The Nortons: August 2012

Family Vacation, 2012, Summarized

If you really, really want to see the rest of the pictures (4-digit total), you can ask me. But most of our readers will be bored even after I try to whittle them down to only pictures that show faces and highlights. . .

DAY 1

August 17

We drove to Portland with a stop at Columbia Park (Kennewick) for a picnic lunch and time this trip to stop at Multnomah (which we skipped a couple weeks ago on the trip to Salem).

Lunch at Columbia Park. (HOT!)

Multnomah Falls
and Wynn, even prettier!

Nana trying to figure out how to use the big camera. :)

And the resultant not-quite-in-focus family picture :)

DAY 2

Portland

The main reason for a trip to Portland was OMSI! Besides OMSI and the hotel pool, we didn't have time for much else.

Gabrian and Ari bottle racing.

Cameron preparing for employment.

Wynn and Mandy.

Gabrian independently solved a spatial puzzle.

Michael and Cameron built a block bridge.

Conor (& Cameron & Gabrian) got blasted with an air cannon, enhanced with dry ice.

Mandy plays with the Van de Graaff generator.

Wynn gets vapor-filled bubbles.

Ari visits Cameron at work.

Ari dances through an "earthquake."
(Feel the earth. move. under your feet. . .)

A whole family of geeks! Proof!

Andrew and Ari.

Mandy gets steam-filled bubbles.

DAY 3
Still Portland,
and then beyond.

Long awaited trip to Voodoo Donuts. And by long-awaited, I mean both that the kids have been waiting for a long time to go here (since they saw it on Man vs. Food) and the long, long line to wait in. . .

After Voodoo Donuts, we went to visit some friends whom we met in China last September.
I had hoped that Ari and this darling little girl could meet. They both have similar outgoing, totally confident that the world loves them, personalities. The little boy is someone Wynn knows from their foster village, and she was excited to see. She will also be able to send a message to his foster mom, who has asked about him, when she next Skypes her China Mom.

Must, must climb!

Michael collects kids like the Pied Piper.
But with less malevolence. :)

And FINALLY, we reached Cape Lookout, for Wynn's first look at the ocean.

Here we come, cresting the dune, first close-up view of the beach.

Kids rushing toward the water . . .

And rushing right back out! Brrrrr.

Michael doing Dad things: holding a camera and a kid's jacket (or two).

Lora doing Mom things: holding a camera and a kid's jacket.

DAY 4

Just a day hanging at the beach - no plans, no itinerary, wonderful weather.

We make a large group . . .

DAY 5

Another day of just hanging out. We went down to the beach at low tide and found some sea stars in tide pools, but we were at a pretty sandy portion of the beach; not good for looking at anemones or catching hermit crabs.

One of the sea stars, clinging to some little rocks.

Mystery little crustacean Gabrian caught.

I love this picture of Gabrian!

Wynn and Conor are good friends, as far as siblings go.

DAY 6
We went south but put the wrong destination in the GPS (searching for "point of interest" instead of an address), so we ended up picking a random beach that turned out to be some of the best tide pools we've ever seen. Many tiny crabs to catch and really cool pools on the tops of rocks where even fish were caught until the tide came back in. (Such good tide pools that it probably made the touch pools at the Aquarium anticlimactic later in the day.)

The stop at the tide pools was on the way to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, or as we have been promising Wynn we'll go see "in the summer" since she got home: the Fish Zoo.

In this captured moment, you can infer their thoughts.

We took many cool pictures of fish and animals, but if you want to see those, I suggest Google Images. I don't want to take time or space here. :)

This cleaning shrimp was probably the closest Conor got to any hygiene during this trip. Well, he got rinsed down with salt water every day, but he's probably still crunchy and crusty.

How many would dare go camping with this motley crew?!

Busy, busy time!

After the aquarium, back to the beach to catch the end of the sun.

Gabrian spent HOURS on the beach with this ball.

Wynn gave me a lesson in writing Chinese characters. I am not a good student and kept making the strokes in the wrong order. Finally, Wynn was throwing up her hands in exasperation and saying, "Mom, you make me DIE!"

DAY 7

The pictures on this day are not very interesting - kids bent over staring at gravel - but this was the day we went to a pebbly beach and hunted agates. Each kid got a good handful. It was cold and windy, windy, windy.

DAY 8
A crew of 8 (Lora and Ari stayed behind) took a trip to Newport and went ocean fishing.

Wynn was one of few who caught a keepable fish.

But the kids young enough to be license-free were able to go crabbing.

They brought home a LOT of crab (cleaned and cooked on sight in Newport) that the children heated over the campfire and enjoyed all evening.

While waiting for our fisherpeople to return, I found the elusive whole sand dollar that I have searched for on 3 different coast trips now. Yay!

DAY 9
I took Wynn back at low tide because she really wanted to find a sand dollar, too. I thought the chances were very, very slim . . . but she found one! And I found 2 more!
After that, we headed for Cannon Beach, where we found some wind and flew kites.

DAY 10
Rainy, rainy, rainy, wet, and cold. We did go back to the beach, wearing many layers, so that Wynn could find one more sand dollar, and Mandy could find her first one ever. Then, I drove Michael to the airport in Portland to send him off to a conference while Nana and the kids huddled in out of the rain as much as possible.

DAY 11
Packed everything up from Cape Lookout and drove to Springfield to visit Uncle Travis (my brother) and Aunt Carrie. (Where I have an internet connection finally and can post some pictures!) :)