Hey
This month is a doozie and there is a lot going on at this time.
Okay! So since I was still off of work we decided to take a big trip. Not like the last time, but this time first to spend our 4th in Los Angeles (as is normal) but also afterward to take a trip up the coast, visit Amber and then visit Oregon and Washington. Why? Simple – we wanted to give everyone the chance to meet this new love in our life!
Went to Pismo Beach and ended up getting into a discussion with my parents about things that had gone wrong in the past. Lots of things were said and eventually after standing around in the sun for what felt like most of the afternoon we came to an agreement to move forward. This actually happened not too far from the Dinosaur Caves park. We wanted to visit this part in particular because the kids would get a kick out of it and enjoy it. It wasn’t a fun conversation but afterward, things felt like they would start to improve.
We watched the firework show and then we figured that since we had our National Parks Pass we would take a tip over to the Sequoia National Park. It is supposed to have some of the biggest trees in the world in the park. It didn’t disappoint, we saw General Sherman who with a regular phone was hard to capture and take any sort of reasonable photo (at least in 2017).
Once we did that, we said our Goodbyes to Grammy and Grampy and made our way up north. We stopped along the Bixby and Rocky creek bridges (above). The Bixby creek bridge has been in numerous movies and photographed by many professionals.
There is one more photo we took (below, wide-angle view) that really captured the view as much as we could. Anyway, we then went to visit Amber. Met up with her and Josh. Did some touristy things like visiting the state capitol building and going to Lake Tahoe. There are a few images below showing Amber with little baby Elijah as well as the seal of CA (from the cap visit). Elijah looks like he is about to be baptized but I can assure you that I only got his feet wet in the water.
After spending a few days in Sacto we made our way up to Oregon. Elijah’s first visit. One of the people who we made sure to visit with was Domi (the same person who came out to visit us in AZ earlier).
Obviously, that wasn’t the only person in Oregon we wanted to visit. We actually planned and stayed at Angel and Louis’ house while in the area. Doing so allowed us to save on the cost of hotels, but also allowed us to be closer to family. We wanted to see if there would ever be an option for us to stay with them in the future on other visits, or what may have you. There was a big family get-together and everyone came out to a cookout-type event at their place. It was fun for the most part. You can see a couple of photos below – one of Gramps holding Elijah (and meeting him for the first time) and then another of him laying in my lap. The odd thing was this: I held him because he likes being around me and is quiet. It allows Maryia to hang out with Angel a bit. Anyway, hardly any adults came over and said anything to me or Elijah. We went to Gramps and Ellie/Nonnie but everyone else made themselves scarce and watched me from afar. I found out that later everyone was complaining about my hogging the baby the whole time. I thought that was absurd as I would have handed him over to others- if you know, they wanted to talk or say hi or me? There was one of Caleb’s kids who asked to hold Elijah – it was funny. I said, sure no problem – just one question. What is my name? She didn’t know, I told her she could find out and come back but instead, she guessed (wrongly) and never came back.
After the cookout, the family wanted to take some time to visit other parts of the Northwest since we didn’t really know when we would be back. We took a trip up to Olympia, WA to visit the state capitol. It really is a pretty building, if you ever care to visit – I think it’s enjoyable. We found from this visit (and the Texas visit) that when possible we would like to visit the capitol buildings.
just Pray
note: this post was published on 07/29/22 but moved the publish date back to the end of July 2017 to keep chronological order.
