My Birthday and Mother's Day: Visit to Tillamook Oregon

I decided to celebrate my birthday and Mother's Day with my family and my parents in Tillamook Oregon. My birthday was on May 10th and Mother's Day was May 12th, so we decided to go May 11th to celebrate.

My parents live in Sweet Home Oregon and we live in Rainier Oregon, so for both of us it was about a 3 hour drive give or take a little bit. My family were coming from different ways to Tillamook than my parents and so we planned on meeting at the Tillamook Cheese Factory for lunch. On their way to Tillamook...guess what...my dad got lost (He is notorious for doing so and I think a Magellan GPS might be a great present for him for Father's Day! We have one and love it!).

While we were waiting for my parents to arrive we went and to see the Cape Meares Lighthouse and Wildlife Refuge along the Oregon Coast. We hiked up a trail to see the Octopus Tree first. The hike was really nice and not too much for Teela and Zari. When we got to the Octopus Tree someone offered to take a whole family shot in front of it. We all loved the scenery and spectacular views over the cape.

We then went inside to tour the Cape Meares Lighthouse. It has a delightful little gift shop inside the bottom floor and then you take some spiral stairs up to the beacon tower lantern house. We learned from the guide that this lighthouse had some vandalism in 2010 and back in 1963 while it was vacant for a number of years to the gorgeous Fresnel (pronounced "Fraynel") lens and the building itself. It is very unfortunate that people would want to harm such a wonderful historic building and I am very happy we got to see it.

After the tour we hiked up a different trail to the parking lot and we saw the Three Arch Rocks out in the distance. The Three Arch Rocks Refuge is home to Oregon's largest seabird nesting colony. We saw a number of wildlife including a Millipede the girls stopped to look at.

Finally we met up with my parents at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and by that time my tummy was growling of hunger. My parents had brought sandwiches, chips, juice, fresh fruit & veggies and deviled eggs in a cooler. We sat around a tree on park benches and ate a very nice picnic.

Then we went inside the factory to explore. They have a lot of neat things to look at and some fun stuff to pose with. While we were downstairs briefly, before we headed upstairs, my kids posed in the plywood cow and farmer cutout with their heads poking through. Teela is a very cute moo, don't you think?

Upstairs we could watch the process of packaging cheese through a viewing window and we could also see the large cheese vats that they mixed the cheese into in another viewing area. Upstairs they also had some interactive video consoles that played the history of the factory and Tillamook city. They also had some antique cheese making equipment behind glass in cabinets that you could see.

Back downstairs again we sampled some various cheeses and then headed on over to the ice cream parlor to have some delicious authentic Tillamook creamery ice cream in waffle cones. I had black cherry and it was so yummy! The kids all had mint chocolate chip and the others had different flavors. Teela and Zari had to have a bowl under theirs because it melted quickly and was dripping...I got them a couple of spoons to help them along. Then my boys goofed off in the Loaf Love Tour Bus for silly pictures.

After lunch and dessert we decided to go see the Munson Creek Falls. We were really enjoying the weather. It had held out for us and didn't rain at all while we were in Tillamook for our day trip. Unfortunately by the time we arrived Zari had fallen asleep in the van in her car seat. My husband, Brian, decided he would stay behind until she awoke because he was feeling the ill effects of all this walking in conjunction with his Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) and needed to sit for a while anyway. The rest of us walked up the trail to the Munson Creek Falls and were enjoying all the lush green around us. There was this awesome gigantic tree that had large roots nearby and I got some neat pictures of it as well as the waterfalls and creek. When we got back to where we parked we noticed that Brian had taken Zari to the creek to look at rocks because she had awoke. The kids also had fun racing leaves down the water in the creek.

Next we headed to the beach to round out the day. We saw kelp, seaweed, driftwood and sea shells that had washed up onto the sand. My boys took off their shoes and immediately waded out into the ocean waves. My girls played in the sand together with their sand toys: sifting, shoveling, scooping, packing, dumping, mixing, raking and molding. What fun! Jaedan couldn't help but love it when Delbin wanted him to bury his bottom half in the sand. My mom also got out some special treats when every one was washed up, some chocolate dipped and covered strawberries! Yummy! Brian had found some neat treasures while beach combing: an agate, some whole sand dollars, mussel shells, a piece of coral (I am going to string onto a necklace) and a crab shell.

We brushed the sand off the kids as best we could, said our goodbyes to my parents and my mom gave us a cake she made for Jaedan's birthday party (his birthday is May 15th and we are celebrating with his friends on the 25th) we could freeze when we got home and a yellow butterfly shirt (that reminded me of Fluttershy, an MLP) for my birthday.

We had wanted to do other things too, but ran out of time. My husband was eying the helicopter rides and the paragliding. Maybe next time we are in the area we can do these.

We then climbed into the van for the ride home to our dog, Prince, who was being dog sat by our neighbor while we were away. We had Subway sandwiches on our way home and when we got home we climbed into bed exhausted, but happy. Our day as a family together turned out really well. I had a really nice birthday and Mother's Day outing.

How was your Mother's Day??

DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: No compensation was received for this post. This post is a personal post written by me.

Clip-N-Clamp Multipurpose Holder Review and Giveaway

I received this product for free to facilitate this review.

Clip-N-Clamp is a multipurpose holder that allows one to use cell phones, smart phones, cameras, MP3 music players, GPS, flashlights, and other small hand held devices hands-free. It is basically a heavy duty clip with a 12 inch long adjustable arm on it that you can move and rotate 360 degrees to your needed position. The clamp grips the surface tightly with silicone ends so to not mark up furniture or whatever stable, safe location you have clipped it to, up to an inch thick. This is great for use in your car, van, truck home, kitchen, workshop, office, work, stroller, bicycle, motorcycle, boat, or anywhere else you can think to use it. It comes with one Phone Clip, one Velcro Disk Clip and one Camera Clip.

The Phone Clip works with most smart/cell phones (iPhone, Gallaxy III, etc.) and is a great way to take hands-free calls or hands free pictures with your camera phone. You can clip it somewhere around your center console (usually cupholders, storage compartments, or console walls will do). Simply pull apart the side brackets of the Phone Clip and slide your smart/cell phone inside the clip. My phone was a bit too small so I need to get extra Phone Clip pads. I did try the Phone Clip on my Magellan GPS and I could fit it on one side of it if I turned the clip the opposite way. I liked that it worked this way, but didn't know how long it would last in that position because it was placing a lot of stress on the band that was being stretched in the back of the clip. I might play it safe and use a Velcro Disk Clip instead for my GPS, but I wanted to at least give it a try. I wish they had a wider clip for this purpose.

The Camera Clip is great for point & shoot cameras as a clip on tripod of sorts. My Flip Video Recorder Camera and my digital camera both use the screw on Camera Clip because they both have the handy dandy screw threading on the bottom to mount it to different things. It holds the camera and my Flip Video steady so that I can take pictures for my blog or do some vlogging. You want to tighten the Camera Clip with the thumbwheel as you don't want to loosen the screw on the Clip-on. For larger cameras, such as DSLR, or camcorder, it is recommended that you use the Pro Camera Clip which I didn't receive, but is included with the Mini Clip-N-Clamp.

The Velcro Disk Clip is the most versatile of the clips because you can use it for anything else that the Clip-N-Clamp would actually hold. Just slap the adhesive backed Velcro loop pads onto the back of your device, attach the Velcro Disk Clip to the Clip-N-Clamp, put the Velcro hook and loop pieces together and adjust the Flexarm as needed.

I love the versatility of this multipurpose holder. It helps me so much with my blogging and vlogging. It also is great to take on trips to use with our GPS and MP3 player. I love the hands-free phone option too. The only thing I had trouble with was sometimes finding something it would clip to (up to an inch thick). My kitchen counters and table are too thick for it to clip to. Also the clamp is really hard to open up to clamp it to something, but once it is clamped it is really tight. This is altogether a great product.

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You can purchase the Clip-N-Clamp for $24.95.

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DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: I received product for free to facilitate my review and the opportunity to give another away to my readers. My thoughts are mine and my family's own opinion and have not been altered by anyone else. I did not receive any other compensation for doing this review.