Haven't blogged in a while, but we have started out our summer with a great family vacation, so I finally have something besides basketball to blog about!
Melanee, Miles, and Theo flew to Sacramento Tues evening (middle of the night). William arrived by car after a 12 hour drive from Utah. We went to Fort Bragg (another 4 hour drive) on Thursday. Lots of travel to get this family together again, but SO WORTH IT.
Scott took the week off from work (rarity!). I also got time off (unpaid!!! lame).
We visited my dad on Wednesday. We also had some visits from Phoenix and Michelle. We did some sibling pictures by the neighbor's pink tree. The boys played some basketball in the front yard. We ate spinach raviolis for dinner, yum. William slept on an aerobed, Melanee and her kids slept in Andrew's room, Andrew slept on the couch. We all fit into this 2 bedroom, 1 bath house just fine, haha. I even think everyone got a shower when they wanted one.
The drive to Fort Bragg was pretty fun. We took two cars so we switched passengers at every stop. We stopped in Clear Lake for a picnic half way to the ocean. Clear Lake is a place my family went to a few summers when I was a kid. I have memories of spending time with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins there. And I will never forget the time I threw/pushed my mom into the water and she stayed in to swim with us, fully dressed.
We got to Fort Bragg and set up our campsite. Melanee, Scott, Miles, and Theo shared a big tent. William, Bradley, and Andrew shared a two man tent, haha. Scott brought A BUNCH of fire wood (because last time we had to buy some at Safeway). I thought he brought WAY TOO much, but we only had like two pieces left over at the end.
We went to the beach and the tide pools that afternoon. Scott put a crab into his pocket. Andrew fell in the sharp rocks and cut open his hand. We went to Safeway that evening and bought Hydrogen Peroxide to clean it out...I bet the salty ocean water was pretty cleansing, too.
We had hotdogs and smores around the campfire for dinner.
We walked to the beach again later that evening to see the beautiful sun set.
The next day Scott, Melanee, William, Bradley, and Andrew went out on the ocean in a chartered fishing boat. They fished for cod and something else. I stayed back with Miles and Theo. They woke up at about 6:30 crying for "mommy mommy I want my mommy, where is my mommy". I put them in the truck as fast as I could to avoid waking up the whole camp site. We drove to the beach. They liked the beach. We looked out to the ocean for the boat that their mom might be on. We also built a track for their hot wheel cars and dinosaur. We stayed there for a long time, then went back to the camp site. We ate breakfast and were having a good old time at the campsite until Miles dropped a piece of fire wood onto his already smashed and bruised big toe. He cried again, "mommy mommmy Where is my mommmmmmy, I want my mommmmmmmmy". So we left again. It really felt like the whole camp site wanted us gone. This time we went to the park. We stayed there for a long time. Theo was fearless, climbing up onto all the big kid play equipment. Across the street from the park was the library, so we went there next. We played with all the toys, read some books, colored. Theo kept bringing me Spanish books. Right about the time we were ready to leave a librarian came up to us and asked us if we were there for storytime....we werent, but once Miles heard "story time" we had to wait....and it was still a half hour away. Miles played and read some more, while Theo pulled every book off the shelf. The lady finally came to read her basket of books, we were the only ones there. It was ok, untilllllllllll she tried to get Miles to do the Hokey Pokey. He didnt know it and didnt want to learn. He was ready to go at that. So was I. So was Theo. We drove back to the campsite, but still had some time to kill. Since they said they were getting back at 1, I thought it would be fun to meet them at the dock. While we were driving to the dock, we got a text or a call that they were at Safeway buying zip lock bags! So we went to the beach instead. We SAW A WHALE in the water, RIGHT NEAR the shore where we were sitting!!!! It was a nice day. Beautiful beach. Luckily for me, Miles and Theo wanted nothing to do with the water, so they didn't even go near it. I didn't have to make any BayWatch rescues.
The next three or more hours were spent cleaning fish. Scott, Melanee, and William all tried their hand at fileting. Bradley watched the whole time. We also got out our spike ball game and tried to play it at the camp site. We also had the campfire going and cooked up some fish.
Melanee wanted to go to Glass Beach. Bradley wanted to go to the Skate Park. Andrew and William wanted to go swimming in the indoor pool, so we all split up for a while. Glass Beach was too much of a rugged hike for us with Miles and Theo, so we went to the skate park, but Bradley was done skating by then. After swimming, William, Andrew, and I went back to Safeway for some ice cream. We bought a bucket and shovel for the kids there too. We used the shovel for the ice cream scoop.
We went to the beach that evening. Bradley tried swimming a little, but the water was very cold. The kids played spike ball at the beach. They liked to be able to dive for the ball in the sand. Nothing else eventful happened that evening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The next morning, we packed up and headed back to Chico. The drive seemed longer on the way back. We did stop at a Jack in the Box for their 2 for $1 tacos that dont really taste very good.
The day we got back to Chico was a Saturday. I think Scott and William went gold panning that evening. Melanee, Bradley, and the little kids and I went to eat at La Comida and Big Al's (two of Melanee's favorite childhood places here). We played some favorite family games that night.
On Sunday, we went to church. Before church, Scott brought the big kids and little boys to visit Reva. Later at church, Melanee, Miles, and Theo got to meet my primary class. It was also pretty special that Andrew got set apart to be a teacher class president while William and Melanee were there. We forgot to do a family picture with us all dressed up in our church clothes. I would have liked that.
We had a fish and chips fish fry after church. And we played more family games that night.
On Monday, they went gold panning again. Scott hurt his back and spilled all of William's gold when he slipped on a rock. He was done for the day/vacation after that. But, it was Scott's birthday that Monday, so we went fishing. Well, we went to the house of the people with the secret fishing hole, and some of us stayed there, while others went out fishing (it was the Warriors final game that night).
They all went to the movies on Tuesday. We also spent some time (as little as possible for Bradley and Andrew) reenacting funny family photo shoots. Melanee tried to get us to play family games again that last night, but it was a flop.
Melanee, Miles, and Theo left Wed morning and William left Thursday.
I have hundreds of photos, but I posted one at the start of this blog post, but William is ducking out of the picture, so I included the one with William at the end of this post. These are both pictures taken with the camera timer, our family has unusual luck with those....haha!!!
