Kayda turns 15!!!

We have a LEGAL driver!  She actually started to learn to drive stick a while ago, simply so she would be road ready when she had her permit.  You can get your permit when you turn 15, so long as you are signed up for driver's ed and it is within 10 days of it starting.  Her birthday actually lined up to be within those parameters.  The plan was originally to take her to the dol the Monday after her birthday (Saturday this year).  Then I found out you have to make an appointment.  The earliest available was December 6th.  I started looking through all the nearby dol's to see if there was anything earlier.  One had an appointment ON her birthday!  I booked it and Daddy and I played it off that she wasn't going to be able to get it until the 10th.  Resourceful girl that she is, she found out you could get a "non picture" permit online.  I pretended to go online on her birthday and told her the site was down for maintenance.  

We celebrated her birthday in the morning.  

She got some magnetic stickers to put on the car that say "Caution: Student Driver and screaming parent".  She thought that was just excellent. 

Then went up to meet Grandma and Papa H for lunch.  I almost cancelled lunch because of the ridiculous new rules in King County.  (King County has decided you must have proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to eat in restaurants, among other activities.  We obviously think this is ridiculous).  We decided to give it a shot anyway and we were able to eat at Azteca. 

I decided to recreate a picture we have from when she was little.  The server had decided to stick Kayda's nose in whipped cream (also at Azteca).  The issue here was that it wasn't piled up high enough...So I ended up getting fudge up onto her forehead!  She was a good sport, but none too happy. 

 We told her that they needed to borrow Daddy's truck.  The boys were going to help load a new piece of furniture while we went and picked up a special cake.  I'm sure we were suspicious as all get out.  Especially as the cover became more elaborate and convoluted.  Fortunately, we were able to pull it off!  (I really hope she wasn't excited about a cake though).

As we pulled into the parking lot, this is when we told her what we were doing

We had her drive back to Grandma and Papa's house.  She did really well, except for when she stopped at an intersection when she should've gone so she ended up at the very edge of the cross walk.  She definitely needs to learn about her stopping distance.  She was a little stressed but did great!

Later she had a couple of friends come over to spend the night.  

The very next day she went out for her first drive with our neighbor Eric.  He used to teach driver's ed so he is a great resource.  Lucky for us he loves to teach and enjoys our kids.  When he takes her out it tends to be hours at a time.  She is learning quickly though and likes to do the drives with him.  

Prepping for a driver

It occurred to us that Kayda is only a few months from getting her driver's permit.  It was kind of a surprise actually.  We'll get her signed up for driver's ed ASAP so she can start driving right away.  Daddy and I were fortunate enough to be given a car when we turned 16.  We got one a little early since it was a stick shift.  That was the intent for Kayda. 

We want ALL the kids to start with a manual transmission vehicle.  You get to know your vehicle better, you have better control over the car, it's a valuable thing to know and it will help discourage texting and driving.  It won't make it impossible but it will be much more difficult to do.  

That being said, we also recognize that we both drive BIG vehicles.  Kayda decided on a Jeep years ago. Since we know finding the right used car, at the price and age we were looking could take a long time, so we started looking. 

We have Eric, a super awesome neighbor and priceless resource.  He and Bruce were willing to help us vet the cars.  Eric is familiar with engines and knows what to look for generally but Bruce is the golden ticket.  He was the lead mechanic for the southwest region of WSDOT so he knows his crap.  Add that to the fact he has owned something like 8 wranglers... it's perfect.  They went to see one being sold by a pro-volleyball player.  It was her first car and she'd outgrown it and moved to Europe.  Eric was ready to leverage that big time.  Young girl, first car, plays volleyball.... Unfortunately, the condition led us to a price too low for the owners so it was a no.  We watched and watched and another came up, but it had some giant red flags.  We found another but Daddy went and saw that there was some concerning stuff.  It kept getting harder to find one meeting the criteria as Kayda decided what she did and didn't like.  A few months after we started looking she found one she was interested in.  Of course she found it on 4th of July.  We took off to South Dakota on the 5th after arranging for Daddy, Eric, and Bruce to go see it.  

They all went to look at it and were super impressed.  The original price was more than we wanted to pay but Daddy was able to negotiate it down into our budgeted amount.  

Kayda was on the road with me, watching the time for when they would be going to see the Jeep.  She was very frustrated because she knew that Daddy probably would mess with her if he bought it.  Trying to convince her he didn't get it.  Sure enough...that's exactly what he did. 

Of course she had to wait 11 days until she saw it for the first time in person! She's in love.  Bonus for having it early....I get to drive it sometimes!  It has already been really helpful to have.  I do need to get different tires.  These are brand new but they're the fatter tires and make it handle funny.   We got it early, we live in an area where there are little to no cars...so we let her start learning to shift early. 

We spent about 30 minutes going up and down our cul-de-sac so she could learn 1st and 2nd.  Stop, go, stop, go, turn around, repeat...  She was doing fairly well by the end.  Though her arm and leg were tired.  

She was going to show daddy real quick and the boys HAD to climb in (only because the top was off).  Ozzi also REALLY likes the jeep.  Even when the top was still on.  He'd climb in and you'd have to drag him out. 

On her third time out I was really having a hard time getting a specific idea through.  Eric saw us driving and did his typical "slow down!" that he texts every time we drive by.  I tell him to get his butt outside and help my kid since I was confusing her.  He used to teach driver's ed so it's handy.  In the next 30 minutes he had her shifting smoothly and going all the way up into 4th gear driving down our roads back there.  None of them are roads that get more than a few cars during the day.  I just hung out in the back seat and watched and listened.  Since then she's driven us to the end of the road before we switch and I take us onto the main roads and into town.  She's learning shifting, maintaining speed, reverse and turn signals.  By the time it's actually time for her on the road she'll be a pro!

First Day of School

This year is unique.  I'm going back to work.  I'm working at the middle school teaching 8th grade math and the advanced class.  It took a while for me to decide to go for it, but after covering a maternity leave for 3 months I realized that I missed having my own classes.  Anyway, working meant that, for the first time ever, I was going to miss dropping a kiddo off at school on their first day.  Fortunately for me, Carson was willing to get up and ready early so I could take a picture with him and give him hugs and good vibes for the day.  

 Starting 3rd grade this year!

 Starting 7th grade!

 Starting 6th grade!

 My kids are so stinking cute!

Daddy did a good job documenting the drop off.  I'm still a little heartbroken that I had to miss it.

Mud run

We were invited to participate in a mud run with some of Dillon's soccer buddies.  The parents decided to join in as well.  There were several other activities but the main attraction was the "run".  While you wait for your wave there is someone there spraying everyone down.  We started out trying to keep up with the kids but it quickly became apparent that it just wasn't going to happen.  The kids took off on us, the boys were MUCH faster.  There were a few obstacles, rope swings, walls etc.  The very last one was the only truly muddy part.  You went down a slide into a big mud pit.  This is the first thing like this we've done as a family. 

 Me, Daddy, Aaron, Austin, Darcy and Jeremiah

 Dillon, Autumn, Aidan, Aiden, Landon, Tucker, Carson, Kayda... (Not sure if I got the spelling of the two Aidens right)

Afterward we chucked all our shoes, the exception was Dillon.  Only problem was that Daddy forgot his sandals so when we went out to lunch after....he went barefoot.

I'm so glad we decided to do this, it kind of broke the ice and turned sport parents into friends.  Hopefully, we can find some muddier ones in the future!

Oregon Coast Trip with Grandma and Papa H

This year's big trip is officially the longest camping trip our kids have ever been on, maybe Daddy's too.  We were lucky enough to have Grandma and Papa H join us with their new trailer.  The kids absolutely loved the time they got to spend with them.  We drove over 1100 miles in order to see the entire Oregon Coast and managed to drive every inch of the Oregon 101 in our 12 days on the road.

Park One: Valley of the Rogue State Park

 It was a long haul with about 8 hours of driving.  The kids actually handled it pretty well.  While we were there we went on a jet boat ride on the Rogue River to see Hellgate canyon.  The boat was much larger than anticipate and had lots of fun information.  Of course, the best part was when the pilot would stop the boat unexpectedly and make the water spray up over the boat, and spinning 360's!  Carson sat on the outside edge, which made me very nervous.  Apparently it made Kayda nervous too because the first 360 we did she reached out and grabbed on to him.  We all got soaked and dried periodically throughout the 36 miles we covered.  We spent most of the time just hanging out at camp, playing corn hole, riding bikes and visiting. We only stayed for two nights. 

Park Two:  Harris Beach State Park

I decided it was time a drove the trailer for real, beyond the few minutes to pick it up and drop it off.  Of course, I chose quite the route to do it on!  This portion of our trip was incredibly windy with cliffs right up against the narrow roads!  We were surprised to discover an absolutely beautiful river.  The pictures don't do it justice at all.  It was perfectly clear and we could easily see the bottom throughout our drive.  We also found that the Redwood national park actually comes very close to the Oregon/California border.  I kept kicking myself, if I had known about it, I would've tried to camp nearby. 

While at Harris Beach we spent any extra time we could down at the beach, the weather made it difficult by pelting us with sand constantly. The kids got to try out their wetsuits and started learning how to boogie board!   Our kids are very drawn to water, if there is water, it is almost guaranteed they'll be in it.  Normally there is only so much time they can handle playing in the Pacific, the wetsuits extended that considerably so they got to enjoy the waves a lot longer.  The boys are drawn to the rocks almost as much as the waves and they spent a whole sunset climbing all over every rock they could reach.  Kayda wasn't very interested, since visiting the Grand Canyon she has decided she is afraid of heights.  She'll still do some things but she definitely has some nerves. 

We only had one full day at this location so we got up and headed off to Secret Beach for low tide.  The ranger told us it had the best tide pools so we made the hike in.  We were certainly glad we did.  We had the beach to ourselves for a good 45 minutes before anyone else showed up.  We are used to seeing anemones in tide pools, but star fish are usually a rare treat.  We ended up seeing over 30 starfish in this one small section of rock.  It was amusing to me that I had to work hard to persuade the kids to touch the critters.  They've touched anemones and starfish before but they were very reluctant to do so again.  Carson was convinced the anemone would hurt him.   After the first time they warmed up to it.

 

Since it was a short drive, and we all wanted to see them, we actually decided to go back the next day to see the Redwoods.  We visited the Stout Grove in Jedediah Smith State Park and got to dip our toes in that beautiful Smith River for a little while.  We read that the tallest Redwood is almost 380 feet tall and 26 ft in diameter.  The largest Redwood tree is almost as wide as our trailer.  We also headed south to Crescent City since it only added 15-20 minutes of driving.  Since it was the first city on the California 101 we thought it would be neat to see... it really wasn't, it was very run down and didn't have much to see.  We did find a good restaurant there.  Dillon decided to try shrimp, Carson tried crab.  They both liked it.  It's a bonus to travel along the coast with Papa Mike since he's always happy to eat seafood.  We don't eat it, I wouldn't even know what to order, so it gave the boys the opportunity to be adventurous. 

The morning before we left, we spent about an hour down at the beach before hustling to pack up for our next stop, it was the only time on that beach that it wasn't windy.

Park Three: Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park

This was our longest stay at three nights.  This had the closest proximity to the most activities.  When we got there we weren't real inclined to go exploring so we ran errands and hung out at camp.  Grandma Peggy introduced Kayda and Dillon to pinochle.  They picked it up quickly and LOVED it.  Dillon in particular.  Part of that may be that the very first time the played independently he was able to get a thousand aces with Papa Mike.  To explain this, there are four people playing.  There are two nines, tens, jacks, queens, kings and aces of each suit.  A thousand aces means you have all 8 aces in your hand.  It's incredibly rare and he was SO excited!  

The next day, we woke up to rain.  Not a lot but rain none the less.  It worked out that we were planning to go rent ATV's to go play on the dunes.  We each got our own, except Grandma and Papa got a double.  Kayda and Dillon were able to ride the standard size but Carson had to ride a mini.  We were very nervous because everything we read made it sound like he wasn't going to do much more than barely crawl across the sand.  That was incredibly inaccurate.  All the kids took to it really quickly.  Daddy is definitely much less cautious than any of the rest of us.  He was happy to try going down drifts and such, which the rest of us avoided.  Dillon was the most adventurous of the kids, trying to find different routes around the dunes.  Carson would go anywhere as long as he was following someone.  Kayda had fun... but apparently never left first gear!  I managed to tip mine doing donuts on a not so flat section of sand.  Daddy flipped his too.  That was part of what made Kayda nervous.  We explored quite a bit until Daddy found a particular bowl.  I think it was out of bounds of where we were supposed to ride.  He, Carson and Grandma and Papa went down it's very steep sides.  I kept Dillon and Kayda up with me.  We sat to wait for them, Grandma and Papa couldn't get back out!  They tried three times, making it 2/3 to 3/4 up the side before they'd get stuck.  I had seen Carson and Daddy take off out the back so I tried to send Grandma and Papa that way.  Then I took Kayda and Dillon to try to find our way around to them.  Except we came up on a drift unexpectedly and stopped. Kayda and I both ended up stuck so we had to work together to get ourselves free.  That took long enough that I decided it was time to just head back, and hopefully meet up with everyone else there.  We managed to find them on the way back.  We got back right on time.  

 

That evening we headed up to see Thor's Well and Spouting Horn at Cape Perpetua.  You want to see them during high tide or a storm.  So we headed there for high tide.  Thor's well is thought to be a collapsed sea cave.  As the waves come in it overflows but when they pull back out it looks like it is a giant drain for the ocean.  Daddy joked that we had found the hidden world from How to Train Your Dragon 3.  Except it was a MUCH smaller version.  Spouting horn is a spot that, when the waves hit it just right, shoots a spout of water in the air just like a whale spout.  It was pretty neat to see, but not as mesmerizing as Thor's Well. 

The next day we headed to see the Sea Lion Caves.  We had heard really good things about them...  it ended up being our second disappointment of the trip.  It was neat but you only wandered around for 30-40 minutes and you were done.  We tried to go to the Heceta Light house but discovered you have to hike to get to it, we had all hit a pretty good wall at that point so we didn't attempt it.

We did find "Hobbit Trailhead" and had to take a picture for Dillon.  His favorite characters in Lord of the Rings are Merry and Pippin.  So when he tried Dungeons and Dragons he decided to be a halfling.  So when we saw that we knew he needed the picture.  None of us were inclined to actually hike it though.

Since it was still icky out we spent the evening playing games in Grandma and Papa's trailer.  Pinochle, war and telestrations.  Telestrations is the game Grandma and Papa G introduced us to.  Carson brought it because it is his favorite game.  It definitely got some laughs!  I think our favorite was Papa Mike's Easter bunny!

Our last morning there it rained... a lot.  We were trying to wait to pack because we only had a 1.5 hour drive to our next campground and check in was around 4 but our site started flooding.  So we hurried and packed and then hid in the trailer as long as we could stand it. The plan was to stop by Cape Perpetua again to visit the tide pools at low tide, but when we got there it was so cold and misty we just made our lunches and headed out. 

Park Four: Beverly Beach State Park

We arrived at Beverly Beach to rain.  We were a little concerned about the campsite flooding again but it actually stopped fairly quickly and didn't come back.  We went and explored Depoe Bay in the hopes of seeing some whales.  Papa thought he saw one but we were never quite sure.  

Since we only had one full day at Beverly beach we used it to our best advantage.  We played on the beach, which was amazing.  The campground itself was really crowded and frustrating driving in and out of, but the beach was perfect.  The kids boogie boarded and played in the sand.  We went in to depoe bay to have lunch (Dillon tried calamari and crab mac and cheese) then headed over to Devil's Punch Bowl for low tide.  It was a little tricky to figure out how to actually get into it but we eventually found the trail and headed down.  When we first got there I wasn't very optimistic.  There was a lot of sandy area, which usually means you won't find tide pools.  I was pleasantly surprised.  We saw some anemones and a few starfish but we found about 50 crabs!  These weren't the tiny ones we found at Tolmie.  The weren't huge but some were the size of my palm.  Then of course we found sand (mole) crabs, but we counted those separately.  

 Carson and Dillon decided it was hilarious to take my bike and ride it around.  The two of them would grab Dad and I's bikes and take off.  The bathroom was a ways away so it was easiest to ride our bikes.  I ended up riding Carson's multiple times because he'd taken mine!

That evening we packed up and headed back out to have a fire on the beach and watch the sunset.  We brought down meat to cook on skewers over the fire.  It would've been great but I accidentally over seasoned the meat!  Dillon ended up not feeling well so he and I headed back to camp before the sun went down.  The other stayed and had a fantastic evening.  They even saw a couple whales!  Dillon and I drove out to try to see them when Daddy texted, we thought we saw one, but we really weren't sure.

The morning we were leaving we went to see the Yaquina head light house.  We were able to drive right up to it.  It's a pretty light house, thought Daddy wasn't impressed with the smell.  There are a couple big rocks not too far off the cliffs where some birds nest.  They were incredibly stinky, it bothered Kayda and Daddy much more than it bothered the rest of us though. Daddy took them back into Depoe bay while I went and packed up.  It was good we did that because we pulled out right at 1pm.

Park Five (last one):  Fort Stevens State Park

Our first evening at Fort Stevens we decided to have another sunset fire on the beach since Dillon and I missed the first one.  We ate dinner then headed over.  It was windier than Beverly Beach but wasn't uncomfortable.  Dillon and Carson had their shovels out and dug out a "fort".  They worked on it the entire time we were there, with the exception of when they made their smores.  The sunset was stunning. The sun went bright red as it went down.  It was an incredibly relaxing evening. 

We were down to our last full day of our trip.  We spend a few hours just hanging out at the beach.  The boys kept working on their fort and then they all flew the kite.  It turned out to be a great day for the kite.  It's a trick kite so it took a little practice.  

We went in to Astoria hoping to find some souvenir shops.  We weren't successful, though we found the largest ice cream/candy shop I've ever been to.  They had fudge, ice cream, all kinds of candy... they even had jelly belly's sorted by flavor!  I had been promising them ice cream for several days so we finally delivered.  We spent the rest of the day relaxing at camp and playing pinochle.  Carson made a fire, it was one of his favorite activities during the trip.  He always wanted to start the fire.  Though the task got considerably harder when I ran out of our egg carton fire starters.  He still stuck with it.  

On our last day we didn't hang around.  We wanted to get back before traffic really kicked in.  We said good by to the beach and had a smooth drive home.  It ended up being a really good, really busy trip and we were glad to do it with Grandma and Papa.