Summer Vacation 2009 (Part 2)

Tuesday evening of our vacation week we left Gresham for Spokane and didn't arrive until 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday. Are we crazy? Well, we figured it was so hot in Gresham we wouldn't get much sleep anyway. We might as well be in the air-conditioned car on the way up and enjoy John and Shirley's air-conditioned home earlier. The kids did pretty well despite 9+ hours of car time that day. Our itinerary for the day ended up being 11am leave Waldport, 12:30 eat lunch in Lincoln City, 2pm visit the Tillamook Icecreamery, 5:15pm arrive in Gresham, 6:15pm leave Gresham for Spokane, 12:30am Wednesday arrive Spokane. We were pleasantly surprised at how well Noah did with such a long day of driving!
Unfortunately, Mike ended up with the flu all day on Thursday. This was a nasty virus! We're praying it ends with Mike. ***Update: Shirley caught the flu the day we left and Weston had it about 3 days after that. I've never seen such a contagious flu bug!
On Friday we all went to the park for an hour to let the kids ride bikes. Here are John and Weston in front of a little waterfall. There were lots of turtles swimming around in the pond below.

Here's Noah enjoying the view.

Here are Weston and Grace between last year's surprise (the trampoline) and this year's surprise (the pool). We all agree that Shirley is enjoying the toys she never got but always wanted as a child ;)

It looks like we put our children in a cage :) One of the highlights of vacation was piling on the trampoline Saturday night to look at the stars. Weston saw his first shooting star and the grownups all agreed it might have been the brightest one we've ever seen. Mike and I also enjoyed a date on Saturday while John and Shirley watched the kids. It was sooooo nice to get away for the day and I'm already wanting another date!

Weston, Elsie and I enjoying the pool.

Noah enjoying the pool this evening. It was pretty cold but he was a good sport.

Elsie and Noah in the pool. The turtle floatie was courtesy of Aunt Christi. Eric came by and joined us for some swimming later on.