We're Back.

August 10, 2008

I know you all missed us dreadfully, well at least Paul missed us. He seems to have this inner sense when we are gone. Of course when he calls us he is always surprised. "You are in Florida? I didn't know that. Oh well sorry to bother you." Needless to say if he calls us when we go to Las Vegas in a couple of months I will know it is a sickness.

We had a great trip. The kids did really well in the car, and we all had a great time. I Figured that trying to tell you about the entire trip in one post would be way too long so I am going to break it up by days.

DAY 1

Day one was a travel day. We got up early, packed the car, woke up the kids and were off. Waking up the kids was an adventure. Usually when I want the kids to wake up early I will open their door and start making some noise. After a couple of minutes I will then go into their room and open blinds. If this still hasn't worked I will resort to shaking them awake. On the day we were going to leave I opened both kids doors. This woke Eliza up immediately. Unfortunately all she did was get out of bed so she could shut her door and go back to sleep. When I saw the door was shut I peeked in to check on her and sure enough she was sawing logs asleep in her bed. It took awhile to convince her it was time to get. Forrest was a little easier, but not much.

For all of you who are thinking of driving up to the Northwest know that the first 7 to 8 hours is mainly desert and farms. Not very interesting scenery. When you hit The Dalles things start to look up. We drove this way before on our way to the Oregon Family Reunion. By the time we had hit this area both Greg and Forrest were asleep. Off to the right I could see huge cliffs covered with foliage and an occasional waterfall. When we were almost passed it I realized we could have gotten off the freeway and driven right by the waterfalls and then we could have gotten right back on the freeway. I was a little disappointed, but promised myself if we went of their again we would do it.

After years of talking about the waterfalls Greg was excited to see them. We got off on the scenic old highway. The scenery was breathtaking. We drove over old stone bridges and were able to stop at a couple of waterfalls.
The kids really enjoyed getting out to stretch their legs and Greg and I just enjoyed the scenery.
My favorite waterfall was the Multnomah Waterfalls. They were breathtaking.
You are able to walk up and over the bridge and then continue to the top of the waterfall if you want.
Here is where I took my life and my camera in my hands and lended over the edge of the bridge to get this cool picture. If you knew how afraid of heights I am, you would realize how brave I was to get this picture. I was positive someone was going to push me from behind and I would fall to my death. Morbid I know, but what can I say, I have an overactive imagination.
Once we hit the bridge Eliza was enjoying her freedom so much that she kept going. We hiked another half of mile before we called it quits and headed back down. On the trail we were on, one edge was a severe drop off. It was a little too much for our sanity to constantly make sure that Eliza wouldn't slip off the edge and plunge to her death. Once again with the morbid thoughts. I wasn't like this before. It is only since I started having kids that my imagination has started to work over time.

The whole detour added about 45 minutes to our trip, but was really worth it. We pulled up to our hotel in Kelso Washington at about 9:00 pm. When we checked into our room Forrest kept asking where the rest of the rooms where and why our room was so small. This is when I realized that Forrest has always stayed in a condo when we have traveled before. Boy is this kid spoiled. Both kids even drove up with their own DVD players. Once again I know, spoiled, but this time I was thinking about my sanity and not about raising kids that knew how to share. We can work on that when we are home and I can lock myself in the bathroom to get away from all their fighting.

After letting the kids jump around on the beds to get some energy out we finally settled everyone down and went to bed. All in all I thought it was a great start to our trip.