Spring Break 2014!

Oregon in the Springtime

After we went to Washington, we drove down to Oregon to visit my sweet Grandma and my awesome sister Lisa for a few days. I only had two things on my "must do" list, visit family and take a trip to the tulip farm. When we lived in Oregon we loved to visit the farms around the area. Every April we made a trip out to the tulip fields, June was the Rose gardens, later in the summer the Iris fields, September the Dahlia fields. The best part was they were all free. We haven't been in years because usually we go to Oregon during the summer or at Christmas so I was really excited that we'd be there over Spring Break. Tulips are my favorite flowers! We had a wonderful visit with Lisa and Grandma and all too soon it was over and we were saying goodbye. Wish we could have stayed longer.

WARNING! Picture overload. 

I love tulips and so I had to post a lot of pictures. They may look the same to someone else, but I just love how bright and beautiful they are.  They aren't in any particular order because blogger is acting weird and I don't want to fuss with it right now.

 Rows and rows of gorgeous, brightly colored tulips.

They had a little cow train and Auntie Lisa bought all the kids tickets to ride. Tyler was a good sport and even took a spin. We took up almost the whole train.

 

 Racing the rubber ducks down the gutters

 (L-R: McKenna, LaRue, Matilda, Brooklynn)

 (L-R: Adelaide, Lauren, Matilda)

 Tyler will hate me for posting this picture. He is really such a good sport. I mean, the poor guy did have to spend the day at a flower farm with 8 girls.

 McKenna & LaRue

 Riding out to the far end of the fields

 (L-R: LaRue, McKenna, Brooklynn)

 (L-R: Brooklynn, McKenna (blue), LaRue (red), Lauren holding Adelaide, Matilda (orange), Tyler)

  The End

Fishing at the Ole Fishin' Hole

While visiting my parents in Washington, Grandma took us to her favorite spot, Bill's Fishin' Hole. It was a school day for the kids in Washington so we had the entire place to ourselves. It was a gorgeous day and the gentleman running the place gave us a personal guided tour that was very interesting. We learned a lot about trout and the fish hatching business. 

This was the view from the top of the property. There were about 6 fishing lanes with graduating size fish and then three ponds down at the bottom with small, medium, large fish. Beyond the tree line is the river. They use a natural Spring that comes out of the hillside and gravity to supply water to the ponds. This keeps the water at exactly the right temperature for the fish.

This is a fish hatching station where you can learn about the life cycle of a fish. They have tubes on the wall with different stages of the eggs and then they drop into this basin where there are hundreds of baby fish. You can reach in and hold them too.

Next he took us to a special tank where they had some extremely rare albino trout. They have to keep them covered so they don't get sunburned.

They had several peacocks on the property and the guy gave the kids some cookies to feed them. They were so pretty.

We walked around the whole place on our tour and while we did our guide gave the kids handfuls of fish food to feed all the fish along the way. He was giving us a great tour and talking a lot so he was somewhat distracted and Brooklynn took full advantage, grabbing handful after handful to feed the fish.

After the tour we got our poles and got started. Since my parents, myself and two of the kids don't even like fish, and Chris wasn't here to cook it, we decided they could only catch the small fish. They were all pretty disappointed they couldn't catch the huge ones. 

Lauren

 Brooklynn kicked back and fishing. 

Tyler was a great helper and helped each of the little girls cast and catch their fish. He'd take the hook out and take care of everything.

 

 When McKenna first caught her fish this was as close as she'd get to touching it. By the end of the day though she decided it wasn't so bad and held it.

 

Tyler and his "little" fish. We told him he could catch one of the medium fish but there were some pretty big ones in there. He kept trying to catch one of those. Unfortunately, there were also some tiny ones in there too and he ended up getting a tiny one. The nice guy only charged us for a small though. Tyler had really wanted to catch the big ones but at $22.50 a pop, for a fish we wouldn't eat, I said NO WAY!

The girls thought watching the fish get cleaned was pretty neat. The guy cleaning them pulled out the heart and let them hold it while it was still beating. We got them all packed up, froze them and brought them all the way back home for Chris to cook. Thanks for a fun day Grandma!

Easter in Washington (State)

For Spring Break we headed up to Washington to spend some time with my family. It was so nice to get away from the daily grind and relax and visit. We got to spend Easter with my family and the Easter bunny managed to find us even though we were away. Grandma put together a little Easter egg hunt in the front yard with Lauren and Tyler for the little girls. Sunday morning the kids woke up and found their baskets. We then headed to church and after enjoyed a wonderful dinner with David & Angela. The best part? We got to meet our adorable new niece (who is almost one!), Avery! She is such a sweetheart.