The Redwoods

We drove to Crescent City, California over the weekend to see the Redwood Forest. The lighthouse above it Battery Point Lighthouse, you could see it from out hotel. You could also hear the Sea Lions barking all night, it was fun.
The coastline is really similar to Oregon's, and of course I took a lot of photos of it.

Elk were all over the place.

The kids loved the redwood forest as much as we did, we really talked it up, and watched a movie about them. I was so glad they appreciated that!
They say the trees are up to 300 feet tall, over 20' in diameter and around 1500 years old. Isn't that crazy?!

We were always looking up :)

There was a good photo op at Ocean World, I had to share.

The Friendly Giraffe

We went to the Wildlife Safari in Winston, Oregon over the weekend. The giraffe tried to eat us through the sunroof.

Halloween!

The pumpkins grew pretty well this year, we are going to try for bigger ones next year.
Curren loves his TKD instructor Master Jim. He decided to be "Master Slim Jim" for Halloween, we went to the school that afternoon and had a blast watching the reaction of Master Jim, it was awesome! Master Li let Curren wear his black belt for this picture, which we thought was fun. I love that Curren will do things like this, he just laughed and laughed through it all!

Jessie my E-Vil vampire, emphasis on E-Vil :)

Curren loved our nerdy neighbor, haha!

Jessie's cute cat bat, she did a good job carving it.

Photo round up

Every so often I just have to share some great pictures we took, even though there is no rhyme or reason to them.

The sunflowers this year were pretty.

Mark loves buying dry ice to play with.

Curren going to town carving a pumpkin at pack meeting.

Soccer

Jessie was on a soccer team for the first time this fall, her team was the Blaze, and she had a blast! I loved that she was fearless and would just go for it and tried as hard as she could. She would tell us after the game she didn't understand anything the coach said, she just tried to kick the ball.

She had her last game on October 29th, I was proud of her for playing, she wants to be on the spring league now :)

Farmers we are not

We totally stink at growing corn... I'm going to try again next year...

Newts

We went for a drive a few weeks ago up by Brown's Camp to see the Newt Pond. Mark had found it dirt bike riding and had to show it to us. We found a lot of them and then tortured them by taking pictures of them.

We found where a busy beaver had been hard at work. Jessie was helping it out.

And then she decided to take a few pieces home with her. It was a fun day!

Curren earning his Green belt

Curren has been working hard in Taekwondo, he had belt testing last week for his green belt, look at him go!

He can jump so high, I am glad I was able to get a good photo of him flying through the air!

Attack of the butterfly

Mark and Curren caught a butterfly and brought it in the house, so we took the opportunity to let is crawl all over our faces, because what else to you do with a butterfly??

I like this picture because it looks like a hair barette, I told Mark to look really “cute” he does, don’t you think??

Random Pictures

I liked these pictures and so I thought I would throw them up here, they aren’t cohesive at all though :)

We built a deck and put these awesome swings on it, Curren is testing them out.

My hydrangeas were gorgeous this summer, I love how BLUE they are.

I think these two are related.

My cute cousin Brandi was in town and stopped for a short visit, it was so good to see her again!

The long haul

Driving from Colorado Springs to Portland Oregon is a long haul. We left Colorado around 10:00 and took the “scenic” drive to Utah. We went through the mountains, past Vail and Breckenridge. To say it was beautiful was an understatement. WOW. If you live in Colorado you should be spending your whole summers up in those mountains!

We found a car show in one of the mountain towns, BONUS!

Green forests and alpine peaks eventually turned into desert.

We then landed on Grandma Painter’s front door.

And another 12 hours to Portland. Seeing Mt. Hood is always a welcome sight.

Family Photo Shoot

When you all get together a family photo shoot has to happen right?