Snavley Freebirds

We haven't had internet as much the last week so I have some catching up to do. We had a wonderful visit, in Ferndale, with an old highschool friend of mine, Crystal (Pike) Johnson. We then moved down to Arlington to visit, a couple days, with an old highschool friend of Martins, Roger Kehler and his family. Christmas Eve landed us in Seattle and we had a lovely evening with all of my mothers first cousins and their kids and grandkids. Christmas day we spent the morning doing laundry, went to my cousins and hung out in the afternoon and then went to Cheaper By the Dozen II that evening. We definitely didn't have a traditional Christmas but, then again, nothing we are doing right now is traditional. Monday, the day after Christmas, we did the Underground Tour in Seattle. We all found it very fascinating to learn how Seattle got started and to see the shop windows a few feet below the sidewalks that you walk on downtown.

We left Seattle and headed down to Milwaukie (Portland) to visit with Martin's aunt (Lois' sister) for a couple of days. We went over to McMinnville to see the Spruce Goose (The Aviator). The air museum had a great kids learning center; I think the kids could have spent the entire day there. We then headed up to Manning where my grandparents, on my dad's side, live. They have 40 acres of forest and we had a great time walking down to the creek, playing card games, and helping out a little with some chores. While we were there we took a day trip over to Seaside and Tillamook to splash in the ocean and see how cheese is made. The kids splashed in the ocean for about and hour and I think were really close to frostbite. Of course, we forgot to bring dry clothes so we had to rush around downtown trying to find some dry clothes for them.

We are now in Corvallis visiting some fellow unschoolers that own a coffee shop here(John and Mary Gold and their two kids Casey and Conor). We have spent quite a few hours in the coffee shop tasting all their delicious coffee, food and treats. We also got to join them for the unschooling gym day so the kids got their exercise today! We had a wonderful time and if they didn't get so much darn rain here it might be on our list of places to live. We are headed to Newport in the morning!

So far, the trip is all we expected. We have had a few hiccups but that is to be expected when you are traveling in a motorhome. The kids have settled into the motorhome and claimed their "spots". Tristan has taken to sleeping on the floor so we don't even have to take the bed out at night and Calista has claimed the space under the dinette bed, her "cubby". They all seem quite happy and it looks like we are going to have a good year!