Cape Horn Landing and Portland, Oregon

We had Brendan's family reunion up the canyon from July 31st to Monday morning Aug. 4th and we left on our trip that same Monday afternoon.  We had to come home and unpack from the reunion and pack up again for our 10 day trip to the Northwest. It was pretty busy.  We drove up and stopped in Boise for the night at my sister Dawn's house, and then continued on the next morning to Cape Horn Landing in Washougal, Washington.  Brendan's mom's cousin lives there, and they invited us to stay at their house.  It is about 30 minutes outside of Portland on the Columbia Gorge.  It is the most beautiful location right on the water.  They have a 10 year old son and a dog named Fisher that Hattie loved.  We planned on hanging out in Portland a little more, but we ended up doing a lot around Cape Horn because it is a destination in itself. Darren and Shawn were great hosts and made wonderful meals everyday.  Shawn even packed us a lunch when we were going hiking to the falls.  

Blackberry picking in the yard for our blackberry pancakes.

Gotta love Hattie's bed head.

The girls helping set the table for breakfast one morning. Wonderful dining with a fantastic view and beautiful weather.

We had blackberry pancakes that we picked that morning, and fresh squeezed apple cider from their apple press.

Their house was beautiful!

Hiking just up the road from their house on the cape horn trail.

This is the beautiful meadow on the road down to their house.

A view from the road above.  Can you see the top of their roof in the bottom corner?

Brendan walked down and jumped in the water.

Not sure what they are all doing, but they look bored.  Maybe waiting for dinner.

The girls were afraid of Fisher at first, but then loved him.  Hattie still talks about going back to Daddy's cousin's house and seeing Fisher.

One night we had a campfire and s'mores in their yard.

I had never seen this type of tree before, but it was so cool looking it almost looked fake.  It's called a monkey tree.

We stopped and saw horsetail falls.

The beautiful Multnomah falls.  We started the hike to the top with me pushing the double stroller, but it was quite the workout, so we headed back down.

We of course had to stop at the famous VooDoo Doughnuts.

We only ordered half a dozen and took a few bites and were sick from all of the sweetness.  As I was posting these pictures Hattie was watching me and she said, "Next time I'm going to get the fruit loop one and not the marshmallow one because the marshmallow one is small, and I like big doughnuts." Haha. That Hattie!

We loved Powell's city of books.  It is the largest independent book store in the world.  We could have spent hours in their, but didn't have time.  We let the girls pick out a book to buy.

Of course we had to stop at the Portland food carts.  We tried a gyro and some Thai food, and they were both really good.  We had more plans in the city but everyone started calling us from my family as they were arriving at the hotel and kept asking if we had checked in yet.  Our plan was to get to Seattle in the evening, but we left early and headed to Seattle to start the pre wedding party.

Pioneer Day

Pioneer Day is a state holiday in Utah, and we had never actually been to the Days of '47 parade in Salt Lake until this year.  Since Whitney is living in Salt Lake temporarily for her job, she has an apartment all to herself downtown. We spent the night at her place on Friday, which made it easier for us to make it to the parade without getting up super early.  We just walked a couple blocks.  After the parade, we went to Liberty Park where they had a festival going on and also the rides.  I was super excited to go on the swings because they go pretty high, but when I got up in the air all I wanted to do was put my head down.  I was getting so dizzy watching everything on the ground, and it wasn't even enjoyable.  I was worried I was going to be sick.  I can definitely tell I'm getting old I guess when I don't enjoy rides.

Unfortunately Whitney didn't have the day off of work, so after the park we headed back to Whit's place and took naps and then met up with Whit and her boyfriend for dinner.  After dinner we all went back to Liberty Park and watched the fireworks.  It was CRAZY!   There were so many people and lots of interesting people.  It was not really a family friendly event.  Brendan and I went years ago when we were first married, but it wasn't like this.  The next day we heard on the news there had been a stabbing and an attempted kidnapping that night.  I don't think we will go back to that event.