Eastview YW Retreat

We had an Eastview Young Women's Retreat over the past weekend. I thought it was great! I hope all the girls had as much fun as I did. We started out at Badger Creek. It's an adventure camp, run by BYU-Idaho. We had dinner there, then divided into 2 groups and did 2 ropes courses. My group did the Horizontal Log first. Our girls did amazing! It was pretty scary stuff! We had a couple girls in our group who were genuinely terrified of heights. With a little encouragement, they all did it! 

Bailey is all harnessed up and ready to climb!

She is about half way up. This is where it really gets steep, and a little scary!

She made it up! At this point she had to switch her carabiners and walk across that pole to another vertical one on the other side. Then she had to come half way back, and repel backwards off the pole.

Coming off the pole backwards!

Our second activity was the swing! I think this was everyone's favorite of the evening. So fun! You get strapped in, and then the girls pull you up really high. When you let go of the rope, you swing. So intense, but so fun!

Here's Bailey ready to be pulled up! She was a little nervous :)!

Here's a video of Bailey on the swing.

Mark was one of our Priesthood leaders, and he loved the swing. He did it with no hands!

This was our group at Badger Creek. I was so proud of everyone. They overcame their fears, and did hard/scary things!

After Badger Creek we went to Heather's parent's house in Victor for the rest of our retreat. Our theme was 'Arise and Shine Forth.'

We gave all the girls pillow cases with their names, and the theme on them. Heather read them a story, and then they whispered and giggled most of the night.

We started day 2 with a devotional by Emily Larson. She was our awesome youth leader! Then we spent a couple hours crafting.

Making SHINE necklaces.

Bailey and Mars with their cute necklaces.

Painting 'Arise and Shine Forth' blocks.

Bailey's block :)!

They also made cute sunshine cupcakes, and etched cute jars.

After crafts and lunch, they played in the pond for HOURS! They canoed, swam, played capture the flag in the water, jumped off rocks, etc... We had no idea the pond would be such a big hit.

Some of the girls in the pond.

Emily taught them how to play the whip cream game. It was hilarious. Most of them ended up with a big blob of whip cream in their eye!

After a few practice rounds, they caught it!

Here are our 4 awesome priesthood leaders! The Bishop came up to make us a yummy dutch oven dinner.

Once it got dark we had our spiritual night. We ended it with a great testimony meeting. 

Day 3 was spent packing up and heading back to Idaho Falls. We stopped at New Beginnings. It's a house that has special needs ladies living in it. We love these ladies! We had a BBQ with them, and then just chit chatted with them for awhile. It was a great way to end our retreat.

Some of the girls and ladies chatting at New Beginnings.

Thanks for a great retreat girls! I hope we get to do it again next year!

Father's Day

Mark didn't have a very exciting Father's Day. He had church meetings most of the day. I wish they would cancel all that stuff like they do for Mother's Day. He didn't even want any exciting presents. He asked for a weed wacker, and an electric tooth brush. Really?!? Doesn't that seem kind of boring? I had no idea what kind of weed wacker he wanted, so we just took him with us on Saturday to pick one out. We left Lowe's with a really nice new BBQ instead! Now we're talking! That's way more exciting! Me and Bailey bought him a toothbrush and a few treats, just so he'd have a little surprise on Sunday. We had dinner with Grammy and Papa, and then just relaxed the rest of the night.

 A new BBQ!

 They all love their dad!

I asked Sawyer and Bailey what their 3 favorite things about Mark are. Here's what they said:

Sawyer-

1. His humor.

2. He's hard working.

3. He loves his family.

Bailey-

1. I like to do yard work with him.

2. He gets REALLY excited about things.

3. He's REALLY funny.

Thanks for being such a great dad!

Redwood Forest

The last stop of our vacation was the Redwood Forest. Wow! Talk about HUGE trees!

 Entering the Redwoods!

Shortly after we started our drive, we stopped on the side of the road so we could get out and see the trees. We couldn't believe how big they were!

Our cameras couldn't even get a picture of the whole thing. They were too tall.

 Hug a tree!

Bailey climbed up into one, and then she couldn't get back out :)!

 This one is called Big Tree. It's 304 feet tall, 21.6 feet in diameter, and is 1500 years old. It was incredible! The pictures don't do it justice. Look how tiny Sawyer and Bailey are at the base of it.

We took this awesome drive through the forest to get to Gold Bluff Beach. We knew it would be our last time to be at a beach before we headed back to Idaho, so we stayed there while the sun went down. There was a cute little seal playing in the waves right in front of us. 

 One final beach jump!

The next day we went to Trees of Mystery. It was a pretty cool place, with lots of information about the trees, and some very interesting trees to see.

 Paul Bunyon and his blue ox, Babe.

 This is the largest family tree. It has 12 large trees growing out of one trunk. It was crazy. There were giant trees growing off the branches of it.

These are the Cathedral trees. People get married here each year.

There was also an elephant tree, a candelabra tree, an upside down tree, and lots of other interesting trees.

 This is the Brotherhood Tree. It was pretty large!

 Sawyer and Bailey got up on the trunk of this tree and did a nice dance for us :)!

We rode a gondola up the mountain, where there was a view of the forest and the beach. It was foggy when we got up there, so we couldn't see the ocean.

The Oregon Coast and the Redwood Forest were both amazing. It was a great vacation! Now it's back to reality.

Oregon Coast (Southern)

Florence

Florence has about 40 miles of sand dunes that line the coast. This may have been the highlight of our trip. We rode a sand rail through the dunes. It was FAST, CRAZY, SCARY, and AWESOME all at the same time! There were so many times that I thought for sure we were going to flip. Anyone who visits the Oregon Coast should do this!

 Getting ready to go!

 Our driver let us stop a few times to catch our breaths, and enjoy the view. 

 I got the worst of the sand! I was on the back edge, with no helmet. This is what my seat looked like when we stopped. I had so much sand in my ears, hair, and any other strange place you can think of. Sawyer lifted up his shirt when we were finished, and his belly button was filled with sand. I was cracking up when he dumped out his shoes at the end. I wish we would have filmed it. The whole experience was AWESOME!

 This is the Conde McCullough Memorial Bridge. It's a mile long. There were a lot of cool bridges along the way, all designed by the same guy.

 We left Hwy 101 for another short scenic drive. It took us past a couple of lighthouses. This is the Cape Arago Lighthouse.

Bandon

We spent the night in Bandon. When we got up the next morning, we started off with horseback riding on the beach! Bailey was so excited to cross that off her bucket list! It was such a pretty place!

 We rode out to a place called Face Rock. My horse was HUGE! Bailey started laughing when she was behind me because she said it looked like my legs were doing the splits. I was on Red, Mark rode Tex, Bailey rode Hannah, and Sawyer was on Star. 

 We drove back down to Face Rock when we were done with our horse ride. This is face rock. There is a legend that goes with it. Do you see the face? It's an Indian women looking up at the moon. It was a cool beach that had caves to explore.

This is the Cape Blanco Lighthouse. It's the last one along the Oregon Coast before the CA border.

This is a view from port Orford. 

We stopped one more time in Brookings for the kids to go to Harris Beach, but it ended up being to windy, so we headed to the California border to see the Redwood Forrest. We were sad to leave the Oregon Coast. It is one of the prettiest places I've ever been.

Oregon Coast (Central)

Lincoln City

Our Central Coast adventure started in Lincoln City. We stopped here to take a picture of the D River. It is in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the shortest river. It's only 120 feet long, and connects Devil's Lake to the Pacific Ocean.

 Me and Bailey crossed the D River :)!

Otter Rock

 This is Devil's Punch Bowl. You can see where the water comes in the arch in the rock, and gets trapped where the big hole in the rock is. Then it just churns around in there until it can find it's way back out.

This is one of my favorite pictures from our vacation. It's of the Yaquina Head Lighthouse.

Newport

We spent the night in Newport, so we spent some time on the beach there.

Seal Rock

Seal Rock had a great tide pool spot. Bailey found EVERYTHING. She touched starfish, sea urchins, anemones, and crabs.

 A view of the Seal Rock area and tide pools.

 Bailey touched everything, and Sawyer wouldn't touch anything. He gets a little freaked out by the creepy crawlies of the ocean.

Yachats

Yachats is where the Cape Perpetua area is. This was a rough, rugged area of the coastline. 

This is Devil's Churn. There is a split in the rock that forms the coast. When the waves come in, the water goes up the split and spits out a spout at the end. It's supposed to be spectacular in winter and during storms.

 We drove up to an old WWII rock shelter that was used as a lookout. It had awesome views of the coastline.

We stopped at a place called Strawberry Hill State park. We read that it was a good place to spot whales. Sawyer wasn't even gonna get out of the car. Then we saw sea lions on the rocks, and it was low tide, so we realized we could walk right out to them. We got Sawyer and climbed over the rocks until all that separated us from them was about 30 feet of water. They were so cute! There were little baby gray ones too, and the mommas would pat them with their flippers. So sweet. I wanted to bring them all home!

 This one was especially cute! He kept peeking over the rock at us.

Along this part of the Coast is the Heceta Lighthouse. It's supposed to be the prettiest one on the Coast, but it was being renovated while we were there, so we saw it with a big black tarp over it. 

 The view from the lighthouse was beautiful though.

Then we stopped at Sea Lion Cave. It's the world's largest sea cave, and home to hundreds of Sea Lions. You can take an elevator down into the cave and view the Sea Lions. It was pretty cool!

 Sea Lion Cave

 During the spring and summer, the Sea Lions breed and have their babies out on this rock that's just outside the cave. There were TONS of them, and they didn't smell very good :)! 

 Here's a view from inside the cave. You couldn't use a flash inside, so it's hard to see. In the fall and winter, hundreds of them just hang out in the cave.

That concludes out Central Coast adventures!