Oregon Coast 2016

I just downloaded hundreds of pictures that represent the past five months of life while Dennis and I lived in Minnesota. I want to include the special experiences with Wyatt and the Hallstrom family on this blog, and chronicle the sweet opportunity we had to share this journey with Wyatt, and will be working on it so that I have a record of everything. It's such a tender, life-changing, sacred experience that I have to take it a little at a time.
However, to get back on track I decided to post some photos of our recent trip to the Oregon Coast since it is still fresh on my mind! 

This is the sign I printed up for my mom and taped on the back of the headrest so she could look at it while we traveled. It worked like a charm! Mom and dad are 87 and 92 years old now and we didn't know if they would be up to four long days of traveling, but they were champs!

Our first stop was in La Grande. Oh how I love it. Denny and I both said we could live there. Dennis has always said that. The smell of the woods, the pine trees, the lumber mill, the mournful trains all day and all night, the slow pace, no traffic, the way the light floats over the grasslands........I could go on and on. This is the infamous "Funny Little House" on Gekeler Lane. I took a photo of it's "good side." We roamed those mountains all during my childhood. I didn't take a photo of 1005 "L" where I lived from 5th grade on, because it doesn't have much of a "good side" any more and it's sad after the immaculate way mom and dad cared for that house for 47 years.

Iconic Mount Emily.

My dad's childhood home, 1806 Washington, where his niece Carol Anne still lives. They keep it up so beautifully. She wasn't home.

Eastern Oregon State University Administration building. The campus looked gorgeous.

A set of steps at my elementary school (which is on the college campus). I remember a boy had the nerve to ride his bike down them. I was fascinated and terrified!

The school was open! I had to go into the girls' restroom and see if they still have the floor tile and they DO!!! I spent seven years looking at those tiles when I went to the restroom, and making flowers out of black center with white around it. Now they're back in style. Tony and Cindy have it in their bathroom off the garage.

Speaking of "fascinating and terrifying" this is a banister we would slide down as kids. It's also in the admin building where dad's office and the theatre were located. I remember I was more concerned about getting a sliver in my stomach, than about falling onto the cement two stories below and cracking my skull. I could hardly bear to stand close enough to take this photo.

Professor Hiatt and Shirley Anderson Hiatt on the campus.

Beautiful!

That night we ate at the pizza parlor in La Grande, which is always under new management and has a new name - I wish it was still called "Grizzley Bear." The next morning we headed across the State to the Oregon Coast. Photos don't do justice to the gorgeous mountain grandeur that is part and parcel of this drive.

Here we are in Julie's beach house! I'm so glad we were able to make it. It wasn't possible for any of the Sweat children and grandchildren to make it, but that's the way it goes and some day maybe we'll all get ourselves to the Oregon Coast. That would take some doing though. Always fun to dream! Julie and her family all stayed at this beach house. Dennis and I and my mom and dad and Denny and Joe and Emma stayed at a Hotel in Tillamook. Well, not Emma. She embraced the beach house lifestyle and slept there every night!

Celebrating Joe's birthday.

Hiatt meets the Hiatts.

Theo with great-grandma and grandpa.

It was fun to get to know Jax, Chris and Megan better.

Julia's daughters Claire and Charlotte (and Hiatt hiding).

We had the most gloriously perfect day I've ever experienced on the Oregon Coast. Those coats were unnecessary. Grandma was a good sport and wore Dennis's Harley hat to keep the sun off. There was lots of sun - and NO WIND!

Mom and dad and Denny and Joe.

The view from the beach house.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous. The ocean is in the distance!

The sunset was so gorgeous that first night that I grabbed Dennis and had him drive me down closer to the beach. We got there JUST in the nick of time. The sun was gone 10 seconds after I took this photo.

Lots of Julie's family went crabbing, with much more success than Dennis and I had a few years ago. Glorious feasting ensued. It seems like a dream, did we really gorge ourselves on crab two nights in a row? YES and YES.

...feasting.........

and feasting...... (Note the hot dogs for those who don't appreciate crab - i.e. Dennis and all the little kids).

The crab hostesses with the mostest.

Calvin Higgins, Russell's little boy. He is like a little woodland creature!

This is for historical purposes so I can remember the name of the hike Dennis and I love.

We didn't take the hike this year, but I sprang out of the car and snapped a couple of pictures of the ethereal fogginess of this day. And I talked a couple of people into taking the hike who were waffling.

Like something out of Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit!

We took a drive down to Newport one day (my favorite coastal town). We stopped here in Depot Bay and the wind was more like is typical on the Oregon Coast. I like this photo because you get a flavor for how it usually is!

When we got to Newport we went to see our friends the Sea Lions.

They didn't disappoint. The man I was standing next to commented, "Just like having brothers!"

Avery, Claire and Em.

Spoils of the feasting

You can never have too many pictures of people eating crab.
We loved our time with the extended Hiatt family so much. Mwah!

Oops, I messed something up and can't type under this next photo, so I'm typing above it. Below are photos of the Union County Fairgrounds back in La Grande on our return trip. It was like stepping into a time machine.

The "homely arts" as Denny called them, seem to be waning.

This photo captures the ambiance of the fair. Very few people (and it was Friday night) strolling around, and we joined them while enjoying the evening.

Yup, not a whole lot of entries!

More ambiance. We popped balloons with darts and won a prize for Emma. The carney guy told us not to tell his boss but he gave us a bigger stuffed animal than he should have. We didn't fall for it.

The cowgirls and cowboys were as fun to watch as the animals. These kids are real farmers. He obviously loves his pig!

Animals still smelled the same as they do at the County fair on North Temple.

And to finish off the night we listened to this very talented country singer. I read that she was performing and so I had visions of a packed house with no parking and tons of people. But seriously, see those folding chairs? There were like 20 people listening to her. Turns out that she is from Utah and her husband knows our old neighbor Randy Robinson! Small world.
I don't have a good "ending" photo but that's okay. I'm just getting started so why end for now?
XO
Mom