Last week my dad called me up and asked me to go with him to visit his mother in Oregon, given the fact that I'm only working part time at the moment and it wasn't very busy anyways I was able to take my son and go on this little road trip. It's been an exciting trip so far. Three generations of Ashley's able to spend some time together and be a part of Elliott's new experiences as we travel through two states. Our first part of the trip was to Winnemucca, and I have to say I wasn't very excited about that part of the trip. The reason for this was because Sara and I on our way back from our honeymoon in San Francisco stayed here in a motel 6, and that motel 6 was one of the worst motels that I have ever stayed in. Why? You may ask? Well because there were gnats, or some form of that type of bug in every corner AND in the bed! So it wasn't the most pleasant of experiences. This time however it was a little different. Since my dad has more money that I do, we were able to stay in a Days Inn, which was significantly better than the first trip. While there Elliott was all sorts of excited about being at Winnemucca, in fact, now that were here in Grants Pass all Elliott can talk about is going back to Winnemucca. I personally think it's because he likes to say the name.
Our rest station
Elliott waiting to go into our room.
Some of the things we saw on our way to Grants Pass
As you can see, these ranchers were moving a very large herd of cows to pasture. This is just a small portion of the herd we saw and there was poo EVERYWHERE! My sympathies to dad's car.
There were several bulls walking down the road as well but I didn't think it appropriate to post those gents.
When we got to Grandma Ashley's house one of the first things that we got to do was ride four wheelers. Elliott had a blast riding them and would hop from rider to rider so he could keep going.
Elliott watching uncle Rick filling up the tires to the quad
Elliott getting ready to ride with Larry
Elliott rides on
The older Ashley enjoying his ride (which he later payed the price for in his back)
We later went and fed the ducks and played in the park. Here's a video for proof.
These geese were douches, but they posed well for the camera. The white goose in the back hissed and raised it's wings at Elliott when he got too close. The nerve!
Our little side trip through the Redwood forest.
Elliott wanted me to stick my tongue out with him.
Elliott took this picture by himself.I'm impressed with the steady hand and being told to stick my tongue out.
What's not to love about this picture? Grandpa and grandson owning the forest.
A few pics and video of us at the ocean. This was Elliott's first experience at the ocean and I'm pretty sure he loved it. Just call it a hunch.
These are just a few of the cool pictures I took of the coast. I have to say, the Oregon coast has to be my favorite to visit. Just amazing scenery.
I took like eight pictures of these guys. They literally sat at my feet eating crackers I gave them.
I added this one because you can see my fingers at the bottom of the picture. This little guy came up and took the cracker from my hand and then let me pet him. We'll see if that was a good idea; I still haven't contracted any disease from doing so yet.
It wasn't long before Elliott got completely wet and had to take his pants off. I'm sure he was glad to do so and quite frankly I didn't feel like having him wear more clothes than he needed to while chasing the tide.
He was trying to run against the tide here and loving it.
I'm going to apologize right now for the quality of this little video. There were two things going against my camera here. One, the battery was dying and two, this camera picks up the glare of the sun really easily. But other than that it looks kinda like a cool vintage fifties recording. I'm well on my way to becoming a hipster. Thanks dad for getting this filmed.
So I suppose it should be Sara telling you this but I'm the one that does the posting around here so I get to tell you about her little transformation. In my opinion I think it loos really good. It took me a little getting used to but it's pretty rad. She has been wanting to do something different with her hair for quite sometime and so a little while ago she told me she wanted to dye her hair blonde, like platinum blonde. At first I wasn't so sure I would like this that is because I saw a picture of her with blonde hair from 10 years ago, but style can change in ten years right? You know, getting married, having kids and such can change things like style. And yes it has been good. So, ladies and gentlemen without further adieu I give you Sara's new look.
I'm not entirely sure that this is the picture she would have wanted me to pick but it's all I got. Doesn't she look good! I think so. I'm sure that some of you have seen her new do on facebook but for those of you who haven't, you saw it here.
As for me? I haven't changed a darn thing, well maybe my gut, but that's kinda a givin now a days. I think someday I'll work it off...someday.
Finally, I would like to leave off with Elliott and a friend having lunch and Elliott dancing his bum off.
This recording is actually the second recording of Elliott dancing. I can't remember what the first song was, but in the video he's dancing to Ceelo's "Forget You". We have quite the little air guitarist.
I'm thinking that the title of this post should be the title of our blog. All things considered I had no idea that it had been almost a year since I last posted. Why didn't anyone tell me!?...Actually, I'm pretty certain that a few of you namely my sister Rheanna and my mother had mentioned on the rare occasion that I needed to update our blog. Well...wait....hold on Elliott just got up from bed and I have to put him back down. What is it with three year olds and delaying the inevitability of bed time? The only thing they are missing out on is sleep. Don't they understand what a commodity sleep is? Apparently not or else they would be sleeping in until 12. I guess I have to wait until he's thirteen...damn. Ok, hold on. (Noise in background: Elliott! No, there is no more potty runs! Buzz can fly all by himself he doesn't need your help. Wait! No! Keep your underwear on! Why do you insist being naked all the time? Ok, I love you too-goodnight.)
Ok, I'm back. Kids these days, never respecting their parents. I'm told he acts a little bit like me at that age. Hardly. I was the best little runt a parent could ever ask for.
Well since the lot of you are probably wondering what the Ashleys have been up to for the past year I will tell you. Prepare for a long and lengthy, step by step play of the past 12 months.
Elliott has started speaking more coherently, Sara grew an additional 3 inches and enrolled in wilderness survival classes so we should now be good for December 21, 2012 which is, for those of you who don't know is the end of the world and my birthday. Coincidence? I doubt it. !(3#&@ Mayans! always want to put a rain on someone's parade.
We have both started working out and are attempting to lose "some" weight but that isn't going as well as I would like it to. I have one more semester of school left and am looking forward to doing my student teaching this fall. Last semester, woo hoo! It's about time I have a bloody degree. I've spent more time in college than I did high school, something doesn't seem right about that. Anyway! I'm getting side tracked here! So I graduate in December with a teaching certificate ready to teach all sorts of falsehoods to your children like how Fox news is the most accurate place to receive your news, death panels seem to be the most legit way of keeping the population down, and of course you can make a difference in politics, especially as a minority party in Utah. Oops! I got off on a tangent again. Sorry, you guys are reading this to know what we've been up to, not petty rantings on politics. Where's my head. So yes, the Ashleys have been busy. We've taken up mountain biking (actually riding in the mountains and not just on the street with said mountain bikes) one of us has fallen down the side of the mountain trail not once, but twice! Can you guess which one of us it was? I also got involved in playing Dungeons and Dragons, which is, by the way very fun although Sara has threatened to leave me a couple of times as a result of this live action nerdery (not really). Sara continues to play bunco and Elliott makes friends with just about everyone he meets. He's such a social little guy, I don't know where he gets this extroverted personality from. However, I guess now would be a good time to teach him about stranger danger. Look, Elliott. Just because someone offers you candy doesn't mean they're a good person. There, I taught him; I just have to remember to tell him to read this post. We're still consistently poor and living paycheck to paycheck so if anyone would like to buy a 20 year old Lexus let me know :) I think that about sums it all up for us over the past year. Like I said, very exciting and very busy. Sara recently had her birthday and we had a fun little BBQ in her honor. So to make up for that I leave you with this short clip of Elliott reading. I apologize for it cutting out a little early I hadn't cleared the camera's memory yet. Oh, and more pictures will come of only Elliott, because that's they only person everyone really cares about seeing anyway.
The above image is of Elliott playing Temple Run upside down on the couch. What else would it be?
