Saturday Adventures

Every Saturday we make plans for an adventure. As I mentioned before, we're trying to take advantage of the nice weather, but it's also imperative to Ben's mental health that he get out and do something in the outdoors every weekend.

So last Saturday we drove into downtown Portland to go to the Farmer's Market. They had such great samples at each booth that Ben (Mr. Frugal) almost purchased peaches for $2 each. Luckily, I was able talk him out of it, but the rest of the time I could hear him muttering under his breath, "Those peaches were so good!" over and over. Not two-dollars-a-piece good though, I can assure you.

We also got the great opportunity to see my old roommate Brooke. She lives and works in the city and writes Super Bowl Ads. Yeah, she's pretty cool.

Nayeli's free flower

We then did a short visit to the Portland Saturday Market down by the waterfront. It's made up of more crafts, clothes, art, etc. I love Farmer's Markets and getting to see the creativity of others.

Ben and I then drove to Multnomah Falls, about 30 min outside the city in the Gorge (the area to the east of the city where the Columbia River runs). It's a beautiful falls and a pretty iconic Portland-area tourist attraction. I don't think we'll go again because it was a madhouse, but it's worth going once for sure.

 Remember my post on how to choose a good citizen photographer? When we lived in DC Ben was a master at picking a good one, but he has since lost some of his skill because he asked a guy holding a disposable camera (do they even make those anymore?) to take this picture. Look, there's our family standing in front of a bridge and... wait... is that a waterfall in the back?

 Ben's second Citizen Photographer choice was much better...except that Ben's eyes are closed. As they say, you can't beat 'em all.

Blurry but I love it.

 Looking over the Gorge. We hiked up to the top of the falls.

 At the top

This is an extremely common place to find Ben- in some obscure spot trying to 

capture a photo or video of Nayeli.

This photo perfectly captures Nayeli's annoyance at being interrupted from her play for a picture.

More of the Oregonian Life

Some of you have been wondering what we're up to so I'll tell you- a whole lot. The weather is really beautiful right now so we've been trying to get out and see all we can. Plus we've already had visitors. It's been a whirlwind first few weeks here and I'm loving it.

Here's a recap on a few of our recent adventures:

Blackberry Picking

The blackberries are out and growing everywhere! We often go on walks at night and find patches we can pick. We've been eating them on cereal, with yogurt, or for dessert with milk and sugar. Delicious no matter how you eat them.

She loves them! Luckily I've found a good stain remover.

He's so great. I'm so happy to have him by my side for all of this.

Sunday Drives

We live in the greatest place. We're 20 minutes from metropolitan Portland and 10 minutes from the most beautiful countryside you've ever seen. One drive we love takes us past million-dollar homes built on rolling knolls and massive lots. There are farms, cows and horses, and sunflower fields. It is breathtaking.

Camping

For Ben, camping is a part of life. So we found a good excuse to camp when our ward held a campout the weekend after we arrived. We went to the Willamette (pronounced Will-AM-it) Mission State Park and had a great time getting to know other members in the ward. And of course it was beautiful. No surprise there.

 We camped near this pretty pond.

While we were driving to the campsite we kept seeing these fields full of tall plants.

We couldn't figure out what they were- probably because we had never seen them before in our lives. They're called Hops and they're used to make beer. They grow them all over in the area where we went.

 They look like mini pine cones.

They grow them in massive fields like this. 

Mark's Visit

And last but not least my brother Mark and his family came to visit us last week. We had so much fun. He has the greatest wife and kids and we crammed all ten of us into our 881 square foot apartment for two nights (with one bathroom mind you :) ). We went into Portland most days then headed for the coast on Friday. 

On Thursday Malinda and I took the kids to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). It was a great museum and the kids had a good time.

That night we went into the city and took the aerial tram. The view was beautiful, as you can see. We could even see Mount St. Helens from the top.

Our whole group

We then headed to a place called "Salt and Straw" for ice cream. It's original to Portland and has ice cream flavors like strawberry and black pepper, sea salt and caramel, olive oil, and honey and lavender. I went with chocolate, Ben was more daring and got the sea salt and caramel.

After ice cream we went down to Waterfront Park and walked along the river.

Friday we took the kids to the Zoo. This is the only picture I got. Lame. 

But can you see the lion in the background? Sort of cool, right?

Like I said, on Friday we headed for the coast. We didn't reserve a place to stay until Friday morning and got probably the last rental unit on the entire Oregon coast. It was a nice place... for being a double-wide :) Really, we stayed in a trailer near Tillamook, Oregon. And it was awesome. But we got a good laugh out of the fact that Mark reserved a double-wide for us to stay in.

Saturday we went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. They had a fun tour and free samples. Mark and Malinda bought cheese so we went back to our double-wide (ha ha) and made grilled cheese sandwiches. Delicious.

Outside the factory.

 We made our child be the cow. We are great parents, aren't we?

Then we went to Oceanside to enjoy the beach. It was overcast but breathtaking all the same.

She fell asleep in the car and continued to sleep when we got to the beach. She seldom sleeps on my chest like this anymore. It is one of my favorite things about being a mom.

Cousin Jared and Nayeli 

Our awesome setup

Ben playing with Makayla and Emma in the 50 degree water.

 

 Love this one. These two are the best things that ever happened to me.

The Oregonian Life

On Monday, July 29 we bid farewell to Mark's house in Boise and drove the last leg of the trip to Wilsonville, Oregon (about 20 miles south of Portland). The drive took about eight hours. Surprisingly, eastern Oregon was just like the plains of Wyoming- dry with not much to look at. However once we got to the Columbia River it was beautiful to look down and see Washington state across the water.

My dad ended up driving the whole way and I was so grateful to have him there. Nayeli hates her carseat, is difficult to entertain with movies, and was a little rattled from the move so it was great to get to give her one on one attention.

We pulled into our apartment complex at 3pm, waited for Ben to arrive with the truck, checked into our apartment, then began moving things in.

 Somewhere during the time we were moving in Nayeli face planted off a curb. 

She carried the scabs for a couple days after. It was a rough few days adjusting.

We had already notified the Elder's Quorum of our future ward that we were coming so we crossed our fingers that people would shop up. They did, and even Ben's boss came down to help move boxes. Everything was unpacked within an hour.

I have to mention that I had a huge shock when we first entered the apartment. Everything was nice and in good condition but it was soooooo much smaller than I had anticipated (I'll need to remember that photos online make everything look bigger). The square footage was listed as 881 and for the first time I realized that that actually isn't very big. When I walked into our bedroom I almost cried because I was sure our king sized bed wasn't going to fit.

Luckily, it did fit, and while unpacking I've been purging like crazy. With a kitchen with only 2.5 drawers and a bathroom with none I've had to. I've given a few boxes to Goodwill and it's felt great. I've also invested in about $100 worth of tupperwares, storage containers, and shelves. I've used these as makeshift drawers. In all honesty, I think our house is more organized here than it was in Provo.

And now that everything is unpacked it feels good. It's working. We can't live here forever, but it's a great apartment and we got a great price on it. 

For those who are interested, here's a little tour. Keep in mind that there's still work to be done:

Our front door and entry. On the right is the partition for our porch.

The view from the sliding door. I'm in love with having a porch. We sit out here frequently and Nayeli loves to bring her toys out. It's blocked off on all sides so I don't have to worry about her wandering off.  On the left is a good-sized storage closet that I didn't get a picture of. 

We keep Ben's bike and our camping stuff in there. 

 The dining area. Check out our retro mirrored shelves and gold chandelier. 

If I owned this apartment, the mirrored shelf would be the first thing I would tear out. Then I would spray paint the chandelier silver. Oh well (sigh). There are worse things in life :)

Wood burning fireplace and mantel

The Living Room needs the most work. I'm going to recover a few of my pillows and I still have to figure out what to hang above the couch. I have some ideas but it's a huge wall to deal with.

I'm so glad I sold our entertainment center before we came. There's no way it would have fit (don't mind Ben taking his Sunday nap).

The kitchen is really really small. But it works and I'm grateful to have it. Some things are on display only because there is no room in the cupboards for them (note the platter and pitchers on top of the cabinets).

Another view of the kitchen. It didn't come with a microwave so we had to buy one. Then the problem was that we had no where to put it. So it's home has become the bar. I'm going to make a bulletin board to cover up the back that can be seen in the living room.

Our drawer-less bathroom. On the bright side, we are LOVING having two sinks. Major plus.

Laundry / storage area. We brought the shelf on the left from Provo and it fit perfectly. I keep extra food on the bottom and miscellaneous supplies on top.

Our bedroom with a small walk in closet. We were able to get a dresser to fit along the wall on the left and a bookcase at the end of the bed. It's the tightest room by far but it works.

The nursery / den. I got the desk by the window at my first garage sale here for $10. 

It's in great shape and fit perfectly. A complete tender mercy.

It's a total modge-podge of decor and furniture because anything that doesn't work in other places in the house goes in here. So ignore the color scheme :) It's functional until one day when I can separate the den and nursery.

Well, there you have it. The grand tour. I know I talked a lot about how small the apartment is but there are so many reasons that I'm glad we moved here. But I'll have to cover those in another post. I'll just end by saying it's worth living in a smaller apartment to live in a fantastic neighborhood.