Mini Vacations

They haven't been stay-cations unless you figure we haven't left the state of Washington this summer.  We have gone on two mini vacations this summer.  The first was to the Yakima Nation RV park where we slept  stayed in a teepee.  Everyone else slept.  I heard the crowd making a movie that involved girls screaming and running down the path in front of our teepee at midnight.  The train that roared by, the fireworks that were set off, the two emergency vehicles, and the traffic that finally stopped around 3 am. Curse perimenopause and my growing sleepless nights.
The next day we toured the museum.  Our girls were offended by the many taxidermied animals and it started Alison on a two day vegetarian lifestyle change. (We really need to get them back to their roots a little bit more) Sophie does this funny little sideways look/not look at things that bug her.  She couldn't look at the animals, but I also caught her sidling past the Native American mannequins.  I teased her and asked her if she thought they were stuffed people.  No.  The men were not dressed adequately enough.  It really bothered her.
We went back to our roots and packed all of our food for the adventure.  Chili dogs cooked over a jet boil stove, oatmeal packets, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  I found this great trail mix with cashews, almonds, and cranberries.  Not content with that, I added crispy and regular M&Ms.  It has become a big hit in our house.

Last weekend, my brother and his family came to visit us.  They took Malynn back with them and she had a week of adventuring and helping out at their house.  She called us every night at 8 and had to talk to all of us.  For such a little person, she leaves a gaping hole in our home  We all missed her mightily (whether we all admit it or not)
We decided that since we hadn't taken a trip to the coast this summer, we would go down and get her Sunday afternoon and come back via the ocean today (Monday). The sky was full of smoke from all of the forest fires.  I don't think there was a break in it at all.  Half of our people are croupy from it.  
Our trip down was uneventful.  Our trip today was long and adventurous.  We were going to stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  It is our favorite cheese, after all.  Homage to the fromage should be paid.  Then we saw the parking lot filled with 500 cars and the line of people at the restaurant.  We committed then and there to take the kids to Safeway to look at the blocks of cheese in their dairy fridge.  It's the same, right?
I wanted to go to Cannon Beach-- everyone has to go their at least once, especially to get pictures of the haystacks.  Afraid it would be crowded, we stopped at Arcadia Beach, which was (we found out) 2 miles short of Cannon Beach, and sparsely attended.  The winds made it breezy and chilly, but we all jumped in the ocean just the same.  Heidi stripped down to her swimming suit.  There were jelly fish body parts all over the beach-- a clear gelatinous witness to the carnage of the sea.  Morgan found a whole one and chased a shrieking Malynn around (he missed her most of all).  Heidi and I collected broken sand dollars.  Sophie sneakily filled up one of her shoes with sand so she could do a "project" when she got home with it.  (It dumped all over the back seat of the SUV and that particular chapter did not end well) Alison loved the barnacles and mussels.
We left too soon because people were freezing and complaining.
It still took us forever to get home because we stopped off at the Nisqually campground that our ward is camping at this weekend.  We went on a little tour and scoped it all out.  Malynn fell in the river.  All of our kids were thrilled with the first clean, flushing bathrooms of the day since we left Evan's house nearly 10 hours before.
Then we came home.