In July, my parents held a family reunion on the Oregon Coast in Lincoln City. The kids especially were excited to continue their summer of traveling the globe to go to Oregon and play with all 10 of their cousins at once.
Here's the front of the beach house with the white pickup we rented to drive around. It was the first time I had driven a large pickup in a long time and was kind of exciting, but also difficult since it is more difficult to maneuver.
The house had a small heated pool and hot tub that we spent time splashing and playing in.
Most of our time was spent at the beach which was a short walk away from the house.
The kids enjoyed digging in the beach sand all week - some of their holes got very deep and their sand castle complexes were quite large.
The Oregon coast was often chilly and had fog that would roll in and
out throughout the day which gave it a charming spooky look and feel. I like this picture of Karina with Grandpa and the fog in the background.
We explored some tidal pools and the kids found crabs, shrimp, and small fish swimming around as they walked along the rocks at low tide.
I don't remember exactly what the girls wrote in the sand here and
it's hard to read, but it was something about saving the animals that
the cousins were finding and talking about using for fish bait.
Lydia and Brenna exploring.
Grandma and Grandpa were thrilled to have all their grandkids together again.
Derek was terrified of the water most of the time and insisted on staying far up on the beach where it was safe. I was the lucky guy who got to sit with him here and in between him swinging a stick sword, convinced him to come sit on my lap so I could tickle him!
More fog rolling over the water.
Back at the house, Grandma had brought all kinds of art projects to keep the cousins busy and entertained.
The kids all made s'mores one night in the fire pit.
Derek "helped" Tessa and Grant when Tessa's marshmallow got a little too close to the flame.
I think Dallin might need to squish his s'more down a little to get it in his mouth.
Karina amazingly was able to eat hers without making much of a mess.
Back at the beach, this was one of the larger sand castle complexes that the cousins worked on together. They made a series of moats and trenches to divert the water from the waves coming in so they could keep their main castle structure intact.
Grandpa cuddling up on the couch with Lydia, Courtney, Tessa, and Karina.
Growing up, I loved the freedom and novelty of riding in the bed of a pickup truck. The girls wanted to do it, and Derek was scared but wanted to be part of the fun, so Tanja sat with him as I drove slowly around the beach house neighborhood up and down the hills. I think Derek wound up enjoying it after all, so it was probably best that Tanja was back there with him to keep him from standing up in excitement and falling over the edge.
We went to a nearby park one evening to play mongo ball (basically baseball with a large bouncy ball and a bat made of a water jug mounted on a pipe). Despite none of our kids ever having played softball or baseball before, Lydia got a hit...
...and ran around the bases as fast as she could while dodging the ball that they threw at her trying to get her out.
Karina was one of the fastest base runners.
Derek tried his hand at the plate...
...but he probably liked being in the outfield more where he could dance and pretend he was in a light saber battle or something.
Some of the trees in Oregon were really tall.
Derek loved Grandpa pushing him on the swings at a playground.
Back at the beach, during a foggy misting drizzle, the kids still had fun playing. Derek helped bury Courtney and Tessa in the sand.
We drove along the coast to explore and see some of the nearby sights.
This is called Devil's Punchbowl, the tide comes in and fills up this hole through the tunnels you can see a little in this picture.
Here's Lydia at Devil's Punchbowl.
We went to Yaquina Head Lighthouse, the tallest lighthouse on the Oregon coast. It was really windy there that day.
Grant, Courtney, Tessa, Lydia, and Karina made a dam along Foggerty Creek. Not sure the park rangers appreciated it, or how long it was able to stay there with tide moving in, but they worked hard on it.
I really like these pictures of Tanja with the foggy colorful cliffs behind her.
Me keeping Derek safe away from the water...by tickling him!
Lydia against the rocks as the tide moves in.
Miles, Courtney, Karina, and Grant.
Finding small crabs and other ocean life as they dig near the water.
Grandma brought a bunch of kites to take advantage of the ocean breeze. She claims that she had never flown a kite by herself before. I remember having kites and flying them when I was a kid, but guess she never flew one on her own. Well, she has now - the look of joy on her face as she was laughing is priceless.
We had lots of kites up in the air for a while. Karina liked flying hers too.
My sister Allison offered to take family pictures of everyone while we were in Oregon. Here we are.
And here's the big group shot - back row l-r: Allison and Kyle Hicken, Spencer and Kellie Bell, Frank and Amy Webber (Grandpa and Grandma), Allyson and Aaron Webber, Nate and Tanja Webber; middle row l-r: Maxwell Webber, Dallin Bell, Tessa Hicken, Courtney Webber, Lydia Webber, Logan Bell; front row l-r: Ethan Bell, Grant Hicken, Karina Webber, Russell Webber, Miles Hicken, Brenna Hicken, Derek Webber.
After we left the beach house, we drove north up the coast on our way back to Portland to visit again with Tanja's brothers Thomas and Erik and Erik's wife Vanessa. We made a stop in a charming town called Neskowin that had a nice beach.
The beach had a so-called ghost forest - basically a bunch of petrified tree stumps that were exposed at low tide. I thought they were cool looking. Here's Derek looking for something, maybe a ghost, inside one of the stumps.
This rock feature is called Proposal Rock. The story goes that a sea captain took his beloved there around 1900 to propose. Since that time, apparently other local couples have used it as a backdrop for their own wedding photo shoots. It does have a certain charm and beauty to it, especially when the tide is in and it is completely surrounded by water.
We started to walk around Proposal Rock and found interesting rock features like this window that had eroded through the rock.
We also saw sea life like these barnacles and purple and orange sea stars attached to the rock.
Since the water was getting too high, Derek was terrified to continue to go around the rock, so Tanja took the girls and continued their walk though maybe a foot or two of water while I took Derek the long way back around backtracking. Here's the section that was too scary for him.
Lydia was brave and made it all the way around.
We continued our drive and stopped in Tillamook to tour the cheese factory there. The kids were surprisingly very interested to trace the path that the milk took to become cheese and then how the cheese was prepared and packaged to be sold as we watched the workers on the factory floor. We then went to the Tillamook dairy store for ice cream, but instead of spending $4 or so for each individual ice cream cone (and standing in a 40 minute long line to get those cones), we picked up a half gallon of ice cream for $6 or so and got some spoons and makeshift bowls to eat our fill of deliciously creamy ice cream before continuing on our drive back to Portland.
Here's Derek "feeding" a calf at an exhibit in the cheese factory.
Since Portland is just across the Columbia River from Vancouver, Washington, we decided to go to Vancouver so the kids could say they had been to Washington on the trip. We ate lunch there and went to Fort Vancouver National Historic Site where we walked around to see the fort and a few recreated/rebuilt homes there from when it was a fur trading port in the 1800s. Here are the girls with the fort in the background.
And the fort itself.
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