Alyssa, Engagement, and the Fall

Well, for me, it has been a wonderful couple of months. I was able to pick my daughter up in Texas at the beginning of August. Her and I had a great road trip back to Oregon. Of course, I made it fun by stopping at water parks along the way, and filling her in on the all the road trip knowledge I had gained traveling almost every road between Oregon and Texas while Jake and I went back and forth to college at LeTourneau.

 She was a great travel companion, and was the photographer for the trip. That started when I noticed she was not doing well with the idea of leaving her mother back in Texas, and she drove with me northward. So...I decided to giver her my camera to past the time. Well, it worked. She took over 2,000 photo's of things between Texas and Oregon. Of course all I had to do was to keep the batteries fresh, and delete a couple hundreds of pictures along the way to make sure she had enough room on the SD card to keep taking photo's. Here are a few of her photo's.

Wind Turbines in southern Col. Not too bad for a 6 year old taking a photo, huh?? :)

Alyssa took a lot of pictures of the back of my head...this is one of the one's I kept.

Alyssa and I picked flowers along the way. :)

Driving 5,000 miles in 4 days kinda wore her daddy out going through the Rockies.

When we arrived here in Oregon, our first stop was Suttle Lake, near Sisters, OR. All of my family was there, so everyone was happy to see Alyssa, as it had been a while since they had last seen here. Mostly her cousin's were very happy to see her....of course her Grammie and Pops were pretty darn excited too!

Ready to go swimming!!!

Kate had a lot of extra hands when she asked "who wants to help me build a fire?"

Alyssa being taught how to build a fire.

Alyssa's first hot dog over a campfire.

I couldn't resist putting this one in here. I am proud of this one.

Old logs make for wonderful photo's sometimes.

The "hiking crew"...minus me of course.

Of course...we had to stop and take some dam pictures. :)

Of course...Alyssa had to try an elephant ear...her first, and who better to introduce Alyssa to them....Kate. I think we had to go back for a second one. She loved them.

The three cousins, minus a fourth...Rachel. :(

Daddy and Alyssa, monkey'n around.

She loved the Polar Bears!

Strong men, soft hearts.

Kate, Alyssa and I had a beach road trip. This is one of the waterfalls along the way.

This being just one of my favorites.

This is probably THE FAVORITE!

We stopped in Tillamook before getting to Oceanside. This is the tunnel on the beach in Oceanside, OR.

Alyssa informed me that pirates are on beaches, and she is wearing a pirate shirt, being that it is striped. lol

Yay!! Tidal pools!! They do not have these in Texas.

This is Alyssa...I mean, the photo seemed to capture her personality.

Two hams at the ocean!!

Old man of the sea teaching what he knows about the ocean...took 5 minutes. :)

It was nice to have her old enough to where she wanted to sit and listen to me talk about life. This was a special time for the both of us, and Kate stood back and took photos.

I have some cuties in my life...I am a lucky man.

Well, all in all...we had a great time. Shortly after this, I made another trip down to Texas to drop Alyssa off in Texas. Although, on the drop off trip, Kate was able to come with me for some driving support. All together I put 10,000 miles on my car in a little over two weeks! By the grace of God...not one problem with the car. In fact, I was able to get 600 miles on one tank!! I was very impressed!!

The next big event is that as most of you know, I met Kate and the Singing Christmas Tree last year. Well, Kate and I are in that again this year, and I kind of wanted to ask her to marry me at the Singing Christmas Tree retreat in Cannon Beach, OR, which was were we first got to talk to each other. So...this year, I got down on one knee and asked her to be my wife. She said yes!! So...now we are busy trying to find a place to get married, and then pick a date! It has been hectic, but no matter how stressed I get, I am so proud to have Kate as my fiance, and I am looking forward to her being my wife.

Well, that about catches you all up with what I have been up to. Kate and I have the Singing Christmas Tree performaces coming up around Thanksgiving, and then comes Christmas, ect. So...I will try and write some more. I hope you enjoy the photos.

Alyssa's Trip To Oregon

So, for the past two weeks, I have been blessed with the company of my daughter! That is right, after a long time of not being able to see her, she has come to Oregon. I was able to travel down to Texas to pick her up. Now...tomorrow night, I(along with Kate) will be traveling back down to Texas to return her to her mother. We have had so much fun. So much fun, that blogspot had actually slipped my mind.

Now, I am lying here in bed, the night before she goes home, and I am pondering all the wonderful things that we did, and what better way to do so, then to write it out. Plus, this way, my readers have something to read other then bad things that happen in the world today.

Two weekends ago, on the 30th of July, I left to go pick her up. I drove by myself down to Dallas, TX where I would be staying with my friend Victor. I had to wait a couple of days to pick her up. Luckily...God had other things in mind, and things worked out and were compromised enough to where I was traveling back with her Sunday afternoon instead of Monday. Which means, I was able to reach Oregon sooner, and that meant Alyssa had more time camping with my family at Suttle Lake. That was a lot of fun. Since the saying goes..."a picture is worth 1,000 words"....I will leave it at that, with this summary. We went to the lake, the beach and the zoo....these are those pictures. ;)

Kate and Alyssa cooking hot dogs over an open fire.

Daddy with his Squirmy(nickname for Alyssa). :)

An image I could not live without.

The three cousins....we are missig Rachel. :(

Uncle David, Auna, Daddy and Alyssa look at monkeys at the zoo.

Alyssa and I dressed like apes. lol

A waterfall off Hwy 6 towards Tillamook.

Alyssa took this photo of Kate and I....pretty darn good, huh?!! :)

Not too sound too presumptious...but these two got along together like peas and carrots. LOL

There is nothing like a Tillamook Chocalate Chip Mint ice cream to make you smile. :)

We finally arrive in Oceanside!! Time to take off our footwear and relax...or will we? :)

I was informed by one of my party that there could be buried pirate treasure in here...so look around. :)

Wow...as a father...I love this picture. Thanks Kate.

Another hole to crawl inside...looking for buried treasure of course! :P

Teaching her about the ways of the sea. :)

One of my favorite times on the beach were the 15 minutes we just sat and talked, about the waves, the birds...and then how thirsty we all were. LOL

The three of us at the Cape Mears light house. It was a lot of fun.

Overall, we had a great time. As a man, who is in love with a woman, and WAS concerned about his daughter meeting his girlfriend....things went wonderful. In fact...Kate alone had a slumber party with Alyssa, went shopping bby themselves, and had a great time getting to know each other the few days that I was called to work. I took over 400 pictures in two weeks, and I doubt I will be deleting very many of them, well.....at least not for a couple months anyways. LOL

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Have a great day!!