14 yrs.

Griffin celebrated his 14th birthday. He decided he also wanted to go to Top Golf, so that's what we did. In the evening, he finally decided on Burgerville for dinner, then cake and ice cream at home. He got a long board and shark wheels.
Happy birthday Maximus!

Lavander festival

I decided to take the kids to the lavender festival a few weeks ago. It was small compared to what they had in NM, but cute. Reminded me of our old front yard. I took a bunch of pictures while we were there. A few days later, I heard they were having a photography contest. I decided to enter, and I won!  I got a prize bag with some goodies. Kinda fun. Made me feel like I'd done something cool.

Cape Meares

Frost we took a family hike to see the cape meares lighthouse and surrounding area.  It was stunningly beautiful. We saw the octopus tree first which was pretty neat. Afterwards, we had a picnic lunch before heading over to see the lighthouse.  Although it's a smaller lighthouse, it was still pretty neat to see. We were able to go up inside of the lighthouse. After the lighthouse, we hiked down to the beach. We enjoyed exploring the tidepools.  There were all kinds of neat sea creatures. I could have stayed all day!  We had a really great time hanging at the beach.  The hike back up was hard, but we survived. We stopped in Tillamook for treats on the way home. Such a fun day out!

Making some money

The boys have recently gotten into recycling. Here in Oregon, you get $0.10 for every can or bottle that you redeem. They've been going out bottle collecting usually two times a day, and  filling our garage with all kinds of crap!  I think I have taken them to the recycle center a total of four times so far. They have made a total of about $140 which isn't too bad. It's not a full-time job obviously, but hey it's a little summer fun money. It's amazing how much money you can get just from recycling cans and bottles.

Mosier Twin tunnel hike

We went on our first official family hike of the summer a few days ago. It's something I had read about and have been wanting to go for a while now. The trail itself turned out to be paved the entire way which was cool. The trail takes you through two old tunnels that used to be part of the historic Columbia River Highway back in the fifties, they've been restored and are now used for hiking. Although the trail goes for 8 1/2 miles round trip, but we only did 7 miles round-trip. It was a

beautiful day and we enjoyed the views.

America

The 4th of July was low-key. We hung around the house, watched movies and basically just chilled until time to see fireworks.

16 yrs. Old

Yesterday, we celebrated Trevor's 16th birthday!  It's hard to believe he's that old already. We suprised him with a family trip to Top Golf in the morning. We all had a great time. We ordered drinks and appetizers while we played. Afterwards, we went to Great Harvest to pick up some sandwiches. After that, I took the boys to the recycling center (something they've recently started). They made over $32.00.  We had pasta with sausage for dinner and then opened presents. Trevor got his traditional birthday pie for dessert. It was a good day.  We sure love this kid!  It's been a rough year. We've had some difficult times with him, but Trevor is really trying hard and doing a lot better now.

Crater Lake camping trip

Our friends asked us about a month ago if we'd like to go camping with them at Crater Lake. Since Patrick won't be able to join the kids and I on our road trip

Later this summer, we thought this would be a fun family getaway.

We headed out early Saturday morning. We met up with our friends at a campsite called Broken Arrow (just outside of Crater Lake). It was a fun time. We will say though, instead of staying 3 nights, we only stayed 2 because the mosquitoes were horrible! We've never camped somewhere where we've had such a problem. We all got so bit up. We tried bug spray and candles with no luck. To treat our bites, we tried creams and sprays, even toothpaste! We all took Benadryl at night to help with the horrible ichiness.   Spiders we're bad too. That part was really terrible.
Crater Lake was amazingly beautiful. The water was so blue! Pictures don't come close to doing it justice.  Unfortunately not all of the park was opened yet (due to snow still). We were able to see a portion of the park. It was crazy how much snow was still up there.   We had fun, and enjoyed visiting with our friends and some

friends of theirs they brought along.  It's definitely different camping with people that you're not super close to. I had my moments, ha!  Overall, glad we went. In the way home, we stopped to play in a river for a bit, and also had a late lunch at a super cute old fashioned Soda Fountain. Both well deserved! We can check Crater Lake off our Oregon bucket list now.