The newest talent...

Henry has a new talent!! I couldn't be more excited and proud...NOT!! He has learned how to take his clothes off all by himself. Now this could be a helpful talent, but unfortunately he like to take all of his clothes off at inopportune times. Like right as we're walking out the door to the store or when he's suppose to be napping! Luckily he's only taken his diaper off once. I'm hoping his next talent is using the toilet. We'll see....

The Great Northwest Loop-Oregon

On Sunday morning we got our earliest start of the trip. We were up and out of the trailer by about 6:30am and on the road (kids still in PJ's) headed for a new state-Oregon. Neither N8 or I (or the kids) had ever been to Oregon. Our only reservation-you can't pump your own gas!! Crazy isn't it! We made it to our first stop of the day just after lunch in another drizzly/misty rain. We quickly grabbed our umbrellas and headed out to see Multnomah Falls! When I googled things to see in Oregon, Multnomah Falls was always on the list and I know why,  it's gorgeous!

Right in the middle of the bridge is an orange shirt-that's Henry, along with N8, Emma and Bud:

Now they're all of the right end of the bridge!

Next we headed through Mt Hood National Forest. N8 was dying to get a peek of Mt Hood (we had already seen Mr Rainer and Mt Baker on the trip as well):

 

 

Finally we ended the day in Bend,OR where we checked into our hotel and then headed over to another one of my Aunt & Uncles. Two of my cousins and kids were also there. It had been more then 7 years since I had seen any of them. We had a great time visiting and having dinner. The kids loved playing and getting their wiggles out!

 

On Monday morning our trip was almost done! For N8 it was the last day of driving. We were heading back to California. But before we made it to California we had one more major Oregon stop- Crater Lake! It was one of the other "must see in Oregon" things.

It was beautiful, a little chilly, but beautiful! It is a lake that was created by a collapsed volcano that has then been filled with water through rain and snow over thousands of years. And boy do they get snow! We had to pull off for a few snow shots!

 

Can you tell he misses snow?

The beautiful lake!

The entire trip I had been trying to spot a deer (or some other 4 legged animal along the way). As we were leaving Crater Lake I finally saw a deer!

 

We ended the drive by seeing Mt Shasta (and getting a geocache at the view point!)

  

That night we stayed with my sister and then N8 headed to the airport early Tuesday morning to leave for the east coast for work. My sister and shopped the day away and I drove home Wednesday morning.

 My facebook status when we got home was: 3,726 miles, 9 states, loads of visiting family, hotels, campers, lakes, sun burns, etc...and we're home!!

We had an awesome time and loved every minute of it. It's good to be home, but it's hard to get back into the groove of life-maybe next week.

 I think we're all missing this:

The Great Northwest Loop-Washington State!

So after Idaho we began our trek to Washington state. There was a lot of this along the way!

 

 

 We drove through Montana, snagging a few caches including one in Missoula as well as one along the highway in a large bone!! We also stopped in Coeur d'alene, ID at the lake:

That night was stayed in Spokane and N8, Bud and Emma got their first Washington caches. On Thursday morning we headed out and made our first stop at snoqualmie falls, which was only about 25 miles east of Seattle.

Then we headed right into downtown Seattle and went to Pikes Place Market.

 

 

 We took in the sights, smells and sound, saw a few fish through, then headed down a set of stairs to an alleyway. We were one the hunt for a very popular geocache. It was on a wall of gum that was at least 20 feet long and 8 feet high-full of chewed gum!! With a little help from another group also looking for the cache we located in. It was one of the "coolest" caches we've found to date.

Can you see the geocache? It's in there!

We then walked down to the water and found another cache in this sculpture:

Then it was onto the Space Needle. We thought we would take a ride to the top, but in the end we were way too cheap!!  Instead we got pictures with it!

We did decided to take a "Duck Tour" which is a tour of downtown Seattle both on land and in the water in an amphibious vehicle! The kids thought it was awesome!

That night we stayed in Mukilteo,WA, just north of Seattle. For dinner we drove down to the water and got either fish & chip or chicken & chips and ate it on a bench by the water.

 

Then we walked along the beach, which was gorgeous! I love the rocky, drift wood and pine trees. There were loads of people just enjoying the beautiful evening, have small campfires in the pits and viewing the sunset. (We forgot our camera so these were taken with my phone!)

 

On Friday morning it was drizzly, but we still headed over to a park to meet up with Grandpa (N8's dad) and look for a geocache. We didn't have any luck finding it, but had fun in the rain and the park.

Then we were off to the Temple (the reason for heading to Washington in the first place!) for N8's cousins wedding. I stayed out with the kids and worked on trying to get new pictures of them for our wall.

 

It was fun to see N8's uncle and aunt and Mandy looked beautiful!

 

After the wedding we headed up to Bellingham for the reception. We stayed at N8's Uncles house in the pop-up trailer. It was one way to get me "camping"!

 

We spent the next day in Bellingham visitng and doing some laundry. The kids spent a lot of time with the chickens and loved it when the got to hold them!

 We also went to the water as well as the marina to a touch tank. 

 

Then we went to a neat waterfall right in the middle of Bellingham:

We had an awesome time in the Seattle, Bellingham area. I loved the weather, all of the trees and seeing family. I told N8 it was like being in the forest with shopping, a perfect match!!