Oregon

If you want to be shown a good time, go visit Jess and Derek in Aloha!  The twelve hours in the car brought back so many memories of vacations to Spokane.  Maybe it's just the way the Northwest is, but driving around Portland and where the Stott's live felt so much like driving around Grandma and Grandpa Blackhurst's twenty years or so ago.

The biggest difference in our trip verses trips to Washington was that the girls got to watch movies on these little DVD players.  Kept them happy, distracted and entertained.  We tried not to keep them going the whole time, but they certainly were appreciated by all!  I'll have to ask Dad if we were uber annoying, asking if we were there yet five minutes into the trip, and again and again and again long before we arrived.  Lydia asked if we were close early on and then continually noted that we were very far from home.

Jess texted a few hours before we were to reach Aloha and offered us dinner, so we joined Jess and Derek and Derek's sisters and nephew for some scrumptious chicken enchiladas, a recipe I must have!  Then Jess and Derek joined us at the hotel for a swim in the pool.  Lydia was keeper of the stairs, but reluctantly left her safety net to rescue Uncle Derek several times.  You couldn't tell by Sophie's expression, but I think she was enjoying herself for the most part.  Sophie Sophie.  She has one incredible poker face!  But more on that later.  Swimming was the perfect way to end a long day in the car and start our vacation.

The next day we took it pretty easy in the morning and then met the Stott's for lunch at Popeye's.  The girls were not a fan of the food, but Jon felt like it rivaled KFC in it's chickeny goodness.  Outside it was pretty moist and drizzly; the perfect day to spend inside a museum.  Derek suggested the OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) and it didn't disappoint!  I'm not sure who had more fun... Jon or the girls... We all really enjoyed ourselves, but the girls especially once we moved on from the the exciting dinosaur exhibit.  They liked excavating for dinosaur bones and shading over fossils, but the large life like dinosaurs were terrifying!  We might have pushed things a little bit too far with Sophie, but she was so cute and handled it all quite well despite her parents.

Some highlights from the rest of the afternoon included bottle rockets, Lego towers that were built to withstand earthquakes (Jon totally rocked this one; of course he did!), sailboats that floated down stream, stations that showed the earth's gravitational pull and centrifugal force (Lydia didn't want to leave the former and Jon had a hard time moving on from the latter), a sandbox, a water station (don't the girls look awesome in their smocks?!) and this contraption the demonstrated airflow.  I loved watching the girls try to catch the floating ball!  Another great day that ended with a pizza party.

Sunday we joined Jess and Derek at church and I was completely caught off guard when this cute Filipino called out my name!  One of the Sister missionaries from my mission married one of my District Leaders and they live in Beaverton and are in the Stott's Ward.  Who knew?!  Church was wonderful.  Lydia had a great time in nursery playing with three little pigs.  They were bigger than the ones she has misplaced at home, and I think they were just what she needed.  Sophie slept the whole time, and we just really enjoyed being with family.  Derek's mom invited us to join them for dinner. We didn't know that the Sister missionaries had been invited as well!  The food was excellent and so was the company.  It was so fun to spend time with the Stotts!  Our girls fell in love with little Gretchen (their itty bitty dog) and Raja, the kitten (that was at least four times bigger than Gretchen).  Sophie was so giddy happy when she was anywhere near that kitty and Lydia would have been happy to pet him all vacation long, though it became clear that Raja had other plans.

Monday morning we headed to Multnomah Falls.  Being Labor Day, and knowing that Jess had an interview later that day, we left earlier than we might have otherwise.  We were so glad we did because after we'd hiked up, enjoyed the Falls and returned to where we started, the place was packed.  On a side note, driving out there after Jess and Derek had told us the name of the Falls, Jon and I could not for the life of us remember what they'd said, and wondered if we had even heard it correctly in the first place.  Melanoma Falls?  That didn't seem right.  Mulch had stood out to me.  Mulch-noma?  I don't think so.  So we decided to document the memory by taking our picture next to the sign.
 

 The hike was wonderful.  The Falls were beautiful.  I'm quite certain all of our expectations were met.  Lydia started requesting we go hiking months ago.  She'd gotten it into her head that she needed to go hike on a trail, and even though we reminded her several times on our hike up that we were on a trail, I think she knew that, and was entirely happy about it.  Perhaps she just wanted to make sure.  She walked most of the way up, except when Jon, and then Uncle Derek carried her in the hiking backpack, and a significant part of the way down.  I think her favorite moments were when she got to be propelled between two of us as we lifted her up and swung her forward.  Sophie, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind the hike, but she simply put up with the hiking backpack.  She clearly didn't want to be in it, but besides her grumpy face we'd never have known it otherwise.  She didn't complain and eventually  fell asleep for the bumpy descent.  That might have been her real issue because once she woke up she was much cheerier.  And at the bottom we enjoyed some delicious fudge.  Or fludge, according to Lyds.

We spent the afternoon walking around Tualatin Park with Derek and Jess.  It was beautiful!  So green and dense.  If we lived in Portland I'd love to go running there.  Lydia found some leaves to add to the acorn and leaf collection she started on her walk with Jon and Sophie Sunday morning.  Then we headed to The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner.  Our girls inhaled their pasta; one of the best meals, according to them, of our whole trip.  Derek's family invited us to their family home evening.  It was so fun to see them interacting!  And they made us feel so welcome while we were there.

Tuesday morning we  drove to Cannon Beach and one could argue that it was the Best Day Ever!  It's possible that had we gone there our first day, we might not have gone anywhere else.  The skies were clear, the temperature was pleasant and the sand was irresistible.  Lydia didn't seem able to walk more than a yard before she felt the need to plunge her fingers in the sand.  Sophie has developed this fantastic shuffle.  We call it the Sophie shuffle.  I can't get enough!  And that poker face I mentioned earlier?  She totally gets this smirky smile that kills me when she finally cracks!  I don't know if she just wants us to die wondering what she's thinking or if she's working on developing a killer poker face, but either way, it's entirely entertaining.  I imagine she works pretty hard to keep her face so expressionless. And her sand beard!  Amazing!  The seagulls, however, brought out the most giddy giggles in Soph.  She loved finding them and loved pointing them out to all of us.  I think she could have gone home happy after seeing those seagulls.  Lydia worried that the ocean would grab her and was not fond of how noisy the waves were, but before she distanced herself from the water and us, she found great enjoyment in destroying all of Jon's creations.  She just loved to knock over anything he packed together!  In fact that was how I lured her back to where the rest of us were.  She seemed determined to upturn every bit of moist sand (it began raining while we went for lunch and met up with Derek and Jess) she came in contact with on her way to the hill leading off the beach.  She actually made it quite far before I caught up to her.  And her tracks in the sand were amazing.  All. Over. The. Map.  I'm so glad she loved the sand.  Our destroying daughters.  I gave all the credit to Lydia for knocking things over, but Sophie clearly enjoyed collapsing sand piles just as much.

Before the sun came out again

Lydia tracks, escaping the noisy water

 Oh!  And the creps!  Just before we headed back to our hotel we stopped to enjoy them. They were delicious.  That is all.

And that was our trip!  It was perfect.  We could easily have spent much longer there, and it was horrible saying goodbye to Jess and Derek, but we sure have some great memories!