Our last week in Oregon and an Amazing Weekend in Coos Bay

Yesterday I finally had the chance to sit down and unload the pictures on our camera from the last 3 months which includes our last week or so in Oregon.

The kids and I had a really good time making these videos to show what life was like on the days we were stuck at home in the trailer.  With three small kids, we escaped as much as possible on adventures. But on the days we had nowhere else to go this was our lot. :)

Now you can see why we enjoyed getting out as much as possible on field trips to places like Tillamook Cheese Factory...

or on bike rides...

even if it was a bit muddy outside...

We were really really excited for any time we had the opportunity to stay at a hotel on the coast instead.  We had that blessing our last weekend in Oregon....
  Brent got offered a job interview in Coos Bay.  They paid for us to stay at a nice hotel with a pool for a few days!!! Brent's wonderful preceptor made his schedule work so we could get down there Thursday evening.  We played in the pool that night when we got there while Brent took a few pictures of us before going back up to prepare more for his interview.

 I was so excited to get some laps in again. Felt so good, I had sure missed that!

The next morning we dropped Brent off for the interview and I went back to the hotel with the kids and we swam again. The kids were being so cute.

Then we took showers and watched tv as we waited for the evening to come!

I grabbed a couple pizzas for the kids to take to their the babysitters family.  We found the babysitters by calling our friend in Crescent City whose husband is a bishop, he found the name of the bishop in Coos Bay.  We contacted the bishop to ask him for help to find a babysitter. He gave us some names and we called them up and found a nice family with a 12 year old girl to babysit at her house.  I love that about our church!  Anyway, we dropped the kids off and then arrived at the dinner.  I was so nervous but everyone was so nice.  It was an interesting dinner, I learned a lot about the area and got excited about everything. I won't talk about Brent's interview on the blog but it was all really positive, everyone was so nice and we were so grateful for the opportunities opened up to him.

We picked up the kids and then went back to the hotel.  The next morning we had the awesome opportunity to go on a huge tour of the area.  The tour guide was a woman named Mardi and she drove us up and down and all around the city showing us different neighborhoods and giving some history lessons and explaining the geography of the land.  She then took us out to Charleston for some yummy seafood for lunch.  Then she took us out to the State Parks.  This is when I was starting to feel ill so I actually don't remember this part too well. I think all the greasy food and the winding roads were starting to catch up to me.  Luckily we had toured the state parks ourselves a couple weeks before that so I didn't miss anything I hadn't seen before. Brent got out the camera and took some fun pictures of her tour.

 She brought her telescope so we could get a better view of the seals and sea lions hanging out there.  You could see them decently with our camera but even better with her scope.

 Sometimes I don't think Sanna knows how to pull a normal face.

 After we saw the cliffs at Shore Acres (which we already posted pictures of a few posts ago)  she took us on a tour through the gardens there.  I kept thinking as we were walking through these gorgeous gardens, THIS is the place for date night on the day after Thanksgiving tradition.  So excited, they even do Christmas Lights!

 Mardi was a bit of an expert on everything.  It made the tour quite interesting!

 After touring the gardens she took us back up to the beach at Sunset Bay and at that point I felt so sick that  I stayed in her van and took a nap while the kids, Brent and she went down to the beach for a fun activity involving making cards with glue and sand from the beach.  Chico found this artifact and was so excited about it. Mardi told him he had to turn it in because if it had historical significance it needed to stay there.  Chico was quite bummed about this.

After the tour we got settled at our next hotel (they couldn't let us stay at the same place because of an event at the casino) we arrived to the next hotel that we actually liked a little better because it was a bigger room. No pool but that was okay.  Brent got to go out to sushi with one of the doctors that night.  He invited me along but I was still not feeling 100% and sushi was the last thing I could eat with my stomach the way it was.  The kids and I just laid around at the hotel watching Disney Channel while he was gone.   

 Brent's really excited to take me to the sushi place when we get back to Coos Bay. He said it was the best sushi he has ever had.

Next day we got to go to church.  We walked in and immediately people were so nice to us. A woman named Heather gave me her number and email address if I need any help or had any questions. I  have asked her a million already! Another family, the Gordons, invited us to dinner if we needed since they knew it was hard when you're staying in a hotel. They had kids for our kids to play with and we were grateful for the invitation and we're glad for the chance to visit with them and eat their delicious fish tacos. 

The next morning Brent had one last interview and made his decision on which job he wanted to take.  We are so excited for the opportunity to live on the coast and I am so glad for the chance to have been able to be with Brent during this process.  The kids and I explored more of the area while we waited for Brent. First we drove down to Bandon to check out the old town touristy part of Bandon we hadn't seen yet.  Everyone raved about this chocolate shop so I had to try it out. The cost was a bit outrageous but it WAS quite delicious. I also enjoyed checking out the artist gallery next door to the chocolate shop. We drove back up to Coos Bay and grabbed Wendy's for lunch.  Mardi had shown us this park around Empire Lake and I wanted to check out the trails that go around it to see if it would be good for running or bike riding.  It was gorgeous as I suspected. We took a wrong turn and got off the real trails and ended up on a hiking trail that led to the community college. Woops! It was still fun though. (these next few are cell pics I had posted on Instagram)

 Brent finished and we picked him up and sadly left Coos Bay. We drove up the coast though instead of cutting into Eugene (the faster route). We stopped in Lincoln City to say goodbye to the Nightingales.  They were the main reason we even found this job so we wanted to say thank you in person and we needed to return a movie and book they had loaned us.  That there is another reason I love the church. Instant friends wherever you go! We were only in Oregon for a month but we have new friends in Lincoln City, Coos Bay, and Crescent City (CA).  We also have friends and family in the Portland area.  And Brent's preceptor in Salem is a friend that we keep in contact with, she was so great and really helped Brent get ready for his interview and made sure it was his priority. 

We were on top of the world when we got home after that awesome trip to Coos Bay. Even better news was that was our last night at the RV park!! 

The next morning Brent went in for his last day of work with the Dermatology clinic and we came and met them at lunch.  Then the kids and I continued on up the rest of the way to Portland and visited the beautiful Portland Temple. I left my camera in the trailer so phone pictures had to suffice:

After having a nice time touring the grounds and the visitor center we went up to my cousin's house in the Vancouver area.  I got to meet up with more of their family this time.  The teenage girls were so excited to welcome us to the area and adopted us in as new cousins.  I don't think they cared one lick that Beverly and I are pretty distant cousins (she's my grandma's first cousin but she felt more like my aunt when I was growing up). Those girls just adopted us into their Jensen clan and wrote down all of the kids birthdays so we could be part of the group.  It was so cute.  Hopefully we can go up there every one in a while when we live in Oregon.  We can go to the temple and sleep over at their house.  It was fun visiting with my cousins that I haven't seen in years. Andrea, Michael, and Michael's wife Jani were really fun to talk to.  Hopefully we can have some fun adventures with them in the future with skiing and triathlon-ing. :)  I wish Brent could have met them all but he and I met up on the freeway instead and got a few hours under our belt and then slept at a rest stop in the trailer for one last time!  It was pretty icy and cold and snowy the next morning which made for a long and not fun drive.  We made it home finally safely though so all was well!

We were having mixed feelings all throughout our last week in Oregon.  We were SO excited to be done with the trailer.  The tight spaces and propane smell and other smells were starting to get to us.  But at the same time we really didn't want to be done with our time in Oregon.  It is so beautiful there and the climate is so much more agreeable than the harsh winter climate in Utah. Sigh.