Time to catch up

I’m sure there will be many holes as I try to fill in for the 2014 school year, but I’d really like to get back to blogging.  I will back date events to try to get them in a somewhat accurate order…here goes nothing!

First Day of School!

Here are the kiddos on their first days of school.  Carter is in 5th grade!  This is his last year at the elementary school *sniff, sniff.  Sydney 3rd grade.

Derek Kindergarten!  Somehow not pictured is Olivia entering preschool at Shadle Park High school.  (poor fourth child)

Museum Days

On a particularly rainy day we decided to check out some local museums.  First was the amazing Maritime Museum in Astoria.  I was fascinated by the bridge you have to cross to get to Astoria.  These pictures were through the car window on the way back. . .don’t really do it justice, but this is an amazing bridge.  When you are coming from Washington, you start really low and close to the water and about halfway across, you start to climb, and climb, and climb!  It ends high enough for big ships to get through.  One of the kids saw a big vessel far off in the water and asked if it was a boat or a ship and Garth answered that it was “bo-ship” which made me giggle and now the little ones say that ALL the time!

Carter was intrigued by this boat they had propped up to look like it was going up a swell in the ocean.  You can tell by all the pictures he took!  You could also listen to the story of some rescues that were made by the coast guard on this very boat!

I loved reading about this Japanese boat that went missing during the tsunami in Japan and how it washed ashore in Cape Disappointment!

The girls got to race and see who could put the coast guard suits on fastest!

After the museum, we got to head out to the dock and tour an old coast guard boat.  It was very fascinating!

The climb down was pretty steep!

Next stop was the Cranberry Museum.  We got to see a bunch of old harvesting tools, pictures of the harvest, and learn about how they harvest them now. 

The cranberries were obviously not in season but we went out to see the fields.  It’s incredible how they fill these fields with water till the berries float then they gather them and load them in trucks.  (I’m sure it’s much more complicated but a cool process).

We walked the boardwalk in Long Beach to see these whale bones (no live whale sightings though).

Lastly was Oysterville where we hoped to go to the museum and find some fresh clams for dinner.  The museum was closed and we couldn’t find anywhere but the grocery store to get clams.  We did get a couple of cool pictures of the clam shell hills that are EVERYWHERE!  But after a few falls and finger slices, we decided it was time to head back to camp!