Mackerricher State Park

We are camping near the beach at Mackerricher State Park. It's cold here!!

We set up our tent:

Then went to the beach to look around and look for seals. We saw some seals but I couldn't get a good picture of them. Here are some other photos I took:

The Ocean

We drove down Highway 1 which was really windy and really green. It wound around and around so it was crazy! But the trees were beautiful and the views of the ocean were gorgeous.

Redwood National Park

We loved going through Redwood National Park. The kids had a great time getting out and pretending to be Star Wars characters as we went on a short hike. It was beautiful!!

 

The kids did a junior ranger program and so we had to stop at a ranger station and take a walk on the beach. It was a pretty easy ranger program so they were able to get it done quickly. 

Here they are at the beach:

Here they are taking the oath ( Ethan was so embarrassed because the ranger had everyone clap for them after they took the oath):

Reunion Shirts

I took a picture of our reunion t-shirts but forgot to post it. The front has our name and the year.

The back has a list of cities where we all live. We are all over the world!

It's kind of a dark picture but I hope you can see it.

Medford Oregon Temple

On our way out of town we stopped by to see the Medford Oregon Temple in Central Point. It's a smaller temple. In fact, the church building next door was larger than it was! But it was very pretty.

End of the Reunion

After we finished rafting and had eaten our ice cream, we went shopping for food for the next few days. The we went back to the hotel and I showered and then Ethan showered. Courtney relaxed and Bryan reorganized our food.

When we were ready, we drove to Kelly's house for dinner.

The food wasn't there yet and Kelly had saved the corn husks and cobs from the BBQ the night before to feed to the horses. He asked Courtney if she would like to do it and so she and Ethan got to feed the horses. 

It was our family's turn to supply dinner so Mom and Dad bought pizza, salads, breadsticks and soda. It was Uncle Bob's birthday so they got a Costco cake and some ice cream to celebrate.

Kelly's house has a widow's walk and he let us go up and look out. It was pretty cool!!

Last year Kelly, Jesse and Melissa went to Africa to hike Mount Kilimanjaro and so we all watched the slideshow of their hike and then their 2 week tour through Africa with Cherie and her girls. They went on safari and went down the Nile and went to Egypt. It was cool but the kids were tired. Ethan fell asleep.

We got the kids and headed back to the hotel.

It was such a fun family reunion!! Thanks everyone for making it happen. We missed those who didn't make it, but hopefully we will see you next time!

Rafting the Rogue River

After a lazy morning, we loaded in the van and headed for Shady Cove. We had reservations to go river rafting on the Rogue River.  The place we rented rafts from wasn't much to look at but they got us all geared up, drove us to the top of the river run and then picked us up afterward.

When we first got going on the river, Ethan was a bit nervous. He hasn't been rafting before so he didn't know what to expect. He felt out of control just floating around and wasn't sure what to think when we kept running into rocks.

Courtney didn't have a problem at all because she was with Brooklyn, my cousins daughter. And they have a blast together.

Ethan relaxed after a bit and had a lot of fun!! We had 3 rafts and then one of my cousins was in his own kayak. One of the rafts was supposed to be a "dry boat." It didn't stay that way for long. We had some great water wars and everyone got soaked. It was so much fun!!

When we finished and were back to our cars, we went for the traditional ice cram at a frosty place. The scoops were HUGE so the kids were in heaven.

Here we are getting ready to go: