The beach and the Redwoods

Even though we knew rain was in the forecast, before it got to be just completely cold and rainy, we decided to make a long awaited trip to the beach and the redwoods. Some friends (thanks Kristi!) told us about a great little day trip that takes you through the Redwoods and then over to the beach (not technically an Oregon beach, but northern CA - by Crescent City). So, we loaded up the van and headed down. We had to laugh when Nathan started whining after being in the car for a bit and said, "Why do we have to go so far to just to look at TREES?!" The redwoods are hard to picture until you see them!

(*Note, all of the following adventures were made by having people jump start us every time we stopped somewhere, as we were having battery connector cable problems (obviously we didn't know that until we had the van fixed yesterday...). We could have gotten just one jump and driven the 1 1/2 - 2hours back home (as the problem evidenced itself infront of Paul Bunyan, but we had just gotten there and were determined to have a good family day. So, crazy as it was, we did most of the things we came to do and just prayed for nice people to get us from one place to another. We got them, thank goodness (the three slightly wet children probably didn't hurt our sympathy vote!))

Our first stop was by the famous Paul Bunyan statue, right on the freeway by the Redwoods. There's really not much to see here, unless you want to pay $14 per person to got through their section of the Redwoods (versus the free version just up the street), but I remember seeing these when I was little, so we went and got our picture by them too. Nathan and Carter were impressed with these large statues of two characters they didn't know at all. At least they were really big!

I could have done without the tacky Christmas decorations in front, but oh well. I do love Nathan's "cool guy" pose though!

Then we stopped by the beach. We knew that OR beaches are obviously very different from Florida beaches - rocky and not so much for beaching as exploring. So, we left the sand toys at home and instead brought jackets in preparation for the rain. It started raining a bit just as we got there, but we explored as much as we could before it scared us into the van.

Rainy or not, Oregon rocky beaches are beautiful!

Our cute boys, probably just happy to be out of the car!

True to form, our boys just wanted to play with the sticks (the waves scared them, so they stayed pretty far away from the water). Nathan used to go to one park in Cape Coral, FL just to find "long sticks". So, you can imagine how happy he was to find one even longer than him and drug it around the whole time. Carter was more into the hording and carried as many as he had hands for!

Of course, you don't have to wonder where they get their love for sticks and all the things they are good for from...
Little Lukie, such a trooper, as always! No complaints from him, though, in an effort to appear to be a good mother, I removed my hood from my jacket and fashioned it into one for him. What a cute little beach eskimo!

Carter, just like at the pumpkin patch with the hay, just wanted to throw the sand. Luckily, we got his hands busy with carrying sticks (which he was too attached to to throw)!

By the time we hit the stretch of Redwoods we wanted to explore, it was more seriously raining (still not the FL downpour we are used to, but enough to not go romping through without an umbrella, even with a redwood covering). We just got out enought to take some decent pictures (as pictures validate any trip) and show Nathan that these weren't just "trees" (he was very impressed and said, "Oh, wow - these are BIG trees!) and really were worth the trip. We earned extra brownie parent points for taking him to the place Star Wars was filmed, as he is in a big Star Wars kick right now. We kept our eyes peeled, but no Ewok sightings this time!

A beautiful view of the magesty of these ancient trees

Matt and Nathan standing in front of the biggest tree they could find in a 5 minute walk. Though not the biggest out there, still a great shot of how amazingly huge these trees are!

We loved the trip, and can't wait to go back without the rain, car problems, and hopefully with one of you!