I have gotten very frustrated with this site, so I started a new one. Come visit me at miss_amyj.

It seems that life either drags along in the same monotony of the day before it, with nothing interesting to break the sameness—at least nothing worth posting about—or it throws everything at you at once, so that when you finally get a break, and you sit in front of your computer, you are completely at a loss as to where to even begin.

But anyway. This is how the last week went. Okay, let me back up. On Tuesday evening my mom tells me that the little Mennonite church 100 miles south of here needs people to help with VBS the next week. Since neither my sister nor I have a real summer job, we were able to agree to come on such short notice, and recruited our cousin Stephy to come with us. Anyway...

So a week ago today we (all of my family except Matt) gathered up endless provisions, borrowed a few canoes, and put into the Willamette River a ways south of Junction City. We had a wonderful time, floating down the beautiful river, stopping whenever we had an urge to visit a particularly lovely gravelly beach, singing at the top of our lungs, watching various wildlife, and “really” camping—pitching our tents on a nice little island, with no running water, or even outhouses, for miles around. Or so it felt. Although we realized after we decided to stop there that there was a road right on the other side of the trees at the top of the bank.

We took out at Peoria Park, the site of my surprise birthday party almost exactly a year before, on the next afternoon. We came home, unpacked, did some laundry since I had no non-smoky bandannas left, packed again, and then left the next afternoon for the little town of Winston.

Which brings me to a question. How can you tell that you are riding in a car with Smuckers? You have two teenage girls with you, who aren't mad at you or sleeping, but there are only approximately 2.4 minutes of conversation during the entire two-hour drive, because they are reading.

The next five days we had Bible School in the morning, but then were free the rest of the day to mess around or do whatever we wanted. Bible School, by the way, went much better than I expected it would that first morning, when I was confronted with ten strange faces and the realization that I had definitely not studied as much as I should have. I had a wonderful, active, exciting bunch of eleven and twelve-year-olds, and it was great fun.

And...some other highlights of the week were...

• Finding my way around a completely new area, with mostly just my unreliable sense of direction and a phone book. And I don't think I was ever really lost, which is very amazing.
• “Playing” a real player piano.
• The hilarious incongruity of a teenage girl attempting to appear Amish in a black homemade dress and matching apron, but failed to quite appear authentic by having her hair down, covered with a bright green bandanna, and wearing around her wrist a rubber bracelet that proclaimed “Support our Troops.”
• Watching the movie of “Bridge to Terabithia,” which was the first book that ever made me cry.
• Getting to know a bunch of wonderful people.
• Making hilarious memories with Ems and Stephy. Example: A conversation on Sunday night, right after the teacher's meeting, as we sat outside eating our snack.

Me: (after watching the superintendent's 6-year-old son, who looks just like the 8-year-old son and the 4-year-old son, walk by, as I sat eating my snacks, including two chocolate chip cookies, one with nuts, and one without, and lest ye think me gluttonous, I had not eaten for approximately 6 hours) “Those boys all look the same, except they're different sizes.”

Stephy: “Except that one has nuts.”

Me: “What??”

Stephy: “Didn't you just say 'These cookies taste the same, except they're different sizes?'”

Ems: “Yeah, I thought that's what you said too!”

And now some pictures...

Some of my kids: Hannah, Kellie, Kayleane, Elisha, and Chloe

Emily and Stephy with some of their kids: Karissa, Stephy, Mika, Emily, and Hannah

 

Our wonderful hostess, Elanor

And some more random cute kids..

After struggling for a very long time, attempting to put a picture as my background only to have it eaten up moments after I open my page, and finding myself completely incapable of coming up with a color combination I don't hate, I gave up, and you will just have to endure the plain white background. Argh, then it lost my change to a white background, and I had to do it over again. This kind of thing should not be attempted this early in the morning.

Anyway, on a lighter note, this week my family took a trip to the coast! Fun, fun, fun. But this story actually begins quite a while ago...

Last fall my dad, who loves to plan ahead, decided that my cousin Byran would most likely get married this summer (he wasn't even engaged at the time), and it would most likely be in June (since both Byran's dad and mine are really busy in July and August), and most of our family would want to go. Now my dad is a thrifty sort of person, and flying eight people across the country can get rather expensive. A road trip is always an option—quite a popular one in our family, actually—but road trip costs can tally up quickly when your family is big enough that you can't all cram into one motel room. In light of all this, my dad decided to buy a pop-up trailer that we could pull behind the van. A pop-up trailer can fold up, thus taking up less space and not making a huge dent in gas mileage, yet can be quite spacious when unfolded.

So my dad went to RV dealerships, checked around, watched the ads in the newspaper and on craigslist, and, sometime last November or December, bought a nice, used pop-up that sleeps eight people. Now we were all set to take off for Byran's wedding—right?

Well, it turns out that Byran didn't consult us about his wedding, June was really full for him, and he decided to get married in August. Ooooops. No way we can take off long enough for a road trip that soon after harvest. So now we have the pop-up with no good way to use it. Actually, my dad is probably planning a family trip in 2012 for all I know, but for now, we decided to try it out with a short trip, staying fairly close to home.

Thus the trip to the coast. It was quite lovely. I'd just been out about a week before, and that day it looked like this:

While we were there this time, most of the time, it looked like this:

Of course, it was still hoodie weather rather than swimsuit weather, but what do you expect from the Oregon coast?

(Btw, that is the exact same beach in both pics...made me miss people, going to the same places, thinking "here we took pics with all of us girls" or "that's the store where Krissy and Sarah bought their sweatshirts." I miss you guys.)

So the first day, when we got there, me and my younger sibs went walking while Mom, Dad, and Matt set up the trailer, discovered Dad had forgotten the key, and Dad decided to drive the two hours home to get the key, since, despite the fact that we could still get in and out, but we couldn't put the door in and keep out the elements without the key. I know that doesn't really make sense, but I can't really explain unless I show you.

So anyway, my sibs and I wandered down this lovely forest trail that sort of took us toward the beach. We were rather at the nether regions of the campground, though--a good mile from the ocean, so we didn't actually get to the beach our stomachs called us back to the camp site.

My lovely siblings inside(or under) a very cool tree. Steven, Ben, Jenny, and Emily.

After supper we went down to the beach. Jenny was scared to get in the water, and insisted that I try it first to see how cold it was. Once I convinced her to get in, she loved it--even though it was really cold.

Those toes belong to me and Jenny, respectively, btw.  

We had a nice, long, lazy day on Thursday, shopping at cute little second-hand stores, visiting the shops on the bayfront, taking long, solitary walks on the beach, building sand castles, flying kites....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then the next morning we went crabbing off this old fishing pier...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The reason Steven looks a little puffy in the above picture is because he had forgotten to take his jacket along, but realized that his suitcase was in the van, so he grabbed a couple more shirts from his suitcase to keep him warm.

And then we went home. And I am so sick and tired of this computer that does not do what I tell it to. Anyway. Tune in next time to read "An interview with Amy Jane Smucker, using the craziest questions you ever heard."

Amy