Columbia River trip

It's hard to know where to start. We have a ton of beautiful pictures, so it's hard to know what to post. We left Friday afternoon and crossed the river into Oregon and drove the interstate right along the Columbia River, taking a couple of scenic detours along the way. One took us up to some beautiful views. Another took us right along a bunch of waterfalls, one of which you see behind us here. Ben was very scared at the first one. You get very close to these and they are very loud. You can also feel the spray from them. He relaxed as we went. Latourell falls was great. It was a short walk and there was nobody else there. See Jon's picture below. (You might want to click on the picture for a better view.)
We spent the night in Beaverton. We tried Ben in the big pool. It was a little cold and he wasn't altogether excited about it, but he did pretty well. (It's foggy because there was also a hot tub in there.) We had some ice cream to end the night.

Saturday we headed toward the Oregon coast and drove up the coast. We stopped At Ecola State Park, which is where they did some filming of The Goonies. They had a beach there and we walked a bit in the 55-degree water. The sand was hard and full of bugs, so we didn't let Ben crawl around at all.

We drove up the coast to Astoria, where we got a picture of The Goonies house, and drove back across the Columbia to the Washington side. We headed up to Mount St. Helens but the road was still closed. We drove back home along the Columbia River on the Washington side.

We just got back from the Columbia Gorge. I will let Keri post more details soon. But here are some pics of Ben's trip to the Gorge and to the Pacific Ocean. Otherwise, we saw a lot of trees, water, and beautiful waterfalls

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A Few Firsts

Ben had his first pool experience on Friday (just a little kiddie pool). He was less than thrilled about the whole experience. He cried for a bit and then took a nose dive out of the pool. I then sat him back down and sat right next to him outside the pool. He soon became contented when he found some rubbery fun thing to suck on, but he refused to sit down. I have no happy pictures of this event. We'll try again on Friday.

Ben has now found the joy of going up stairs. Just 4 of them, and he hasn't tried it again. The stairs in our house are not really on his way to anywhere so it's not a big temptation for him. As little as a month ago, I was okay with him just crawling. I have decided in the last few days that he needs to start walking very soon. Towards the end of my pregnancy with Ben, I got winded very easily. Thankfully that was after our Indonesia trip where I climbed countless numbers of steps. I am finding that it's already happening this pregnancy, especially while carrying Ben up the stairs. I suppose this could be alerting me to something more seriously wrong with me, but that's for another day. So I have decided it would be in my best interest to have him walking quite soon. I'm sure he would enjoy it, too.

I finally made it to the library Friday. I am allowed 2 books at a time as I am not a citizen of Washington state, but I was going nuts without a book to read. (It's tough when a trip to town is a major event in your week.) I can only do so many logic puzzles that I don't actually have the logic for. I read my first book on Saturday as we did basically nothing all day. It was quite enjoyable.

We are doing an all-day trip Saturday to random spots Jon has chosen, one of them being the Columbia Gorge. He has Sunday off, so he will be able to relax a bit this weekend. Hopefully we will have some good pictures to post next week. These trips are rather fun for me. He plans it, tells me where we're going, and I get myself and the boy ready to go.

It's unfortunate Ben is not old enough to enjoy the things we are seeing this summer. Hopefully some day we will be able to come back and enjoy them with all of our children.

Nothing

I just want to say, I hate coming up with titles to things. I always thought it was stupid to put titles on my papers in school. I put my name on, you read it, we're done. Topic sentences are bad enough, but then I have to sum the whole thing up in a few words? Hence the title of today's post, because my original intent was to just put up a couple pictures and tell you the greatest irony I have found here in Sunnyside: Every day at 4:00 I can turn my TV on to Little House on the Prairie, a beloved show of my youth. The ironic part is that it's on the Fox network out here. Never saw that one coming. Anyway, below are a few pictures.

Ben was getting into Mommy's cupboards and started pulling stuff out. Ben helped Daddy mow at Grandpa and Grandma's. We put a hat on him and he zonked out.

Here are a few more from Mt. Rainier National Park

Mt. Rainier National Park

We drove Saturday to Mt. Rainier National Park, which is only a couple of hours away. We can actually see Mt. Rainier from our house on a clear day, but Chinook Pass just opened up last week and we thought we'd get a closer look. It was a beautiful drive as the brown hills gave way to tree-filled mountains and rivers. There were a few campers scattered here and there. It was quite cool when we started and just got colder as we went. We took a long detour to Bumping Lake. It was a beautiful lake but the water was ice cold and it was very windy. We didn't stay out very long, especially for Ben's sake.

As we drove closer to Chinook Pass, we saw walls of snow growing higher as we went, which was so weird to us since it's June. We got out to take a few pictures like we had never seen snow before. It was also quite foggy by then and the fog continued until the snow started tapering off. We did not actually get to see Mt. Rainier, but it was a beautiful drive. We hope to go back in August when Jon's parents come out.

There At Last

Well folks, we are here in the lovely state of Washington. We left Minnesota on Friday afternoon and drove to Rapid City. After being detoured off the interstate to navigate the city by ourselves, we finally found our hotel and got a few hours of restless sleep. Up at about 5:30 on Saturday, we took a scenic drive through the Black Hills and proceeded on to Missoula, MT. Ben did very well. He did a lot of sleeping but we heard minimal crying despite his teething and having a cold. When we reached Missoula at about 7:30 that evening, we got pizza and just relaxed in the hotel room while Ben explored. He had had enough of sitting in the car seat and enjoyed seeing what he could get into in the room. When we asked for a crib, we were told they had just given their last one away but they would call around and see what they could do and would let us know. An hour or so later, Jon called the desk and he was still working on it but would keep us posted. I went down to the car for something and he sure didn't look busy. By 10:00 we hadn't heard a thing and gave up. We made a little nest and Ben slept in our suitcase. He was the perfect fit and slept pretty well in there. We really didn't want him sleeping in the bed with us.

Up at about 4:30 on Sunday, we got another early start and started our drive to Sunnyside. I think going through the mountains right after Missoula was probably the most beautiful part of the drive, right away in the morning with the sunrise. Soon after we started, though, it rained and got foggy until we were partway into Washington. Then the rain suddenly stopped and the landscape changed to desert like with sage brush and lots of irrigation. We made it to Sunnyside around 1:00 on Sunday and were taken out to the house, which is a few miles out of town. We got our stuff moved in and went to church in the evening. We have some work to do on Ben's schedule, but otherwise we should be set here.

We have a beautiful house with lots of room for Ben to explore. Everyone has been wonderful to make this feel like our home. We're not sure we're leaving.