Trip to Crescent City

So....Jeremy and I flew to Crescent City last Thursday for a fun camping vacation with Amy (my sister) and Rob and their kids Seth (6), Brenna (4), and Grant (2). We had such a fun time and loved hanging out with them. Their kids kept us very entertained the whole time. :) So here's a little about our trip...

We left early Thursday morning and had a layover in San Fransisco. We just had enough time to spend our life savings on lunch and then we hopped on a teeny little puddle-jumper to Crescent City. The plane held less people than my tour bus and we about lost our pricey lunch as we were landing. It was super windy in Crescent city and the little plane was blowing all over the place. I had to keep my eyes closed and I held Jeremy's hand quite tightly until we made it safely there. It was an adventure!

So we got to the airport and were pretty amused at the size. We walked off the plane outside and then walked into this little room that was the waiting room, baggage claim, check-in, security screening, etc all in one. It was by far the smallest airport I have ever beheld. Just one gate (really, just one room) with about 4 people working there and about 12 chairs to wait in. Here's Jeremy standing in front of the "baggage claim".Here's the front of the aiport.

Ta-dah!
Here's the campground. We stayed at the KOA campground just north of Crescent City. We had a little 2 bedroom cabin with space heaters, which was really nice. Amy was so prepared with all the food and we ate too well :). We had tin-foil dinners the first night, hot dogs and hamburgers the next couple nights, and taco salad the last night. Yum!

This is Paul Bunyan. He's quite large.
On Friday, we went to Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park and walked around a bit. We saw some elk and a lot of very large trees. The redwoods are so amazing!


Here's Jeremy and Seth inside a tree. There was a fire and the inside of the tree was hollowed out but the outside still stands. Pretty crazy.
This is looking up through that tree...you can see all the way through it.
I thought this was an awesome picture, thank you very much. :) Everything was sooo green and lush and beautiful.



Aww, aren't we cute.

This was one of the larger trees in the park. It was pretty incredible. Jeremy's sitting in front looking a little washed out, oops.
Eating our lunch...
After we went down to Prairie Creek we stopped at a beach on the way back up to Crescent City. I don't remember the official name of it. The kids called it "Rock Beach" because it had a lot of rocks. We hiked about a half mile down to it and it was really pretty. I'm pretty sure we were the only ones there, too. The weather was actually quite nice for us. It was the typical temperature for that area ranging between 55-65 the whole time we were there, but luckily we never got rained on so that was nice.

I love this picture of Brenna. She's got her coat and hat on and then she has her pants rolled up as far as they'll go and her sandals on. What a cutie. She was trying to figure out whether or not she wanted to brave the ocean....
Kodak moment...
Seth and Brenna playing in the sand.
Cute little Grant. This was the only shot I got of him actually looking at me.
Yes! One of the best parts about camping...roasting marshmallows. Or, as Brenna kept saying: "I want to marsh some marshmallows!" She had trouble remembering the word "roast". :)
Mmmm....
Saturday...we drove up to Gold Beach in Oregon and went on a Jet boat ride up the Rogue River. It was 32 miles up and 32 miles back. It was absolutely beautiful! We stopped and had lunch at a little buffet and then went back down the river. We were glad the sun was shining that day. It was pretty chilly on the boat with the wind and everything, but we all huddled together and had a fun time.


On Sunday, Jeremy and I rented a car and drove down the 101 to Arcata, CA where Jeremy lived from about age 9 or 10 to 17 or 18. It was another beautiful sunny day and the drive down was gorgeous. I told Jeremy I didn't believe that it's always overcast there because we had so much sun! So, we went to church down there and he saw a lot of old friends that were so surprised to see him! The ward was so friendly. I think they were hoping we were a new couple in the ward because we had about 3 or 4 people we didn't know come up to us before church started and welcomed us to the ward. They looked eager to have new faces there. We felt bad telling them we were just visiting. :)

Then we drove to Arcata High, where he went to the first 3 years of high school and then we stopped by "The Plaza". This is the happening place in the big town of Arcata ;) and we ate lunch here. Arcata is a small town with a lot of hippies (they like to hang out at the plaza) but it had such small-town charm and character. I loved it and could see why Jeremy had such a great time growing up here. This is the plaza:
And here's his elementary/junior high school (it was K-8).
After we went the the plaza and his schools, we drove to Bayside where he lived. Here's the drive to his house.


And here's the house! I guess the fence is new. It blocked our view a bit, but we still got a good look at it. It was so beautiful! It was very private and is totally surrounded by forest. No wonder those boys had so much fun!The front of the house

Unfortunately, that's about all the pictures I have. We took more, but they didn't turn out. Our camera was being very temperamental the whole time, so we're missing some things, but that's okay. After we drove by the house we drove back to Crescent City and took a lot of scenic detours. We stopped at couple of beaches and forests and then we took this beautiful "coastal trail" that wound through the forest and took us up to this really pretty secluded lookout by the Klamath River. It was so pretty! So then we eventually made it back to Crescent City for our last night.

Then on Monday we went to the beach that is right by the airport (we took pictures there, but they didn't turn out) and then we flew home! All in all, it was a great vacation. It was so fun to get away and to be out in nature. Amy and Rob were so fun and we had a great time with their family!

Our house!

Okay, so I finally got the house all clean and took some pictures! There are still things to be done, but there always are, so here's how it looks right now! I know there are a lot of pictures, so you don't have to look at all of them. I got a little carried away. :) Anyway, so I tried to put them in a logical order as you would see them if you were walking through the house. So here's the tour....

This is the front of the house (obviously).And here is a little wider view that includes our side yard. We're on the corner of the street so we have quite a bit of space on that side, so that's nice. By the way the lot is about .15 acres. Just right for us.
And here's the front door. Yea!
And the entry way. I'm standing in the family room taking this picture. On the right that little archway leads into the living room which is next.
Here's the living room and our red wall! We're so proud. :) Jeremy and I painted the whole house ourselves. Not bad, for first-timers, eh? I still have to finish the baseboards, but they're almost done. So this is the living room and we use it as the "music room" or "conservatory", if you will. It's probably our favorite room in the house. We don't hang out in there, but we feel like it's the most finished looking room in the house.
Here's the corner of that room.
And another corner with our IKEA bookshelf and all my music. :)
And here is the family room/kitchen/great room. I was standing in the entryway/hallway when I took this picture. That door that you see goes out to the backyard.
Here's another view of that room.
And another...this one is from the kitchen.
And I took this one standing by that back door. Those 2 arches are the living room and the hallway.
And here's our cute little kitchen. We love our black appliances. Besides the microwave, they all came with the house, so that was really nice.
And here's the little nook. That door goes to the garage.
Here's another view of the kitchen from the back door.
Now, if we go through the hallway, this guest bathroom is on the right.
Guest bathroom.
Here is one of the bedrooms at the end of the hallway in the front of the house. You pass our laundry closet and our linen closet to get here. We're using this room as an office, as you can see.
This is the middle bedroom across from the guest bathroom. We don't really have anything in here yet, but someday I'm sure we'll find a use for it. :)
And here is the master bedroom. I still need to do something with the bare walls, but no one besides us really comes in here, so it's low on the priority list. But it's a nice room and has a nice big window.
Here's the corner of the master bedroom.
And the master bathroom vanity and walk-in closet.
And the master bathroom.

And here's our little garden that Jeremy planted on Saturday! You can see our peppers and tomatoes, and hopefully we'll have the others sprouting up soon!
And this is the view of the back of the house. I'm standing in our back neighbor's lot. There isn't a house there yet, but I'm sure there will be eventually. Our yard goes to the edge of the grass and we're hoping to put a fence up this summer sometime.

Whew! Thanks for looking. I still need to get some more things on the walls and make it little more homey, but it's coming along. And if you're ever coming to Sandy, please come see us! We love visitors. We're really happy here, and feel so blessed to be able to have a house at such an early stage of our lives. We're very grateful and recognize the Lord's hand in our lives.