Basketball and our Oregon trip!

 Kendal and Peter had a double dose of Tews basketball camp from the 10th to 12th. We took them out after lunch for a shooting camp, back home for a couple of hours, and then ran them back out to Filer for a ball handling class after dinner. Kendal and Pete love these camps every year!

On top of the Tews camp Kendal and Peter got in some cross country practice early in the morning on Monday and Wednesday. Kendal also had a basketball camp with the other middle school girls put on by Kyle Collingsworth and the high school on Wednesday and Thursday morning. (So on the 12th she had cross country at seven, basketball camp from nine to noon, and double Tews that afternoon / evening.) She was a trooper to do it all and thankfully her Thursday was just basketball in the morning so she could hang out with friends in the afternoon. 

Peter got to go to the Stake Activity Days camp on Tuesday morning. They had a rotation of activities for all of the boys to participate in from games to crafts. I went in the afternoon for the girls session of it. It was a great turn out, the boys had near 90 kids and the girls had over 100. 

Our front yard is slowly growing grass. We bought some more grass seed hoping to fill in some bald spots (we'll see if the high temps roast them or if we can get them to grow). We had rock delivered on the 11th. Thankfully the truck driver was awesome and spread out the rocks a bit for us as he unloaded. Casey did most of the grunt work spreading out the rocks. They make a great addition to the yard. 

  

Pete got his middle school sports physical as well as his middle school booster shots on the 13th. He wasn't thrilled about the shots, but they're done with for now. Alice was a trooper all week, either getting dragged to basketball camps or left with either mom or dad to play. The new Bluey episodes came out on the 12th and Alice enjoyed going through those for a couple of days. She wanted to draw the characters so badly so I pulled up art tutorials online for her to follow. Alice got to go to Emma Berg's birthday party that Friday. It was mermaid themed and the kids got to get wet and play fun games. 

Casey and I stole away for a pre-anniversary date night on the 13th. We went out to Happy Teriyaki (we have a tradition of eating somewhere new when we go out). Afterwards we ran some errands for our Oregon trip. We got another night out on Saturday when we joined friends for a themed Bunco night. We had to shop at a second hand store for our outfit. We got to have delicious street tacos, play some Bunco, and enjoy a night out with friends. 

We packed our camping gear and our car all day Saturday so we could leave early on Sunday to go to Oregon. We had a nine hour drive to start and a lot of ground to cover. We stopped on the side of the road for a quick picnic lunch and then kept going. We forgot the tablet with movies, but the kids did great for the most part. About an hour before we made it to camp the kids pestered each other (hangry meets restlessness). We rolled into the Broken Arrow campground by Diamond Lake in the late afternoon. Brett and Vanessa had already been there a couple of days and were camped near us. The kids were ecstatic to see each other, and the mosquitoes were also excited to greet us. We set up camp, ate a quick dinner and then took the kids to the lake to play for a bit. They all ended up wet and a bit chilly, but they didn't care at all! 

Monday, we packed up camp and went off to explore Crater Lake National Park. Crater Lake is beautiful and we drove around part of it stopping at viewpoints and then the visitor's center. The kids did some Jr. Ranger booklets and we had our picnic lunch at an overlook as we headed out. We did a couple of extra hikes to Clearwater Falls and Watson Falls in the area before we headed out for a three hour drive to the coast. We made it to the campground at Sunset Bay around dinner time. We set up camp and let the kids play with cousins and explore a bit. The camp area was packed but each little campsite was surrounded by foliage which was great for a bit of privacy, but we could still hear all the going on's around us. After dinner we took the kids down to Sunset Bay to play in the sand / water. The kids were so happy to play and had a competition of building sand castles that could withstand the incoming tide. 

 

Tuesday morning we got up early to go clam digging at Charleston,Oregon near Coos Bay. It was a bit chilly, but we trudged through the wet mud and sand out to dig up some clams. It was so much work for everyone. We only had little garden shovels so any clam that was really deep took a lot of work to get out.  I didn't dig for clams, I kept my eye on Alice and Naomi and we went around finding shells and watching everyone trying to dig around. Alice did try to dig a few holes but she didn't get deep enough for a clam. She did find a couple of hard shell clams near the surface though. There were a lot of broken clams and clams that buried themselves out of sight, but in the end we made out with a good haul of them. Clamming was a messy and hard job for everyone. Alice was done after a bit so she and I went back to the car to clean up (I made an anniversary video real with my limited phone connection - we only ever had connection when we were in Charleston or Coos Bay). Casey cut himself a few times from sharp clam shells, and the kids came back so wet and dirty, but they got a good haul and had a good time. We moved down the shore a bit and made ourselves lunch before we headed out to the docks to go crabbing. We spent the whole afternoon putting the crab nets in and pulling them out. The kids had so much fun, and we made a competition out of it. Alice held back at first then with the power of a blue glove she was soon holding and tossing back crabs along with her cousins. Kendal had fun hauling in baskets and eventually got the hang of picking up and tossing crabs without freaking out. Pete was so into the competition and hovering around the crab catches, but he didn't want to hold or really touch the crabs. Casey did it all, from baiting, handling the nets, and dealing with the crabs. I happily observed my way through the afternoon. We probably caught over 250 crabs that afternoon and were able to keep about five. That night we cleaned up our haul (so gross), cooked it all up and had clam chowder for dinner. 

Wednesday morning we got up early to go down to the tide pools. It was so neat exploring all of the nooks and areas of the coast that are normally under water. We saw so many starfish, and other creatures. Alice loved the mini crabs and hermit crabs, as well as the star fish. Kendal was fascinated with it all, and Pete had fun climbing the rocks and adventuring all around the area. Next the kids did the Jr. Beaver program at the campground (State Park version of Jr. Ranger). They played a couple of games and filled out a booklet for some stickers. After lunch we went back to Charleston to catch some more crabs. It was a bit colder with the wind and was more overcast than the previous day. We weren't there as long so we only ended up with a couple of crabs. (We did get Pete to finally hold a crab that day. He would only touch them the day before.) After we caught crabs we went to the botanical gardens back near Sunset Bay. What we saw looked great, and the blooms we did find were beautiful. (The girls loved the rose garden, Pete wanted to follow a rabbit around, and Casey and Brett talked about the herb garden the most.) We stopped off at a lookout on our way back to camp to spot whales, but didn't have luck there, we did see some seals out on the distant rocks though. We had dinner back at camp and played some games together around the fire and cooked smores to end our night. 

 

Thursday morning most of the kids went back out to dig up clams in the bay with Casey and Brett. Vanessa and I had Alice, James, and Naomi about a half mile down catching crabs. After lunch back at camp the kids went to a demonstration put on by the park rangers where they learned to make rope out of cat tails. They made mini ropes and turned them into bracelets and rings. We promised the kids more beach time so we spent the rest of the afternoon there. The sun was out so the kids had a lot of fun building sand creations and burying each other in the sand. We had one last night of camp fire games and mallows before turning in. 

Friday we were up bright and early to get things packed up. It had misted (rained) overnight so everything was wet. (Anything we got wet during the week we would hang to dry at camp, but the temps and water in the air made it impossible to dry anything.) We rolled out just after 7:30 in the morning to make our way home. We only stopped a few times for gas and ended up picking up burgers for lunch and Little Caesar's in Boise for dinner. We rolled into home just before 9:30 tired and sick of the car and so ready for our own beds!

We spent all day yesterday cleaning, airing out, washing, and putting away everything. The kids were happy to be home and played / helped us throughout the day. We took them out last night for snow cones since they helped and we came back from temperatures in the 60's all week to a day at 104 degrees.