Brent had a weekend off at the end of May and on Thursday morning we were trying to decide where to leave to go camping that night (he works nights and we thought it'd be cool to have him drive us at night). Anyway I had gotten all the camping food prepared and most of the stuff gathered, we just hadn't decided on a location. I have been REALLY wanting to go to the Redwood Forest and Oregon Coast but it is such a long drive we didn't think it was a good idea plus it was going to be a little chilly out there that weekend so that was another reason we didn't think this would be a good campout for the kids. Then we had the idea to ask our family if they could watch the kids while we went on a couple get-away. I have been really wanting to do a couple get-away for a long time and luckily everyone was willing!!! Even with less than 24 hours notice!!!! We have the best family ever! So that night Emily came to sleep over with the boys and we left around 11:30. Brent drove all through the night, it was quite stressful at one point because we didn't know there was such a long stretch of no gas stations between Winnemuca Nevada and Lakeview Oregon. By the time we got to Lakeview we probably only had a few miles left in our gas tank. Talk about stress! It was SO beautiful in Oregon, we were just amazed, and it just kept getting more and more beautiful the closer we got to the coast and then... BAM we were in the gorgeous Redwood Forest with some of the biggest trees in the world!
Brent has never seen the Redwood Forest before and he was like a kid in a candy shop. He pulled to the side of the road and hopped out and was climbing all over this fallen redwood.
Here is Brent inside a really old fallen redwood, hopefully these pictures are portraying to y'all how BIG these trees are.
There are some really beautiful walks you can take in the Redwood Forest which is so much fun for a couple of photographers and nature enthusiasts. I think we hiked almost as slow as we do when the kids are with us because we kept stopping to take pictures. These are just a few of them.
As we were driving to another part of the redwood forest we saw this beautiful beach and had to pull over and explore and walk in the water a bit. It was so fun and romantical.
Here I am, feeling as big as a redwood.
We stopped and took some more pictures at the beach that night, this lighthouse was particularly cool, and Brent got some nice ones of it. Here are a couple...
We went to bed that night in our tent that was right in the redwood forest. We can't wait to take the boys there someday! We woke up early the next morning, packed up camp and went on another scenic drive through more redwoods. This is my favorite picture from that drive.
We sadly left the redwoods to head up the coast, our sadness was soon overcome by awe at the AMAZING coast of Oregon! It was SOOOO gorgeous! We can't wait to take the kids there too!
Obviously the kids were on our mind a lot judging by this next picture we captured...
When it was lunch time we stopped in a little town to find a seafood place to eat. We drove down to the Dock and found the PERFECT place...
It was called Griffs and I'd like to have Brent describe the perfectness of eating here but I never remember to ask him to, so I will attempt. It was just right there on the dock where people were bringing in fish, it was a small comfortable environment. The waitress was a local and fun to talk to. The food was really good. It was just really quite fun!
We played around at the ocean at a place close by there at Battle Rock that the waitress suggested. We took a bunch of video of us "finding creatures" for the boys to watch when we got home.
Then we drove up the coast for longer, a lot of that was inland and we didn't see much until we got to Seal Beach, not sure if it was actually called that, but sure enough there were two seals hanging out on a rock. We couldn't see them at first, they totally blended in. So glad we had our long lens and Brent got some cute pictures of them.
There were also tons of beautiful star fish, anenamies, and muscles all over the rocks.
After we left Seal Beach we found another seafood place, we got to try their clam chowder, I thought it was yummy but Brent thinks the kind I make is better, ain't he a sweetheart!? :) I got Fish and Chips and holy cow it was REALLY good! After dinner we drove up to Tillamook and stayed the night in a hotel because it was rainy, dark, we were exhausted, and we thought it would be nice to have a shower before church the next day. That shower sort of ended up being pointless for me, due to what we did the next morning before church....
We drove up the coast some more and had almost made it to Canon Beach but for some reason Hug Point called to us and we turned in there. It was gorgeous, but rather chilly. I was wearing my coat and Brent's coat. I walked barefoot most of the time since I had my church shoes on. Brent really wanted to explore the beach for a little while so we bundled up and did just that. My sweet hubby ran back to the car and got me some pants to put on underneath my skirt.
We walked North up the beach for a while, finding sand dollars and star fish and what not. It was REALLY fun and beautiful. After wandering along the beach for a good long time we turned around to head back. By the time we got back to the rock pictured above from earlier, the tide had washed in a LOT more than I realized. Brent went up on the rocks to get back since he had his sunday shoes on but I thought since my shoes were off already I might as well just walk through the water. It started getting deeper and deeper and all the sudden holy cow I was up to my hips in the water! I turned around and came back and we had a good laugh about it. I put my tennis shoes on (which Brent had the foresight to bring along, what a good man!) and we walked back to this waterfall we had seen at the beginning of our walk...
There was some more water to walk through so I had taken off my shoes again. We got to this waterfall and I set them down with my wet pants and my sunday shoes. Then I grabbed the camera to get a good shot. I didn't have my tripod but there were some big rocks I could lean against to steady the camera. As I was taking the picture all the sudden I got sucked down into the sand almost to my knees!!! I pulled myself out amazingly well and Brent was watching me laughing his head off while quoting the part from Pure Luck where Martin Short gets stuck in quick sand. We had a pretty good laugh. If you're wondering why he didn't help me out, it's because he was holding all the sea creatures he had found including a VERY stinky dead star fish that he was insistant on taking home. After capturing the picture we walked back to my stuff and one of my sunday shoes was GONE! It was very windy at the beach so I guess it had just blown away!!! Feeling very wet and exhausted and laughing at my luck we walked back to the car, I changed and we said a sad goodbye to the Coast and headed towards Portland in hopes that we could find a ward to go to. Thanks to the help of a kind woman on the phone we found a 1:00 ward to attend, it was a singles ward but we didn't care. I did feel a teensy bit weird walking in with my tennis shoes and big old pregnant belly but we were able to slip in and out with talking to anyone. :) The speakers were really great though and we were glad we were able to make it. After church we thought we'd drive over to Multnomah Falls because i remember them being really awesome. They were indeed awesome but VERY crowded which caused me some anxiety so we didn't stay long. We also decided to throw away our star fish because it stunk SOOO very badly even wrapped in 6 ziploc bags in our trunk! We just couldn't handle that smell for the next 9 hours as we drove home.
A guy offered to take our picture, when I looked at the camera after he took it I had this double take of myself, I was like holy cow! Look at that belly! Do I really look that big!?
The drive home was fun for me, there wasn't much to see so we just talked and talked. I loved it! We finally couldn't drive anymore when we were a few hours into Idaho so we pulled off and slept for a few hours, then continued on and walked in at 7:00 am. The kids didn't know we were going to be there when they woke up, the looks on their faces when they woke up and saw us was priceless, I loved it! They missed us so much and we really missed them too!!!
