8/15 - 8/17 Quite a trip to Depoe Bay, OR

It started out great. A free weekend at a time-share, to see if we want to get in. A bonus from our Hawaii trip. It was down near Lincoln City, Or, which is about 5 - 6 hour trip. We wanted to leave around 10am Fri. We actually got out at 10:30. Not bad. We had to stop at Costco, which was on the way, but the traffic was really backed up. It took us about 20 minutes to go about 1 mile, maybe 2. Then, right before we got there, Jenny remembered that she forgot her swimsuit. So did Kipp. OK. Maybe we could buy one at Costco. Nope, they don't have anymore. By now it was lunch, so we ate at Costco. We decided instead of running around to stores trying to find one that still has swimsuits, we'd just go home. So we went home. Now we were leaving at 1pm. Kyler ended up in training pants instead of a pullup and had an accident in his chiar. We tried to go fast, but didn't get down there until about 6:30. We had dinner at the condo and went swimming. Kids got to bed really late, but it was fine. Kyler woke up in the middle of the night for some reason, and Kipp got him.

Sat was great. We had a good breakfast, went to an aquatic science center, a lighthouse, had lunch, and spent the afternoon at the beach. The kids had a great time, Ilea had a friend to play with for a while, and the friend had an older brother who let Kyler play with his trucks. Also, no accidents from Kyler, although we did use pullups part of the day. We went back to the condo, cleaned up and went for a quick dip before dinner. We had a recommendation for dinner, but it turned out not so great. No air conditioning, SLOW service, and greasy, not great food. It was disappointing. So we got some taffy which was good. The kids both slept great that night, and we had no problems.

Sun we cleaned up mostly, and had a 10am appt for the time-share. No problem. The kids were fine, and read books. We got out about 11:20 and went back to our room to get a few things. We had until 12 to check-out, but a maid was already there! She dumped all our clothes that were in the dryer in a bag, and threw away some of our food that had been in the fridge! She put other stuff in our ice chest, but just threw it in, with the frozen on the bottom, so we had to totally repack it to keep things cold. It was very weird to have someone in there when we thought we had time to get the last of our stuff, go potty, etc. So we checked out and headed north. The traffic through Lincoln city was horrible, and we didn't know why. But we got to a fast food and went to lunch. We left Lincoln City at 12:30. We were going to go about 40 mi north on Hwy 101 to go to Tillamook. The traffic just stopped. There was an accident, and they finally got a detour set up, but it wasn't speedy. We finally got to Tillamook about 2:30. It was packed. We looked around and tried to get ice cream. The lines were huge! We left there about 3:00 or 3:15. We were only 35 miles from Astoria, but it took forever. We got stuck in 2 more accidents. We wanted the scenic route, but finally realized that Sun in summer is not a good day for scenic routes. We tried to take a new route, Hwy 30 to cut over to I5. It looked short. It goes across the Oregon side of the Columbia River and crosses over on Rainier bridge at Kelso. Finally we're making better time. All of a sudden Kipp sees a sign that I totally missed (I, Jenny, was driving). He said, I think that said Rainier Bridge is closed! We pulled over, and looked at a map, and it looked like 24 miles still to the bridge. We decided it was worth going back 1 mile to check the sign. It was 5:15 pm, and the sign said the bridge was closed tonight from 5:30pm to 5:30am! So we decided to take a ferry from the town we were at, Westport. The sign had an arrow to the left, but the little road looked like a residential country road. We pulled up to the ferry, which was just a small, flat, barge, and we were the last car on. It only held 12 cars. The good news was that because the bridge was closed, the ferry was free! Although at this point we would have paid anything. So we took another back route to get to the freeway. We stopped at Kelso/Longview to eat dinner, because it was 6:15 by this time. We had a good dinner at Azteca, and headed home. We got home finally at 9:10, and got the kids in bed. As we unloaded the food, I noticed a spill of water by the fridge. Kipp said it must have spilt from the cooler, but I didn't think so. We only had a few refridgerated items.

In the morning, the puddle is bigger. Kipp says he saw it and cleaned it up, but was running late, so he didn't look around much. I tried turning off the water to the dispenser to see if that was it, but it wasn't. Finally I opened the freezer and everything in there was melted. Water was dripping off every shelf, and pouring out of the ice container. Most of the food was already mush. I emptied out everything and found mold already starting on the bottom where the water was pooling. I called Maytag, who ironically was already scheduled to come out on Fri and fix our clothes washer for a retro-fit of the front to prevent mold. Maytag said they had no one else to come out any sooner, and the guy who does washers can fix the freezer also. Also, there are no other authorized service reps in the Seattle area. So I have no freezer for a week. I farmed out some of the savable food to a friend's house.

If Kyler sees 2 of something, he says, "Two fum!" (Translation "Two of them"). Sometimes there are Three Fum

The summer is flying by. The kids have been great. Kyler loves to ask for help with things, and is able to do so much now. He is potty training, started by himself. He just started getting naked and sitting on the potty. He wore pullups for about 2 weeks, and now we're using training pants. He's staying dry most of the day, including poop. He's amazing. Ilea is also doing great. She is so much more confident this summer. She plays with Victoria, her best friend, and does well by herself. She is a great encourager for Kyelr, and cheers him on when he goes potty.

Kyler is much more stubborn than Ilea was. He still doesn't eat really well.