Home Sweet Home

This spring break, we got to head to my hometown of Klamath Falls, Oregon, for a much-needed vacation. This last month has been a rough one, and I especially was ready to see family and familiar territory. We made the long (did I mention the drive itself is 12 hours ... LONG!) trek to Klamath Falls on a Friday and got there around sundown. The sunsets in my hometown are beautiful.

My dad lives on a farm, and Grace LOVED all of the animals there (dogs, cats, horses, cows, even a billy goat). The weather was pretty cold extremely frigid while we were there, but that's okay. Even though we live in Utah, I'm pretty sure that was Gracie's first interaction with the snow!

That Saturday we took Gracie to the local college there (OIT) for the community Easter egg hunt. They had divided it up between older kids and younger kids. I had no idea how Gracie would do or if she would even know what to do, but when the buzzer sounded, she knew EXACTLY what she was supposed to do, and managed to grab two eggs (along with a little help from her overly competitive, "hey-my-kid-needs-some-eggs-too" mother) before the Easter egg hunt was over (which took exactly 7 seconds ... 100s of kids = 7-second Easter egg hunt). Alas, I do have video, but because it was an Easter egg hunt and lots of grown ups were with their kids bending over, there is a shocking number of bum cracks in the video, so I think I'll forgo posting video this time. :)

Us at the Easter egg hunt.

We had a nice Easter dinner on Easter Sunday, too. My sister Kathleen came down from Portland to spend the weekend. It was wonderful to see her (shout out to you Kat! Can't wait to see you next month!), but she had to leave on Monday, so her trip was short-lived.

On Monday, I went to my old high school (ah, Henley) and got to show Boyce my old stomping ground. (mini flashback of me in high school with glasses AND braces AND a very, very spirally perm. Those days were fun, but I'm not sorry they're over :). I even got to see one of my old teachers who was my favorite! It was fun to see him and I'm glad he actually remembered me because um...it's been a really long time since high school.

The next day we headed to Crater Lake with my dad. Little did I know the lake would be surrounded with a monstrously huge snow pack that would resemble Santa's living quarters. That place was cold! But definitely a sight to behold. And beautiful.

On the way home we made a brief stop at Lake of the Woods (memories of summer camp as a child at Camp Kaesta come to mind).

I think one of the favorite parts of the trip was on one particularly frigid day we went with one of my favorite people in the whole world, Jaime Olsen, and her cute kiddos to the local Children's Museum. It was fantastic! Gracie loved all of the little rooms (think little supermarket, fire station, helicopter, music room, and so forth) and she and Jaime's kids played for hours. I will be going back there next time I'm in town, no doubt.

Our trip passed quickly and the following Friday we headed for home. This time, we went through a blizzard, followed by a cattle drive (envision 100s of cattle headed the OPPOSITE way of us on the highway), only to then plow into a poor antelope who made the unfortunate decision to run across the road right in front of us. Thankfully, we were fine, the car was mostly fine, but sadly the antelope was not fine and died instantly. After a long and crazy day of driving, though, we made it back home. And there is just no place like home. But it was fun to see family. I love them.