We went camping again!

For Father's Day weekend we went camping again.  We stayed at Honeyman State Park near Florence. It is more like camping in the mountains even though it is at the coast.  You can't get to the beach from the campground but we did bike down to the day use area and walk around Cleawox Lake.

Honeyman is a HUGE campground with hundreds of sites.  It wasn't full though.  We had fun hiking around and watching people canoe and play in the lake.

Saturday night we had a nice fire and cooked hot dogs.  Sunday we went to church in Florence again.  Some people remembered us from last time.  The Fathers each got a big cookie that the young women had made. (Our ward young women were also in charge of the Father's Day present.  We bought cans of soda and individual packets of nuts and the girls tied them together with a tag that read "I''m nuts about you pop!"  apparently they were a hit).  We came back home after church and got to talk to our kids and grandsons on skype for Father's day.  It was a great weekend.

Trip to Utah

The first of June we got to go back to Utah for the weekend.  The first thing we did was go to the zoo.  The little boys loved it and we also got to see the bird show which was awesome!  We wanted to see the polar bear because the new exhibits were open, but we went in the afternoon and she was tired and they had put her away.  We will have to see her next time.  It was a really good day and kind of hot for us Oregonians who haven't had anything higher than 80 degrees so far.
The main reason we were there was for Matthew's blessing.  It was a great day to see family and spend time together.  We did miss some of you though.

It was a great weekend, but it went way too fast!  The next time we will get to go will be October when we all welcome Elder Daniel home!  We will get to stay a week that time!

Camping in Florence

I know it has been such a long time since I posted.  I am going to try and be more current.  I will start with this trip and probably go back into February and come forward in future posts.  Oregon is treating us well, it is very different in so many ways.  The last weekend of April we went on our first camping trip.  We went to Harbor Vista campground in Florence.  Florence is on the coast and is about 57 miles from where we live.  We go over a "pass" which makes us laugh each time we see it because it says Summit 749 feet!  The campground is a county campground and all of the county and state camps have hookups which is awesome and only $25 per night!  This one is just above the jetty and has so many trees that you can't see the campers next to you.

The first morning ( Saturday) we went to this diner.  It is called the Hot Rod Grill and they have a pretty good breakfast.  The cars are actually booths to sit in for your meal.  The outside of the diner has the fronts of classic cars coming out from the building all around the top.  It was fun to watch kids (and grownups) come in and want to sit in the cars to eat.

we took a drive up the coast that day to Yachats.  Along the way we stopped just above Sea Lion Caves ( it is an attraction that you pay and actually go down to the sea cave where the sea lions are) and we took this picture of sea lions sunning on a rock.  

There is a lighthouse along the way but it was under construction and covered up, we will get a lighthouse picture next time.  There was this house that was next to the ocean that was built with a lighthouse, but not one that served as a lighthouse.

We also saw Devil's Churn. It is a place where the sea has cut into the rocks along the shore and the water comes in at tide and splashes up really high.  We were not there at high tide so I am guessing it is more impressive when you are.  We also hiked down to the tide pools but didn't see much there since the water was way out.

We went down to old town Florence and this is a picture of the street.  We ate at a restaurant right on the water called Mo's.   The food was great!

At the end of the day we went to the overlook at the campground and got these shots of the sunset

On Sunday we went to church at the Florence ward.  We don't have any pictures of that day.  They were all so friendly and had what they called a "linger longer" which was a pot luck lunch and they invited us to stay.  We met some really nice people and when we are over there camping again we will enjoy going to their ward.  It was a great trip and as you can see, the scenery in this state is breathtaking.  We hope that everyone that can will come up to see us and we can take you around first hand!

Hello from Eugene Oregon!

Hi everyone,  we are settled here in Eugene and we thought it would be fun to have a little tour of our new home. (I found two great second hand stores - Goodwill and St. Vincent dePaul (St. Vinnys) where we bought some of our things for the house.)  Here goes:

Here is our front door - Number 144 at 1150 Darlene Lane. I got the flowers at St Vinnys.

This is the entryway and the bench where we take our shoes off.  It is very wet here and the carpet is light so we don't wear our shoes in the house, we keep our slippers here and change.

Here is the living room ( I took the picture from the stairs)

This is the table and mirror we bought at Target for this wall between the dining room and the kitchen.  (disregard the woman in the mirror - lol)

The dining room - we bought the antique dining set from St Vinnys -( the chairs had old white vinyl on the seats, I bought the tapestry fabric and recovered them)  Brittany gave me the desk in the background.

The kitchen - from the dining room.  we have a really loud refrigerator and dishwasher and the absolute loudest garbage disposal I have ever experienced.  It vibrates the whole counter and things move across the counter when it is on!

The view from our "deck"  it looks high because our home starts on the second floor of the building (our "first" floor)  We have a flight of stairs outside up to our door.

The stairs go up behind this wall in the living room.  We brought this shelf and chair from Utah, we also brought the living room furniture.

This is the little 1/2 bath right inside the front door off the entryway.

This is the laundry/sewing room at the top of the stairs.  It is very big.  I got the desk with the shelves at the Goodwill.

This is Rob's office, we got the little shelves that hold his TV at the Goodwill.

This is the couch in his office - it makes into a bed for visitors (everyone welcome!)

This is the bathroom attached to his office.

This is Rob's closet, he got the big one

This is our bedroom

My closets on either side (I have two because he has the big closet) looking into the bathroom attached to our room.

There is the tour of our home.  We hope that a lot of people will come up and see us sometime!  I will end with a  picture of an amazing sunset we saw from our deck last week:

He's home!

Elder Nathan Kenner arrived today from Sierra Leone West Africa!  After serving an honorable mission and baptizing 70+ people and learning and growing he is home and ready to start his new phase of life!  He and Kari are planning on getting married before too long so watch for that!  We spent a great day with him and he was released at 5 pm.  We are looking forward to his report this weekend!!  We love you Nathan!!!

A trip to plan for a move!

Last week Rob and I went to Oregon to find a place to live and to  make other necessary arrangements for our upcoming move.  We were able to get a townhome the first afternoon we were there.  It is two stories and has two bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms.  It is very nice and we know we will be very happy there.
Here is Rob in back of the place:

That is our balcony behind him.  Our first floor is the second story and our second floor is the third story.  The view we have from our home is Delta Ponds - a nature preserve.  We can't even see the city!

Because we acquired housing on the first day. We had extra time on the second day.  it was a beautiful cloudless day and we decided to drive to the coast - only 55 miles away.

It was very windy, and you can't really swim in the ocean in Oregon even in summer (it is super cold) but we had a nice afternoon walking on the beach and enjoying the day.  The drive to and from the coast is beautiful, especially now with the colors.  The "pass" that we went over was 769 feet!  We also saw a beautiful covered bridge on our way back.

We spent the next day make a few more arrangements and getting the lay of the land.  Friday we had to drive back to Portland to the airport and because the trip was successful so early, we had the chance to go to the temple.

It was a great trip and although we will miss family and friends we are excited for our new adventure in Eugene Oregon.  It is a great place to visit - come on up sometime:)