Mall, Scout Camp & LaPine

 This is kind of a random post about our beginning of August.   The girls and I went to the mall in Vancouver and did some back to school shopping.  We met up with Shannon's future roommate there, so she and Shannon could hang out a little.  They went off on their own to do some shopping while Lauren and Whitney and I  bought some new school clothes

Evan went to scout camp the week of August 7-12th.  Evan was excited to go.  He loves going to scout camp.  Our ward did their own scout camp at Camp Rilea it is a military training facility.  Kirk went with Evan for the first couple of days.  Originally he was going to stay until Wednesday, but he ended up coming home early.  The scout master was sharing a tent with Kirk.  He snored really loud, so Kirk couldn't get any sleep.  He ended up going out to his car and tried to sleep in it.  Kirk ended up coming home Tuesday evening.  He didn't want to spend another night there.  He should have taken his own tent.

That same Tuesday that Kirk came home from scout camp I went to the temple.  It was nice to go again.  A couple of days later Kirk wanted to made cider, so the girls and I helped him.  It was our first cider pressing of the season.  It is a lot of work to press cider.  The setting up, cleaning everything and then the cleanup at the end take most of the time and work. 

 Evan had a blast out scout camp.  He came home on Saturday.  They were gone the whole week.  It was pretty cool there the whole time.  Typical Oregon coast weather.  Only four boys ended up going, but that didn't seem to dampen his fun.

On Thursday August 10th, while Evan was at camp, Shannon left for a trip to LaPine with some of her church friends.  They had a great time doing some hiking and various things like that.  They returned home on Monday.  It was kind of one last hurrah before they all went their various ways as they left to go to school and prepare for missions.

Cape Disappointment

Before I get to our trip to Cape Disappointment, just a few other random happenings from the beginning to August.

*Shannon and I met Steph for lunch one day at the end of July.  We bought her luggage, which is her graduation present.  I also bought her plane ticket to fly to Utah, so she can head off to her first semester of college.  It is starting to feel more real now that she leaves in a month.

*We took Kirk's car into Warren Automotive to have a tune up and the brake's replaced.

*The weather this week was so hot.  It has been in the high 90's, which is why we decided to escape to Cape Disappointment.

When the weather gets hot it is always nice to make an escape from it and head to cooler weather.  Luckily we live where we can drive a little over an hour to the coast and the weather is usually 20 degrees cooler there.  On Wednesday August 2nd we decided to escape the heat and take a trip to Cape Disappointment.  It is a fun spot to go and explore.

We rode the ferry across the river that is always a fun thing to do.  Then we went to the cemetery in Clathlamet.  Then we headed to Skamokawa and also visited a cemetery there where some of Kirk's relatives are buried.  After that we headed to Cape Disappointment.  We had a picnic lunch on the north jetty.  Then we hiked to both light houses.  One of the lighthouses is a much longer hike than the other.   By that time it was 3:45 so we headed home.

After we got home it had dinner and than it was mutual night, so  Evan rode his bike down to the church in the heat.   The new missionaries serving in our ward came by to meet us.  We have Elders in our ward now,  which is fun since we have our own Elder out serving.  It was a fun day.

Tyler's Hump Day

August 3, 2017 was Tyler's one year mark for his mission.  He entered the MTC on August 3, 2016.  It is hard to believe he has been out a year already.   For the most part the time has gone pretty quickly.  Even though it was a pretty challenging year for me at home with Kirk's health issues and stuff.  Right before his one year mark at the end of July he got transferred from Kansas City 1st ward to St. Joseph, Missouri.  He had been in KC1 for almost 6 months, so I think he was ready for a change.  He ended up being in St. Joseph for only one transfer and lived most of that time with members, but moved into an apartment about a week before he was transferred.  Below is an excerpt from an email that he sent to Kirk

"I had a pretty good week! I got transferred up to St. Joseph Missouri, its a weird town, lot of interesting people here, but I think I'll like it! We're whitewashing it so it's been a lot work, the areas kind a mess, so we're trying to sort it out. My companions a cool guy, he's kinda interesting, but it'll be fun."

Activity Day Girl's Day Camp

 On Thursday July 27th & 28th was activity day girls day camp.  Whitney was excited to attend as always.  She usually gets bored in the summer, so she is always glad for something fun to do.  On the Monday before hand she and I went down to the church to meet her leader, so she could splatter paint her pink shirt.  I walked and she rode her bike down to the church.

On Thursday I drove a vanful of girls up to the activity.  I also stayed and helped out that day. I was assigned to be in charge of the 8 year old girls, so I wasn't over Whitney's group.  I didn't see too much of her except at lunch and in passing. 

 Just a few other random happenings.  Shannon and I met Steph for lunch one day.  We went a little early and I bought Shannon a luggage set.  It is her graduation present and will come in handy for going to school this fall and then for her mission next fall.  I also bought her plane ticket for heading to school this fall.  It is kind of feeling like more of a reality that she will be leaving in just over a month.

Fishhawk Falls & the Beach

Wednesday was our outing day.  We are trying to go do something fun one day every week.  We started off and just after we left the house we noticed something didn't sound quite right and feel quite right on the back passenger side of the van.   We pulled into the Walgreens parking lot and got out and looked and we had a flat tire.   Evan and Kirk got the tire off, but then they couldn't get the nut off that holds the spare tire in.  The nut was too big for the lug wrench.  Luckily a guy stopped and helped us.  He gave Kirk, Evan and the flat tire a ride to Les Schwab.  They patched the tire and then he gave them a ride back to Walgreens parking lot and they put the tire back on.  Then we set off on our adventure an hour later than we planned.. 

We drove to Clatskanie then headed up Hwy 47 to the Jewell Elk Refuge.  We got out and walked around a bit, but didn't see any elk.  We never have there.  It makes a nice pit stop, though.

Next we headed to Fishhawk Falls.  We hiked in to see the falls.   It is a pretty easy hike for the most part until you get really close to the falls and then you have to climb over logs and rocks to get very close to the waterfall.  Luckily Lauren didn't get her feet wet this time.  Last time we came Lauren's feet slipped and took a dip in the creek and then she was very unhappy that her shoes and socks were wet.

 After the falls we headed to Astoria and visited the cemetery to see Grandpa's headstone.  Shannon, Whitney and I hadn't seen it yet.   After the cemetery we went to Warrenton and ate lunch at Taco Bell.  After lunch we went to the Beach.

We hung out at the beach for about an hour.  We made some sand castles and some of the braver souls walked around in the surf.  The water was nice and cold as always.  Once we were done at the beach we loaded back up in the van and headed home.  Overall it was a fun day, even if it started out a little rough.