Portland Land

In June we made the trek to Portland to visit Jesse and his family!

Leo did pretty well overall for such long drives in his car seat. We employed several tricks with food and distractions to try to keep him happy; half of them worked some of the time :)

Yes, I covet that mini.

We can never get enough of the forests and greenery of the Pacific North West.

Dr. Jesse completed his medical residency! We got to enjoy a banquet with presentations honoring him and the other graduates. 

Cousins! It was great to spend so much time with the cousins, especially Piper and Miles who Leo got to meet for the first time.

We stayed at a home in Canby. The land had a walnut orchard and was right by the river. 

Astoria

We drove to Astoria, on the coast, and went to the Maritime museum. We learned many neat things about that area, the Columbia river, and the treacherous Bar-where the river meets the Pacific Ocean. 

The boat in the top middle picture was from Japan and got swept out to sea during the tsunami and washed up on the Oregon coast. 

Mexican seafood, mmmm.

We briefly went to the beach. Technically it was Leo's first time at the beach, but it was so windy and cold that as soon as we touched the sand we snapped a picture and Leo went to the car to sit with Grandma and Poppa. We'll just have to go back and try again soon.

Powell's Books! Bookstore junky Mecca. 

Let's just say we had a budget set aside for this place, and maybe we kind of went over it...

The kids books were just too tempting! This baby clearly needed more. 

Face timing with Grammy 

More cousin and Auntie time. Aunt Annie gave Leo his first strawberry, I think he liked it.

Sauvie Island farm. We picked tons of blueberries and it still wasn't enough for me. It's very cathartic to pick blueberries on such a beautiful farm. 

I need to get the pictures from Steven's phone, more of family, the Portland Temple, Bob's Red Mill, the Japanese gardens and more. 

We kind of loved it there :)

Huge thank you to Grandma, Papa, and the Powell clan!