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. 

Our Boys

Our boys are doing great.  This week Dakota decided to turn his room into a snow world.  Here he is showing off his work.

LEGOS:  A world of creation if you can find your niche.  Battles and fighting is what the boys always choose when they play together.  This unfortunately does not interest me so when they ask me to play legos, I am challenged to find my place in their world.  But just the other day, I thought about building nature from legos.  So with that in mind, I started with a tree.  Dakota added a cabin next to the tree for us to live in.  Then he noticed that we needed some water and then a waterfall.  We both had fun with LEGOS. Yea!

Wren got straight A's on his report card this first quarter in Middle School.  We are proud parents.  He has chosen a movie night out for his reward. 

 

 Tomorrow he has a presentation on the Greek God Pan.  He had to make a costume, write a poem and re-tell a myth in addition to preparing his speech.  He has been practicing his presentation today.

And here is his poem.

Pan

flute player

enjoys nymphs company

the son of hermes

god of shepherds and flocks

very high musical talent

the nature god

natural intuition

Pan

All Gone!

Almost done. The trailer is down and they are sorting the metal for recycling.

Here is the crew.  Travis, Tim and AJ.  A very professional team who work well together and got the job done in 2 days. 

 Here is the view from the carport through where the trailer used to be where we can now see the cottage.

 Here we are looking south toward the carport.  All the dark brown dirt was where the trailer once stood just as long as it could until somebody lifted the trailer away.... (reminiscent of a line in the lorax)

And through it all the did not touch this rose which was sitting only 8 feet from the trailer before they started.

CRUNCH TIME 2!

Here is the first video.  This one is a bit long at 2 minutes but wait for the end when the whole roof comes down.  CRAZY!

In this one you will hear me laugh.  At that moment, the whole trailer pivoted about a foot and moved off the blocks that it was sitting on.  They had to pause to check how close they were to the surrounding structures.  All was okay so they proceeded.

More tomorrow....