Oregon Trip

The girls and I invited ourselves along on a trip to Oregon with my parents.  They were headed up for my nephew's 12th birthday and we joined in on the fun.  It had been about 3 years since our last trek to Oregon and another visit was long overdue.  This was also Eva's first trip out of state (unless you count the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe!).

Thanks to my dad's huge truck we all fit comfortably in one vehicle, the girls and I got some quality bonding time up and down I-5.  Poor Eva's face didn't look so hot, her sensitive skin has major reactions to mosquito bites.

The trip up wasn't too bad, we started late on Wednesday and made it as far as Yreaka.  We had planned on making it to Medford but we had some traffic trouble in Red Bluff, they had temporarily closed I-5!  There were power lines down across the road and so we hit some major traffic, this was also when Allyson requested her first pit stop.  Inching along I-5 on a bridge, I did my best to distract her and put off her requests and she made it to a well placed rest stop.  The rest of the drive was much less eventful, and we were so happy to finally make it to Uncle James's house in Tigard.

Friday Jimmy and Tiara had school but we headed up to the Columbia Gorge for some sightseeing.  Our first stop was Vista House at Crown Point.  You get a spectacular view of the gorge, and over into Washington.

We drove along the gorge stopping to check out some of the waterfalls.  There are so many, and they were all just amazing.

Ally enjoyed getting out and exploring.  She even pretended she was one of the goats from The Billy Goat's Gruff crossing over one of the foot bridges.

Multnomah is by far the most dramatic waterfall we visited (and the most popular).  This is where James and Luwanna were married, so it was the one place on the gorge I had been to before.  The falls were very impressive, equally impressive were the crowds.  We somehow timed our visit with a school field trip.

Saturday Jimmy had a track meet, so we headed over to watch his events.  During the waiting Allyson appropriated Eva's stroller and informed us she was feeding her baby doll.  That girl.  I love how she pulled the sun shade down for privacy.

Grandma asked Ally to help her decorate one of Jimmy's presents that was too big to wrap.  Eva wanted in on the fun and had a blast "coloring" with a marker lid.  She was seriously so excited and she really thought she was coloring.  She just wants to be doing what all the big kids are doing.

Sunday we all got to go to church together.  I loved that their church was just a few blocks away, the simple things in life.  Eva was her usual wiggly self but made it through church.  Allyson loved primary, she wasn't shy about going to primary at all.  When we went to pick her up from her class she didn't want to leave, it did help that they had some pretty good snacks.

Sunday was a special day because Jimmy was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood.  He had lots of family come to support him, he is a well loved boy.  This is also a picture of three generations of James I still can't get used to people calling Jimmy James.  I am afraid he will be Jimmy to us for a long time.

Sunday evening we made a quick visit to the Portland Temple.  James and Luwanna are so lucky, they seriously live 5 minutes from the temple.  We checked out the new visitors center and Ally loved the interactive computers.  

Ally always wants to push Eva in the stroller, she got her wish and Eva got to take a few laps around the temple grounds.

Oregon seriously has some gorgeous flowers, they were everywhere.  I guess when you get tons of rain you get big beautiful flowers all around.

We were sad to leave on Monday but it was time to head back home.  We did the whole trip in one day, one very long day.  Kids require extra stops and that just makes the trip longer, I think we were traveling for 12 hours.  The girls were troopers, not perfect but really good considering the circumstances. 

We stopped at a really fun park in Canyonville, OR to let the girls stretch and play.  Eva loved trying to climb up this slide, it was pretty funny since she never made any progress.

When we were about 30 minutes from home we were teasing Ally that we should turn around and head back to Oregon.  Much to our surprise she thought it would be a great idea.  She was the only one, the rest of us were pretty tired and couldn't wait to be home at that point.  She didn't want the fun to be over.