Oregon, Baby Mary & Thanksgiving

November 21st - 30th

We drove to Oregon for Thanksgiving this year. We went to meet baby Mary and so we could be there for her baby blessing. It was timed nicely so that we could also spend Thanksgiving with most every one (even Becca, who survived her first trip to Oregon!) While we were there, we got to play at and around G.G.'s house, visit the coast, and go on a hike. Here are a whole lot of pictures of our trip. 

About 9 hours into our drive, Clara got sick of being in the car. We came up with fun ways to entertain her. I'm not sure how she felt about marshmallow face, but we were picking them off of clothes and the car seat for a few days after. When we got to G.G.'s, she had fun running around the house and collecting treasures with her basket.

Baby Mary

Baby Mary is such a sweet, quiet, easy going baby with so much dark hair! Her Butterfield cousins absolutely adored her! Clara thought she had her very own, real life baby doll, but she was fairly gentle considering she's 1. Henry just loves babies. He thinks they are the sweetest people and fun to snuggle and play with. He is such a good big brother/cousin.

Beach Day

There was a day that Mama had to work in Florence (on the coast), so we rode with her and stole the car while she worked. Frist we went to the light house at Heceta Head, but due to formatting problems that I have decided not to bother with anymore, those pictures are after the beach pictures. We have a picture of Henry at a similar age looking backwards over that same bench. This time he was much more interested in the light house and watching the seals in the ocean. Clara hung out with her Daddy then ran around after Henry. 

The kids LOVED the beach!!! I think our children are in need of a warm beach vacation! Clara loved the "bubbles" in the waves and playing in the sand. She enjoyed playing with the sand and was pretty proud of herself when she figured out how to slide down the dunes. Henry probably picked up every sea shell he could find. We had quite the pile before we headed to pick up G.G. 

Hike Day

The day after Thanksgiving, we hiked Skinner's Butte. It started out FREEZING, but we were all pretty warm by the time we were done. It was windy at the top and Clara was freezing in the wind, so we all bundled back up, then slowly made our way back down (ahead of the rest of the group). Super Nate carried both kids for a stretch of the hike up. Our large group ended up getting split into 3 smaller groups. Nate had Clara on his back and was running to keep up with Henry and totally left me in the dust. We were really taking our time on our way down, as to not have to wait forever for the rest of the crowd at the bottom. On our way down, we stopped at the "pull off" spot where you could see a beautiful lake at the bottom of the hill. Henry found a "number 4 tree" that we all thought was pretty cool. I wonder if it's one of those trees that was intentionally made to be like that or if it just grew that was naturally.

When we got to the bottom of the trail, we loaded in the van to warm up and hang out while we waited for the rest of the crowd. We weren't there long, but the kids got to "drive" and dance to a fun Christmas song or two. It was a pretty fun way to spend the day after Thanksgiving and burn off some of that yummy food.

Drive Home

The drive home was much less eventful than our last drive home from Thanksgiving in Oregon. (Thank Heaven!!!) We left right after the baby blessing, but still got on the road pretty late. Around 9 or 10 p.m. we were about to Twin Falls and Clara had been scream for most of the drive since Portland. That is over 500 miles of screaming! We did the math and calculated our Payson e.t.a, evaluated our nerves, the fog, the sketchy roads and decided we should stop in Burley. The kids were relieved to get out of the car, but one certain toddler decided she didn't need to sleep. Our plan was to get up early enough that we could get Nate to work on time in Salt Lake the next morning, so this staying up super late thing wasn't flying. I finally decided to give it up. I have Clara the iPad, set everything up in the safest way possible and went to sleep. I woke up at 5ish with her feet in my face. Who knows how long it took her to settle down that way. Monday morning we got Nate to work on time and made it home all safe and sound. There was a lot of napping the rest of the way home and no more screaming, so it was probably a good call.