Portland, The City of Roses and Natural Beauty

Over the river and through the woods (Cascades Mountain Range), to Portland, Oregon we go.

Our home for the month of June!  

Our fresh food supply.  Spinach, lettuce, any kind of herb, garlic, artichokes, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, currants and so much more.  Tonight we had a fresh salad from the garden with Pacific Salmon.  Yummy!

Our new pets!  Joss gets so excited to feed the hens every morning and checks for eggs whenever she gets the chance to.  Auty loves sitting there and watching them go in and out of their coop.

Love my kitchen!!  :)

It has every appliance, knife, and cooking pot I could ask for!

Mount Tabor Park (huge trees!)

Joss and Auty picking flowers and running free.

Love how majestic the trees are here. The pines are huge!  And they even have a tree that is called Big Leaf Maple.  While the girls and I were exploring the park Erik was....

Taking a Blacksmithing class.  Here is a hook he made for hanging plants or whatever.

And here is his medieval butter knife (top) that he forged from a blah piece of steel.  Pretty cool!!

Erik hammering away.. and hammering and hammering for about 7 hours today!!  It's hard work being a blacksmith!!

Farewell For Now Bend

We left Bend with mixed feelings.   Very excited to see a new place, but very sad to leave a place we grew to love.  We were overwhelmed with how welcoming and friendly everyone was during our stay in Bend, that it made it very hard to move on to our next destination.  Everyone would say to us how magical Bend is, and now we know why.  The sunny dry days are hard to beat.  The hundreds of hiking/running trails are the most beautiful we have ever seen. And the sweet smell of pine that filled the air was so intoxicating.  Not to mention the most spectacular views every which way you turned.  I would recommend everyone visiting Bend at least once to experience a little piece of heaven on earth.

Good Bye for now Bend ;)

March Against Monsanto

Today we taught Joss how to stand up for what you believe in.  :)

We walked with about 300 people for about 2 1/2 hours to protest against Monsanto for not labeling their foods as Genetically Modified.  We believe we have the right to know what we are eating.  We also marched for the small farmers who work so hard everyday to bring us such nutritious food. 

Here are the local farmers speaking out against genetically modified foods and speaking up for all the local farmers who produce organically grown foods.

Loved this guy!  

Joss was such an inspiration at this March.  She really spoke up about eating healthy and not eating GMO foods.  Whenever she started her own chant everyone followed.  It really is true that just one little voice can make a huge statement and help bring about change.

Another sign we liked.

Erik really getting into it!

Sisters, Oregon

Today we visited Sisters, Oregon having no idea what to expect.  It turned out to be a really cute cowboy town.  They have a lot of Rodeos that go on here and a huge quilt festival that people come from all over the world to see.

Totally felt like we should have been in Texas.  

A lot of Old West style buildings.

The name of the store on your right cracked us up.. Deez Nutz.. 

Their ATM machine disguised as an old bank teller window

Love how they built the deck around nature..

Having fun in the wind.

Pinwheel fun

Oklahoma City Tragedy

After being in Oklahoma City just a couple weeks ago, it is so sad to have such a tragic event happen to such wonderful people in such a beautiful place.  Our hearts and loving energy go out to everyone effected by this horrific disaster.

It's Snowing!! What??

Last night the temperatures dropped down into the 20's!!  At the end of May??!!

Not sure we would be able to handle these long winters every year.  :)

Here is a view of Mount Bachelor ski resort, only 30 minutes from our house!  Even though we don't have snow on the ground where we are staying, it's crazy to go only 20 miles away and see this much snow!

It was like a blizzard up there!  Twenty five degrees, windy and snowing!  So surreal!  

Since it was so cold outside we decided to make, what else?  Ice Cream!  (I am really missing warm summer days :) )

Here we are making ice cream in a bag, that takes five minutes!!  First Auty shook the bag...

Then Jossy shook it.  Then...

Like magic we had vanilla ice cream!  So yummy!!

I can't believe it actually tasted so good!

Crooked River Gorge and Smith Rock Park

CROOKED RIVER GORGE

Before we headed over to Smith Rock Park, we were told by the locals to check out Crooked River Gorge.  We were greeted by this lovely sign before heading over to check out the view.

And here was the view!  I mean really.  Is everything jaw dropping in Oregon?  And this was nothing in comparison to what we saw next.

SMITH ROCK PARK

We just can't believe all of these amazing sights are in the same state!  

Joss hanging out enjoying the view.

First we had to make it to the bottom to hike with Auty in the stroller.  We made it!  And she stayed asleep for the most part, which is the only way to get in a hike under 5 hours.  :)

Our first stop before heading down by the river was a Ranger holding a very common Gopher snake in these parts, as well as Rattlesnakes.

A little cave Joss and I hiked up to.

Our view of Erik and Auty below.  

This is a rock climbers dream out here!

Probably over a hundred rock climbers were out today.  Two of the cliffs were closed for climbing however, due to a Falcons' nest and Golden Eagles' nest that were found on top of the cliffs.  

Gorgeous!

You really can't take a bad picture out here.

Joss, our botanist, drawing pictures of plants she found along the way and Auty being nosy.

Finally, a family photo.  :)