Fun in the City of Roses

Jake's grandmother lives all the way across the country in Oregon. She flew all of us- her son and his wife (My In-Laws), five siblings, their spouses and children- for a total of 15 people to come visit her and our other far-away relatives. She got to meet the two newest great-grandchildren- Ms. Chucky Sue and Dorita.

 

We ate too much good food, swam in the hotel's pool a LOT, visited museums and a zoo and just hung out with Nana Oregon.

I need NCIS's "enhance" button for half these photos.

We visited the Portland Oregon LDS Temple- it was absolutely beautiful. It was my fourth temple that I've ever been in, sixth that I've seen in person.  Can anyone figure out the first three I've been in? (Oooh reader interaction!)

When on vacation we try not to eat at chain restaurants- but we made an exception for Jack-in-the-Box and A&W. We don't have those where we live, so it's ~exotic~ cuisine!

While the rest of the country was dealing with one of the worst heat waves EVER, Portland was actually  chilly- I bought a sweatshirt out there to keep warm on the beach. Portland was also amazingly GREEN. We have great forests near us but not huge evergreen forests with ginormous trees creating huge canyons around the highway.

We went on The Family Mecca to-

  The Tillamook Cheese Factory.

While the cheese was delicious, the factory itself was kind of a dud. I remember going to a cheese factory in Vermont (Right next to the Ben&Jerry's factory) and we got to see a lot more of the cheese making process there than we did at Tillamook. Tillamook had fancy posters up about their cheesey history, and a cool altered VW van for a photo op. The best was the sugar-coma inducing ice cream shop   on the main floor. The Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl has made appearances in several dreams since I devoured my two scoop.

Because I'm an AWESOME wife and appreicate all forms of Dork, we treked up to Astoria to see the Goonies landmarks.

a far away view of Haystack Rock- we got a lot closer but I was too busy making sure Chucky-Sue didn't go wandering off into the freezing cold ocean to take closer photos.

Chucky-Sue loved the sand on her FEET but when it got on her hands she was very upset and whiny. She wanted to be in the water, but MY hand turned blue in seconds so we dipped her in quickly then wrapped her up in her blanket. Strange that was her first ocean experience, all the way across the country.

The Goonies House. Jake was impressed, and thankfully didn't do the truffle shuffle.

Astoria is a historic town that's been SQUASHED on to a tiny peninsula. I loved the cramped houses and tiny alleyways that criss-cross all over the place. It's been the location of over 300 movies, according to their brochure- including Kindergarden Cop and Free Willy. We ate at a really fresh seafood restaurant that had butcher paper table covering and crayons. I spent the whole meal coloring and drawing silly pictures. Jake enjoyed the comic book store we found just down the street.

   

This was a set up for a HUGE farmer's market. They had these awesome coloumns all over the downtown area- everything had a rose or cherub carved on to it- I love when cities take the time to add pretty details like that to their public areas. 

 Even the sewer covers had roses molded on the tops.

Wanna guess what famous story this is??
I was so mad there was such a long line!

I have a thing for lamposts and windows. so pretty!

 

We also got fancy family portraits done with 4 generations of Fishers. Chucky-Sue may have been grumpy at first but then she got a hold of a cellphone to play with- that got a HUGE grin!

What you don't see is that Kay and I are balancing very carefully on a uneven cement wall.

 Our poor knees.

 and here is the lot of us. I think this is the first time in photograph history that we are all looking at the camera, eyes fully open and no child pitching a huge fit.

Thank you Nana Oregon for such a wonderful family vacation!