Cooks Beach

Sun and rain most every day.  When the sun peaked out we would quickly drop what ever we were doing inside and run outside, jump in the car and head to the beach.    The new beach access at Cooks Beach was a great find and host to many adventures. 

On the first day, we saw this male elephant seal.  Males grow up to 13 feet in length and can weigh up to 4500 pounds.  This one looks to be about that size.  Crazy big!  Mostly it just lay in the sand while we explored it from afar.  After a bit it seemed to take notice of us and turned to face us keeping an eye on us for the rest of our visit.

 The beach was ever changing from the tides and the swollen stream.  So each day we would find something new and exciting.  Some days it was the stream cutbanks.

 Other days it was the drippy castles.

This day it was the sunset that captured us!

December 21: Solstice

Solstice: A day to remember the light. 

This celebration of light always brings a moment of reflection to the year.  Remembering the long nights and short days of Walla Walla winters we are excited for the move of the planet around the sun bringing longer days and more sun. 

Christmas Travel

We traveled to California for Christmas this year.  My next post will chronicle the joy of our Christmas visit.  But this lays down the epic days of travel.


We left after school on Wednesday.  We traveled to Portland to visit our friends and stay over night.  Our first challenge began at 4 AM when Dakota woke up with a tummy ache.  A few episodes of puking and no more sleep.  Up and on the road by 7 am.  Heading south we knew the winter weather presented a possible challenge.   About 3 hours south of Portland, it started to snow.  We were able to cross 3 passes before the snow stopped traffic.  So just north of Grants Pass we found ourselves stopped behind a long line of cars.  TWO and 1/2  HOURS later we were moved about 100 yards to over to the right to make room for the Snow Plow (which never actually showed up).  Another 1/2 hour later we began to move over the pass.  Slow going with lots of cars spun out onto the side of the single lane of passable road before we got into Grants Pass.  We got gas and then headed out to the coast.  We had one big snowy pass to cross to get to the coast.  We were able to cross without to much trouble.  We made it to Eureka for a hotel night.  The next day seemed to be an easy shot down the coast to Gualala.  But the winter storm had brought flooding rains to all the Coast Range rivers.  Luckily my mom caught us before we turned toward the coast which would have left us stranded north of the Garcia River, just out of reach of my moms house.  So the long curvy way home finally go us to the coast to start our wonderful visit.

The snowy roads....

Wren's Winter Music

Wren's love for music grows with the opportunities.  His skills and understanding of music theory on the piano transfer well to other instruments.  So when he picked up the trumpet this year in middle school band it came pretty easy to him.

Here are is a video of Wren's winter piano recital.  Wren is not particularly fond on playing in public on his own as it makes him nervous.  But he does like playing in the school band performances and plans to join the jazz band next year in 7th grade. 

His uncle George gave him an accordion for Christmas and he is already working on learning about how to play this new and wonderful instrument.