The Wood Between the Worlds

After reading that the weather forecast for the coast last week was 60 degrees and sunny, we took Joshua out of school and ditched the foggy weather inland for a couple days of sunny January respite.


We stayed in a really nice condo in Seaside, thanks to our friends, we ate breakfast together at Pig N' Pancake, we built sandcastles, watched the sun glisten through the waves, we hiked in Ecola State Park, we got ice cream at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, we watched birds and sea lions, we hiked along the beach and through the "Goonies" cave at Oceanside, we walked barefoot and even splashed in the waves a little, and we watched a spectacular sunset. Best of all, we soaked in as much pure vitamin D as we could before we had to head back to winter. Ah...pure heaven.

This is what happens when you try to clean your bathtub jets with Hibiclens (it's supposed to kill everything):

We were so excited to use our legs again that we went for an evening walk at Elk Rock Gardens on January 10th. This is a free garden that overlooks the Willamette River.

To everyone who had to march over to the post office after Christmas and mail our gifts because we couldn't come to Utah because of the weather...

Thank you!!!
(these are some of the gifts, not all...but they LOVED them all!)

It's not too late, is it?...to wish everyone a happy New Year?

It's time for some major catch up...

After the great snow/ice of Christmas, we had warming and great amounts of rain. Some places even got 9 inches or more of rain. I'm sure if you've watched the news anytime in the last few weeks you heard that there was flooding in the NW. The freeway was under 5 feet of water! We were alright up on our little hilltop, but even some people in our neighborhood and ward had water in their basements. Brent was over one night bailing out some friends. It was crazy. Needless to say, residents were not advised to leave their homes. That was just about IT for me. I went berserk from being stuck inside for several weeks in a row. Anyway, here is a picture of Wilamette Falls (just outside our city) at about the peak of waterflow:
It's just a bubbling cauldron of flood waters. And to think that we were just canoing at the bottom of this monster just a few weeks before!

Luckily, we were still able to get out on New Years Eve. The Mansius family had a party for several families and kids! It was a great evening for kids and adults. What can I say? Tara really is a genius! She had games for kids, games for adults and games for everyone to play together. Here is a picture of all the kids (oh, and she set her clocks forward 2 hours, so "midnight" actually happened at 10:00):