The past few weeks....

I'm looking through my calendar to see what all we have done since the last blog post.  Thank goodness that I'm writing everything down, I can't seem to remember what happened yesterday! (well, now thinking about it, I can remember, but last week....ah??)  The main reason for writing it all down is so that in a year or 5 years time, we can look back and see where we have been and what we have accomplished.  Oh,.... the places we have yet to see!!!
The past few weeks have been very fast-paced with family visiting (x2), home-schooling and a trip.  And now, figuring out where we go next and where I'll be working.  Our first family visit was from Uncle Tracy and Ted, who were with us for 5 days.  We took them to our favorite spot for waterfalls, Silver Springs.  Taking a little hike to see more than one waterfall was well worth the trip, especially the last one where we brought a picnic, wine included!

 On our way back home, we stopped by Bauman Farms, for some tasty produce.  Their hanging baskets of flowers are enormous!  I guess with the weather in Oregon, everything grows nicely and hugely.  Although, the weather at this present time was 85-90, HOT!!! Jason was the tour guide the next day taking them to Corvallis, seeing the sights of the college town.  Tracy and Ted took the train to Portland to visit with friends the following day, which left Jason to himself, sans me (sleeping for work that night) and the boys (in day camp all week long).  I bet he enjoyed the quietness!  We rounded out their visit with a picnic at Willamette Winery, taking home a few (or 12!) of their finest Pinot's to enjoy at home.
 The very next day we picked up Suzi/Vicki at the airport in Portland and had a quick lunch before Tracy and Ted's plane left.  Since we were in Portland, we took her to visit Saturday market, enjoying the many craft stalls and thinking about Christmas gifts!  And ice cream, we had to have some ice cream!  During her visit we went to Tillamook Cheese factory, about 1.5 hours away, but worth the time!  We tasted yummy cheeses, lunch specials and (more) ice cream!  There wasn't a tour going on, or them even making anything, but the place was so busy, almost like an amusement park, but it was Sunday, so I guess everyone else had the same idea.  We took our time heading home touring the coast.  After spending a quiet day around town, we headed out to .....you guessed it, Silver Falls!  This place NEVER gets old.  A quick hike, then a picnic lunch was the plan. 

After 8 days of visitors, we thought everything went pretty smoothly.  Everyone had a place to sleep (I didn't hear any complaints), the main showers at the RV park worked nicely, and everyone got to pick their own blackberries!  Even Elwood got in on eating the blackberries and convincing Ted that it was time for another walk!
After all the excitement of family, we needed to hunker down and get our schedule straightened out for home-schooling.  Jason got organized (and I stayed out of his way).  The boys schooling started 1 1/2 weeks ago, and everyone is still alive!  Jason had done a great job organizing everything and figuring out what a lesson plan is.  The boys are realizing the dad is no push-over and an "F", is an "F" in the books.  The boys haven't learned yet what the teacher likes, apples or chocolate chip cookies.  Actually, they know chocolate chip cookies, but have yet to make any for him yet! (hint, hint).
We recently took a trip to the Emerald City, Seattle.  We had been wanting to go to Vancouver, BC, but it was a bit too far, and our schedule couldn't accommodate it.  Seattle, it was.  Renting a (small) car was the way to go, especially for trying to manuver down one way streets and for street parking.  We laughed when we thought about our huge F450 dually going down some roads, we would have had to go on top of the cars or at least taken off their side mirrors!  Our first day was spent exploring the sites of Pikes Place (super busy on a Sunday, beautiful flowers, yummy food and the original Starbucks),

Pioneer Square (saw what the underground city was all about), the waterfront (ferry depot and ferris wheel, with lots of good smelling seafood), City Center (Space Needle, museums, and park)

and the Queen Anne district (quaint eateries and cute homes).  Our hotel was a couple of blocks from the space needle, so we always knew which direction to head if we ever got lost---with one way streets, that was a lot!  The next day we took a Seattle Duck Tour via amphibious vehicles from the war.  They first gave us a tour of the city, then by water. 

On board the Duck

It was fun to tour this way, but now that we've done it (for the sake of the boys), we don't have to do it again.  The one thing that I wanted to do on this trip that I thought the boys would enjoy was to drive our car onto the ferry, so we did.  We went to Bremerton, an hour ride away,  which had old Navy boats, but mostly we went, then turned around and came back. 

Map of the Puget Sound and surrounding islands and waterways

Blurry, but this is where we are heading.  

Seattle from our ferry

The quiet Puget Sound

Alex would like to thank his mom and dad for this award

One of the fountains at Fountain Park in Bremerton

The fountains explode with water

The views of the Puget Sound from the boat were great.  The boys had a good time running on the boat and scheming up disasters with the cars.  It was then off to see the Troll in the Fremont district, the Ballard Locks and the sights of Seattle from Kerry Park. 

Fremont Troll squishing a 1963 VW bug in its hand

This is the fish ladder next to the Ballard Locks

views from Kerry Park

We never did go up the space needle, but got the same if not better views from all the places around town.  The boys thought it, the Space Needle, was bigger.
On our way home, we stopped at the Mt. St. Helen's visitors center.  I don't know if we were cranky or cheap, but we did not pay the $5/person entrance fee to view the exhibit (about 40 feet long) and see a 10 minute movie.  We paid for Alex to go,... and got all the info from him, then went home and watched Dante's Peak and got the Hollywood version of volcano explosions.  It seems ridiculous when 85% of the people who visited the center, turned and walked out when they saw the fee.  Good 'ol government...and I pay taxes too!
So here we are today.  Currently we are counting down the days here in Salem, as my assignment is done 9/21.  We are looking at Austin, TX as our next adventure stop. I'm still waiting to see what Austin has available for work and if we can find an RV park that has space, and can accommodate our large size.  We have one more course of visitors coming in 1 1/2 weeks, but nothing else on the horizon.  Salem has been a great central location for all of our outings, but we still haven't seen all that's out there in Oregon.  We might just have to make a pit stop back through here down the road to finish our site-seeing.

Our bribes for doing well in school this week!

Keeping track

We can't believe we have been in Salem for 6 weeks already!  The time has flown by, especially with us keeping busy every day.  Days that I'm not working, we are usually out in or out of town, doing something, going somewhere or exploring a new area.  The past week has been no exception.  After working several days in a row (augh!), we were rewarded with a week off.  We have been enjoying concerts in the park in nearby Monmouth every week.  Parking our chairs on the lawn and finding some food while listening to different music genres and people watching, is a great way to wind down after working.  Last week it was swing music, this week was Zydeco.  Best of all, it's free!
Last week, we explored the Oregon coast some more thanks to Uncle Dan.  Our first stop was to "secret beach", which was beautiful, but cold and windy.  We made our way down to Newport via the coast exploring sand dunes and seeing the "smallest harbor" (it was really small, but quaint).  The drive was beautiful, but it felt better inside the car than out in the wind/fog/cool weather!  In Newport, it was off to Rogue Brewery to taste some of their brews.  Our brew list is growing by 2-3 every week!  For our finale in Newport, we went to Georgie's.....ah, Georgie's!!!  They have the creamiest, chock-full of clams, clam chowder around.  It was definitely good for the soul and good to warm up the body!

We finally were able to meet up with Rosemary and spend some time with her.  She is a busy lady!  We went out for brunch and had the best ultimate french toast!  Cinnamon rolls made into french toast with cream cheese frosting!!!! Oh yeah!  We also took in the local Saturday farmers market, what a spread they've got.  We haven't visited a farmers market yet, but now will be sure to do so....everything looked so tasty.  In and all around the RV resort, we have been dealing with berry vines that have scratched us or we've been avoiding.  Not anymore!  After finding out that these berries are indeed edible and delicious, we are seeking out all the vines we see.  Even when visiting with Rosemary, we picked berries by her house.  For dessert we cooked up our yummy goods from the farmers market and had smashed berries atop grilled peaches, yum!

We have been seeing Mt. Hood from far away, and finally it was time to get up close to it.  We made our way there via the Columbia Gorge.  Uncle Dan gave us a wonderful guide to get in as much as we could on our drive.  We hiked to beautiful waterfalls, stretching our legs and letting Elwood explore and smell around.  We learned some history along the Gorge and found fantastic vantage points for taking it all in. 

Lunch was in Hood River, sitting at the river front park watching the kite-surfers.  There was a competition going on, but have heard that there are always a lot of wind-riders around.  Hood River is a place that I want to go back to and explore some more.  With the dog and the kids, we made a quick b-line to our final destination, Mt. Hood.  Unfortunately, we were in such a hurry that we didn't stop at all the great fruit farms and wineries along the way.  I guess another trip is in the makings!  At Mt.Hood we stopped in at Timberline Lodge, with it being Sunday, it was packed!  There were still snowboarders enjoying the mountain, as well as hikers taking in the Pacific Crest Trail. 

Ta-da!  Snow in July!

Timberline Lodge patio door!

Mt. Hood

Mt. Jefferson in the background

Beautiful views of the far off Mt. Jefferson and maybe 3 sisters(?) mountains could be seen.  We hopped on a hiking trail and found some snow for Elwood to enjoy.  The weather was perfect!  We spent the night in Government Camp, which is at the base of Mt. Hood.  It is a really small town with not a lot to do except enjoy the outdoor activities.  The next day was spent watching the boys bungee jump, zip-line, rock-climb, race cars, trampoline jump, tube slide, alpine slide and become human hamsters in a ball.  The adventure park offered so much for our adrenaline junkee boys!  After 5 hours, we were done and so were they (thank goodness!).

Bungee!!! They both did it twice!

They thought it would be more fun to roll down a hill, than just in a pool of water!

After resting up for a couple of days, we were off for a hike to Silver Falls.  We have been here before, but were unable to hike to all the waterfalls due to the dog not allowed on the trails.  So, sans the dog, we set out.  After hiking for 5+ hours and probably 10 miles, we traversed all the trails and double- treked to all the waterfalls.  It was a tiring day, but it was nice that the boys are big enough to endure and entire day of hiking, and then to our surprise stayed up on the ride home and still had enough energy to swim in the pool and soak in the hot tub.

We are finding our grooves living in close quarters, and knowing when to take a walk!  The boys homeschooling supplies have come and we are now looking for any extra storage space that we can squeeze out of our already packed COW.  We are going to have family visit next week, so that should be interesting, especially since I'll be sleeping during the day, working at night :(  At least we have plenty of outings under our belts that we can keep everyone busy!