Cannon Beach

While I love the snow. I can't help but think the ocean wins.

Oregon

While it was so nice to go see family in Utah, it truly was wonderful to go back home to Oregon.  I'm really surprised how quickly this place became home to be honest.  I love the trees, I love the green, I love the rain, I love our ward, I love being 1 hr 20 min from the ocean, I love the waterfalls, I love how goofy people are here, I love that the parks are forests with trails through them, I love how much there is to see and do, I love having a temple 15 minutes away, I love being 15 minutes from Portland and not really even noticing, I love breathing so much easier here, I love it.

The Gorge

 We went to 'The Gorge' today as locals like to call the Columbia River Gorge Area.  This is a stretch of beautiful mountains and trees that stretch along the Colombia River right outside Portland to the base of Mount Hood.  We took the Historic Columbia River Highway and got to see new waterfalls that I haven't ever been to or even knew were there.  Some of these were Shepherd's Dell, Wakeenah, Multnomah( I knew about this one, but now I know how to park right next to the lodge), Horsetail, and Bridal Veil area.  I am a fall leaves fanatic, so it was really fun to be in this area with pretty leaves and surprisingly no rain, though we got a thorough misting from the falls.  It has been raining a lot here recently and you could tell from the amount of water that was coming off the mountains.  We hiked a few of the trails, but with this new discovery there will be a lot more to come back and do when I have a map and know where everything is in the area.  We played the-drive on this surprise highway until there is a waterfall then pull over game-more time and planning should be fun in the future.

Commuting

Morning commutes vary by a lot. Some days it is bright and sunny and others.....it isn't. The pictures on the right is the sun coming up from behind Mount Hood, the other depicts what morning in the clouds looks like.

Tualatin Hills Nature Park

I love the 'parks' here.  The pictures are from Tualatin Hills Nature Park, this 222 acre gem is about 2 minutes from where I work.  I love the mini forests that are all over the place.  I can hardly wait for them to start changing colors.

Astoria

For this weekend's adventure we drove up to the Evergreen State and hit Astoria & Seaside in Oregon.  The coast has been socked in with a nasty marine layer all week so I was shocked when we got to Seaside to blue skies and pretty warm temperatures.  We first went to the Astoria Column.  It was dedicated in 1926 and is basically a really tall column that you can climb 196 stairs to the top and have a neat view of Astoria, Columbia River, Oregon, Washington, Astoria-Megler Bridge, and the ocean.  The side of the column has different frames of Astorian history and is pretty cool.  You can buy little wooden planes in the gift shop and people will through them from the top of the column and watch them circle down (with kids anxiously waiting to catch them), they had a burial canoe, and that is about it.  It is kind of a random landmark, but it is worth going to, especially on a sunny day.  We then drove up to Washington and explored Cape Disappointment which has two lighthouses and a Lewis and Clark exhibit.  On our way home we stopped in Seaside to eat our fancy peanut butter sandwiches.  Before leaving we stopped in the candy shop, The Seaside Candyman, mainly because it was playing the Candyman song from Willy Wonka and how can you resist that?  It was FULL of salt water taffy.  When we have more time I definitely want to see what some of the 170 taffy flavors are someday.  It was a really fun day, I just wish we could spend time together like that more than once every 2 weeks.  The next activities should be interesting, we are going into territory where I have never been: Mt Hood & Sauvie Island.

Silver Falls

We had a blast at Silver Falls State Park yesterday.  While not doing the entire Trail of Ten Falls, we did do 5.5 miles of the loop and saw 8 of them. My gracefulness cut the trek a little short with a bloody knee and scuffed up ankle and hands-not bad, just not very fun. Silver Falls is a really amazing place though.  We loved walking behind the falls, looking at crazy trees growing out of stumps and fallen down trees, and driving through the Christmas Tree Farms on the way to the park (those are not grassy rolling hills in the pictures, those are full grown Christmas Trees, it is crazy).  We are definitely going to try and make it back when the leaves are on in a month or so.  Sorry there are so many pictures, it was hard to decide which ones to add.  I had fun (probably a little too much) playing with the manual settings during this hike, so there were a lot to choose from.  Just click on any picture to get a bigger view.

Portland Temple

We made it to the Portland Temple yesterday and it was wonderful!  Per the usual standard here, it is surrounded by trees and forest, so it was hard to get a full picture of it because of how big it is and the trees all around, but it is beautiful.  With Ogden closed we have had a minimum 40 minute commute to a temple this past year so it was really exciting to find that we were only 20 minutes away.  We are very grateful to have a temple so close and for the blessings that come from these sacred places.

Oregon Bound

After a stressful few days wrapping up packing, tying up loose ends in Utah, saying goodbye, and getting ready to move to a different state we are ready to go!  We woke up super early after staying up super late to finish packing up the UHaul, clean the Robert's basement, and start our drive up to Oregon.  We had a really good time spending time with our dads on the way up.  I drove in the Corolla with my dad and JD was the lucky duck who got to drive the UHaul with Jeff.  We are so grateful that they were both willing to come and help us with this move.  First day we have ended up in Pendleton which took us about 9 hours, we will finish the rest tomorrow.