Klamath Falls Trip

Fourth of July weekend found us making a road trip to Klamath Falls for my friend Angalee's wedding reception.  We had a great time with the girls and made a lot of fun family pitstops along the way.  It felt familiar and comfortable to be back.  I actually found I missed Klamath...just a little bit...let's not get carried away :) 

We were both excited to get back to Klamath but DREADED (and I do mean DREADED) the drive down 97.  To solve the monotony of 97, we decided to go 395 south through Pendleton and John Day to mix up the drive a little bit.  What a gorgeous detour.  The scenery was amazing.

  We stayed with Tara and Jesse who we hadn't seen since in almost a year at our wedding.  Connor was really excited to have so many girls at his house.  Since we've seen them, they've added a new addition, Peyton Blake, to their family who was born last December.  Connor and Isabella are about 6 months apart and they really hit it off. 

 It was so great to see Tara and Jesse. I lived (not really but pretty darn close) at their house for about a year.  Tara is a dear, dear friend that I'm so lucky to have.  They watched the girls while we went to the wedding reception for a couple of hours.  The girls had fun and didn't seem to miss us much :) We had a good time at the wedding reception, it was so great to see my other Klammie friends like LeAnn and Bill, see Angalee again in her beautiful wedding dress and meet her new hubby, Lewis. 

Kennedy claimed my favorite chair while we were there, a massage chair.  This chair is da bomb! I had to be peeled out of it most of the nights I stayed at Tara's when I lived down there.  Nice to see Kennedy appreciate it as much as I did.  

Klamath Lake

We had to make a drive by our alma mater and see how my old office building had changed.

After we left there to head to Bend, we detoured through Crater Lake.  Wow, I have been there about 3 times over the course of the 11 years I lived in Klamath and it never fails to impress.  The blue water there is indescribable...I would say blue is my favorite color but Crater blue is a blue unto its own.  It should have its own name like Carolina blue does. 

 There was still tons of snow, even for July.  They had a record snow year, so much so that one of the entrances into Crater Lake was still closed.  Kennedy had to climb the snow and say she'd stood on the lodge's roof. 

Isabella wasn't into roof climbing but she did enjoy making snow balls and throwing them at us. 

  We made a side stop and checked out Annie Falls which you had to peak over the scary ledge to see.  The girls weren't really into it so we hugged the safety of this tree and took pictures overlooking the canyon.

After Crater Lake we worked our way up 97 and stopped at the Wagon Wheel Cafe in Chemult.  Downstairs they had a replica log cabin room that Kennedy found simply creepy.

We checked into the hotel and I was reminded of how much fun that can be for kids.  Isabella ran into the room screaming, "I can't believe this!"  Apparently, it doesn't take much to make her deliriously happy.  We went swimming most of the evening and even swam for an hour the next morning after breakfast. 

The view from our room reminded me of one of the reason's I miss central & southern Oregon - the mountain ranges are hard to beat. 

Good night, moon.

 The next morning we got walked the trail from our hotel to the Old Mill District.

Yes, that is Kennedy with her very cute first Vera Bradley!  Tara and I had to make a reminiscent visit to Merrill and County Cork - a place we used to window shop every Saturday morning.  Tara teased her that she may have to borrow it every now and then, it's adorable.  Those purses just make me smile - so cheery.

 We left Bend to start the drive home but drove first to hike Tumalo Falls.  It was a 1/2 mile hike up and back and was a perfect morning hike.

Handsome Husband

After the falls, we ventured onward up 97.  Isabella had an upset tummy on the drive home so we had to pull off in Shaniko...a place we've driven by too many times to count but hadn't stopped at.  The bathroom cleanliness was to be expected for a ghost town but we did find a few interesting things to look at while we were there.

What a great family trip doing simple things.  It was good for the 4 of us to spend some time together exploring new things.  Shane and I felt really thankful our family could spend a long weekend together.

Walla Walla Washington

Walla Walla, Washington.  It's just fun to say!  Shane and I got a golf & hotel gift certificate package from his Uncle Ron and Aunt Mary last year at our wedding.  Since our one-year wedding anniversary is just around the corner we decided we should use it before it expires.

We stayed at the Walt Whitman in downtown Walla Walla.  Downtown was so cute with little cafes and lots of wine tasting shops. 

 
We definitely want to go back for wine tasting.  But this weekend was all about golf. We played at Wine Country which was gorgeous from the entrance to hole 18.  Blue skies, wide open space, and no noise except grasses blowing in the breeze reminded me of home.  It was healthy for my soul to be there.

Yes - I do have a crazy bird infatuation.  I love that Shane just "gets me" because he snapped this picture for me :)  He's the best husband!

When we finished golfing there we ventured a half hour away to Pendleton and golfed at Wildhorse Resort & Casino.  We got there just about at 6, got twilight rates, and pretty much had the whole course to ourselves.  We made it almost through 2 full rounds in one day, got tons of fresh air, spent some fun time together - it was a perfect day!  

Isabella 4th Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Isabella!  Yep, I'm a few weeks late posting pictures.  She had a "Tangled" party this year. 

Her Gramma Wagner had brought a cake that weekend for the girls dance recital weekend.  The girls ended up hardly being home because of all the dance activities so we used the cake as Isabella's birthday cake.  The ballerina on top was a big hit with Isabella because she was quite the twirler this year.

Pinata hat

Tangled wig in action!

Island

Shane made Debbie an island for Christmas and he just finished it.  He worked really hard on it.  Shane works 4 jobs (seriously...no really....seriously) and still makes time to finish stuff like this on the side.  He burned the midnight (more like 3 am oil) in the past few weeks to push and finish it up.  It looks really amazing!

 

Vanna showing off her Daddy's work

Geoaching

Heidi and Tyler introduced us to "geocaching" on Father's Day weekend. 

Geocaching is an outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices where you navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and try to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.  Tyler and Shane found geocache locations around the Everitt house and we set out to find them.  The geocaches might be as something as simple as rocks or little trinkets or sometimes even money!

 

It was a great way to do a little hiking and be out in the great outdoors.  The kids don't think of it as hiking when there is a treasure hunt involved. 

Last summer Isabella was a little camera-shy, sometimes you'd get a pose, sometimes not.  Sometimes she'd smile, sometimes not.  Obviously this camera shyness has disintegrated!

www.geocaching.com

Vampire Teeth

Isabella got these vampire teeth one weekend at a birthday party.  It was her favorite toy that weekend, these teeth went with us everywhere for two days.  At Walmart she likes to get a sticker from the greeter and I guess her forehead seemed like the best place to put it that day.

Backyard Camping

A couple of weeks ago we went camping...in the backyard. Alot of work for one night but looking at how much fun the girls had, it was entirely worth it!  And the best part, clean bathrooms just a few steps away.  We blew up the air mattresses, both girls read us a bedtime story and it was lights out under the starry sky.  We didn't put up the rainfly so we could see the stars which was good distraction since neither Shane or I slept at all that night.  Air mattresses just aren't as comfortable as they once seemed to be for some weird reason.