Vacation - Day 4

Yohn has family in Oregon about an hour from where my mom and dad live so we took day four to go and spend some time with them. Unfortunately, this means driving for an hour, but after getting some rest the day before, it wasn't so bad.

While on our hour long ride Elisha entertained himself in the back seat. Why did he put his swim trunks on his head? Who knows! Why did he ask for a picture? Who knows! Why did I take the picture? Because I thought it was hilarious!

Monkey see, monkey do. Yes, we still practice Christianity in the Hesseltine home (it's a joke, do you get it?).

First stop, Yohn's brother Ray's house. At Ray's house there is a giant water slide (well not as giant as say, Waterworld's slides, but you get the point). Alas, the slide was broken so the kids had to entertain themselves in other ways. At Ray's house though there is much to do. I did take a picture of the waterslide to show you but I must have deleted it by accident when I was trying to make room on my SD card for more pictures.

A picture of Yohn and his brother. Ray was born blind and autistic so visits with him are generally only a few hours long because he does not enjoy a change in his routine too much. However, while short, they are cherished times.

Since the kids could not get wet on the water slide they decided to play in the little creek that runs along the edge of the property. The water in it is runoff from the snow on the mountains, so as you can imagine, is not very warm at all.

For some reason I became really fascinated with the clouds while we were in Oregon. You'll see more of them in later posts.

I dared the kids to lay in the water with the promise of ice cream later on. I guess with the promise of ice cream it really became more of a bribe than a dare.

The kids dried off afterward with some good old trampoline time. Notice the clouds in the background. It was about this time we noticed that the temperature had started to drop a little.

We take family pictures every year with Yohn's brother. Obviously these are this year's photos. If you look carefully in the picture with the four of them you'll see that it had started to rain in the distance. By the time we left just minutes later the rain had moved in and was coming down fast. Thunder could be heard in the distance too.

This is Yohn's dad and the kids' Grandpa Gerald. We forgot to call him ahead of time so when we arrived we only were able to stay and visit him for about an hour. He already had plans for the afternoon he was unable to change. It was probably better that way though because we often go to the park when visiting Yohn's dad and with the rain we couldn't have done that. After this we would usually go see Yohn's aunt who lives in the same city as Yohn's dad but she was out of town watching her grandkids. Yohn's cousin Amber is pregnant and in the hospital due to complications. Please say a prayer for her as she will be staying there for a month and they plan to take the baby at the end of July. This will still make the baby a month or so early if I remember correctly, so you get the point on how bad the situation is.

After we arrived back at my mom and dad's house we found the weather to be not so bad so back outdoors went the kids. Grandpa Henry taught Bethany how to catch the chicks, a decision I think he later regretted as we had a hard time getting her to leave them alone.

Since Bethany was preoccupied with the little chicks Grandpa Henry handed Elisha Loo Loo Bell's bottle to feed her with. Was Elisha expecting this? No! Did he enjoy himself? Maybe when it was over, but I wish I had the video on while he was doing it because panicked is really the word I would use to describe the whole senario. "I'm gonna drop it! I'm gonna drop it! She's going to step on me! She keeps pushing her head up! It's too slippery! It's too heavy!" Finally Grandpa Henry felt sorry for him and took over, much to Elisha's relief.

After a long and eventful day the kids took much needed baths in my mom and dad's large old fashioned claw tub. They love this tub because of how deep it is.

Elisha really liked relaxing on the pillows and kept telling me he felt like he was in bed. Almost son. Afterwards they went right to sleep. Anther day done, a few left to enjoy, and many memories stored away.