May 16, 2010

Sunday

Daniel and I are in Oregon with my family. After packing up all of our stuff and putting it in the extra bedroom, cleaning our apartment and putting our summer stack in the storage (to retrieve when we are heading to DC), we went to Mark and Julie’s to spend a few days. We left on the 4^th of this month to head up there. It was fun to see Julie and the boys. They are SO cute!! I could barely contain myself around them. We just hung out and played with them most of the time. On Thursday of that week, we went to the Oakland Zoo, which was fun. I can’t remember the last time I went to the zoo, and it was better with the little boys. Little kids always make stuff like that more fun. I just asked Julie to send us those pictures, so hopefully we can keep that memory. At the zoo, there was this elephant that was playing in the water, and we stopped to watch him for, like, 20 minutes! It was so funny; you always see elephants just standing around, eating or pooping. But this one was way funny, and you could totally just see his personality as he was playing around in the pond. It was just a fun day.

The next day, Friday the 7^th, Daniel and I went to see Grandpa Fernandez and spent most of the day with him. He’s not doing so well. He has a TON of health problems, which prevents him from doing what he likes. He has to have kidney dialysis and he has a LOT of dietary restrictions, which is sad, because he loves food. He took us out to Applebee’s for lunch, we played games with him and he showed us his scrapbook when we got back to his house, and then he took us out again for dinner to the Elephant Bar. We had a lot of fun with him, but I was also kind of sad, too. He just seems so sad and lonely to me. He was so happy that we’d come to see him, and he really seemed like he wanted us to stay all day (which we did). He even said, right before we left at around 8:30, that next time we should come stay at his house a couple of days, after our visit with Julie. I feel so bad for him. None of his family members live close enough to go visit him on a regular basis (except Julie, but she’s got a crazy schedule for her boys), and I wonder how often any of us really call him to talk. Granted, he’s not a great phone-talker (neither am I, so you can imagine the conversation and awkwardness of that); but still. He’s so cute and so loving and so good, and I feel so bad. I love him, and I don’t want him to be lonely and sad.

Dan and I stayed up til 3 in the morning that night talking to Julie, so the next day we slept in way late, and we didn’t get on the road until about 2 in the afternoon. We spent all that day getting ready to leave and then driving to Oregon. When we got here, only Mary was here, so we went on a short run before going to bed.

This last week was none too exciting. Daniel and I have been working on projects for mom: Dan’s been working on putting our home videos on DVD, and I have been putting Brian’s letter scrapbook together. We also went shopping for Dan’s and my work clothes for this summer, and we got a super-good deal for Daniel’s nice clothes. We went to Van Hussen’s and mom had a bunch of coupons for us to use, so we only ended up spending, like, $25. It was awesome!

We also went to see “How to Train Your Dragon” for FHE with my family. It was a really cute movie, and I liked it a lot.

Dan and I have also been trying to work out a lot. We went running most days last week. We met the chickens; they are really fun! They are kind of cute, and we transported them last week from the garage where they’d been living, into their new chicken coop. It was really fun, and now I want chickens.

This weekend, our family took a trip to the coast, so that Daniel could see the Oregon Coast … and so that we could all have some fun together. We left on Friday, in the late morning. We stopped in Brookings and spent some time on Harris Beach, flying Kites and climbing rocks and watching the ocean. We also went on a short hike to the beach through the woods a little ways outside of Brookings. The hike led us to some big cliffs by the ocean, and we climbed around on the rocks and scared mom half to death. But it was fun.

We stopped that night in Gold Beach, where mom and dad had rented a beach house, only a little ways from the ocean. Mom made some lasagna and Chinese chicken salad and then we played games til very early in the morning. About halfway through a game of skip-bo, we heard some funny noises outside, but didn’t think much of it. Pretty soon, we heard what sounded like rain or fireworks, but still didn’t think much of it, until someone came knocking on our door talking about our car and a fire. We all ran to the door (thinking our car was on fire) to find the wood shed, not 40 feet from our little house, in flames. Huge flames! It was fully on fire! Dad moved the car (I’ve never seen him drive that fast) and we all stood there, really quite scared, until we realized we might have to evacuate if the fire spreads quickly. We all gathered everything we could and had with us, stuffed things into bags, cleaned up the games, and left the house, around the side to the back of it. It was really scary, actually. Diane was especially worried, because last summer she was in an explosion while working at the fair. Dad and Daniel stayed around the house (far enough away) to watch what was going on. The firefighters got there eventually and put it out, a lot quicker than I thought was possible. We watched from the other side of the lot, far, far away from it.

We weren’t about to stay in that house after what had just happened, so we went to the front desk to see if there was anywhere else we could stay; but the only place they had was too small for us, so we ended up going back to our little house for the night. I was so tired I didn’t have any trouble falling to sleep, even after that ordeal. It was after 3:30 by the time we’d settled in anyway. It was all very exciting, though. I’ve never seen a fire like that, that close up!

The next day, we were kicked out at 11am (checkout time), which I thought was rude, after such a night as we experienced. But we left, drove further up the coast looking for food, and didn’t stop until Bandon, where we had breakfast/lunch at a little Mexican Restaurant. We walked around Bandon for a little while, looking in the little shops and enjoying the town. We went further up the coast to Spinreel Sand Dunes, to go Dune buggying. That was really fun! Last time I went, I was too small and young to go on a quad. And this time, Dad, Scott, Mary, Daniel and myself all had quads, and we rode down to the beach and all over the dunes. We had a great time.

I read pretty much the whole way back home after our many adventures. I was reading “The Bronze Bow”, and it was a pretty good book! I finished it today.

We all feel very fortunate that we weren’t in any trouble or accidents during our trip, especially when there were so many opportunities for it! Heavenly Father was definitely watching over us! And we had a good time altogether. I just hope Daniel had a good time, because we all love the Oregon Coast, and we wanted to show him how cool it can be.