Oregon!

As promised, here are a few memorable moments from our trip to Oregon.

First off, we had to get on the plane to get there, which was a bit of an ordeal. We got to the airport at 5:00 am with 2 hours to get through security and have breakfast before taking off. After spending way too much time trying to get our seats together, the lady at the ticket counter finally printed our tickets.
Unfortunately they had other peoples' names on them.
Fortunately Seth caught it.
Unfortunately she spent another 45 minutes trying to get it fixed while we just wanted her to get us through security so we could get on the plane and ask people to switch seats with us if needed. Fortunately someone else finally came through to help and pointed out that we were going to miss our flight if she didn't print the dang things and get us through security. So she printed our tickets with random seats and sent us to security.
Unfortunately, after going through the line to security, we were informed that for some of us, they had printed off tickets for the 2nd leg of our flight and not the first, which meant we had to go back to the ticket counter and start all over.
Fortunately both the security line and the ticket line were pretty short so we got through quickly but we were starting to cut it really close.
Unfortunately we were asked to step aside while they did a further inspection on Elena's bag. They pulled out her jacket that I had pulled up from the basement and packed for the trip. I saw the man pull something out of her pockets and said to Seth, "I think she must have had some rocks in her pocket," to which the man responded, "Those aren't rocks."
Nope. They weren't. They were bullets. Bullets!!! I kid you not.
Apparently the last time Elena wore that jacket was last spring when we went to a graduation reception at the local Sportsmen's Club. Where people practice shooting. And the ground was littered with used shotgun shells, a few of which Elena picked up and put in her pocket because she's a collector like that.
Seth and I reacted a little strongly when we saw what they were, thinking we were going to miss our flight for packing ammunition in our children's bags, which made Elena start crying. The poor thing had been up since 4:30, after all, with no breakfast, and she felt responsible even though it was in no way her fault.
Fortunately, another TSA agent came over, and when the guy holding the bullets asked, "What do we do?", she replied, "Just keep the shells and let them go." Well, that was easy.
In the end, we made it on our plane (seated together), but didn't have time to eat.

Well, that story was much longer than expected. If you're still reading, let's switch to pictures and shorter stories for a bit.

We lucked out weather-wise on the trip. We came at the end of a long spell of rain for a week of sun. The warmth made for perfect snow-man making weather in the mountains. Everyone pitched in to help with the snowman. Charlie liked looking for rocks and sticks to use for the eyes and arms. Right as we were posing for this picture, he spotted a little stick, picked it up and said, "Wait! He needs a wee-wee!" and proceeded to (as  Adam put it) make sure we really had a snowman. And then he turned toward the camera, ready to take the picture as though everyone made their snowmen anatomically correct.  

Here we are at "It's a Burl." Neat place. Hard to explain briefly. You can google it if you want to see more.

Exhausted after another day of sight-seeing

 We didn't have room in our luggage to bring 6 pairs of boots so we had to improvise a few times as you can see in these 2 pictures. There wasn't much we could do once Elena stepped in a creek wearing her only pair of shoes, however, so one lucky girl got some brand-new boots. And then proceeded to wear her dirty and slightly soggy shoes the rest of the trip. 

Monkey Feet

On our tour of a still functioning lighthouse

Visiting a covered bridge (the little boys were sleeping in the car)

Checking out the koi pond at a vineyard with Adam (who took most of our other pictures)

A couple of lizards the kids caught - the blue-tailed one was especially cool

One of the highlights was definitely the redwood trees in Northern, CA. Frankie insisted on walking on his own, which would have worked well if he would have followed us but he seemed to prefer to wander off into the forest alone so we had to keep a close eye on him.

This is the root system of a fallen Redwood

It's a little hard to see in this one, but Sam and Charlie are walking along a fallen Redwood. We really got a feel for how big these things were when we couldn't even let the kids walk all the way down to the end of the fallen trees because they would end up so far away.

 Another highlight was the beach. We went to three beaches, and the cold water didn't deter the kids from playing in the waves one bit. I think they could have stayed on the beach from morning to night without ever noticing they had missed several meals. The force of the waves, however, made us set pretty strict limits on how far in they could go. Basically not at all, but their favorite was running away from the waves when they came way up onto shore.

And then there was the moment when this guy stuck an orange M&M up his nose.  We were just about to take off when Kjersti (our friends' older daughter) said, "I think Charlie has an M&M in his nose." And it wasn't coming out. I was thankful that it was something that would eventually melt so we just had to keep him calm while we waited a little bit and then keep blowing his nose until all the orange coating and chocolate was out. The trickiest part was to keep from laughing throughout the process.

And then on the flight home, Elena's bag was once again held up. She got a panicked look on her face, turned around and said, "I don't want to watch and I don't want to know what it is." We had let each of the kids get a couple of small souvenirs. Elena's first was a mood ring that she gave me for safe-keeping at a beach and I promptly lost within an hour. Her second was a water-filled squishy toy. Which she made sure to pack in her bag. Which was a carry-on. Which are not allowed to have that much liquid. The very kind security lady took pity on us and didn't take away her only remaining souvenir. While I'm thankful for our security checks and their rules, I'm also thankful there are still people in the world who can use a little good judgement and common sense to make the occasional exception.

Ok, last story. On our flight out of Minneapolis, Elena came back from the bathroom and said, "Darwin is on this flight!" Darwin is a man we know from our home town. I told her it must just be someone who looks like him. "No, it's him. He's even wearing the hat he always wears!" So I checked it out, and she was right. He was several rows behind us so we didn't get much of a chance to talk.

While we were heading to the gate for our return flight, the kids were hoping Darwin would be on our flight home and that he would sit by us. Since we were flying a different airline for the return flight, I told them it wasn't likely. And even if he were on the same flight, with 200 seats, the odds of him being seated next to us were even less likely. Well, the odds were in our favor: we found him in the airport playing the flute with some local musicians, of all things. The kids enjoyed listening for awhile and then we boarded the plane. (You get to board right away when you fly with more kids than any intelligent person would attempt to fly with.) We took up 5 seats, and the rows were 6 across so there was an empty seat next to Elena. And guess who had the lucky ticket. Darwin, of course! And Frankie even let Darwin hold him for awhile - a bonus for us both.