Family Summer Vacation 2016

For some reason, on the rare occasion that I write here anymore, I write about the melancholy events. I decided to lighten up and share some of my millions of pictures of good times.

Way back in June our family took a wonderful vacation in which we visited several new-to-us places.  First stop was Bandon, Oregon.  We rented a quaint old cottage on the beach.  The kids surprised me by loving it.  We've stayed in some very nice places over the years; this wasn't anything fancy but I'm quite sure they preferred it over any of the fancy places we've stayed!

You can walk the beach for miles and find some interesting carved out rock areas.  We did spend a good bit of time doing just that.

We took a day trip on a jet boat up the Rogue River.  Fairly scenic and just something different for us.

Of course I made my husband pull over many times so that I could take flower pictures.  Oregon's climate is perfect for growing a lot of gorgeous flowers.  Here, roses have overtaken a deserted building which is marked as the "Book Nook".

Probably my favorite flower in Oregon, the hydrangeas are as big as dinner plates, and the color...!

From Bandon, we travelled south to northern California to see the famous Redwood Forest.  It was quite spectacular.  The height of the trees is crazy!

Next we circled back up to Crater Lake, Oregon.  The lake was apparently formed after a volcano blew up eons ago.  The water is a spectacular shade of blue.  I have pictures that show the color better, but I couldn't load them tonight so this will have to do for now.

See that kid on the left?  That's my 13 year old son (only 12 at the time of this picture) who is almost 6 feet tall already!  He is standing next to his "big" sister.  Their height difference is cause for a lot of joking around our house.

I'll try to remember to get back here soon.