Johnsons' Journey

The Tillamook Cheese Factory

It was still wet when we got up, so we decided not to waste any time… We were ready to come home. *lol* So we had a quick breakfast and then Joe started to break camp while I cleaned the trailer one last time.

We didn’t go straight home though. We decided to go north a bit and hit the Tillamook Cheese Factory (pictures/website)… Out of all the kids, Jared was the only one that had been there before, but that was when he was 16 months old (I was pregnant with Josh), and it’s not like he could remember it. *lol*

The place sure was crowded! I think Joe almost regretted going, but then he remembered the cheese samples (he loves cheese!) and the Tillamook ice cream and decided it was worth it.

The kids were very interested in seeing how the cheese was made, so we stayed up there for a while, watching the people work… But Alicia (who also LOVES cheese) was getting anxious to get to the cheese samples, and was begging us to go back downstairs. *lol*

Getting some cheese samples...

We headed straight to the sample line, and got our cheese, and then after visiting the gift shop, we went to get some ice cream. Tillamook ice cream is sooooooo good! … The kids were tickled to have so many flavors to choose from. I got cookies and cream, Joe got bubblegum, Jared got some kind of French chocolate, Josh got cookies and cream, Alicia got caramel butter cream, and Amanda got blackberry… Amanda never finishes her ice cream cones, and I think Joe was eyeing that blackberry ice cream… But she shocked us all by actually finishing it. (She loved that ice cream)

"Yay! I finished it!"

She sure has been eating a LOT this last week. I can’t decide if she’s going through a growth spurt, or if we’re making her extra hungry with all the running around and sight seeing we’ve been doing. *lol*

After we finished our ice cream Alicia wanted another cheese sample, so Joe and the kids went through the line again, and then we left.

On the way to the cheese factory the kids had been watching movies. Well, as we got closer to Tillamook the road started getting very windy, and Jared started feeling a little car sick. We told him to stop watching the movie and had him open his window (which helped). Well, as soon as Jared got to open his window, Amanda said that she was sick. We knew she was just saying it to get her window down too, so we rolled it down and just let it go.

Well, after we left the factory (and had gone a ways), Amanda once again started saying she was car sick. Both Joe and I figured she was faking it so that she could get her window down… She always wants to roll her window down, but when you’re driving on the highway it makes your ears hurt, so we ignored her.

That was a mistake.

The next thing we knew she threw up all over herself. *sigh* Poor Pixie!

Joe pulled over and I went back to the trailer to get her some clean clothes and the wipes and paper towels. Joe and I got her cleaned up and changed, then I gave her some water to drink… Then we told her NO MORE MOVIES ON WINDY ROADS! *lol*

Oh, and she got her window open too… We ALL opened our window, because it STUNK!

She sure seemed to feel better after that. She started singing and goofing off, and was back to her normal giggly self.

When we got to Woodburn we had lunch at Taco Bell, and then Joe ran into Wal*Mart to buy some groceries to get us through the rest of the week. I stayed in the Durango to keep an eye on the trailer (Joe didn’t trust that neighborhood), plus I still needed to finish my lunch (Joe inhaled his at lightning speed *lol*).

We were sure glad to get home. It was an awesome vacation, but it’ll be nice to sleep in our own beds and it will really be nice to be able to shower whenever I want to and be guaranteed a hot shower!

I had to use the restroom, so the first thing I did was to go in our bathroom, where Buddy was… Oh my word, he grew so much in one week! He’s a little taller, and a whole let heavier!… I gave both him and Cuddles the same about of food and he ate twice as much (at least) as she did (and she’s twice as big as him!)… I also noticed that he had scratched some fur off the top of both his ears… Do you think that was an anxiety thing with us being gone so long?

Both of the cats were VERY happy to see us. Cuddles cries every time Jared leaves her sight, and I don’t think Buddy has stopped purring since we got home. *lol*

Jared, Josh, Alicia, and Amanda (wearing their new shirts)

It was raining when we woke up this morning, and we had been told that it was supposed to keep raining. We had nothing planned, but didn’t really want to spent the day cooped up in the trailer all day, so we had to come up with some plans…

Seeing as we’re so close to Newport, I suggested that we go to the Wax Works, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, and the Undersea Gardens… They are all owned by the same people, and you can get discounted tickets if you visit all three… I don’t think Joe really wanted to go, because of the cost (though he never said anything), but agreed to go anyway, for lack of any better suggestions. So after we ate breakfast and I cleaned up the trailer, we climbed into the Durango and headed to Newport.

The diver @ the Undersea Gardens

We went to the Undersea Gardens (photos/website) first. All it really is, is a bunch of tanks with sea fish, etc in it… But, they have a diver who dives down into the tank. While the lady inside (with us) talked about the different sea creatures they have, the diver (who can hear her and us) picked up the creatures and showed us it’s different parts. It was pretty interesting, and the kids enjoyed it.

After we left (and after letting the kids pick out a shark tooth fossil), we went outside and noticed some California sea lions below the pier (pictures). So we went out onto the pier and spent some time watching them and taking photos… They are so cool looking, but MAN, are they noisy! *lol* The kids LOVED seeing sea lions “in the wild”.

California Sea Lions

The kids in the turning tunnel in Wax Works

We went through the Wax Works (photos/website) next… I honestly thought we were doing that more for me, and that the kids wouldn’t enjoy it, but I was wrong. It turned out to be their favorite of all three of them. They liked the wax figures, even though they didn’t know who half of them were supposed to be… Though seeing the wax figure of Johnny Dep, as well as the characters from Lord of the Rings and Star Wars completely made up for them not knowing the rest of them. *lol*

What they loved best was “the tunnel”… They have this tunnel thing with a bridge going through it. The wall around the brings turns in a circle, and when you walk across the bridge (that doesn’t move at all), it feels like you’re going to fall or something. They really loved that! They spent quite a while on that bridge, laughing and giggling. So cute…

Joe, on the other hand, wasn’t so happy. He gets dizzy super easy, and it always makes him nauseated fast. He took one step on the bridge, and then backed right off again. He got a bit of a pained look on his face and said, “I have to go back. I can’t go through that!” So I helped Amanda get across and then had to go back for Joe. He made it across by closing his eyes, while I held his hand to guide him through it… Poor Joe! (This is why he can never ride the rides at carnivals and such.)

As for me, it didn’t affect me at all, which was almost disappointing. *lol* It felt a little weird when I first stepped on it, but then it felt perfectly normal. Boo! *lol*

Ripley's Believe It or Not

Finally we went through Ripley’s Believe it or Not (photos/website). I don’t think Joe was looking forward to Ripley’s at all… Joe and I went through the three of them back in ‘94 (I think), and he thought Ripley’s was boring, though he couldn’t remember why. *lol* … But this time it seemed to interest him. The kids were really interested too, though I don’t think they believed half of it. *lol* … I really enjoyed it, and I wish we could visit some of the other Ripley’s across the country, because it sounds like they are all different, with different things that Robert Ripley collected over the years.

After eating lunch at Subway, we went back to camp and watched it rain (from inside the trailer) for a while. Then, when the rain stopped, we decided to take a walk down to the beach…

The never-ending trail. *lol*

We took the beach trail that starts in the A loop, which is a ¼ of a mile long. When we got down there we decided to walk down to the jetty. I don’t know how long of a walk it was down there… Maybe half a mile???… But it was a nice walk, though it was cold, windy, and very misty out. It didn’t seem to affect the kids though, who kept themselves warm with all their running around (they were having a blast)… When we got to the jetty we went to the beginning of it (where it was safer) and climbed up and watched a fishing boat come in from the ocean, into the bay. We also watched a coast guard helicopter for a while too. We didn’t stay too long though, because the wind was much worse up there and the kids got cold. So we climbed back down and found the beach trail that leads to the E loop of the campground (there are three beach trails from the campground, and we walked down on the 1^st one and back on the 3^rd one)… this trail says it’s a ½ mile long, but honestly, it seemed much longer. *lol* We walked and walked, and wondered if it was ever going to end (and once we got back to camp, we still had to walk from the E loop back to the A loop *lol*).

We were all cold and tired when we got back (it’s hard work to walk in soft sand), so we set up the laptop and watched a few episodes of Rita Rocks on iTunes. (We had dinner too)

It’s hard to believe it’s our last night… The week has just flown by! … Tomorrow we head home, though we do want to stop by the Tillamook Cheese Factory on the way home.

Oh, and guess what! No lightning tonight! *rofl*

Jared @ South Beach

As soon as we got up and got going this morning, we broke camp and drove up the coastline toward Newport, and South Beach State Park (my photos / website) … On the drive up, the kids spent the time looking out at the ocean. We were about halfway there when Jared said, “Whale! .. I think I see a whale!” … None of the rest of it saw anything, because as soon as Jared said that some trees came between the road and the coastline. He said he isn’t 100% sure, but he says what he saw was a gray hump/bump and he thinks he saw water spraying up, like from a blow hole… It’s entirely possible that he saw one though, since people see gray whales along the coast a lot.

I want to see a whale! *pout*

Unfortunately, it rained for a good portion of the day. *sigh* … We had planned on (after getting to the campground) having lunch and spending the day on the beach so that the kids could play, but it was just too wet. We did take a walk to the beach (in the rain) after setting up the trailer, but then after taking a few pictures, we came back to camp and went into Newport… We had lunch at Abby’s Pizza, and then headed to the Oregon Coast Aquarium (my photos / website), which we had originally planned on visiting tomorrow.

Jared, Josh, Amanda, and Alicia @ the Aquarium

Josh @ the Oregon Coast Aquarium

All in all I wasn’t too terribly impressed by the aquarium, especially after how much it cost to get in there… I mean, after all, you see one fish, you’ve seen them all. *lol* … Actually, there were some pretty cool salt water fish in there. They even had some clown fish like Nemo and a fish that looked like Dorie on Finding Nemo… There were also jelly fish, star fish, an octopus, sea lions, seals, ocean otters, some coastal birds, and other sea creatures (the kinds you would find in tide pools). They even had some you could touch, which the kids did… But I DID NOT. *rofl*

Passages of the Deep

For the kids, the highlight of the aquarium was the “Passages of the Deep” … When Keiko (the orca from the movie “Free Willy”) left the aquarium to be set free, they remodeled his tank into this cool tunnel thing. There are three different tunnels where the water is all around you, and in the last (and longest) tunnel that have two different kinds of sharks and some batrays (they looked like stingrays to me and Joe, but Jared swears that they are batrays… and he would know. *lol*). The kids could have spent all day in the shark tunnel, watching those things.

After the kids played on the playground for a bit, and we got Jared his shirt from the aquarium (the kids got to pick one place to get a shirt from. The girls got theirs from the Wildlife Safari and Josh got his from Wildlife Images.), we headed out.

Amanda @ the Laundry Mat

Next on the agenda was the laundry mat… You wouldn’t believe how quickly a family of 6 can fill up a hamper (or two) when you’re camping. *lol* … Our suitcases and duffels aren’t big enough to fit a weeks worth of clothes into, so we had to make sure to do some laundry so we wouldn’t run out of clothes. (Especially since I had to pack for both hot days and cold days) … Anyway, we spent a couple hours (or more) there as I washed, dried, and folded four loads of laundry… And MAN, were Joe and the kids BORED out of their minds. *rofl*

Alicia eating dinner in the trailer.

On the way back to camp we hit Safeway to get enough groceries to last until the end of our vacation… Since we have no water in the trailer, we wanted to get things we wouldn’t have to cook on the stove, so that there would be less dishes to wash. So we ended up getting some TV dinners that we could just pop in the microwave (no, we don’t really “rough it” when we camp. *rofl*).

You’ll never guess what we got AGAIN this evening… Or maybe you will… Yes, once again, we got a lightning storm (along with the rain that just keeps on coming)… So far we’ve had lightning every night of our camping trip! … Tomorrow night is our last night on our vacation… Wonder if it will bring more lightning? *lol*

I’m not sure what we’re going to do tomorrow… We had originally planned on doing the aquarium tomorrow, but that’s been done. We also heard that the rain is expected to continue… We’re thinking that maybe we’ll go back into Newport and visit The Wax Works, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, and the Undersea Gardens, which are all right next to each other… Who knows. Guess we’ll find out tomorrow. *lol*

See ya on the flip side!

Boy, has it been that long since I blogged? You must have thought I’d fallen off the face of the earth! Been a little busy is all, nothing serious! Umm… Let me see if I can remember what I’ve been up to since last Wednesday…

I honestly can’t remember much about Thursday… What did I do???… Talk about a brain cramp, because I just can’t remember. I know that I scrapbooked on Friday, and finally convinced the hubby to clean the bathroom and floors for his poor swollen wife! It only took me five days to talk him into it!

On Saturday we took the kids to the beach. Joe’s sister Debbie, and her family, went to South Beach (a state campground just south of Newport, Oregon) to camp for the week. So we, along with Joe’s parents, went there for the day. It was kinda a cool, drizzly sort of day at the beach, so we spent most of our time at the camp site, over being at the actual beach.

I did have one problem though, I couldn’t get my shoes on that morning before we left. So when we got to Newport, we dropped the boys off with Debbie (and kept Alicia with us) and drove back into Newport to Wal*Mart. I had to buy myself some simple flip-flops to wear, as I couldn’t find ANYTHING else that would go over my hugely swollen feet. They are more than a little uncomfortable, and seeing my feet puff out around the little straps is more than a little embarrassing. I think from now until the baby comes, I will only leave the house if I absolutely have to!!!!

Right near Scott and Debbie’s campsite was the trail to the beach, and the sign said 1/3 of a mile. I didn’t think that was too bad, so we decided to walk to the beach…. HUGE mistake! For one I didn’t realize that half the walk was in soft sand, which makes the walking harder. Plus my feet already hurt from being so swollen, and the horrible flip-flops didn’t help at all. Then, to top it off, I started having contractions!!!! By the time we made it to the beach, walked the beach for a while (picking up sea shells and looking for a nice piece of drift wood) and made it back, I had 4 or more serious contractions… So I told Joe he’d better see to roasting the kid’s hotdogs (as well as mine) and I’d better stay seated for a while. It did work, as I didn’t have any more. Thank heavens!!!!!

My poor, swollen legs and feet...

We left the campground at 9:05, and didn’t get home until almost midnight. By the time we got home my calves were swollen and achy as well, so I took a soak in the tub before going to bed…

I took a picture of my swollen feet this evening, so you could see how bad they are getting…

I really didn’t want to go to church the next morning, but I had to make sure the pastor got his pay checks, plus we had nursery duty. As it was, we didn’t make it to Sunday school, and went there just to be in the nursery.

There was a little 6 week old baby girl in there this week, she came with her Grandma Betty. The boys (as well as Alicia) were so fascinated with her. When she woke up from her nap and I was feeding her a bottle, Josh couldn’t keep his hands off her. He kept rubbing her back and saying how small her hands were. He kept asking me if Amanda would be that small too. I think he was shocked when I said that when Amanda’s born, she would be a little smaller. Alicia kept coming over and pointing to her saying, “Baby, baby!”. So I pointed to my tummy and said, “There’s a baby in Mommy’s tummy.”… This is something I say to Alicia often.

This morning when Alicia woke up and I went in to get her, she was standing in her bed. When I turned on the light she pointed to my tummy and said, “Baby!”… I was so SHOCKED! Do you think this means that she kinda understands about the coming baby? She’s only 21 months old. Of course, I think she’s pretty smart. She has the concept of “me” down already. For quite a few weeks now she will point to herself and say, “ME!” all the time. Today she saw a picture of herself and I said, “That’s Alicia.” and she pointed to it and said, “ME!”. I don’t think the boys got that concept this early.

I have one bit of VERY exciting news. Today Jared asked Jesus to come into his heart!!!!! I was so happy! I’d brought the subject up a few times before, but he just didn’t seam interested, and I wasn’t about to push it. It’s something he had to be good and ready for. Today he was writing a little T and said that it was like the cross that Jesus died on. When I asked him if he knew why Jesus died on the cross he answered, “To be our Savior!”… So I started explaining about how Jesus died for our sins, and that without Jesus in our hearts we wouldn’t be able to go to heaven, and stuff like that. I told him that when he was ready, I would pray with him. (This is stuff I’ve told him before, but he wasn’t ready yet) Today he said he wanted to pray, but he wanted us to be alone. So I left Josh with Alicia and we went into our bedroom. It was so sweet. He was quite emotional about it, and asked me if this would help him be nicer to Josh. (thought that was cute!) So I told him that if he prayed and asked Jesus to help him be nicer to Josh, that Jesus would help him. So he said he was going to pray for help every day! (Funny little man!) He kept bringing it up all day, asking how old I was when I asked Jesus into my heart, and how old Daddy was. He even wanted to call Daddy at work and tell him. It was so touching to see him so excited…. I need to go write this all down in his baby book, so that I won’t forget the details.

Josh wanted to ask Jesus into his heart too, but I don’t think he’s ready. He’s only 3, and he couldn’t answer my questions as to why…. So I told him to wait until he was older… Don’t know what he thought about that.

Ready for VBS

Tonight was the start of their VBS (Vacation Bible School) at church. For some reason they are having it in the evenings, instead of during the day. It’s from 7:00 to 8:30. They just got home a little while ago, all excited about what they did. They are having an “Old West” theme, something about trail blazers. So they got to wear their cowboy hats to it, and they got red bandanas to wear around their necks. They looked so cute!

Well, I didn’t mean to write a novel! Guess I had to make up for lost time! Have a great evening!