Oregon Family Reunion 2011 "Aanderud Roots"

Ben and Jeanette had made all the arrangements for us. When we arrived in Oregon they picked us up, gave us a car and car seats and let us stay at Jeanette's house. We had a nice relaxing morning to recover from a really hard day of travel. I almost committed to myself to never fly with these kids again. Paul had the harder job having Joren and Eirik on a different airline than Teig and I, but we both had our challenges. Paul's moment of panic was when Joren ran ahead on the moving walkway and fell and bloodied his knees and wouldn't get up and the end of the sidewalk was coming soon while at the same time Eirik was screaming at the beginning of the walkway as he did a complete split with one food on and one foot off terrified to get on the walkway. As Paul chose to run to Joren, Eirik decided to sit down on the walkway and take his shoes off so he could tie his sock around Joren's leg when he got to him as a bandaid. People were stepping over this big mess of kids and crying and Paul said he felt like a complete zoo.


Sunday afternoon we had a dinner at Patty's house with the whole family to kick off the excitement. Grandma Edna and Grandpa Rallison were there. Grandma Pat set out little tea sets for all the kids at their place settings. After dinner everyone packed up to drive to the beach.

Ben with help did a ton of work on the basement of the beach house. It was finished enough to sleep lots of people downstairs. It looked great. We slept there the first night and the next morning we moved over to the Rene's house across the street. On Monday we went to the exciting Rockaway 4th of July parade with lots of entertainment, fun things to see and buy and at the end, everyone gets totally soaked by the local fire dept. Eirik used his allowance he had saved to buy a red crystal from Flamingo Jims. He thought that was pretty special.

We went back to the beach and had a sandcastle building contest which was a lot of fun.


Kim made a yummy dinner and then I got to work getting settled for the night in the Rene house while everyone else prepared the beach for our fire and with s'mores and fireworks.
That's when the disaster happened. We lost Joren. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. I will tell the story in detail in a post about just Joren later, but for now I will just say that the police brought him home safely and he got tied to us with a rope from then on.


You can't see the rope in the picture, but it's there.
And there were PLENTY of fireworks! There was a show up the beach, right where we were on the beach and down the beach. Fireworks everywhere. It was a great celebration. I could even watch them from the window where I ended up putting tired kids to bed. 3 hours time change really worked it's wonders on our sleepy heads.

Tuesday:
We went to the tide pools and our kids cried the whole time. They were tired, did not want to get their shoes wet, wanted to be carried, didn't want to get near the creatures..etc. We had a good time anyway.

After we went to Cannon beach to the candy store and I stole a few minutes in my favorite galleries to see Casandra Barney's work and I cried in Dragonfire gallery seeing Michael Orwick's paintings. I discovered an artist I had not heard of that was phenomenal named Mandy Main. I was so moved. It was a highlight of the trip to stand there in front of their paintings and actually be moved to tears. That hasn't happened to me many times. Micheal teaches 3 day workshops and I will be in one someday.




When we got back to the beach, Arinn and I got the kids busy painting a block of wood for our art collage we made to hang in the beach house. 

Then we took family pictures.  We had lots of wind and crying babies and it was getting pretty cold.  I did my best, but I was pretty flustered.  I am not really happy with any of the group shots.  I had to slide in at the last minute and I think I look ridiculous in the middle.  If I had been taking the shot I would have changed it.  Darn it.  I think everyone else looks good.  Bummer. 

Taking this next shot was not fun.  As everyone was getting in place Patty said, "where is the Dad? Where is your father?  and everyone cried.  Steve was so missed and there were many moments where everyone just cried.  Patty was a trooper, but she was very sad.

 

Keeping it real.