VISITORS!!!

I finally got my sister Shonnie and her family up here to visit! My parents were able to come too. (they were here August 1st-7th...I am a little behind on posting this)We pretty much crammed everything we possibly could into one week, but we had so much fun!

Everybody stayed at our house (and it was a pretty tight squeeze, but being "close" to family is what it's all about right??). We kicked the kids out to the living room so that the adults could have beds....


Here is what we did:

Monday: We drove up to the Portland area and met them at a fun little fish hatchery.

Dawson, Ashton, Jensyn, Calvin, Grayson, McKinley, and Hudson.

My Mom and Dad, Pat, Shonnie, Me, and Ben.

Then we headed a few miles back and stopped at Moltnomah Falls. They were gorgeous!

Tuesday: We drove out to McMinville where they have this awesome new indoor water park that is at an aviation museum. It has this huge 747 airplane on top of the building, with water slides coming out of it, and then going back inside the building.

It was probably all of our favorite day.....we spent 9 hours there! I kind of felt like a kid again....it was so dang fun. Gray and Cal were even big enough to go on all but one of the slides. Even Hudson had a pretty fun time. It was nice to have my parents there so they could help with Hudson while we took Gray and Cal on the slides. Huddy even took a 2 hour nap on my dads lap.....he is obsessed with my dad!

We took our small camera this day and I can't find it anywhere, so we don't have any pictures of us there, but here is a pic of the outside.


Wednesday: After having such a long tiring day at the water park the day before, we decided to stick around Salem and just hang out. We did some shopping and took the kids to the carousel and park. That night, McKinley and Ashton watched all the kiddos and the adults went out to dinner. It was pretty nice having in-home babysitters!

Thursday: We started out the day by going raspberry and blueberry picking! You can't visit Oregon in the summer without stopping to pick your own berries. I think we probably ate as many while picking as we brought home.

Then we headed to Silver Falls. It is one of our favorite spots here!

Friday we headed up to the Portland Zoo. It was really fun and again ended up being a really long day!


Saturday we went to the coast.....Pacific City to be exact. We love that beach because they let you drive your car down on the beach (we did get stuck in the sand once but luckily Pat has 4-wheel drive and pulled us right out:).

If you have ever been to the Oregon coast, you know that it is FREEZING! Even on a warm day it is still really cold. Ashton and McKinley were determined to swim though.....

Brrrr.......!!!

There is this HUGE sand hill that we climbed. You can see it behind my parents in the picture.

It didn't seem that far at first, but it was hard!!!
Every step you take, you take a half step back...
Somehow Grayson and Jensyn pretty much RAN up it though... I had to drag Cal up.

My mom taking a little rest.....

My Mom and Shonnie finally made it!!

The view was definitely worth it!

Here are just a few other random pictures.....

Dawson and Huddy drinking their bottles with Pat.
Hudson is one of those babies that loves guys. He loved Pat and my dad, but didn't go to my mom or Shonnie as easily.

Huddy and my dad....

Thanks again for the visit! We always love visitors....hint...hint..!!