MHS Homecoming 2015

While I was busy hitting tennis balls in Denver, Emmy got ready by herself *sniff sniff* for her big date to the Homecoming dance with her boyfriend Maiko.  I was sad to miss the occasion but between our neighbor, Melia, and Maiko's mom, I got lots of pictures!

As is the custom around here, the group date started bright and early for breakfast at the Original Pancake House, followed by go-carting which resulted in some aches and bruises for Emmy. 

Then back to the house to get ready for the big night.  This was when Melia became my favorite neighbor ever.  She has raised 3 girls so she knew the pre-dance date routine and helped Emmy with the mom-stuff I couldn't be there to do like pinning on the boutonniere, taking pictures and bringing a much needed bottle of hairspray because mom took hers to Denver!

With Maiko's mom, Nita

Another amazing Sharples Oregon Trip for the books!

Our kids have talked so fondly of our first Oregon trip 2 years ago that we knew a repeat was in our future.  They place it even above Disneyland trips which says a lot.  I took notes on my phone at the end of each day so that a) my mom would feel like she was there and hear "every word", and b) so that my increasingly bad memory wouldn't lose any details.

Day 1: 6 hour drive to Boise.  We had just bought a new van right before this trip and it didn't have a DVD player in it like our last one did so we tried a different method of entertaining our kids with a wifi-enabled hard drive that already had hundreds of movies on it accessed by each persons device (iPad, iPhone, laptop).  It didn't allow the kids to access the internet but just access what was on the hard drive through wifi in the car without directly being wired to it.  It worked great!  Each kid probably watched 2-3 movies each day that we were driving and they were movies that they wanted to watch, not their siblings.  

We had dinner at PF Changs in downtown Boise.  We saw a cool looking Indian market that caught Emmy's eye (she loves all things Indian right now).  She wanted to go in to look at saris but they were all one size fits all and were huge.  She got a poster of the elephant God Ganesh, tinkling ankle bracelets and blingy forehead stickers (bindi).  

That night we went to see Jurassic World.  Wow!  We all loved it.  It's not often that a sequel can measure up to its original counterpart.  Back in the hotel room, Zach surprised us with Idaho lottery cards (looked like the Frogger game) that he picked up at the gas station.  The suspense was high as we each scratched our cards.  For a few minutes, it looked positively like Emmy won $500 but when we took it to the gas station to cash in, he pointed out that we had scratched it wrong and it was only a $5 winner.  Still exciting though!

Day 2:  Today was an 8 hour drive from Boise to Lincoln City.  The landscape improved considerably towards Portland.  Emmy and I entertained ourselves in the car making Dubsmash videos for each other.  

We stopped in the heart of downtown Portland for lunch at a big food truck area, mostly middle eastern food.  Portland looks like such a cool place but we've only driven through and never spent enough time to explore what it has to offer. 

I kept my eye out for a berry picking farm and was happy to find one somewhere outside of Portland where we picked both raspberries and strawberries.  We ate them in the car for the final stretch and made ourselves sick.

The house in Lincoln City was so cute.  It was in a very picturesque community called Olivia beach just a few minutes walk to a large staircase down to the beach.  

Zach replaced some pretty average "welcome to the Glass Float" chalk art (that was the name of the house) with his own.  I think he should charge them!

That night we had dinner at Mo's.  We went there last time and the food isn't all that great but I like their clam chowder.  Afterwards Emmy, Simon and I explored the beach under the boardwalk.

The house had a hot tub and it became a nightly activity along with board games like Apples to Apples and King's Corner.  We have decided that hot tubbing is the best way to get kids to put down electronics and talk. Hmmm...we might just have to get one at home.    

Day 3: Zach made his amazing french toast and bacon for breakfast.  It is so nice to have the option to eat in if we choose to.  We took advantage of that option as much as possible.

We drove 1/2 hour south to Newport.  It's kind of a touristy town but not a whole lot to do other than eat seafood (most of us don't) and go to kitschy museums like the Undersea Gardens (so so bad - never go - read the reviews online for a laugh) and Ripleys Believe it or Not (a little better).  We ate lunch at the Saffron Salmon, a restaurant we discovered last time we were here.  It is right on the water with a great view of the Yaquina Bay Bridge.  

Zach has a picture of himself with his friend Larry in this exact spot (below) back in junior high on a trip with his family.  He liked the picture enough that he recreated it with colored pencils for an art project.

Johnny is looking a little ... uh... waxy!

Simon, Emmy and I had fun playing badmitton at the sand volleyball courts near our house.  The Olivia Beach community has a great little park in the middle with swings, volleyball courts, firepit and wide open areas.  A cute thing about the neighborhood is all the driveways and sidewalks are lined with crushed white seashells.  

Dinner that evening was at Galuccis, a pizza place that Zach remembers from when he used to come to Lincoln City as a kid.  Emmy was just happy not to have a cheeseburger which is usually her only option at seafood restaurants.  It looks like it hasn't changed for decades.  We dropped a load of change in the arcade after dinner.

Day 4:  We woke up bright and early at 5:00 a.m. to make our date with the fish and crabs on time.  We drove to Depoe Bay (about 15 minutes away) and boarded the Tacklebuster fishing boat.  There were about 10 people plus 5 crew members.  All 5 of us did some fishing and we each caught at least 2.  It was so exciting, especially for Simon and Emmy who had never fished before.  Every few minutes, we would catch either a lingcod, black rock fish, canary rock fish or yellow tail.  If no one was catching anything, the captain had us  pull up our bait and then he would move us a little ways.  He had radar or something that could see where the schools of fish were so we were pretty much guaranteed success if we followed instructions.  We caught way more than we needed or wanted so we gave the rest to others on board and the crew.  On our way back, we pulled up the crab pots (70 lbs. each) that we had dropped on our way out.  There were more crabs than we could eat in our 2 days left so we donated those to the crew as well.  They were pretty happy about that.

Back on land, we watched them clean the fish and boil our crabs.  The kids were entertained by the seals and seagulls begging for scraps of fish guts.  Zach started throwing whole fish filets at them since we had such an abundance.  I'm sure the crew thought we were idiots for feeding our newly caught fish to the seals but it made us laugh and they weren't going to be eaten by us.

Everyone was pretty tired after that adventure and wanting to take naps, except Simon of course who doesn't tire until he hits the pillow at night and then he crashes hard.  He wanted to try out a new remote control car we got around the park so that's what I spent my afternoon doing as well as pushing him on the swing and playing in the sand.  He sure keeps me young!

Dinner was our own sea-fest!  I looked up easy recipes for lingcod and settled on a parmesan crusted pan fry which turned out great.  I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it and even more surprised that I ate more that anyone else.  It wasn't fishy in taste or texture at all.  Crust anything in parmesan and it tastes good!  Simon and Emmy wanted nothing to do with it. The crab was easy since it had already been boiled at the dock.  Just drop them in boiling water again for a minute and then dig in.  So good.  I can't believe I ate so much seafood! The house didn't have crab cracking tools so we had to get creative.

After dinner we went to the park for a firepit.  Even though we'd just had dinner, we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.  Connor and I played badminton as well as can be expected in the strong ocean wind.  

Day 5: Today we got to play with glass! Last time we were in the area, I noticed how many glass art galleries there were and figured out that Oregon is the place to see and make glass.  I must have mentioned it to Zach at one time and wouldn't you know it - he arranged for it to happen before even asking me.  He's so good at that!  We had an appointment in a glass art studio and each made a creation, i.e. glass float (basically a hollow ball with colors of your choosing that you hang), paperweight or a bowl.  It was very hands on but the experts made sure we didn't ruin our creations by doing it wrong which could have easily happened.  The heat was intense! The ovens get to 2100 degrees. 

Next on the agenda was an hour's drive north to Tillamook for a cheese factory tour.  On the way, we saw a giant air hanger that just couldn't be missed, so we decided to stop.  The font size on the building must have been in the millions, not kidding!  The kids were NOT happy about an air museum they hadn't mentally prepared for (none of them do spontaneous well, especially Simon), but I guilted them into going inside for their dad :) As soon as we walked inside, Zach and I knew we were definitely seeing something we've never seen before in all the years we've been going to air museums.  This giant hanger was a blimp hanger during WWII and is the largest freestanding wood structure in the world.  It was cavernous to say the least.  Kind of unsettling to stand inside.  Connor and Emmy felt what they described as claustrophobic only opposite.  Zach and I really enjoyed it and were glad we stopped.  I don't know how much longer it will be around because somebody has to own it and try to make money off of it but out there in the middle of farm land it probably doesn't get a lot of visitors.  

The cheese factory was really busy with lots of people like us making it a quick stop on their Oregon agenda.  Turns out the "tour" is just looking in windows down on one small part of the factory but having lunch (grilled cheese - what else?) and ice cream made the stop worth it.  Zach bought cheese curds for the ride home, also known in our family as squeaky cheese because of the sound they make when you bite them.  

About 20 miles from Tillamook is the Cape Meares lighthouse.  This part of Oregon is the most picturesque farm country surrounded by pine covered hills.  So beautiful!  The lighthouse was a smaller one but still charming.  We took a short hike through the woods nearby to see the largest spruce in Oregon standing at 144' tall.  

It was close quarters inside the lighthouse and very warm.  I couldn't wait to get out of there.

Day 6:  I checked the tide charts to see if going to the tide pools would be a possibility.  Don't I sound like such an expert?  We only had a small window before needing to get on the road.  The tide was out at 9:30 a.m. which worked out perfectly for our schedule.  Just a short drive to the other end of town is Road's End Beach.  Everyone but Connor (who hates being even slightly cold which it turned out not to be) ventured out to the tide pools and were richly rewarded with plenty of sealife and classic foggy Oregonian beach vistas.