Home At Last

For those of you few readers that I have, if you are wondering what the heck is going on with the blog with all the empty posts, I’ll tell you what's up.  Last week while we were in Oregon some punks broke into my truck and stole my day bag with my laptop, journals, kids journals, all of our national park passports, about 25 postcrossing postcards that we had received, a variety of notepads and travel handouts, my mom’s camera, and other small things.  I had blogged and journaled and put all my pictures on the laptop for all these posts, but hadn’t uploaded because of lack of internet service.  Now I have no journals, no pictures, and no computer.  The sheriff’s office notified me yesterday that the journals and miscellaneous papers had been recovered, and they will be returned to me after they are processed as evidence (no time line on this as of yet).  Some other good news is that Daddy is working on recovering some of the pictures from the memory cards that had been erased.  Also, I had placed an online order of some of the first trips pictures before we left,  I’m waiting on the cd of that order to arrive in the mail. 
Now we are just trying to get resettled at home (we came home to a broken fridge that had leaked on the hardwood floor and warped it).  It is the second week of the school year for us, since I like to start August 1st.  There is lots to do and lots to catch up on.  The to-do list just grew about 10 feet with the loss of the computer and the food in the fridge.  One good thing about it, it will give me a chance to throw away all the condiments that have been in there for who knows how long and start with a clean and empty fridge for the first time in 8 years!  Ah, the silver lining.
I'll have to really sit down and digest the traveling that went on this last month, from July 5th to August 5th, I was only home for 6 days.  We traveled around the entire state of Washington, and then the entire state of Oregon.  We drove over 4,000 miles, camped in 7 campgrounds and slept at one rest stop :).  We saw tidepools in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, along the Washington Coast all the way to Cape Arago in Southern Oregon.  We saw volcano's from Mt. Baker to the north, Mts Rainier, St. Helens, Adams, Hood, Jefferson, Three Sisters, Newberry, and Crater Lake to the south.  Collected shells along countless beaches.  Visited more state parks then we can remember.  Visited Fort Clatsop, Lewis and Clarks winter encampment, and Fort Stevens which was built during the Civil War.  Visited aquariums, science centers, and the Oregon Zoo in Portland.  So many memories were made.  I'm so thankful that I have a supportive husband who is okay with his girls taking off on adventures, and tolerant of going along on his "vacation."
So, enough for now, there is a lot of laundry to be done (even though I think I wore the same 4 outfits for the entire month we were traveling), lots of unpacking to do, and major reorganization of the house to do.  We are all safe and healthy and ready to relax before we start any more adventures!