Vacation - Part 6:Train Mountain

The kids on our train, waiting for the parade to start. (lots of trains!)

K showing off her train necklace.

R video taping our ride.

B the "conductor", waving the flag to warn another train we are stopped.

K standing by the "Thomas train". (her cousin Carter loves him)

A small scale "hotel" that someone built. It was BIG!

A small scale "horse stable" that someone built.

Working train crossing signals, on the street.

A small scale "Pennzoil" store.

We are driving through the tunnel.

We had such a fun time the last couple of days. We were at Train Mountain, in Chiloquin Oregon. We come every 3 years for the Triennial train meet. There are miles of track and so many fun things to look at while you are driving on the tracks. Different families have built small scale buildings all along the tracks. Its fun to see the different things. My favorite was the little school house. We would go out at dusk and take a ride at night. It was fun to see the different trains and their lights on. It was chilly at night and in the morning. We would bundle up in long pants and sweatshirts. We got to be a part of the picture they take of all the trains and be in the parade of trains on Saturday morning. The gentleman that started building train mountain 20+ years ago, died last year, so it was bitter sweet this year. His wife lead the trains this year in the parade. This is the 4th Triennial meet we've gone to. This was by far our favorite year. Probably because we didn't have a small child/baby/or me pregnant. It was a great family vacation!!! But I am so glad to sleep in my own bed tonight and use a real toilet!!

Vacation - Part 5:Crater Lake

The kids in front of Crater Lake.

The BEAUTIFUL Crater Lake.

Snow!

The kids!!!

Todd and Lisa

This morning we left the coast and headed east, back to Medford to pick up the train trailer. Then we went to Crater Lake, to show the kids how beautiful it is. The water is so clear, since it is pure rain and snow melt. R & B have been here before, but they were little.

Crater Lake lies inside a caldera or volcanic basin, created when the 12k foot high Mount Mazama collapsed 7,700 years ago following a large eruption. Generous amounts of winter snow, about 533 inches per year, supply the lake with water. There are no inlets or outlets to the lake. Crater Lake, at 1,943 feet deep, is the seventh deepest lake in the world and the deepest in the United States.

Todd and I were engaged at Crater Lake 13 years ago. It is such a pretty place. We just stopped at the first stop and took pictures. We didn't have a couple hours to drive all the way around the rim. We needed to get to Train Mountain before it got late. We went in the gift shop and the kids got to pick out a souvenir.

Vacation - Part 4:Umpqua Lighthouse

Umpqua Lighthouse, it's an active coast guard base, so we couldn't go into it.

Here it is from the beach, it's a hike.

The kids running away from the waves, their favorite part. (it was windy and cold)

The kids digging holes in the sand for the waves to fill.

R buried in the sand, he was so warm in there.

After the sand dunes we went north and found the Umpqua Lighthouse State park campgrounds. We found a nice spot in the back, close to the showers. We marked our spot and then went to the lighthouse. It's not open for tours, because its an active coast guard residence. They have a museum, but it was closed TODAY, for inventory. We were sad. We went to beach and the kids played for a little bit. They wanted to play all day, but it was too windy and cold. They had fun for the short time. We hosed them off with a warm shower and got dressed for dinner. We found a pizza/chowder place. It was yummy! We went back to our campground and played games(Todd read a book). It was a fun day!!!

Vacation - Part 3:Sand Dunes

Todd, R & B getting instructions.

Todd, R & B in the Ranger, ready to go!

They did donuts in the sand.

R & B, excited and scared!

Todd on an ATV.

Todd really wanted us to go to the sand dunes to go on ATVs. He found one that had 3 seats. R & B were really excited to go, B was a little reserved. K did not want to go. So we waited in the RV for them. They came back half way through to see if K wanted to go out, but she didn't. R & B said they almost rolled over, so daddy told them to get out while he went down the hill.(Todd said they were fine) They went out for about 1 hour 30 minutes, so I told Todd to ask if he could trade it in for a single seater so he could really have some fun. He went for the last 30 minutes by himself and enjoyed it!

Vacation - Part 2:Coast

R at the coast, finally!!

B so happy!

K loves the beach! She's wearing her "junior ranger" badge still.

Here is the cute little light house at our campground. It made it easy to find our way back from the beach.

We are at a campfire on the beach, we made smores!! It was so windy.

We were driving for a couple hours and the kids were going nuts. They just wanted to be at the coast. We finally just pulled off the road, so they could take a picture in front of it. We were trying to find a campground, so we could park and fix dinner and then enjoy the beach. We found a place on the beach, that had hookups and bathrooms/showers and the light house. There were about 20 other RV's, we got the last spot. It was windy and cold, so the beach didn't last very long. The kids had a warm shower and dinner and then wanted to go make a campfire and have smores. I'm not a fan of wind on a sandy beach(my contacts), so Todd took the kids. They were gone for a long time and it was getting dark. They hadn't taken a flashlight, so I took one to them. They were at the campfire with another family and hadn't started the smores yet. I was just in time to make some. K got marshmallow in her hair(just washed) and wanted to go back, so I took her back. The others came shortly after. We played a couple games and then went to bed.

Vacation - Part 1:Caves

These are the soda straws on the ceiling in the cave.

Lisa and the kids in the cave.

BEAUTIFUL!!

Our family after coming out of the caves.

The kids at the top of the hill. We went on a hike after coming out of the cave. What a view!

The kids being sworn in as "Junior Rangers".

We left for Oregon yesterday afternoon and slept in the RV in a Wal-Mart parking lot. This morning we woke up and headed for the Oregon Caves. Todd and I went there back in 1996 on our trip to Oregon when we got engaged. It is a beautiful cave and the kids had a great time! We weren't sure how K would do, it's a 90 minute tour and you climb over 500 steps. She was a trooper and she even got to be the line leader at times. Anytime we climbed a steep staircase, they wanted her first, so no one would fall on her. Then when we climbed down, she had to be last. The kids answered questions and filled out a booklet and got to become "Junior Rangers". The Ranger asked them some questions and then got the attention of everyone in the gift shop and swore them in as official junior rangers. It was so cute! They also got another badge for going on the hike up to the cliff nature trail. Afterwords we went to a cute cafe and had a milkshake. Then we headed up north to find a campground on the coast. We had a great day! The kids can't wait to play on the beach.

Happy Birthday, Todd!!!!!!

Happy Birthday! We hope you had a great day. Sorry it was so busy. R enjoyed spending the morning at camp with you. Here's to another great year!! We love you!!!

Twlight Camp - Saturday morning

R doing the bottle rockets.

Bottle rockets, shooting off!

R doing marbles. (like labyrinth)

R getting ready for archery.

His targets!

R and Todd had a lot of fun at Twilight camp this morning. They got to do all the fun stuff. The Webelos came back today to do all the fun activities, because during the week they pass off their merit badges. R's favorite was archery. Happy Birthday Todd!!!! Thanks for spending the the day with your son, he loved it!

Twilight Camp - 4th night

R making his journal.

R making his marshmallow creation.

R on the obstacle course .

R doing another part of the obstacle course.

R doing archery with his friends dad. (thanks Jorge!)

R went to twilight camp all week and had such a great time. Tonight Todd went with him. They did a lot of fun things! He came home and made his marshmallow creation bigger. He really liked being able to do some archery with his friends dad, who was running that station. The boys decided not to sleep over, they will just go back in the morning.

Twilight Camp - first night

Making apple dessert.

Mixing the ingredients for the ice cream.

Shaking the ball to make ice cream.

Working on electricity, to make the flashlight work.

R went to twilight camp today and I was able to go with him to chaperon. It was a lot fun!! They went to 3 different stations, dodge ball/baseball, electricity and cooking. The boys had a great time. It wasn't too hot, so that was nice. We had 6 boys from our troop. They were in the Wyoming state, each group was a different state.