Oregon Rail Heritage Center

We went to the Oregon Rail Heritage Center while we were in Oregon.  We got to see lots of big trains, train displays and got to ride a real train from Portland near OMSI to Oaks Park.  Here are our crew posing by one of the trains.  Emma was sad.

There were some scavenger hunts for the kids to do.  If you completed it you got a prize.  Some of the kids completed theirs and Matthew really wanted to finish his on his own.  It took a long time and he was very frustrated by the end.  But the other kids enjoyed it.  Here are Karlee and Anna looking for some of the scavenger hunt answers.

 Grant goofing around

 He likes to pose

 And riding the train

The train ride was really cool and scenic.  We saw some city scenery, the river...very pretty

 Checking out some displays back at the museum

 Anna and Karlee at the trains!  It was fun!

 And here are a couple random pictures making s'mores

 John with his s'more

So much summer fun!

Swimming

We did lots of swimming in Oregon. A lot of times when we swim I don't get pictures because I am also swimming and don't have devices with me.  But this time the pool was shallow, I wasn't swimming and I could get pictures. Here is Matthew at a kiddie pool in Oregon City.  They had so much fun at this little pool.

 Emma swam a little but mostly sat on the side with us.

 Grant visiting us at the side of the pool

Three big kids

It was John's nap time so he was a little out of sorts.  He sat in the pool being a little grumpy for a while.  At one point Grant bulldozed over him and John went all the way underwater.  He was ok and afterward he kept telling us he went "underwater!"

 

 Another day we went to a picnic in Clatskanie.  Everyone got PGE swag (from Grandpa Guptill's company), lunch, ice cream and had a great time.  Plus we got to go swimming again after.

 Matthew and (cousin) Karlee with their balloon animals

 PGE hats

 popsicles

and a tour inside an ambulance.

Then we went swimming.  So fun!

First Lost Tooth

Matthew finally lost his first tooth.  He's 8!!  Neither he, nor Anna (6, almost 7) have lost any teeth yet.  Our dentist says some kids just lose them a little later and not to worry about it...yet.  So I'm glad his tooth finally came out.  It has been loose since February.  Matthew has been taking the laissez faire approach to loose teeth.  He didn't want to mess with it - just let it fall out on its own.  So it took a loooooong time.  He was very resistant to my many offers to wiggle it for him.  And toward the end there it was sort of leaning over in a weird and unnatural way.  I accidentally hurt his feelings a few days before the actual tooth loss when I said Matthew looked like a pirate with his sideways tooth.  Sorry Matthew!  Anyway, it finally came out and a second one is very loose as well.  He lost this one while we were driving in the car in Washington.  So we tried really hard not to loose it while in the car.  And the tooth fairy was able to find Matthew's tooth at Grandma and Grandpa's house in Oregon, so all was well.  Anna is now even more sorry that she hasn't lost a tooth.  But I think we'll have lots of lost teeth in our near future.  Hooray for growing bigger.

Made it to Oregon

The kids and I drove to Oregon to see family.  The kids got to have some good cousin time.  We stayed with Scott's parents.  They made us a welcome sign.  I wanted to get all the kids to pose by it, but it didn't happen.

We played...A LOT!!  Here we are at a park next to a splash pad. 

Everyone was happy to help me with Emma.  Here is (cousin) Kelsie reading Emma a story.

 We went raspberry picking, which is always fun.

Matthew and Jaron had a lot of fun together.  They are the only big boy cousins.  

The next boy is Grant, who is four.

And Anna, Karlee and Olivia played a lot together too.  Anna and Karlee are a few months apart and Olivia is only two years younger than Anna.

 I'm glad these two got along

John.

John...John...John...

He did a lot of sitting down and refusing to walk on his own during our Oregon adventures.  Luckily, there were lots of people around to help him along.  He didn't like picking the raspberries as much as eating them.  He just sat down, took off his shoes and started eating his berries.  He still has his shoes on here.  :)

 Hmmm...almost out of berries.  What to do...

Grant loved berry picking

 He even enabled John's eating a little bit

 More picking pictures

 Now the shoes are off...must be time to go

Kelsie did a good job keeping Emma happy.  Maybe next time Emma can pick her own berries.  Or at least sit down on the ground and eat them.

Grant riding the tractor

We tried to get a cousin group picture at the end.

Here are all 11 Guptill cousins together!

Jaron, Emma, Kallie, Matthew

John, Olivia (Lulu), Karlee, Anna, Grant

Kelsie...Owen

It's so fun to have cousin time!

House Hunting...Again

I flew out to California...again....to look at some houses.  We looked at some new builds and some resales.  We found one house we really liked...just about perfect.  But we decided it was too small.  Here we are having lunch at In & Out.  Yum!

 Emma with my drink

One of the model homes we looked in.  I liked the super hero girl room.

This was with a builder we liked and are hoping to get a homesite from them.

One morning we took a walk/hike in San Francisco before looking at houses.

 Beautiful views

Another model home.

An Emma room.  So we came up empty this weekend too.

Still looking, but it was good to see Scott.

4th of July

We had some fun family time this 4th of July weekend with my parents and Scott's family.  Scott flew in for the weekend from California and Scott's family was in town for a family reunion so we got to see them.  Here are Anna and cousin Olivia at Thanksgiving Point.  They had fun playing together.

 Grant

 John and Owen.  It looks like John is mad at Owen but he was just mad in general.

 There he's feeling better

 Matthew gets fed to the shark.  Live every week like its Shark Week.

 We had a nice dinner at a park in Provo on the 3rd of July

 Here are the original Guptills

 and Guptill "kids"...my how big those kids are

John and his cousin, Owen, who were born within a few weeks of each other, had fun playing together.  They were trying to throw grass on each other.

 Funny boys

Love them!  Thanks for the photo, Alycia!!

On 4th of July we headed down to Provo and had lunch with Scott's family.  And we had to get shaved ice before we headed down.

 I love shaved ice!

 John got his first

After sno-cones we had a fun lunch and went swimming in Provo.  I didn't take any pictures, but we had a great time!

Later in the evening we headed back to Lehi and had dinner with my family, including red, white and blue skewers.

Later we set off a bunch of fireworks.  And our neighbors set off a ton.  There were fireworks going off everywhere!!  It was so fun.  It reminded me of when we were kids and fireworks were still legal in our hometown.

Hooray 4th of July!!