A Zen Kinda Day

I decided to grab a cultural pass to go to The Japanese Gardens with Rachele and maybe get some photos for her to use on her website. I got some really neat ones that I love and might use for some of my own stuff as well!

Rachele got one of Miss Snugglepants while we were waiting for the tram.
I love Kai's little hands sneaking in on this one.
Peaceful...
Cute pic of Rachele. Kinda odd of Akasha lol. This is the squinty eye thing she does when you ask her to smile.
Looks like the Buddha is really meditating here!
I think this is my favorite with the temple in the background.
Not really a very good photo but kindof funny it is a self portrait. :)
Another favorite Buddha.
And let's not leave out Kwan Yin!
"Look Mama! Fish!"
Just a pretty garden scene.
Rachele really likes the various lanterns, and this shot is cool cuz you can see her in the distance on the bridge!
Levitating Buddha! LOL I was holding it up to try and get it in the shot with the lantern. It didn't come out as great as I had hoped, but it is still kinda fun.
This pole provided a long stretch of fun.
Busted out the manual focus for this one and it still isn't perfectly crisp. I need glasses. :/ Really wish I had a macro lens!
I love the reflection in this one.
Yes, the pole came out!
There is something really funny about this one to me, like Kai is trying to convince Rachele of something.
And in this one it looks like Akasha is getting baptized!
More shens with the pole.
Akasha watching Kai get upside down...
...and trying it out herself.
There are several of these in the cement on the path between the parking lot and gardens. I am not sure what their significance is, but they are pretty!
Pretty spider on the path. The flash kinda washed out the color but lit up the web nicely!

Another Video Catchup

It always seems like we are losing our little video camera then finding it again. So these are old at this point, but wanted to throw them up here anyway.

First a couple summer fun snippets:

Orion is always making silly little videos, and I think this might be my favorite ever!

And let's not forget the art of the extreme close up raspberry.

Just a couple Akasha Funnies..

Gotta note these things down before you forget them!

The other day in the bath, Akasha started pointing at my different moles and calling them "polka dots". Haha, I don't have *that* many

She also pointed at Ron's chest recently and said, "Your milkies don't work". Poor Daddy.

And probably my favorite - whenever Akasha sees a photo of herself, she refers to herself as "my baby". Awwwww

Little Ragamuffin

Two little monkeys...

You know the rest. :)

Kai can sure make some crazy faces!

Akasha looks like she is doing the Egyptian lol.

Is that a nursing pig?!

Why yes, it is! This is officially the neatest thing I have found in a cache so far!

This is what eventually happens...

...with marshmallows if you let your kids eat as many of them as they want.
Not a great photo, but they are involved in becoming all sorts of towers, structures and even people with marker faces lol.

Random Cute Picture...

... of the variety "oh look what I found on this other camera that I didn't even know had pictures on it." Orion must have taken this one!

Cabins at Cape Blanco

We started the trip out with a stop at the drive thru animal park in Winston. We got there a bit late in the day, so the lighting wasn't always great for photos, but we really enjoyed the place. I was pleasantly surprised you got to go through with your windows down, but of course the actual predators were in cages. Most of the animals were just roaming free though!


Even giraffes!
And yes, that is a rhino! These are the only animals we were told to keep a 3 car distance from lol.
Bald eagle on an island in case you can't tell. :)
The buffalo were chillin'.
These bears were my favorites. They were just playing and playing and playing in this water. And there was only a thin wire around their enclosure! Of course there was a guy in a watchtower nearby. Presumably with a tranq gun lol?



This guy was blowing raspberries - clearly too dignified to participate in the water romp haha.
I thought this tree was quite lovely.
More herd type animals - lots and lots of those.
These guys were really cute!
I thought this fellow was gorgeous! I guess he was an albino as I didn't see any others like him!
Oh and I did roll up my window once lol! This guy was sticking his head in and pecking at things in the passenger seat!!! Then he came around to my side. Looking for snacks I guess.
Lovely tiger.
We ended up getting to our cabin fairly late at night, and just had some stuff to eat and winded down for the night.

The next day, Orion was reeeeally interested in seeing the lighthouse! It turned out he couldn't go up the stairs alone, and Akasha was too young, so that was a bit of a disappointment, but there was an information are we could see, and the kids were OK on the bottom floor. Orion was interested in the stuff they had on display, which was all stuff about storing and pouring and hauling the oil.
View from the lighthouse.Next we went to the pioneer cemetery, which also happened to have a cache at it hehe. We found that quickly and then spent some time hanging out.

Orion sporting some original scarf fashion.
While I was closing up the cache, Orion kept asking me, what are all these "Xs" for? Huh? LOL, oh you mean crosses! I told him they were a symbol for a type of religion, so people like to put it on their tombstones. Didn't get into the whole dead guy hanging on it thing. :/ This was an interesting place as all the folks buried here were born in Ireland.
One from the Hughes family, who had a lovely home nearby you will see shortly.
I pointed out this birdhouse...
...and Orion decided it needed to be prepped for the birds, so he started collecting plant bits to put inside to make it more comfy.
Picking flowers...
This was the final version, including some flower decorations.
Rest in peace...
Not sure what was happening here. She looks overcome with emotion, but I think she was actually holding a toy to her chest lol. In the background you can see a nice couple we met visiting all the way from Hawaii. The lady told Orion the birdhouse looked very inviting and even took some pictures of it. :)
Can you spot the plastic animal in this photo (just retrieved from the cache)?
This is what he looks like if you were having trouble. Above Orion was putting him in a little cave, and here he was declared "at the top of the world!"
This is the Hughes House. They offer tours but my intuition told me that might not be a great idea lol.
View from the road to give you an idea of the setting - not bad!
Then it was into town for lunch. Orion really has a thing for fish n chips, and I had read about this place. Indeed, there was a line, which I wasn't thrilled about, but I figured it must be good, and at least there was alot of interesting art on all sides of the building to walk around and look at!



Over the front door... I told Orion what this said and asked what it sounded like, wanting to point out that it was similar sounding to "welcome", and he said, "Well, come in!" LOL, that really is what it sounds like!
After lunch we visited this little wetlands interpretive center that also, ahem, might have had a cache at the end. The kids love boardwalks at least. Although we didn't see any wildlife at this time of year besides a few dragonflies.

Then we went to a park that had a good sized cache in it. There was also a GORGEOUS geocoin in it I grabbed you can see below, although this picture doesn't do it any justice.
Yeah, a cache and a playground - winwin!
And a bit of video for ya:

Something about this cracked me up:
I had also noticed a sign to a hatchery off the 101 nearby, so I asked Orion if he wanted to go, and he said yes. He really likes them for some reason.
Looking at the fish in her "busy boots" as she calls them. :)
We love it when the workers give us fish food!
And so do the fish! They put on quite a show today. :)
And to close our day we decided to drive down the thin road to the beach parking lot and see what that was like. Wow, was I glad we did! This was one of the coolest beaches I had ever been on, no question! It was a bit of a walk down a hill though... Orion surveys the domain:
Wow, if you look closely, you can see where people have built several forts. I only wish we had come prepared to stay longer! Next time, next time....
Another sand and wood art something or other somebody or other had left behind.
The entrance to the fort where the kids spent most of their time.
More in the driftwood art installation. The top piece was actually attached on both sides with ropes!
Some rocks out at sea - we thought the middle one looked like a whale.
The lintel of the fort... I would assume this area gets pounded and rearranged by surf, but this makes it look like it has been here awhile!
A piece from the inside I thought was particularly pretty.
The view to the North. There was also a little creek that came out at this beach, and some dams had been built. Seriously, and infinite number of possibilities here!
I tucked this blanket under some wood and we even had a door!
All sorts of happenings inside, although the light was not great for getting pictures.
Back in the cabin that night, I set the paints up and we had a rare extended period of peace and quiet. :) A friend of mine with 3 boys tells a story about how this one time they were all peacefully engaged in quiet pursuits in the same room, and her husband said, "Quick, get the camera for your blog!" hahaha0
Had to get a quick shot of the view from the cabin. Doesn't do it justice though. That is the sea in the distance.
We stopped at this pretty myrtle grove on the way home where a supposedly hard cache is located, and indeed we didn't find it, but the kids had fun wandering around.
And we didn't get home until late again! Amazing how a 5 hour drive ends up more like 8 with just a few stops with kids! Pretty good trip overall. I was thrilled with the cabins and that beach, so I would love to go back some time!