Meeting George the Elephant

The first weekend of August we drove down to Winston, OR to the Wildlife Safari to do a "pet and meet" with the Elephants.

I. LOVE. ELEPHANTS.

So getting to pet one was kind of a dream.  

All the kids came with us and they were all so SO good for both the drive and while we were there. 

Valerie, one of the elephants there painted a picture for us!  

After the safari we ate at Texas Roadhouse. 

It was sort of the best day!

Camping Without Kids

Last weekend my mom graciously agreed to watch our kids so Wes and I could go camping by ourselves to celebrate our anniversary.

It was the best 28 hours ever!  Not that I was counting or anything.  Ha!

We stopped to eat dinner at Calamity Jane's in Sandy.  This was definitely my kind of restaurant!  I think the majority of the menu was reserved for hamburgers.  I ordered a guacamole and Wes ordered a Texas Red.  We split them.  We both preferred the Texas Red.

Then we drove up to Frog Lake to camp.  Given the name it should have been obvious that there would be frogs but I didn't really put two and two together.  There were hundreds of tiny little frogs.  I'm not exaggerating when I say every step we took around the lake we had to watch where our foot landed.  We might have felt a few squish under our feet...

It took us all of 15 minutes to set up camp.  Amazing how that works when you don't have kids running around needing help or causing mayhem.

Then Wes went out fishing and I set by the lake and read.  

GLORIOUS!!!

The next morning we got up before we would have at home, which is weird because we were totally excited about not being woken up by kids.  But we were both just too excited to sleep any longer.

Wes went out fishing and I finished my book.

When he came back, we ate breakfast, cleaned up camp, all in under an hour.  I am still amazed how much you can get done without kids around.

Then we went fishing in the canoe.  We both caught a fish.  I lost my pole in the lake.  Why don't they float?  I mean, that should just be a standard for all poles, right? 

 I was seriously annoyed.

Before we headed home we went to Ikea and got these super cute lockers for kids so they have a place to put their backpacks next year besides just wherever they decide to drop them as they are coming into the house.

Devils Lake

Last weekend we went to Devil's Lake with the kids and our friends the Bells.

It was kind of chilly there, 62 degrees.  Which was about 20 degrees colder than our last camping trip.

True to form Caleb didn't sleep at night and we (Wes and Me) had two fairly sleepless nights.  The last night he slept in the car with Wes.  And then slept in until 9am...wish we could have slept in.

As soon as we got there the little kids climbed up on the picnic table and started chowing down on junk food.  We don't usually have a ton of junk food around so I'm sure they were in heaven.

 Kinsley once again out fished everyone.  She caught two fish.  The second she let Hite reel in.

 The first night we ate at Moe's.   

Pretty much, really serious "roughing it".

    

 Then we went back to camp and watched a movie.

 We met up with our friends.

 And ate smores.

The next day we went back to Moe's and swam at the sand bar right there.

It was freezing.

As we were leaving two deer started swimming to our side of the beach, even though there were people on the beach and pier.

Then they ran up onto the beach and darted through the crowd.  It was crazy.

They are just in front of the pier in this picture.

I love that Novalee still has some of her baby curls. 

 They just frame her face but they are so cute!

 I totally forgot Lincoln City had an outlet mall, so while that wasn't really in the plan for the weekend, I couldn't resist.  So I took Caleb and Novalee while Wes took the rest fishing at the dock.

 Sunday we packed up and went to say goodbye to our friends, who convinced us to come play one last place before heading home.

Devil's lake has this cool castle play structure thing.  It's massive.  Kind of like the Washington Park Playground but this one is made out of wood.  It was impressive.  Plus our kids ran off the last of their energy and slept the whole way home.

My little caged animal.

I like her.

 We are already planning another trip there next year!