The Great Pacific Northwest

We are back from our weeklong adventure to Oregon and Washington. It was a great trip and Nathan had lots of new experiences. He experienced his first plane ride, to which he did well except for the last fifteen minutes where Brian and I were "THOSE PARENTS" with the screaming child. We landed in Portland and enjoyed a nice day of hiking at Eagle Creek and watching the salmon run on the fish ladders at Bonneville Dam. We then met up with some of the people from Kristin's school at a local brewery. On Sunday, Brian enjoyed his first real taste of fly fishing, catching several fish, while Brian and I walked around Chris and Kristen's neighborhood and met up with my 87 year old great Aunt Helen. We spent some time at the Oregon coast (and forgot our camera's),which was beautiful and then enjoyed a nice meal with our friends. Tuesday we hit up two skate parks (West Linn, OR and Battleground, WA) on our way up to Lopez Island in the San Juan's. It was also at this point that we discovered Nathan hates to be in the car for more than 1 hour at a time. Lucky for us he decided to sleep a lot. On Wednesday we really began our trip to the San Juan island with a hike up Chadwick Hill. On the way down, Grandma Lois (my mom) slipped on a rock and pretty much shattered and tore everything in her ankle. She was taken to Anacortis, WA to have surgery, which consisted of two screws and a plate. Luckily she was able to return to the island. On Thursday we headed over to Orcas Island where we walked up to the top of Mt. Constitution and tooks pictures. We also watched Brian skate at the Orcas skate park. On Friday the guys went Salmon fishing and got skunked and the girls and kids walked to and around a couple of the beaches on Lopez. Saturday was another travel day. We left Anacortis thinking that we had plenty of time to get to Seattle...not the case with traffic. We made it to our gate with five minutes to spare before priority boarding took place. Thank goodness Nathan slept all the way to the airport. Our plane was delayed on the runway, at which time Nathan decided to let everyone know what he thought of that...my only saving grace is that we were one of several couples with crying babies so we were not "THOSE PARENTS" this time. Once we took off it was smooth sailing all the way to San Diego, until our luggage decided to not show up for 45 minutes and one bag decided not to show at all. So despite the airport and airline snafu's it was an awesome trip and we can't wait to do it again. It was so great to spend time with my aunt, uncle and cousin's and their children. Oh and my parents, brother, sister-in-law, neice and nephews.

Here are a few pictures from the trip.