Summertime Fun and O-RE-GON

Our friend Brad recently got a motorcycle, and, naturally, Kirby now wants one. Or did. For a day or two his hankering was quelled by something we saw on TV. It was one of those shows that shows painful looking boo-boos or something. Anyways, it showed this motorcycle accident where a car ran a red light, and creamed the motorcyclist. So, at least up until today he had changed his mind. But then Brad came over and they rode his bike around... again. SO, chances are that desire is inching back. But anyhoo! Kirby took me for a ride around the block a few times outside of Brad's apartment. This was back before the TV show reality check when Kirby was still trying to convince me how safe and awesome they are. :) Don't I look tough in that helmet??? This set of pictures makes me sad, too, though. Those cute khaki shorts are now ruined. Well, they may be salvageable, but as of this moment--RUINED. Stupid curb that wasn't dry, and wasn't labeled as "almost dry." Boo I say.


My friend Sarah got married on the 23rd of July, which was a blast. I got to go to the sealing, which was beautiful, and then I got to hang out with these great girls waiting outside!


The last week of July Kirby and I drove up to Oregon, and we successfully put the 100,000th mile on our car. Mind you, we got the car used. But still. A momentous occasion nonetheless!


Once we got to Oregon we spent the entire time hanging out with family. We spent a good portion of our time at Tyler (Kirby's little brother) and Amy(Tyler's wife)'s place. Now, picture in your mind what an awesome house would be like...

chickens? check.

go-cart? check.

mini bikes? check.

BBQ? check.

hammocks? check.

plasma donation lounges? check.

fruit orchard? check.

mini lake? check.

riding lawn-mower? check.

family? CHECK!


This is Kirby's mom, Yani.


And here are the girlies! Megan (top left)--Kirby's little sister, Amy (top right)--Tyler's wife, and that crazy one who can't seem to look pleasant in her pictures--ME! :) But you knew that.


Some pictures of Tyler. On the left he's sitting in one of the plasma donation chairs with a sleeping chicken. Apparently if you hold them upside down they fall asleep. So he did. And it did. Maybe all the chicken blood flooding its tiny little brain causes it to shut down. I wonder... In the middle is Tyler riding the lawn-mower, swingin' his rusty machete. No, he's not crazy. The machete is for chopping branches out of the way when they are mowing... where there are branches. And on the right is on the way to Sand Lakes (more about that later). He's looking hard core in his sunglasses and camel-pak. (If Tyler actually sees this he may or may not yell at me for spelling that wrong. Because I may or may not have spelled it wrong!)


My incredibly charming husband. Maybe I should just buy him a helmet. Who needs a bike!? In the lower right picture you can kind of see the dirt nose and mustache all the riding through the orchard gave him. Pretty rugged. Hot-rugged. :)


And we can't forget Steve! Kirby's dad didn't seem to want to take the go-cart for a spin, but after a little prodding, he hopped in, and--LOVED IT. He didn't want to get out! And when he did get out after several laps around the orchard, he still wanted in on the fun. So he hopped on the riding lawn-mower to chase Kirby and Tyler down (they had the go-cart and mini bike respectively.) Needless to say his attempt failed, and resulted in him getting lapped several times. But what do you expect from a lawn mower vs. a go-cart?


This is Megan's boyfriend Brad. Mmm... those burgers were so good!


And you can't forget Joey! Megan and Brad's adorable little 6-month-old boy. Ironically, he's as big as our other nephew Gregory who is a 13 months! :)


Kirby took me for a spin in the go-cart and you can't tell very well from this picture, but I was hanging on for dear life for most of it! We were going pretty fast, and that thing has no suspension. TALK ABOUT BUMPY! And when we went around the mini lake down the road there were blackberry bushes and the briers would whip past and scratch my arm up. I felt pretty hardcore. :)


We went to Sand Lakes to take the quads, go-cart, and mini bike out. It's part of the Oregon Coast that is especially for that kind of thing. Unfortunately, the go-cart and mini bike didn't really work in the deep, loose sand, but Megan and Brad had both of their quads, so we took turns and it was a blast!


It was so foggy at Sand Lakes! By the time we went home it looked like this! (See the bottom two pictures.) And check out that marshmallow farm! :) hahaha.


Happy birthday Megan! We celebrated her birthday when we got home from Sand Lakes with a delicious german chocolate cake. Devilish. After which all the kids went to Sheri's because we never got dinner. It was there we had some of the nastiest restaurant food of all time. But Tyler sure liked putting it in his mustache. :)


And last but not least--our Oprah experience. At some point during the vacation we were sitting in Kirby's parent's kitchen and for some reason or another, Tyler picked up the Oprah magazine that Kirby's grandma gave his mom and began reading an article about dumb things men do. Or something like that. Basically Kirby and Tyler were a bit miffed at this journalist and decided to get back at Oprah. :)


Phew! You survived! (If you're reading this, at least.) This post was mostly so the family back in Oregon could see some of the pictures I got, but I think they're fun (and funny) for whoever wants to see, so thanks for looking! :)