For the record, final roundup of summer

I have a long list of current things I want to blog about, but I promised myself I would catch up first.  So, this is a smattering of the rest of our summer happenings.

Day In Portland with the Springers

Brandon and Angela's wedding was on Tuesday, July 1st. The next day we spent with Scott & Ann's family and Mom and Dad in Portland. I have to admit that we were pretty wiped out when we woke up the day after the wedding. It was a bit of a hard sell to get everyone up and out the door early, but we all really enjoyed the day with our much-loved family.

We ate at the famous Portland food carts and then walked over to Powell's Books, where most of our family could have happily spent the day!

 But, we eventually dragged ourselves away from the bookstore and visited an arcade that Scott and Ann had researched. The arcade was sort of dingy and grungy, which means that it was really "authentic." Afterward we walked to one of Portland's wonderful homemade ice cream shops, Ruby Jewel. It was so delicious!

Mom and Dad left to drive to the beach house that night. The rest of us found a local yummy pizza shop for some dinner. Next we drove away from quirky, unique downtown Portland to experience another side of Oregon/Washington . . . stunning outdoor beauty.  

We drove to/walked to see several waterfalls along the old Columbia River Highway.

 Finally, we drove to Crown Pointe for an amazing view of the Gorge just before sunset.

 Very limber Alexa showed us her skills!

I tried in vain to get Cam and Joseph to be serious for a picture. One of the other was doing a silly face every time.They have similar ebullient personalities!

This is the best I got from them!

Finally, we loaded up Scott and Ann's girls and took them back to our house for a big sleepover in the bonus room.

I hope they had fun. We Porters were all barely keeping our eyes open at this point, but we put on a movie for the few kids who had energy to watch it. It had been a long, long week!

Cameron was completely attached to Bailey and Aubrey and did NOT want to leave the next day.

We are so glad that Scott and Ann and family were able to come for the wedding and then spend an extra day with us. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with them.

Click below if you want to read more summer updates.

Beach House

The next morning we cooked a big breakfast for the cousins and started packing for the beach house. We threw everything together sufficiently about the time Scott and Ann came to get their kids and then we took off to drive to Depoe Bay to meet Mom and Dad.

I have so many good pictures which I'm going to make into a book, so I'll just put a few of my favorites here.

We took walks every evening to see the sunsets, and they were stunning. We also saw lots of whales!

We played tennis frequently

We spent many restorative hours sitting on our favorite bench, sometimes reading a book and sometimes just staring at the ocean.

We enjoyed watching fireworks in Lincoln City. We found our friends the Kartchners on the beach and hung out with them.

We reveled in the many hours we spent on Secret Beach

And, of course, we loaded up on our favorite Tillamook ice cream and fudge at Fuddy Fuddy Fudge!

Goodbye, Little Whale Cove!  Still one of our favorite places ever.

Girls Camp and Soccer Camp

We spent Thursday July 3rd through Sunday July 6th at the Beach house and then had to hurry home to get the girls off to Girls Camp and Joseph ready for his day soccer camp.

I need to ask Aubrey if she took some pictures at Girls Camp - I can only find pictures of Bailey on the computer. This was Bailey's last year at Girls Camp. She was YCL for the 3rd years, which was Aubrey's group. Both girls had a wonderful time at camp. I was so sad that I couldn't be there with them, for the first time ever!

The honeymooners stop by
On Tuesday the girls left early in the morning to Girls Camp and later in the afternoon our favorite newlywed couple returned from their honeymoon in Cannon Beach, Oregon. We loved talking to them that evening and they opened their gifts while we recorded them.

One more day with Grandma and Grandpa

The next morning we drove Brandon and Angela to the airport. They were headed to Florida for their second reception. Later that day Grandma and Grandpa stopped by for the night, on the way back from the beach house.  At this point Joseph was our only child at home! We all visited our mutual friend the Beans and enjoyed their beautiful gardens and then ate some frozen yogurt and packed their car with Brandon and Angela's wedding gifts for their long drive back to Utah.

Next stop. . . Florida
In keeping with the frenetic pace of our summer, the next day Dan and I packed our bags for a whirlwind trip to Florida for the second reception. Joseph stayed with a friend for two nights. Dan and I flew 9 hours on Friday. We got our rental car and drove to St. Pete's beach. We had just enough time to walk down to peek at the beach before we scouted out some dinner. 

The next morning we walked in the very humid heat to a highly recommended restaurant for breakfast.  It was deeeelicious.  After we had stuffed ourselves we walked outside and I missed a step and tumbled down a few stairs to the cement. I popped up immediately and kept walking, as the only thing hurt was my pride because I knew that I had been a spectacle for all the diners. Oh, and my beautiful french manicure was also a casualty. I had been so proud of myself for growing my nails out and maybe even prideful about how pretty my nails looked for the wedding. What is the saying - pride goes before the fall? Literally true in this case.

We spent the next few hours driving around a bit to see the beautiful vistas and bridges surrounding St. Petersburg and then headed to the reception to help set up. 

The reception was held in a community center overlooking the water.  It was very nice.

It was so fun to see a few people "from" Vancouver at the reception. Mary Goodwin, who grew up in our ward, is living in the area while her husband is in medical school. 

We also saw our favorite sister missionary, Rachelle Tolman. She served in our area a few years ago and, coincidentally, is from Angela's home ward and grew up with her!

It was a beautiful night and we especially enjoyed NOT being in charge of this reception!

Angela's family had catered delicious Cuban food for the reception. There was a program where we each spoke for a minute and then Brandon and Angela sang "You Always Make Me Smile."

Then they cut a key lime cheesecake, Angela's favorite.

We returned to the hotel at about midnight and had to be up at 4 a.m. to drive to the airport for our arduous 9 hour trip home.  It was truly a whirlwind, but worth it to be at the special occasion.

One week back home. What did we do?

We enjoyed being together for three days before sending Bailey and Aubrey on a plane to Utah. There they would spend a few days with our cousins the Sullivans and then would attend EFY at BYU Provo. 

We did our best to do summer-like things in our limited and precious down time.  A puppet show at the library (Joseph and his friend Matt).

A playdate every day for Joseph and lots of bike/scooter riding (here with his friend Ian)

Water games and popsicles outside in the backyard because we had a really HOT summer this year!  We also had lots of movie nights and ate as much  ice cream as possible.

After the girls left to Utah we spent a week helping our friends the Kartchners renovate the new house they bought before they moved in. We ripped out carpet, helped lay new flooring, and painted much of the house.

Joseph was the expert "outlet cover remover and installer."

Then Joseph attended Cub Camp for four days. I was with him for one of the days. He had to miss the Friday closing ceremonies because we left to fly to Arizona for the Porter reunion.

I love the spontaneous group hug when all the Cub Scout buddies arrived at the church!

Joseph was a great archer! (Is that the right word? It looks funny.)

Whew. I'm done. Just reliving our summer through pictures makes me a little tired, but we were blessed to participate in many fantastic things this year. Hooray - now I am caught up!