The best laid plans....

Well, as most of you know, we took a trip to Oregon, and got back on Thursday. We'd been SO looking forward to getting back to where the land is green, and the waters are plentiful. We were going to spend 2 nights at the beach (my own personal happy place), I was going to try and go out with some girlfriends, we had lots of fun stuff planned. Uh huh.


The alarm clock was set to go off @ 5:15 on the 13th, so we could get up and head to the airport. At 3:30, Serayah threw up... followed by Cam doing the same at 3:55. We were hoping (deluding ourselves into thinking) that it was just something that they'd eaten the night before, and that they'd be fine. After Serayah got sick again at 4:20, I knew things weren't looking good. To make a long story shorter, I ended up calling the airline and having our flight switched to the next day. Fortunately, Cam was feeling better after about 12 hours, but Serayah stayed sick until Saturday night. Poor thing... she would take 1 or 2 naps a day (not like her at all), and didn't eat anything really until Tuesday.


The Thursday flight went really well (although I kept the air-sickness back at the ready). Cam slept most of the way, and Serayah just kept wanting me to explain all of the things she saw on the ground. She was fine until we left the Airport, so that went well. We got to the beach... I was SO happy. It was over 100º inland, so I was expecting temps in the 80's and a gentle breeze. Uh huh. What we ended up with were the 60's and 30-45 mph winds. We were on the beach for maybe 30 minutes, and had to go back in. The sand was blowing so hard that the sand was hurting Serayah's feet, and Cam was just not impressed at all. Sigh. To make matters even better, in the wee hours of Friday, I started getting sick. Yeah... vacation fun! Here are some pictures from the beach.














We got to Roseburg Friday afternoon, and any ideas I had of seeing any of my friends went out the window (for some reason, no one wanted to be within 20 feet of me), and on Saturday, our plans of everyone getting together at a park were shot too. Shiela was going to take our pictures then, (keep in mind that the weather was gorgeous on Saturday) but of course, didn't want to bring the plague back to her family.



Sunday was the birthday party, and Serayah & I were both feeling better. I applaud any of you who risked the germs to come out and see us. As far as I know, no one got sick from us, so that makes me really happy. The party was fun, and Serayah had the time of her life playing (although she still wouldn't eat anything...including cake). Cam had lots of fun too. All the presents were a big hit, and Cam's new Thomas the Train stuff has been going with him everywhere. We were thinking that things were looking up and that now everything would be sunshine and roses.



Sheila was planning on taking our pictures out at Cleveland Rapids on Monday morning. We woke up to rain. Seriously. We went to her house to get studio shots. Her flash wouldn't work. (This had never happened to her before). Apparently, that was our Curse's last attempt at us, and she got it working. The photo shoot went surprisingly well, and Serayah turned out to be quite a little ham (who would have thought?).



We ended up going out to the Safari and the kids had a great time... Cam was more thrilled about sitting up front and "driving" than the animals, I think. Here are some Safari pictures.... I know that most of you have been there a million times, so bear with the animal shots... I've told some of my friends around here about it and wanted them to get an idea of what it's like. Also, there are some pictures of the kids playing inside the walk-thru area. They had a blast.

The next day I was able to spend some time with my friend Amber, then we were able to go out for a couples dinner, which was terrific. We drove up to Portland on Wednesday, then flew back home Thursday morning (yet another great flight).

I'm happy to report, that Serayah is finally back to normal... All of her fish survived (I didn't think we had a shot in heck of coming home to survivors)... Cam is still obnoxious... and all is right with the world. I'm sure that we got all of our bad luck over and done with in this trip, ensuring that all future vacations will go smoothly.... :)