Camping at the Umpqua...in August.

I am so far behind it actually almost IS funny... hahaha... Anyway, here's hoping I'm gonna be caught up with the summer blogging soon and can dazzle you with more up-to-date stuff. Hahaha, again.

In August, thereabout the middle or so, we flew up to Seattle from Texas and then drove down to southern Oregon for the annual Jentzsch Family Camping Trip along the Umpqua River. The Jentzschs being Z's mom and her some of her siblings, and the many, many children/grandchildren. This has been going on since Z was a wee tyke, and will probably go on forever.

Here's Nuala and I going down the Falls. Fun, fun, fun!

She wasn't as enthusiastic about it as last year, but enjoyed it nonetheless! That link takes you to the vid of her going down last year, and just because, here is the link to the post with pics of them going down last year when they were 2-1/2. They were so cute! Cousin Alex went down this year, and he just turned 2 in April, so there are definitely some brave little souls in this group!

Muffin Man hanging out in his tube...

Maevsters hanging out in the big orange boat.

Add a one-day-older cousin, Gracie, and the cuteness multiplies!

Uncle Ben (Z's cousin and partner-in-crime from way-back-when) and Nuala.

Bran and Daddy, taking a break from playing hard.

This! Ha. Well, here we have Ben. Lookin' good, as usual. But the real story is BEHIND him. Yes, tucked back there, by his chiseled elbow, is a group of bongo-playing hippies. If you could look closely, which you can't, thankfully, you would see that the women are topless. But that's not The Story. Here is The Story.

Every year we, and plenty of other people, play on this beach. It's got a good little run of rapids, it has a nice shallow area, a big-ish beach. Dumont, it's called. And it's perfect, especially for a bunch of little kids. To get to this beach, you walk through a group of campsites. Well, apparently sometimes the people camping in these sites get the notion that Dumont is their own private little beach. And apparently, this group of people had that notion. When we first got there, the first day camping, they were nice enough as we (all women and little kids, as the guys and older ones had set out to tube from our camp farther upriver and were going to just hop out there at Dumont) filed past them. They mentioned they had little ones napping and we made sure to keep everyone nice and quiet. We were very polite, etc., etc. We got down to the beach and spread out our things, and there was PLENTY of room for everyone. Plenty. At least, WE thought so. Apparently, they didn't.

I was sitting talking to Aunt Pat when it happened. Two girls and a guy -- the bongo leader up above -- came trooping right past us. I glanced up and said, "hi" and realized something was off... Turned out something WAS off, literally. Um, ALL their clothes. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, EWWWWW! Pat and I just were in shock. I mean, we saw it all. Wow. Not cool. Basically they were trying to run us off the beach. Long story short, the three of them went past the beach and were playing down where all the rest of our party would be tubing in. Including a bunch of young boys and girls, ages 3-16. Zac and Ben and Bran and Nuala came down first and caught an eyeful. The three nakeds immediately started yelling at them that they "weren't doing anything illegal!" etc, etc. Anyway, they were big jerks. Eventually they put their bottoms on, but the girls stayed topless, and then they started playing their bongos. They weren't very good.

Also, the previously-naked dude (who really shouldn't have been displaying his goods quite so proudly, if you know what I mean...) later tried telling various members of our party that Dumont was THEIR beach b/c they were camping there, etc, etc, and we should pay some of the camping fees. Jerk. And whatever. AND we told the ranger (tongue sticking out here) who told us it was definitely illegal to be nude where they were at and that it was a public beach, etc. He was pretty ticked at them and went and set them straight. It musta worked, too, because we went back not the next day but the following and they were actually quite cordial. And more importantly, dressed. I bet the scrawny previously-naked guy was embarrassed. He soooo should have been. Looking back, though, we were all kicking ourselves for not filing a report or pressing charges, because they (the dude particularly) totally exposed themselves to minors. I mean, my 9-yr old niece hadn't wanted to go tubing and was on the beach when naked guy (and girls) went strolling past. Total exposure, the jerk. Not to mention the other littler kids, and all us poor ladies who were unfortunate enough to witness that. Grrr.... getting ticked again. Anyway. Bongo drums. Yeah. *cleansing breath* Okay, moving on...

A yog! I mean, a log! I have to call logs "yogs". Hunter (the big boy on the yog, who's now 13) and Rylee (now 12) were always running around yelling about this "yog" and that "yog" when they were little guys. Now they do usually say "log", but there's a whole 'nother slew of kiddos who call 'em "yogs." So cute.

Bugsy in her cool pink tube. Just a floatin' around. The water was cooold, so she preferred to perch on top of the tube when it it for a long time.

I love this one! It looks like Mi'a and Nuala are doing some sort of synchronized tube dance thing... Got the matching life jackets and everything! They probably were.

Grandma Buttons encouraging her little grandkiddos to swim to her. Quite the bunch of water babies out there!

Hunter. Yeah. Nice pepperonis.

Here's the fun little run of rapids at Dumont. Nuala at the top of them...

in the middle...

And the end! No tipping out that time! She didn't mind falling out so much, actually, when it did happen.

Bran at the top...

And the end! Also a successful run!

Nuala, our crazy girl! She saw one of the big ones... Uncle Ben, I think, body surfing the rapids and right away said, "I want to do that!" And she did. A couple of times. I'm not even too fond of body surfing these ones (they're really rocky) and I like stuff like that. And I'm way bigger than her. She's very cool :)

I love this shot of them! They're so little, and their little train is just really cute. They did get tumbled a few times on these, but they had a lot of fun!

Z and Ben!

Bran and Mi'a gettin' ready to snorkel.

Nuala after a long day of playing. She fell asleep in the car on the 5-minute drive back to camp and was not a happy camper... Haha! Literally! She really WAS camping, and she was really NOT happy! Oh, so hilarious.

These next few are out of order. They all should have been before the above ones, but they're not. Obviously. On our way down to Oregon, we stopped at Mt. St. Helen's and went through some caves and lava tubes. Poppie was a good strong packhorse and was able to lug kids around quite a bit. They loved it.

Inside a big cave.

McKenna, Gma Buttons, Z and Maeve. Yeah, they're a fun bunch!

Me emerging from a lava tube we dubbed "the rabbit hole". Heidi and I found it. We are awesome explorers/discoverers.

Oh yeah. Nuala stood up too early while exiting "the rabbit hole". It apparently was not a pleasant experience. But awwww! Look how concerned Lilly was!

Then she wanted to go through again, but only if she held onto Daddy's feet so she wouldn't re-bonk her noggin.

Bran was able to successfully navigate his way out.

Gathered around the campfire near Mt. St. Helen's. We camped there one night on the way down to Oregon. The bathrooms were amazing. I mean, at least our campsite in Oregon had an outhouse and we didn't have to go find a poor bush out behind the tent or anything, but the bathrooms here... wow. Sinks, hot water, SHOWERS (which none of us used. I mean, we WERE camping!) Gigantic spiders in all the stalls, but that's a small price to pay in my opinion.

Beautiful! This is near Mt. St. Helen's. Fun times, fun times, indeed... And! Up next: MORE of our Seattle visit.