Sunday, August 16, 2009

Our Oregon Vacation


Our family vacation this summer was AWESOME!!! We went to Oregon and spent a week with Kelly and Greg's family. The drive was better than I expected. We did it in one day, so it was a long day, but the kids were really good. We stopped at Chuck'e'Cheeses for Lunch and let everyone run around and play for an hour or so. I think that helped a lot. It was about 9:30 pm on Saturday when we arrived at Kelly's house. The next day we went to church and I really enjoyed going to Relief Society. It's been a while for me since I've been in the primary for a while. After church the missionaries came over and challenged Kelly's family to find people to share the gospel with. I was impressed that Kelly came up with someone and over the course of the week invited them to meet the missionaries and they accepted. Way to go Kelly!

Monday we decided to go to the coast. So we stopped first at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We loved the ice cream, and got ourselves nice and cold just in time to go to the beach, which was also cold! We didn't stay long because we were all freezing. But it was fun anyway. Here is our family at the beach.

The kids ventured out a little, but didn't go in the water much because it was so cold.



Cold doesn't seem to hinder the fun though!



Here's Darcy and Dad.





And Cody, running around on the beach. When he wasn't doing this he was huddled up in towels to stay warm.



And here I am with my Darcy baby! She's so cute and happy!



Another fun activity for the kids was swimming in the hot tub. The kids had a great time in there. Other than at the beach, it was a really hot week for Oregon. So to keep from roasting at home we headed to Hagg Lake to play in the water. Greg took us out on the lake in his boat with the tube tied on behind. Here's a picture of me and Cody being pulled in the tube. It was a lot of fun.





Dallin and Shelby also loved being pulled in the tube. They each took a couple of turns and loved it.


Darcy liked sitting in the tube, as long as we weren't moving. She didn't really like the water much because it was cold. Here is our whole family sitting in the front of Greg's boat. It was a great afternoon.






My favorite part of the vacation was going Sturgeon Fishing in the Columbia River Gorge. It was a beautiful place and we had a great time. First we had to find dead fish floating on the water to use as bait for the Sturgeon. It took a little while but we eventually found 3 fish we could use. Greg found us a good spot, baited the line and before he could even get it in the pole holder we had a fish on! It was amazing. James took the pole and fought the Sturgeon for at least 30-40 minutes. They are huge fish!



Here is a shot of the fish. It was about 5 feet long.

You can see how heavy they are. It's impossible to lift them all the way out of the water.




It took a while for the next one to bite. This time it was my turn. After only a few minutes my arms were aching and I could barely hold the pole. But Greg had said earlier that no woman had ever reeled in a sturgeon on his boat before. So being the competitive person that I am I was determined to get this fish! I had to resort to kneeling down so I could lean the pole on the side of the boat. I also had a lot of help from Dallin, Tyler, and Summer. They would help me pull up the pole so I could reel it in.




It took me about 45 minutes, but I did it. I was so tired and my hands and arms were cramped up. Greg took the hook out of it's mouth and then had me hold the fish. I knew I couldn't lift it by myself, so I asked him to help me lift it. When Greg touched it's body it freaked out and almost pulled me in the lake. James was doing the video camera so we don't have any pictures of my fish, but we have it on video.





We stuck around for a third fish, and it was a great one. We all took turns fighting it. Dallin helped Dad. Tyler and Greg both took turns. I took another turn...even though I could barely hold the pole at this point.



And James finished it off. This one took the longest to fight.


It was the biggest of all the fish we caught. I think it was about 6 or 7 feet long. And we estimated that it probably weighted about 600 lbs. James and Greg both lifted it together and could only get it half way out of the water. It was massive! Greg made the trip so much fun. He's so nice to take us fishing and help us have such a memorable time. You're the best Greg!






Another one of our favorite things was riding the horses. Kelly took the kids on rides and it was great. Here is Cody and Kelly riding Texas.








Here is Dallin riding Fancy. Here is Shelby on Texas.

And here is Dallin shooting BB guns. He spent all day shooting the targets. This was one of his favorite parts of the vacation too.
It was a great family vacation. I loved spending time with the Nelsons. I got to read Kelly's second book, which was amazing. And we had a great time visiting and enjoying the beautiful place where they live. Thanks for letting us come! We want to come back!!!

7 comments:

Lo said...

Wow - looks like a blast! Love the pictures!

Sandra Nixon said...

Oh how fun! I hope that we can go someday and have as good a time as you. Really great pictures!

Pierce and Stacy said...

I thought you were lying about the fish. Those fish were huge!

-Pierce

Jordan said...

I've never heard of these crazy huge Sturgeon fish!! You have to post the video that James took of you. Did he get the end where you almost fell in the water?

Kelli said...

Great pictures! I love the ones at the beach. I'm glad you guys had such a fun trip. Hopefully we'll be able to make it out there sometime. Looks like a ton of fun!

Diana said...

Looks like such a fun time. We went to the beach near Portland and visited Tillamook Cheese Fac too and had the same freezingly good time. The fishing sounds like a blast but tiring. Your kids are all getting so big. I miss you guys.

ps--what's this about your sister's second book--is your sister an author?

Tracy Anderson said...

Diana,

I didn't know you went to Oregon too. How fun. Yes, my sister Kelly is an author. She's trying to get her books published right now. They are amazing! My sister Laura also wrote a really good book. I'll spread the word when they are published so you can read them!

Funny Quotes

  • Darcy came up to me the other day with a permanent marker and said, "Mom, is it okay if I use this pregnant marker to draw a picture?" January 2012
  • Darcy was in a bubble bath the other day having a great time. She made a beard out of bubbles and put bubbles on her head to make herself look like Santa. When it was time to clean off the bubbles I parted the bubbles to get down to the clear water and she said, "Oh, I didn't know there was water down there!" December 2011
  • Darcy calls hangnails or snags on her nails "Pinchies". She says "Mom, can you get this pinchie off my toe?"
  • Whenever we do something fun Darcy always says, "Lets to dat adain." I love her little voice when she says it.
  • Every morning Cody comes into my room while I'm still in bed and tells me, "Mom, it's light outside. It's time to get up." To which I reply, "Okay, let me get dressed." So now when Cody is getting dressed and I call to him his response is, "I'm getting my dressed on!" I love it. No more getting dressed at our house...its now know as "getting our dressed on".
  • I like to make fruit smoothies for breakfast sometimes. Cody calls them Smoot Moolies, so that has become the name for them at our house. The other day when I was making a smoot moolie Cody asked if he could help me make it. I said he could so he jumped up on the counter and picked up a banana. He proceed to peel it and then handed me the peel and said,"Here's the armpit mom." I wasn't sure if I heard him right so I asked him what it was called. He said, "The armpit...you know the thing that the banana is in." November 2009
  • This afternoon when we were driving to the store I had a funny conversation with Cody. “Does Matt have a house?” Cody asked. “Well, Matt is here to buy a new house.” I replied. “Ooooo, that sounds fun!”Cody said. About a minute passes and then he says “How is he going to carry it?” I’m trying my hardest not to laugh. “I think he needs a big rope.” Cody said, happy that he figured out a good solution to the problem. I just love Cody…he keeps me laughing all the time. January 21, 2010
  • I was really tired one afternoon so I flopped down on the couch and said, "I'm pooped out!" Cody came over and snuggled up to me on the couch and said, "I'm having poop time too!" July 2009
  • When I told the kids that James was going to be going to California, Cody sat up straight and excitedly said, "Like Lightening McQueen! He went to California!" October 2009
  • The other day James said to Cody, "How's my buddy?" Cody got a very serious look on his face and said, "Name's Tody!" (He still can't pronounce C's very well.) The only things he will let us call him, other than his name, is big boy or funny kid.
  • When we were first potty training Cody he said he needed to go to the bathroom during sacrament meeting at church. So I took him to the bathroom and sure enough he did his business in the toilet. This was one of the first times he ever did poops in the toilet so he was really excited. When we walked back into sacrament meeting (we were sitting near the front of the chapel) he loudly proclamed "Daddy, I did giant poops in the toilet!" December 2008
  • Cody comes up with cute names for things. Mostly because he has troubles prononcing some of his letters. Some of my favorite names are "Daddy's Toke-Toke" for Coke, "Dr. Seuse" for Dr. Pepper, the "lurnal" for urinal, and "peanutbutter jam" for peanutbutter mixed with honey in a bowl.
  • Shelby had a hard time saying her G's when she was little. So we were working with her on how to say Grandma. She could make a growling sound pretty well, so we we had her growl then say grandma, so she used her best growling voice to say "GRRRR AMA"
  • The sun was shining in Cody's eyes the other day and he pointed at it and said, "Mommy, that circle is burnin' my eyes!" January 2009
  • Heres a list of funny words our kids have come up with for things: Fwaps (Cody's word for patting Darcy's back), bednight snacks, square noodles (ramen noodles), peeps, giant poops, dishwasher (Cody says this is where we wash clothes), low-low (lawn mower), regular grandma (Shelby's way of describing the difference between Great Grandma and her (regular) Grandma, oopadaisy (Shelby)
  • When we were building our house Shelby and Dallin spent a lot of time here with me working on it. One day when I was putting up the finish trim I couldn't find the hammer. I was looking all over for it and just didn't have any luck finding it. Shelby (2 yrs old) made two fists with her little hands and said, "It's okay Mommy, you can use my bammers!" November 2005
  • When Dallin was 1 yr old, he used to love making car noises. His favorite noise to make was the sound of tires screeching and then a crash. So EVERY time we would apply the brakes in the car we would hear his little voice from the back seat..."errrr kshhhh"
  • When Dallin was about 3 years old, he always liked to sit between James and I on the couch. But his way of saying it was cute. He would say "Can I sit in the tween of you?"
  • When Dallin was about 4 years old, I let him and Shelby skip naps because we needed to go somewhere. As we were driving on the road Dallin said, "Wow, look at all these people who are skipping naps too!" I guess he thought everyone had naps during the afternoon! Summer 2005