Back to School!

School is now officially in full swing at the Barnum house.  Jonah started 2nd grade last Monday, Lilly started kindergarten today, and I started fall semester today as well. 

This year the kids are going to a brand new elementary school.  It is so new in fact, that it technically isn't even finished yet.  On the first day of school there was still no library, no playground equipment, no gym, no working kitchen, and even no electricity in a couple of the classrooms.  Can you say "behind schedule"?!  But the kids haven't seemed to care.  They play hopscotch and basketball and tag at recess and Jonah didn't really mind at all the his entire first week of lunches were bag lunches like what they have on field trips and such. 
Lilly did great with her first day of kindergarten today.  She had absolutely no problem going to class.  Jayne was a bit put out that she didn't get to go to school.  She didn't seem to really miss Lilly though until about 15 minutes before we picked her up.  Then she had a massive breakdown!  I think it was 1 part tired, 1 part hungry, and 2 parts "I miss my big sister!" 
I started fall semester today.  I'm taking two classes, family finance and research writing in a persuasive mode.  I logged into my classes today to find that they've changed the entire online classes system.  I'm not too happy about that.  I was a pro at the old one.  So I'm still kind of figuring everything out.  I'm excited about the classes though.  I think they'll both be really interesting and a bit challenging.  I'm glad I took my own advice and only registered for two classes instead of three.  These two are promising to be quite time consuming. 
We're celebrating everyone being back in school with pizza tonight.  That's my excuse anyway. =) 

Oregon Part 3

The kids had been asking to play in the sand, so on Wednesday morning we headed down to Lake Marie.  The lake was much warmer than the ocean and we had the beach all to ourselves.  The first order of business was to build a sandcastle.  Then Nate informed us that once you build a sandcastle, you have to destroy it.  Apparently that's the whole reason for building it in the first place.  Jonah loved wading in the water and looking for seashells.  He actually found some too.  He also had a lot of fun chasing water skeeters.  The girls preferred to stay on the beach and play in the sand.  

Beautiful Lake Marie

Lilly & Jonah working on the sand castle.

The proud castle-builders and their finished product.  I know it's not fancy, but we don't exactly have a lot of experience with sand castles. :)

The inevitable destruction of the castle. 

Jonah tried unsuccessfully to defend his beloved creation.

We went back to camp to get everyone cleaned up.  It's a good thing they had showers or we would have never gotten all of the sand off everyone!  We made lunch and had a nice afternoon nap.  (I have to admit that taking a nap every afternoon was one of my favorite things about this trip!)  

After our nap we headed over to the lighthouse museum.  We were going to do the tour so that the kids could climb up into the lighthouse, but you have to pay for the tour and they only accept cash.  We'd just used up the last of our cash the day before.  So we were content to simply walk through the museum.  It was neat to learn about the lighthouse.  They had some of the rooms done up like they were when the coast guard used the house and we got to see some of their uniforms and gear.  

After the lighthouse museum we decided to drive to Florence.  We walked around and looked in the shops, picked up a few more fun souvenirs, and had some delicious ice cream.    

The kids each got to pick out a stuffed animal from the Funky Monkey toy shop.  Jonah chose a shark, Lilly chose an octopus, and Jayne chose a sea turtle.  Lilly named her octopus Oregonia so that she could remember where she got her from. 

Lilly wanted her picture taken in this chair inside one of the shops. 

And of course Jayne had to sit in the chair too!

 

By the time we got back to camp it was starting to get late.  We had some dinner and got everyone in their pajamas.  Then we decided to head down to the lighthouse one last time and watch the sunset over the ocean. 

I didn't tell them to salute.  I think they wanted to pretend to be members of the coast guard. 

The Umpqua River Lighthouse

After much begging and pleading, we finally managed to scrounge up a couple of quarters so the kids could look through the binoculars. 

On Thursday we woke up, packed up, and headed out.   We split the drive home into two days because 15 hours in the car was just too much.  We spent Thursday night at a hotel in Boise, Idaho.  About halfway across Oregon our A/C in the car decided not to work for us anymore.  So we had a long, hot, windy (because we had to have the windows down), drive home.  The highlight for the kids was when we stopped at a park right outside of Burns, OR.  It had two enormous slides!  Even Jayne went straight for them and I had to follow her.  Not because she was scared, but because the ladders going up to these slides were the really skinny kind and I was worried she might fall.  But she did great.  Me....not so much. I didn't fall or anything, but I was not too happy to be up that high on what felt like a rickety structure.  

We didn't get to the hotel until around 8pm.  Nate kept saying, "We should just keep going.  It's only 5 more hours!"  But to me and the kids, 5 more hours was out of the question.  I think all four of us were done for the day.  We arrived home around 2:00 on Friday afternoon. 

Well, that about wraps up our trip. We had such a great time and made so many fun memories!  We're already trying to decide what adventure we should go on next!

Oregon Part 2

Tuesday was spent exploring. We started by driving to Shore Acres Gardens.  These beautiful gardens are on the top of rocky cliffs by the ocean.  They have so many beautiful flowers and plants.  The kids loved the roses!  They had to smell every single kind of rose that they had.  

The rocky shores below the gardens.

Nate and the girls checking out the view.

Jonah was so excited to look out over the ocean! 

We had a lot of fun climbing on this old tree and taking pictures.

Nate and Jayne

Jonah & Lilly in the gardens

Checking out some of the flowers

I can't remember the name of these flowers.  It was something like 'starfire'. 

I thought these swirling leaves were magnificent!

Lilly, Jonah, & Jayne beneath the monkey puzzle tree.

Jayne smelling the roses.  I love her face! 

Lilly had to smell every single type of rose too. 

Taking a circus peanut break.

More of the gardens.

After the gardens, we went to Coos Bay.  Nate wanted to take us to the Myrtlewood Factory.  It was neat to see how they turn a giant tree into such beautiful things!  

Then we headed down to Bandon, another coastal town.  We went to their "Old Town" and checked out the shops.  I remember going there with Nate the summer we were married.  It was fun to look in all the shops.  I got some divine smelling bath salts and we sampled the sweets at the candy factory. My favorite was the licorice flavored dark chocolate.  I would never have thought of putting those two together, but they were perfect!  We bought some fudge, an absolute must!  Nate picked out 6 different flavors.  We had cookies and cream, peanut butter, rocky road, white chocolate with walnuts, mint chocolate, and walnut pinoche.  My favorite was the white chocolate.  Nate and the kids loved the peanut butter.  We let the kids pick out some seashells for souvenirs.  Jonah and Lilly chose sea stars and Jayne chose a tiger conch.  

 By the time we got back to camp, we were all ready for bed.  We had some dinner, relaxed by the fire, and turned in early.  

Hanging out around the fire.

Oregon Part 1

While Nate was growing up, he spent quite a few summers in Oregon with his family.  He took me there once, right after we got married and we've always wanted to go again and take the kids.  So this year we decided to do it.  We spent 5 days camping at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park near Winchester Bay and Reedsport.  

I'm going to have to split up the trip into a few different posts simply because there is so much to tell and there are so many pictures to share.  So here goes.....

If you know me but at all, you know that camping is not my favorite.  I don't like being dirty.  I don't like sleeping in a tent.  I don't like the campfire smell that permeates your clothes and hair.  And I definitely don't like outhouses.  So when Nate said he wanted to go camping in Oregon, I told him I had a few conditions.  We had to have a campground with showers and flushing toilets and the cooking had to be kept simple.  He knew right where to go.  I have to admit that I enjoyed this camping trip more than any other that I've done before.  Being able to take a hot shower every day, not have the stink of an outhouse, getting to eat out occasionally, and Nate taking over the rest of the cooking definitely made it enjoyable.  =)  The nice, cool weather helped too.  In my experience, camping has always been hot and sweaty during the day and a little bit miserable.  In Oregon, the highs were in the upper 60's.  It was pure bliss!

I'm still not sure what possessed us to schedule the trip like we did.  We planned it back in March or April.  Somehow it ended up that we would be leaving for Oregon the same day that Nate would be getting back from Scout Camp and we would be in Oregon during finals week of my summer semester.  Not our best bit of planning, but we pulled it off.  

So I spent the week before our trip being a crazy woman.  I had lots of school assignments to do plus taking my finals early and getting ready for the trip.  Nate was gone to Scout Camp from Thursday until Saturday.  Thanks to a lot of help from family, (Nate's parents were in town and watched the kids while I did some of my finals and my mom took them Friday night and all day Saturday so I could finish up assignments and get the packing done) we managed to get everything done and were ready to leave late Saturday night.  

We decided to take our car, a Chevy Impala, rather than our Jeep Commander.  The Commander has more room and is much more comfortable for long drives, but the Impala gets 10 to 15 miles per gallon more than the Jeep and on a long drive that translates into a couple of hundred dollars worth of difference.  

Much to my amazement, Nate managed to pack everything we would need into the trunk of our Chevy Impala.   In order to save space, we didn't take up all of our food for the trip.  We just packed what we would need for the first day or two and then planned to get groceries in Oregon.

It's a 15 hour drive to where we were staying.  Nate prefers to do long drives through the night so that the kids can sleep and there's a lot less traffic.  The drive was pretty uneventful.  The kids slept pretty well most of the way.  We arrived at our campsite at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park in the mid-afternoon on Sunday. 

The campground was nice and peaceful.  There was a lake, Lake Marie, near the campground and it's just a short drive down to the lighthouse and the ocean.   The first thing we did after getting the tent set up was to take a nice long nap.  That night we roasted hot dogs and s'mores for dinner.  We walked down to check out the lake.  There's a 1 mile trail that goes around the lake and there is a small sandy beach area for playing or swimming.  The rest of the evening we just relaxed in camp.  Then we slept to the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the rocks and the foghorn of the lighthouse in the distance. 

On Monday the first order of business was to get a few groceries.  So we went to the Safeway in Reedsport.   That store is tiny!  You can barely get your cart through the aisles.  The clerk informed us that we had great timing.  We had just missed the annual Dune Fest that had been that weekend.  Apparently the town is pretty much overrun by people and their dune buggies and the store had lots of problems with overcrowding and stealing.  She said she was so glad to see them all go.  

After a healthy breakfast at McDonald's, (yes, that's how I cook when I camp) we headed back to camp.  Then we decided to go check out the pier where people were doing some crabbing.  First we had to walk on the beach.  This was the first time any of our kids had been to the ocean and they were so excited to walk in the sand in their bare feet and look for seashells.  

After getting sufficiently wet and sandy, we walked down the pier to watch the crabbing.  Two gentlemen were kind enough to explain everything to the kids and let them watch as they pulled in their crabs and sorted out the ones that had to be thrown back.  

We spent the rest of Monday at our campsite.  The kids loved playing in the dirt and Jonah even found a little "camouflage" spot in the bushes where he and Lilly liked to set up their chairs and hang out.  I took this picture right after Jonah said, "Mom! I bet you can't see me.  I blend right in!"

 That night, after everyone was in their pajamas and it had gotten dark, we decided to drive over to the lighthouse so that the kids could see it lit up.  The kids loved seeing how the lights danced on the trees and out into the ocean. 

Daddy & Jayne at the lighthouse. 

Well, that's about it for part one of our adventure.  Be sure to read part two about our adventures at the Shore Acre Gardens, Coos Bay, Bandon, and Florence. 

Zoorassic Park

We absolutely love going to the Hogle Zoo!  This summer they have what they are calling "Zoorassic Park".  There are huge dinosaur replicas placed all around the zoo.  Jonah has been asking to go ever since he first saw an advertisement for it.  We finally made it out there a couple of weeks ago.  The kids loved finding all of the dinosaurs and seeing the animals as well. 

Jayne just had to check out the inside of this T-Rex's mouth

We had to ride the carousel!  Twice!

Lilly on her turkey. 

They had this T-Rex set up for photos.  The kids loved climbing up on his back!

We're really looking forward to seeing the new arctic section of the zoo that they're working on.  They had lots of pictures and diagrams of what it's going to be like.  Our kids love the zoo so much that they went again with Grandma Laurie a week later and still had a wonderful time.   Plus, it's a great way to tire them out and ensure a nice, long family afternoon nap. ;)

24th of July Float Preview Party

The 24th of July is a holiday here in Utah known as Pioneer Day.  It's when we celebrate the arrival of the pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley.  As part of the festivities, there is a huge parade in downtown Salt Lake.  The week before the parade, all of the floats are on display at an expo center in Sandy.  I decided to take the kids down and see what it was all about.  That place was crazy!  There was a high school marching band performing (which echoed like mad in that place), balloon artists and clowns making balloon animals for the kids, face painting, a couple of games, and of course the floats.  I didn't get too many pictures since I did this outing as the sole adult and pretty much had my hands full just keeping all three kids close by and making sure they weren't run over by some of the over-eager float viewers.  Yes, that really was happening.  
The floats were amazing!  It's so cool to see them up close and really notice the details and see how much work is put into them.  Many of them had moving parts and played music.  We walked around to see all of the floats, got the kids' faces painted (or arm in Jonah's case), and got balloon animals for each of them.

Jonah got a spider on his wrist, Lilly got a tiger eye, and Jayne got a ladybug on her forehead (she didn't want it on her cheek). 

Tiger Lilly with her butterfly.

Jonah got a snake balloon.

Jayne showing off her ladybug.  It had glitter and everything.