Our Summer Vacation

Last week we got back from what was quite possibly the BEST vacation we have ever been on.  We have hundreds of pictures.... there may be multiple posts!

We left our house on Tuesday June 18th to embark on our 14 hour drive to Long Beach Peninsula in Washington. 

We stopped for lunch in Twin Falls Idaho where we visited Shoshone Falls:

After our brief stop, we continued on to Le Grande Oregon where we stayed for the night.  That was NOT the cool part of the trip...

Mike chose Le Grande because his grandma used to live there and he wanted to see where she had lived.  She neglected to mention, or maybe she has forgotten, the train that would go through every 30 minutes all night long and blast it's horn.  By morning, we were more than ready to leave and continue our drive to Washington.

Here is what we saw when we got to our destination:

 This is the Light House.  The basement level has an amazing workout room and movie theater.  The main level was the most amazing family area... dream kitchen, TV areas, game areas, eating areas..... etc.  The next two levels are bedroom suites (one per level) with amazing ocean views.  The rest of the levels are not finished because they are not yet zoned for living space.  Stephanie & Andrew had the third level suite and James and Christine had the fourth level.

 From the top of the Light House you could over look the rest of the property.  To the right was an essentially private and beautiful beach, to the right, acres of wood area perfect for horseback riding and four wheeling. 
Then there was the lake with paddle boats, the boat, the barn, the garage, and the horse fields.

 Looking down from the top of the light house, this is our path to the beach....

 This is the "Barn" - it was the nicest barn I have ever seen!  We stayed in the upper level of the Barn, Kimberly and Tyler stayed in the bottom level, and we shared the second level which was a large family area.

 The was the "Garage".  The actual garage was filled with toys of every kind.  The upstairs was a nice one bedroom living area where Grandma and Grandpa stayed.

 These are the tree houses meant for playing in.....

 And these are the tree houses you could actually stay in, though none of us opted to. 

This is the boat that Jenny and Justin stayed in.  Below are some of the toys we got to use during our stay.

One of the first things we saw when we arrived was a bear....

Other wild life included:

 Horses ... yes, we got to go horseback riding.

 We were able to go crabbing....that will probably be another post.

 We found lots and lots of sand dollars.... I'm pretty sure we brought home half of the ocean!

 Eagles were on the beach every morning, and sometimes in the afternoon as well...

 A mother and her baby were frequently on the property...

Here is another black bear (by the tree).  We first saw him by someone's mailbox as we were driving back from town.  This was the third bear I saw during our vacation. 

That's it for now.  Hopefully I will have time to post about our activities and also to post interior pictures of the buildings later this week.