Oregon Part 2

Nov 23- Another rainy day in Oregon. :) So James and I decided to make the most of it by going on a date to the Oregon coast aquarium. We haven't had a lot of alone time together so these past couple days have been nice, and Avery has really seemed to enjoy the time she spends with just her Nona, Grumpy and Aunt Lisa; as well as Lucas. The museum was amazing. It had a ship wreck section where you could learn all about shipwrecks; the various stages of decomposition and how archaeologists can find and uncover wrecks. It was very fascinating, and of course all the fish they had were beautiful. James and I were pretty excited to see they had various types of eels, as well as local fish, tropical fish and just all types of species. :) After the shipwreck section we decided to cut straight to the sea otters so we could watch them get fed. I LOVE sea otters, next to horses they are my favorite animals. Then we headed back where we left off and continued to explore. They had a lot of local fish tanks which was neat to see the kinds of creatures that live in the ocean that was right outside the windows. :) The last exhibit was these aquariums that you walked through with sting rays and sturgeons and lots of other big fish and the last tank was a shark tank. It had these adult nerf sharks that were huge as well as sting rays and different kinds of sharks. It was really very neat and it was so nice for James and I to be together just the two of us.
Nov 24- HAPPY THANKSGIVING. :) This holiday is quite the ordeal in James family. Mom had the table set yesterday morning with all the decorations and plates and silverware. I volunteered to make a lemon meringue pie, but there was no way I could get into the kitchen till later. :p Dad, Bob and James got tasked to be sent out into the horrible rain storm to go to the grocery store for last minute items. The rain was so heavy it almost looked like some turned a hose on and just left it running all day. Mom said the local papers even said they cant remember a storm that bad. Avery wasn't a big fan of the lightening and thunder, she kept saying it was to noisy. :p We had the privilege of having the sister missionaries stop by for most of the morning though. That was quite fun having them around. One of them is from Vegas, so not very far from St George. While the other sister was still quite new to her mission and she is from Kaysville, where James grew up. We all had a lot of fun talking and sharing mission stories. Avery had a lot of fun with them and really enjoyed helping them ice the sugar cookies. After the sister missionaries left to go to their holiday feast we started getting last items prepared for ours. I had a chance to make the lemon portion of my pie before we were ready to sit down and eat. Thanksgiving is a three course meal with James family. It starts with their traditional thanksgiving soup and then onto a salad, which had an Oregon twist this year of shrimp and crab meat. Then the thanksgiving dinner; turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberries, rolls, sweet potatoes....Yup I think that's it. :p then after dinner they have this frozen jello dessert thingy as a palette cleanser to prepare you for dessert. Luckily though we clean everything up and give the food a chance to settle before dessert. During this time I was able to make the meringue for my pie and then bake it. It turned out BEAUTIFUL!!!! Seriously I think that was one of the best pies I have ever made. After some much needed rest with a little napping we had dessert with a rousing game of Apples to Apples. Avery and Lucas played and watched some TV together. After we were about done with the game we got Avery in the bath and her and Lucas got to sit and listen to a Christmas story with Nona before heading to bed. It was a great Thanksgiving with family. :)
Nov 25- I woke up not feeling very well, so I stayed in bed a little while longer than usual. I think Avery was vacationed out too because she was really fussy and ornery all day. After we all got up and got ready for the day we decided to head to the Hatfield museum. This was a really fun museum; we walked in and the first thing we saw was this large tank with an octopus inside. It was so fun watching her swim and move around. This was a very hands on museum which Avery loved. There was a tide pool where you could touch the starfish and sea urchins. Avery wanted nothing to do with that part though. James, Nona and I all showed her it was safe to touch the starfish and told her how soft they were; but she was still not interested. :) They had touch screen TVs to talk about the various subjects like tsunamis and ocean currents. They had a sand box with a projector above it that would make the sand look like land or water; and when ever you moved the sand around it would change. So you could pile the sand up to make big snow covered mountains or dig the sand down to the bottom to make lakes and oceans. It was really hard to get Avery away from this. :p She played at the sand box for a good 30 to 45 min. They had lots of different types of aquariums talking about the various types of fish and their habitats. They even had the skull of a killer whale that had died near the Oregon shore. I was sad that I wasn't feeling better to enjoy it more fully, but I really didn't feel well. Next Mom wanted to take us to this other little town where you could watch the waves come rolling in and smash against the shore. Because of the rain storm the previous day and the rain storm that day the waves were huge. While Mom, James and Avery watched the waves I wanted to be warm and dry. So I headed to the little shops to pick up a couple souvenirs. After we headed back to the house for dinner and a birthday celebration. :) We got to celebrate Lucas's first birthday. It was so fun to watch him with his birthday cake. :) at first he was very dainty but after awhile he got into it. Then we got to watch him "open" his gifts. It was a fun day and we had a great trip. We all called it a night pretty early, we were all pretty exhausted.
Nov 26-27 We got up fairly early the next morning, because of the snow warnings in Nevada, James wanted to take the Southern route through Cali and then cross over to Vegas. Bob and Ilia wanted to stop at a few places and see Portland before their plane took off the afternoon. So all of us were packing up cars and getting ready to go that morning. Bob and Ilia left with Lisa a little before 9AM and we followed shortly after at 9AM. We headed down hwy 1 into Cali and then started to get onto freeways and highways that slowly went further inland. I started out the drive because I was feeling good, but about 4 hours into the drive I started to feel really yucky again. I was glad that I was able to drive for so long before asking James to take over. We drove till about 8:00 that night and then decided to stop. We were all hungry I was sick, Avery was beyond ornery and tired of being in the car. James and I were a little reluctant to stop so early because it meant a long drive again the next day but we knew we needed to. James and I woke before Avery so we decided to let her sleep as long as she could to try and help her cope with the long ride that day too. We were on the road by I think it was either 8 or 9, by this time I was so thrown off with the time change. We got breakfast and got back on the road. We were trying to point out all the pretty sights that we were passing but we were all tired of being in the car. we hit some horrible traffic along the way which made the trip longer. By the time we were a couple hours out side the California line James and cursing Cali and the fact that we took that route. :p We got to Prim and the Nevada state line at dusk, we were going to stop for food but traffic was a joke, so we just continued on. By the time we reached Vegas it was dark which made for a good distraction for Avery. She loved looking at all the lights and big buildings. By the time we reached the Utah border Avery was in tears because she just wanted to be home. She was so excited to see the lights of St George and to Finally be home. We all were. We pulled into our house around 9 or 10 Utah time. We unpacked all we could and brought it in the house before we relaxed and started making calls to let people know we were home. Avery loved on Oscar for a long time and kept telling him that she missed him. :p we got the rats out to play a little and make sure all the animals had enough food and water. We watch a little TV to unwind before we all went to bed. Poor James had to work then next day, Avery and I didn't need to go anywhere so it was a good day to unpack, unwind and try and get back into a normal routine.