Family Home Evening

Malachi got to teach the lesson tonight in FHE and he was just so cute.  He did such a good job.

Crater Lake

The reunion is over, but we wanted to do a small little vacation with just our family, so we took a longer way home and stopped in Crater Lake on our way home.  Jon and the kids were really excited because they had never been there and I had been telling them how beautiful it was.  Unfortunately when we got there we didn't get to see much.  There had been wild fires all over, and it definitely affected our view of the lake.  When we were getting closer I thought maybe we would luck out because there were blue skies.  But once we got to the top it was just too smoky.  The kids enjoyed learning about it, and we had lunch, but we didn't stay too long.  Maybe we can take the kids back next year.

We stayed the night in Bend, OR and then headed home on Saturday.  We are home now and tired and exhausted, but we had such a wonderful time.  I love spending time with my family.

Jet boats and Chetco River

On Wednesday we headed up to Gold beach to take a jet boat ride up the river.  It was so much fun.  There was one moment I thought we might lose Malachi...Thankfully my mom caught him really quick.  Jocelyn did not like the life vest, but once the boat started moving faster, she fell right to sleep.  This was such a blast, but we did get pretty wet.

I think this was one of the kids' favorite activities.  This took the whole day.  We were supposed to have a fire on the beach and have hot dogs for dinner, but it was really cold and windy.  So we went to a different fire house that lots of tvs, and we had a movie on while we ate dinner and visited.  The kids watched the movie as the adults sat and visited.  It was still a lot of fun.

We stopped at Emily's house so they could take us to the new fire house.

They put on the Lego movie, and the kids loved it.  

Thursday was the day to go swimming in the Chetco River.  When we woke up and left it was so foggy and cold there by the ocean.  But just about a half hour inland, it was sunny and warm.  Everyone got in and enjoyed the river.  It was definitely cold at first, but we had so much fun.  We took up leftovers for lunch and just parked our cars right on the rocks by the river.  We had a nice little camp just set up there.

The kids have just loved being with Jocelyn, especially Rachel.  She loves to just sit and hold her.  They all just gather around Jocelyn, and she is just loving the attention.  

For our final night we met at a park just outside of town and all cooked in dutch ovens.  It was so good.  After dinner we had a short little talent show.  The kids all did really well.  Every night after the kids were in bed, we would go to my parents room and talk and laugh and just have a good time.  It's hard to believe that our reunion is over.  We have had such a great time.  Emily and Jeremiah did such a fantastic job.  Now I get to plan the next one in 2020.

Keven Naylor Family Reunion

Our Keven Naylor Family Reunion this year was down in Crescent City, CA at Emily and Jeremiah's place.  Emily was in charge of putting it together.  Mom, Dad, Lisa and her family, Brian and his family and us stayed at a hotel.  Lori and Darin weren't able to make it and we really missed them.  We were all super excited to go and be gone for a week.  We all look forward to vacation and we knew we had a lot of things planned.  Emily had a full agenda planned.  We had lots of outdoor hikes and activities to do.

On our way!  We drove straight down in one day.  It was a long trip, but the kids did great.  Even Jocelyn did really well.

Monday evening we had dinner at the firehouse.  It had a large room that accommodated everyone with a big kitchen to be able to get the things made we needed to do.  This was also Jon's birthday so we celebrated after dinner with ice cream sundaes.

On Tuesday we went to Fern Canyon.  It was so pretty.  I guess some portion of Jurassic Park was filmed there.

After a picnic lunch we stopped at Big Tree.

Then we headed straight to the Trees of Mystery.

The boys really loved this.  Jocelyn wasn't too thrilled with the pack, but she did pretty well.

Jocelyn needed her diaper changed, so my mom just sat Jocelyn on her lap and changed her diaper.  This is an experienced mom.

We went up the sky rail.  That was a lot of fun. It amazes me how big the trees in the Redwoods are.

These trees are called the Cathedral trees.  People have weddings here.

I don't have many pictures with the kids, because they kept running ahead and not staying with us.

The story of Paul Bunyan

After the Trees of Mysteries, we headed back to Crescent City where we had dinner at the Firehouse.  The night before we had to leave early because of tired kids and Jeremiah had given everyone else a tour of the firehouse then.  So we stayed behind this night and had a tour.  The kids loved seeing the fire engines and loved getting to get up in the driver's seat.

They looked so cute trying on the coats and helmet.