Our Vacation, Thy Creations, and Our Relations- Part 5

Me: Stop distracting me with birds when we're trying to get ready for a trip.

Husband: Stop being distracted by Instagram while we're trying to get ready for a trip.

Ha. Ha. I was posting about that first interaction outside with the birds.

 

Road Trip!

Usually when we visit my parents, they plan a trip for us to Shore Acres. This year was no exception. We stopped briefly  to tie the van's shoes, then rode horses down to the beach. Jet had a lot of fun splashing around in the ocean, and even more throwing sand everywhere.

 

O.K. Now that I have access to my blog again- we did not, in fact, tie the van's shoes, nor did we ride horses anywhere. Jet did, however, have fun splashing in the ocean. He got to a lot more than last year and yes, he did have fun throwing sand everywhere.

O.K. What we stopped briefly to do was to see some birds and seals and sea lions at Cape Arago viewpoint.

Then we ate lunch and tried to get some family pictures in the garden before heading down to the beach.

The sand was so hot and the water was so cold. Lucky once again refused to take his shoes and socks off and luckily didn't get his feet wet this year. Jr. and Jr. Jr. got their feet wet. They took their shoes and socks off first.

Nichole enjoyed sitting on the sand sketching. I love that she does that.

Jeremy took pictures of birds and us and nature. It was so good to have him there this year. As I mentioned before, it had been 8 years since he visited Oregon.

 

I loved our time together there.

 

  

 

We made it back to our final destination of my parents' house that evening after having a great day out.

I'll share more of our wonderful vacation later.

Busy Birding Week- Day 2

A couple weeks ago I had a busy birding week.

Wednesday, October 11, was It's My Party Day.  I could cry if I wanted to, but instead I took a day off.  Dawn to dusk, starting the day on the Southeast side of the lake and ending it on the Northeast side of the lake.



I spent some time birding along River Lane with a little walking along Sandy Beach.

Then I visited Bicentennial Park in Provo.  Last time I went, the boardwalk area was closed off, but it was open this time.  Hooray.

I spent some quiet time reading at the Orem Library, stopped at home for a quick break, then treated myself to a fast food lunch.

I visited Ashton Gardens at Thanksgiving Point to look at birds and flowers and for some personal scripture study in the Light of the World Garden.

When I left it was getting to be rush hour so I skipped the freeway and went to a park in Saratoga Springs next to the lake to finish off the evening.  The traffic wasn't nearly as heavy when I headed home.

It was a beautiful day and a well needed break.

More Birding Days

Whooping Crane Day was on May 28.  So we had to go birding that day.
We took the kids to the "kite flying beach" and took our time birding along the way.  The kids were anxious to get to the beach, but we told them sometimes we hurry along to the beach for them, but this time, we were going to take our time birding on the way.
When we got to the beach, the wind was good enough for kite flying.  The kids had fun with that.

Lucky was just happy to play in the sand.  Jr. Jr. had some fun flying kites but also had fun playing in the sand.

After a while we put the kites away and went for a family walk along the water.  Yay for aquasocks!  Then we walked back next to the vegetation to watch birds.
On the drive home, I saw a sandhill crane in a field.  It's a crane, right?  Close enough for celebrating Whooping Crane Day.

May 30 was Memorial Day.  Jeremy was hired to do balloons at a family reunion.  His family was invited to come even if we weren't related.  So we had a nice lunch then the kids got to play in a room they had set up with kid activities (including balloon animals).
After the reunion, we went out to do some birding.  Jeremy had some places he wanted to take me where he'd gone before on a birding field trip.  When he went before, there were some birds he didn't get a chance to see.  While we went out as a family, we were able to find those birds.

 Bobolink and burrowing owl

 Yellow-breasted chat

And we got a better picture of a sage thrasher than we already have.

Kite Day Observed

May 12 is Kite Day.  We couldn't celebrate it on that day this year since we went to Nichole's wax museum that night.
We've been wanting to fly kites at the beach ever since we went there on a somewhat windy evening during Screen Free Week.  There were a couple of young ladies there with kites and we talked about doing that for Kite Day, except we couldn't do it on the actual holiday.
So we were finally able to celebrate Kite Day (Observed) today.  Hooray!
And... there was no wind.  Sigh.  So the kids did a lot of running to get their kites in the air.  We still had fun, though, and stayed out way too late and I'm so tired writing this blog post so I need to make it short and put some pictures on here so I can go to bed because in the morning I've got to deal with kids who didn't get enough sleep so I need to make sure I'm rested enough to deal with it.  Sigh.
O.K.  Pictures of Kite Day Observed:

We were smart this time and wore aquasocks so it wasn't as big a deal when some of the kids got their feet in the water.

By the time we were done, though, we were so worn out.

It was a great family evening.