office with my rolling chair and side table in the front room--haha!
However, we were definitely thrown back into reality Wednesday morning when I got a frantic call from Josh saying he got into a car accident. That's one of the worst calls you can ever get as a mom!! Josh said they were okay, but Daniel had some cuts. Thankfully, Aaron was on his lunch and with me when I got the call so he was able to come with me to see what the damages were. When we got there we immediately saw Josh and then saw a cut up Daniel. That made my heart drop.
The boys were shaken up, bruised from the seat belts and airbags, and Daniel was cut up from the shattered side window and windshield. There was glass everywhere inside the car.
The intersection they had the accident in was very busy so I am so thankful it wasn't worse than it was. They were hit by a huge truck pulling a trailer going about 45 miles an hour. The side of the car was mashed in so Daniel had to scoot over and get out the driver's side door.
It didn't take long for the wrecker truck to come pick up the car. It was totaled.
Thankfully, the other vehicle--although damaged on the front end--their occupants, a dad and roughly 10 year old daughter, were unscathed. They were definitely shaken, but not hurt. The dad was pretty mad, though, because he had just bought the truck five days beforehand. DOH! It ended up being Josh's fault since he turned left in front of the truck. Darn it!! Oh well, cars can be replaced I was just glad Daniel and Josh were okay for the most part. I was grateful for the seatbelts and airbags, though. They did their job so things weren't worse. We got some more pictures from the tow yard and the car looked bad.
Poor Daniel was sitting in the front passenger side so he got the brunt of the crash.
We immediately got things going with the insurance. Later that afternoon Josh had to answer a bunch of questions and give a recorded statement of what happened to the insurance representative. The following few days the boys have been pretty stiff and sore, but they are doing okay. To rub more salt in the wound we had just gotten emissions and paid for the registration on that car 10 days before all this happened--DOH!! Oh well what can you do?! I keep telling Josh he should consider being a demolition derby driver for a career--haha--He doesn't think I am very funny, though.
To add even more salt in the wound, the seatbelt clasp in Aaron's car stopped working the next day. DOH!! We know the importance of seatbelts especially after Josh's accident so I don't want to be driving that car around until it is fixed. We are waiting for a part to come in stock so it can be fixed so we are now down to one fully functioning car right now. Good thing it's a holiday weekend and Aaron doesn't have to go to work until Monday otherwise I don't know how we would have juggled everyone's schedule with just one functioning car. Keeping my fingers crossed nothing happens until Aaron's car is fixed!!
However, there have been a few tender mercies throughout all this. Josh and Daniel weren't hurt for the most part in the accident. Josh had to go a year from his last ticket (from a wreck) to keep it off his record. Josh made it 1 year and 1 day. Since it has been over a year (even if it was only one day over) he can qualify to take traffic school again to keep this new ticket off his record. Hopefully that made sense. Anyway, we have also had support from family and friends checking in with us to make sure the boys are okay. We are thankful for the support and love we have been shown.
One other awesome thing is Matthew's summer program has started back up--kind of. When things all got shut down back in March, the company that provides his after school services and summer program services ended up getting laid off. When they got the okay to start back up again it had been a few months and some of the workers have found other jobs. The company is trying to hire people as fast as they can, but they can only do so much. That means that Matthew's summer program will be held very sporadically until they get all the positions filled. We are thankful for the program, though. He was able to attend one day this week and there are two days scheduled for next week. It will be like this through the month of July and, hopefully, by August they will be able to have services fully up and running. To keep things safe everyone that attends the summer program has to answer daily questions, have their temperature checked to make sure they are fever free, and wear a mask the whole time they are attending. Matthew isn't too thrilled about the mask part, but what can you do?! We are just glad things are getting somewhat back to normal. We will take what we can get!
This week it was time for Sarah to get her labs drawn again. We are getting to know the phlebotomist at the lab and she is pretty awesome. She is an avid reader and remembers that Sarah is too. They like to talk books and share different series they like to read. We got a few new books series to try. As we were leaving she said she would be ready next time we came back to share more book reading possibilities. I told her we would see her again in three months. Another plus is she got Sarah on the first stick which is awesome because she tends to be a hard stick!
Unfortunately, Sarah's liver labs have all increased which is not what we wanted to hear. Sarah is asymptomatic thank goodness, but that was not the news we wanted to hear. We are waiting to get an appointment with her doctor at the Liver Clinic down at Primary Children's to see what what needs to happen next. This week has been pretty stressful, but we are grateful for the support and love we have been shown. I am hoping next week will be better....
I am glad you were able to have a family vacation before all that crap happened! I am glad the boys are ok & hope you get answers & help for Sarah. Love you!
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