Oregon (part 4)--aquarium and talent show

Rita's friend hooked us up with free tickets to the aquarium in Newport, so we headed up there one of the days.  The kids loved it!

 

holy king crab

 

 

 

 Picnicking with the cousins

 

 

 

 

That night (I think), Clem lead the way with the First Singer Family Talent Show.  It was actually a lot of fun and the kids were super excited to share their talents with everyone.

Grandpa was the magician
Mary wrote 2 poems and recited them for us.  One poem was about Narnia and one was about sea creatures.  They were impressive and obviously written by someone who plans to be an author.

Annie did a card trick and then showed us her splits.  Such an entertaining girl.

Andrew had a great card trick for us (and he drew an awesome picture that he chose not to share)

Whitney showed us all her finger weaving.  She does NOT like to be in front of a crowd and gets super shy.  I was so proud of her for getting up.

The talent show was a tender sweet moment for me.  It's really something to see your kids be confident in front of a crowd and think up and share the things they are good at.  Great idea Clem and Rita.

Oregon (part 3)--at the beach house

Not a lot of words for this one, just a lot of pictures showing the fun of our beach house.  Cousin time is the best!!  It was really just perfect being with everyone and having the kids (and us) really get to know their cousins.
  It was roomy and beautiful and we were right on the water.  The kids went outside and climbed on the rocks and found tons of sealife.  We had a rocky beach right behind the house and just down the block was a larger sandy beach.  Our first 2 days there, we even saw whales, lots of whales working their way south.  It was amazing how close they were.



 

 

 

aren't these girls just so happy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cute cousins!

 

Oregon (part 2)--heading to the beach house

From Rita and Clem's house to Yachats, Oregon (where we were staying) was like a 2 1/2 hour drive.  And it was a drive with about a billion places to stop and have fun on the way.  We only chose a few stops b/c we actually wanted to make it to our destination.  Wow though, the whole Oregon coast is just amazing.

First stop--seeing the elk just outside of Reedsport.  There is a huge elk preserve and there are dozens of them.  We got lucky and they were right near the viewing area.  So beautiful.
 

 

We planned to tour Sea Lion Caves but the sea lions weren't actually in the caves.  Good thing my kids enjoy a fun gift shop.

We stopped at Heceta Head beach and lighthouse.  If we would have let them, the kids would have stayed at this beach all day.  Really though, I could say that about every beach we went to for the whole 4 days.

 

I love this picture I took of Annie.  Man, she loves the ocean.  Mary and Andrew are the explorer type, always looking for shells, crabs, etc.  Whit and Annie preferred to get wet and race the waves.  And if Annie has a minute, she is happy to just stand and stare.

 

Andrew LOVES (or should i say LOVED) finding crab body parts.  This beach was full of them and he was going overboard.  Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of shells at this beach for him to see that there are more awesome things to find than crab body parts.  Once we got to Yachats and he discovered sand dollars and star fish, etc, etc, and realized that crab body parts are actually just smelly and kind of gross.

 

 

 

We did hike up the light house too, and hit a few letterboxes before we finally made it to the beach house.

Oregon (part 1)-- pre-beach house

Our Oregon trip was perfect.  We had the best time and so much fun seeing everyone and doing lots and lots of stuff.

A super awesome part of our Oregon trip was that all the Singers were together for the first time in 7 years (and we have a few more Singers since then as well).  We had 3 nights at a beach house with Rita and Clem, all 4 boys and their families.  After that, we had a few days with everyone.  Beforehand though, we had just Rita and Clem and Dan, Wendy and Taya in Roseburg for a few days.

Matt, Dan and Grandpa took the kids up shooting somewhere up in the mountains like 45 minutes away.  The kids really enjoyed it.

 

 

 

 

They revisited the site of Matt's Eagle Project...the trail has seen better days (like 20 years ago--geez we're old)

We headed to River Forks Park for a picnic too.  Can I just say that Roseburg is beautiful.  I remembered it was pretty but was reminded over and over again of just how pretty it is.  

 

 

So pretty, huh?

We picnicked and played a while and then headed down the river and the kids swam a bit with Grandpa and Uncle Dan.  Kayaking down the river were some friends of the Singer family, so Bro. Hall gave the kids rides.  They loved it.

 

 

Oh and they love Uncle Dan too.

Next up, heading to the beach house....I took like 600 pictures on this trip, so I'm gonna have to break it up into a few posts.