Our Trip to Oregon - Part 1

After hours of driving, we returned from our WONDERFUL trip to the Oregon coast Monday at about 4:30 in the morning. We had the greatest time together as a family and it was fabulous to be able to spend the weekend with Nels's family. It's always so great to be able to see them all and have that time together building relationships and being friends. I cannot even express how grateful I am for having such fabulous in-laws. I love and respect them all so much. I know a lot of people who don't get along with their spouse's family and I thank the Lord every day that I married into such a great family. It is so fun to get to know each of them and every year when we get together I come away so happy to have them as part of my life and as a part of my children's lives! Thanks guys for always making me feel a part of the family!

SO - that being said, we'll get down to the pictures! :) I'm going to have to divide this into a couple different parts so that I don't have the longest post ever. So we'll start . . . at the beginning! :)

We got to Portland Thursday afternoon. We left Mnt. Home at about 4:30 am. I was genuinely concerned about the trip - especially with Elsie being so little and having to still face backward, but it actually was such a great time! We took only one REAL stop - and by the time we made it to Portland, we hadn't even had ONE meltdown!!!! Now THAT is news! It was a fabulous little trip and the drive into Portland was stunning. I say INTO Portland because most of the trip is actually very plain and desert-ish, but the drive from The Dalles down into Portland is GORGEOUS! I told Nels (the same way I did the last time we made this trip 5 years ago) that if we ever needed a new place to live, I would be just fine with living along the Columbia River in Oregon. I particularly liked the city of Hood River.

So back to my narration - :) - we made one pit-stop at the Bonneville Dam to have some lunch and change the girls out of their jammies. They had a wonderful visitor's center there with some really great windows under water where you could watch the fish (mostly salmon and sturgeon) swimming up the ladders to go around the dam. It was SO COOL! I did not know that salmon could get that big! Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures - but I would really love to stop there again! The girls loved it!

From there we finished our drive into Portland and went straight to the Portland Zoo. The zoo was great ----- we were really hot and really tired and it was really crowded ---- but it really was fun!

Sea lion working for his lunch! He was SO

persistent getting the fish and
squid out of this water jug!

Always love elephants! Elsie now
spits if you ask her what an elephant says! :)

Everyone kept commenting on how I had the girls all dressed the same! :) I don't think I really meant to, it was just so much easier to keep track of them (you know Elsie, always wandering away! ha ha!). It was much easier to just have to look for YELLOW!

After the zoo, we checked into our hotel and headed over to Nels' brother - Levi's - house. It was a lot of fun to see their new condo and to get to meet their new kids! (3 cute little pug-faced children who snort a lot and like to eat cheese! :) Their newest addition, Lola, is a sweet little 1 year old pug that LOVED the girls! She chased them all around (I think waiting for them to give her more potato chips!) and the girls giggled and giggled about all their funny little antics! :) Kadie (Levi's wonderful wife) didn't get to stick around for too long, as she had to go meet up with the dog-sitter, but Levi cooked us up some fantastic hamburgers and we had a great time taking a little breather after a long day in the car.