Day Trip to Long Beach

With a group of lovely girls!

We took two big vans . . . I drove ours with these girls and more not pictured.

A lovely day!

Sitting and relaxing

Pulling down the volleyball net when the tide came in to where we were.

Building a sand castle or some such . . .I wasn't around to see the finished product. :)

Tara & Katrina

Tara, Katrina, & I went to Dooger's for supper . . . Yummm!

Everyone else eating supper . . . hot dogs and chicken nuggets over the campfire.

It was a wonderful day!  Hope you all have a great day!

Day 8 w/ Our Finn Girls: Bus Ride, Shopping, & More

Wednesday.  In the morning we had a continental breakfast from the motel.  Then on the bus driving.  Errr .. riding.  We went to the Woodburn Outlets and were there shopping for several hours . . . a few hours too long.  Don't get me wrong . . . it's not that I don't like shopping, just with the shops they had there I didn't really find anything!  Except a pair of Nike's that I wanted ... well, that I still want from the Nike Outlet.  And . . . on some of the different Finn girls' blogs I've seen that several of them purchased the sames ones I wanted when they were out here!!

Umm . . .the only picture I took that day . . . with my phone! :)

 Oh well though . . .  Anyways, they don't have very many choices for lunch their either besides Subway, so we got that for lunch. :(  Then back on the bus to go back home after a wonderful trip!  Back to the church we went.  From there we headed home for a couple hours  . . . and then we headed back to church for the first service of Conventions that evening.  Coffee after church and then we all headed to Rick & Kathy's for volleyball and another enjoyable evening!

Day 7 w/ Our Finn Girls: Trees of Mystery

The second day of our bus trip to California.  First thing in the morning we checked out of our motels and then went next door to a restaurant for a buffet breakfast.  Not so good.  To say the least.  Anyways, after that us 3 girls and Sari went on a walk to waste some time and went down to the beach in Crescent City.  Got back and hopped on the bus for the short ride to Trees of Mystery.

Everyone walking in after we got off the bus.

Paul Bunyan & Babe the Blue Ox

Pretty much right away we headed up to go on the Sky Trail.  The best part of the whole place!  Ha ha;)

Jonas, Me, & Rachel in the gondola.  Not sure what he thought about being with us but he had been waiting for the shuttle when we went to get on it so we just rode the gondola together, too.  :)  It was a little bit scary at times but then it was just fun!  The whole thing goes at the same speed at the same time so there was several times when we slowed down a lot which was when people were loading and unloading from the gondolas at each end. 

Tara & Sari 

At the top waiting to get back on.  There was a place you could go up to look at the view, but it was all foggy so you couldn't see anything.

Me, Tara, & Rachel .

Our view heading down. 

Hey, we know you guys!  Fred & Anna-Karin and some of the other Finn girls. 

Looking down out of the gondola. 

After we got down, we talked with one of the Finn guys for a bit while he was waiting for some of the other guys to get down from the trail that you could go down from at the top of the Sky Trail.  Then we headed down the trail and spent quite a while in the gift shop.  Then back we went up to go on the Sky Trail again and found Josefine, Emma, and Tonja waiting in line so we joined them!

Tara, Rachel, Me, Josefine, Emma, & Tonja.

In the gondola - Sari, Josefine, Tonja, & Rachel. 

In the gondola - Me, Emma, & Tara. 

Hey, we know you girls, too!  We were with these girls part of the time, as well. :) 

Sari by the 2000 year old tree (??). 

Emma, Josefine, & Tonja. 

Rachel, Tara, & Me. 

Some of the Finn girls:) 

Just sitting outside and visiting, waiting until it was time to go eat lunch. 

The Finn guys along with Anna-Karin and Fred. 

Fred 

Right in here somewhere we went to the lodge across the street to get some lunch.  It was another one of those kind of ehhh..... meals.  Oh well though, the food wasn't the part that mattered; it was the fellowship and fun of being with everyone!

Fred & Anna-Karin - Our awesome group leaders!! 

After we left Trees of Mystery, we drove a short ways to the Tour-Thru tree.  Obviously the buses weren't going through it, but we stopped and walked up to it.

People coming from the bus. 

Part of the group. 

Johanna, Louise, Sofia, Josefin, & Marlene.

The Finn guys - Oskar, Samu, Kent, Alex, Anders, Vilhelm, Josef, Jonas, Martin, & David - being "different" . . haha! 

Emma, Tonja, & Josefine. 

Me, Rachel, Emma, Tonja, Josefine, Sari, & Tara. 

The WHOLE group (that went to California) . . besides one of the group leaders who took the picture, Marianne.

A lovely picture of the beach through the bus window. 

We headed to Roseburg, Oregon, where we were staying that night.  The motel was lovely!  We got our rooms and then headed out to look for some supper, after we waited for "our" girls.  We walked a long way going uphill to find something to eat.  I should have worn tennis shoes; they probably would've prevented me from getting the big blisters on my feet!  Anyways, we ended up with supper at Dairy Queen . . . with a grilled chicken burger . . . that tasted like a hot dog!! Ewww . . . excuse me, but while I have nothing against hot dogs, if I get chicken, I kind of expect it to taste like chicken . . . 

Back at the motel no one was really around doing anything so Rachel & Tara went swimming and I just hung out until I decided to start running on the treadmill.  I did that for a while until I decided I needed to change clothes and put on tennis shoes if I was actually going to run so I went and changed.  And proceeded to run for a while until I was looking like a dying cow.  And it was like 11:00 by then and I figured I probably wasn't supposed to be in there anymore!  Meanwhile, other people had went swimming and been in the hot tub.  Awhile later, we found a bunch of the group in the conference room playing games so we went in there for a while and played a couple games.  Then we all headed outside for some volleyball.  What would be a day without volleyball?!  I love it though, even if I'm not very good at it, so it's all good!  Played volleyball for a while and then headed back inside to the conference room, where some had slowly straggled in from outside and were playing games.  Didn't look like anything I really felt like doing so I headed back to the room.  Later Rachel went to give Sari the key and they were outside playing volleyball again.  Which resulted in a disappointed self, especially when I found out that they had stayed up til like 3 in the morning.  What?!!  What all fun did I miss out on? :(  Oh well, I'm still thankful for all the fun times I DID have!

Well have a wonderful day, as always!

Days 4, 5, & 6 w/ Our Finn Girls

Day 4: Saturday.  I didn't take any pictures but Rachel & I went shopping at the mall with the girls in the morning and early afternoon and then we came home and got ready for the wedding at 4:00.  We went to the wedding and then that evening, Tara & I ran to the store and then met up with the Gilkerson's and their Finn girls at Yo Factory.  After that we headed over to Rick & Kathy's for a fun night of volleyball.

Day 5:  Communion Sunday.  Our group had to serve in the kitchen that day.  After church, Tara & I headed over to Mint Lake where a bunch of young kids had went.  Rachel was already there with our Finn girls.  Had fun sitting in the sun and visiting.  Some people were in the lake swimming or wading or whatever.  Some people were playing volleyball (obviously!).  Made for a fun afternoon.  After that we were all invited to Kelly & Becky's for a barbecue birthday party for Alex (one of the Finn guys).  So we headed over there for supper, volleyball, and birthday cake.  And it was a fun evening. :)

Yes, everything was fun.  I know I keep saying that.  But it's because it's the truth!  I truly had such an amazing time those couple weeks!  Those were the days that made my summer amazing!!

Day 6: Monday.  Well, early morning start.  At the church at 7:30 along with everyone else going on the bus trip to California.  It was such a pleasure to be able to join the Finns on this trip along with a few other Americans.  It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

This was a fairly simple day, during the day.  The evening though?!  Oh my, FUN!!!  We stayed at a motel in Crescent City.  Rachel, Tara, Sari, and I had a room together.  Once we were settled in our room we headed outside and waited around for some other people.  Our Finn girls and a couple other awesome Finn girls came with us and we headed into town to find something for Supper.  We ended up at Denny's . . . it was an okay supper.  After supper we headed out and there was a Safeway so we went there.  Some of the Finn guys were there, too.  It was quite the amusing shopping trip.  The funnest time at Safeway I've ever had.  Just thinking about it makes me laugh!!

After Safeway, we headed back to the motel . . . having a lot of fun as we went!!

Emma, Louise, Josefine, Tara, Tanja, Sari, Me, & Josefin

When we got back, some of the girls asked if we wanted to play volleyball, so we took our stuff to our rooms and headed out into the grassy field behind the motel to play volleyball.  Fun times, I'm tellin' ya!

(Stole the pictures from Rachel since I didn't take any that day.)

We were there until about 11:00 until we had to be in the lobby . . . to make sure everyone was there I guess?  Anyways, we were in there for a while until most everyone said good night and headed to bed.  Except some of us . . . well, we didn't go to bed right away!!  We were just standing around outside for a bit.  First, we were watching the boys being crazy.  It was absolutely hilarious!  They were climbing up the rails and throwing suitcases up and having another guy catch it and climbing on the roof and climbing in and out of their bedroom window.  Oh my!  Ha. Ha!  (Okay . . . am I even supposed to share that? :p ) After they finished with their fun, we played some volleyball in the front parking lot.  That is, until we got yelled at for being too loud (Sorry, Sir!) and headed across the street to the empty Subway parking lot and played volleyball there.  And then we said good night.  For real this time.  And all went to bed.  Until the next morning . . . .

And more later on that:)

Have a wonderful day!