Super Soccer Star Ellie

Ellie enrolled in Kindergarten Soccer this year and she is quite the star! There are 6 girls on the team and they are so cute and it awesome to watch your kid score goals!

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First Day of Kindergarten!

Well the day is finally here, Ellie started Kindergarten today at Willamette Primary. Ellie, Taline and Chaz were looks as adorable as usual as they lined up so properly at the curb waiting for the big yellow bus (at least it is not the short one!) Our little girl is growing up so fast and we are so proud of her.

Summer Vacation

Gold Bluffs State Beach, CA

Ellie at Lake Tahoe, CA

Jake and Uncle Fred

Jake at Gold Bluffs Beach, CA

Summer went by so fast this year. We decided to take a last road trip to California.

Day 1 - Portland to Bandon

We stayed at a hotel on the beach and this first leg took a lot longer than we thought it would (road construction, potty breaks, etc.) So this night we went to bed early and stayed at a nice hotel on the beach.

Day 2 to 4 - Bandon to Redwoods National Park

We drove down 101 to Gold Bluffs Beach State Park just south of Crescent City. This is the only park where you can camp right on the sandy beach. It was so beautiful and there were a ton of kids to play with. We rode our bikes to Fern Canyon (where they filmed Jurassic Park) and hung out with a herd of Elk. One day the kids witnessed a sunning seal!

Day 4 - Gold Blufs State Park to Lake Tahoe, CA

We all got up early and took a drive down the 101 and then headed east on Hwy 299 to Redding. It took us 4 winding hours up the Trinity River to Redding. We arrived in Redding and the temperature guage said 107! We took a little break at Applebees, and it was awesome considering we were eating camping food for 3 days! We finally got on the road and headed to Lake Tahoe to see Uncle Fred, Aunt "Beautiful" (Cindy) and Kaitlin. This leg took us about 10 hours and we were to excited to take showers and use real bathrooms. We stayed here for a couple days and went wakeboarding on Uncle Fred's new Cobalt ski boat and ate like kings! We realized we were not in that good of shape after wakeboarding at 6,000 ft above sea level.

Day 6 & 7 - Lake Tahoe to Ashland and Portland

Sadly we had to leave the lap of luxury and head back to home.

We headed down the back side of the Sierra's to Reno and made a pit stop at the gas station (gas is a $1 cheaper there!). Back on the road through the back roads and wandered through Shasta National Forest and finally made it to Ashland where we spent the night.

After 1500 miles we finally made it back home for Ellie to start Kindergarten the next morning. We feel so blessed to be able to witness such wonderful scenery, spend time with our family and meet such interesting people.

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