Halftime Recap

It's disgusting how fast vacation days fly by~at least twice as fast as a "normal" day I swear. Anyway, I'm already half way through my vacation. Here's the quick and dirty on what I've been doing for the past week:

Sunday, August 10-NO SLEEP!! Must examine how I seem to set this up for myself every year...Had to be in Michigan City to catch the shuttle by 4:20 AM so that means leave my house by 3:00. Then we arrived at Michigan City around 6:30 to make our 8:30 flight. WRONG! One of the potties on the airplane wasn't working and they delayed us two additional hours in the airport until it was fixed. So, pretty much the usual travel thing of hurry up and wait. With Jayden in tow it was a challenging two hours but thank God for the moving walkway which we rode about a million billion times just for fun! Finally on the plane, we all conked out. Non-stop flight-YES!! When we got to Portland we picked up our car and went directly out to lunch with Carol Nykerk, who is my friend Rachel's sister and also my blog buddy: http://www.newsfromthenorthwest.blogspot.com/

From there we went to visit "old PaPa" per Jayden:

We went directly to Lincoln City for the next three days and stayed in Carol's condo which was fabulous beyond belief-everything we could ever possibly want or need and right on the beach!

Here we are enjoying the pool and hot tub:

A shot of the condo and our sandcastle building extravaganza: The final display was very impressive.

Lunch at Mo's of course and then the Trevor Tour. We stopped off in Newberg on the way home so that Courtney could see the house we lived in when Tyler and Trevor were born:

We moved into the Baker Barn on August 13th late in the day. Next day we went swimming at Hemmerle Park, where the boys used to go swimming, then Court and Trev went swimming off the Meldrum Bar (Dahl park) on the Clackamas River near Clackamette Park. I used to swim there too as a youngster but the water is significantly more muckky than back in those days.

That evening we took "Old Gramma" and "Old Papa" out for Mexican food at their favorite spot in Canby.

As usual, Jayden steals the show!

Sunday(8/17) we all attended church together where my dad was pastor for many years and then went to the church picnic. Later Sunday night we had dinner with my niece, Jodee, her husband Doug, and their daughter Addison.

Followed by our usual evening routine-a few brewskis and all the Olympics we can watch until our eyes will not stay open any longer.
Now you're all caught up to the midpoint. It has been a very relaxed and leisurely time here in Oregon. I always feel so connected here. I love waking up and being able to see Mount Hood!

Speaking of Mount Hood, we did go there on Friday(8/15) and stuck our feet in the glacier snow. We also climbed to the top of Multnomah Falls.

On Saturday, August 16th, I met Bob, Karlee, Kim, Wayne, Kelcee and Marcee at Kahneetah for a day of fun in the sun at the pool there. It's one of the hottest spots in the state of Oregon on one of the hottest days of the season! We had a great time though, even with a little bit of a sunburn.

It is sad to think about having to leave soon...that's the part that always breaks my heart! As soon as I leave this place I start counting the days until I can return. It feels so great to be back on my own turf and surrounded by comforting, familiar places and all of my peeps!