Travel approval and Consulate Appointment!

It's been a busy week this week.  On Monday morning we received our Travel approval!  The very next day we had a confirmed Consulate appointment and were able to secure our International flights.  We are still in the process of working on our in country itinerary and should hopefully have it all done in the next few weeks.  We have lots to get done before we leave in 45 days!   We leave on 11/3/14 and return on 11/22/14.  Conor will celebrate his 16th Birthday while we are in China.  We are also in the midst of completing our travel website and I will be posting the link soon so that everyone can follow our time in China!

Conor's camp and Seaside

We picked up Conor on friday from camp.  This is his third year at this camp.  Its put on by Chris Dudley who was a player on Trail Blazer team, he also has type 1 diabetes. So it's also a basketball camp on top of a diabetic camp.  Conor was finally old enough to play on the bottom courts.  So he played against kids up to 17 years old.  We watched him in the championship game and he did really good, he was much more aggressive than he's been and his team won.  We ate lunch and watched the awards and then if was off to Seaside.  We've stayed in Seaside each year because it's only an hour away from his camp.  We went shopping and then checked into the hotel.  Steve took the kids swimming while I got ready for the evening.  The hotel has a wine/beer and snack between five and six so we stopped in before we headed out to meet Steve's friend for dinner.  We ate at Seaside Brewing company and had a great visit with Steve's friend BJ and his family.  We walked on down the street for icecream afterwards.  We slept in a little the next morning, ate a good breakfast that the hotel served.  The kids wanted to ride the six seater bike so we rode around Seaside for an hour.  Steve ran into a co-worker on our way back.  We visited again with Steve's friends family and then headed down the coastline.  We stopped in at Tilamook Cheese factory for some lunch and ice-cream, then off to our house.

 This is Conor's team playing in the championship game

 Chase was so happy to see his brother

 Zoe told Conor that she missed him so much

 Conor getting his award

 Ready to walk to dinner

 Ice-cream after dinner

 The mermaid that a guy made on the beach

 Our morning ride

Day 7 San Francisco

Today we had a short ride to Downtown San Francisco.  It was scary maneuvering in downtown and finding a parking spot.  Steve's van is taller than most parking garages.  Finally we found the perfect spot but it cost us a little more money.  We bought tickets to do the double decker buses tour.  We stopped for a quick lunch at Mcdonalds and then caught the bus at the first stop.  We rode the bus until the Golden Gate Bridge and then walked across the bridge.  The walk was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be.  Zoe was tired and Steve ended carrying her part of the time.  We made it though!  After walking across we continued the bus tour.  We got off at the last stop and found the Rainforest Cafe we had spotted earlier  It was a cool dinner with Elephants right behind us while we ate. This was another first for grandma and grandpa.  We could have done without the bill though, over a hundred dollars for the meal.  We then walked to Pier 39 so that Parker could get his drum sticks from Hard Rock Cafe.  I learned that AAA gets you a 10% discount here!  Chase got some golf balls and Conor a knife, Zoe a mirror makeup compact.   Now were relaxing in our hotel room and washing some laundry.

 

Silver Falls

Sunday we met up with the Exchange program and had Echo's exit interview.  We had a picnic lunch and then hiked down to the falls.