Multnomah Falls

One of my favorite places in Oregon was the Columbia River Gorge - we did some amazing hikes there over our years in Portland and every time it was breathtaking! The greenery, the foggy mountains, the pretty river. Love those NW mountains. One of our favorite spots became Multnomah Falls. It was a great place to take visitors (only about 25 minutes out of the city and an easy hike) plus it is an amazing natural wonder. A huge waterfall with a secondary sub-waterfall. Really love this place. On our first trip there it was super rainy. Perfect Oregon weather ;)

Driving up the gorge. To the left is the river but it's completely covered in fog. My kind of beauty.

Seattle

One of the best parts of living in Oregon was being so close to my parents. Mitch's company had a big northwest party in January so we made a weekend out of it and went to stay with them. They watched the kids while we went to the party. A really fun weekend ;)

Kids first trip to the Space Needle

 

Grandpa Matthew reading to the kids before bed.

Loved that drive (when it was traffic free)... some real pretty views. Our first of many trips to Seattle. ;)

My sis in town!

Shortly after we moved to Oregon my sister came out to see our new house and help us unpack. When you move to a new place it's so nice to have someone close come stay, so something feels familiar ;)

We ended up getting the unpacking done quickly, before she came, so that gave us time to spend the whole weekend on our favorite pastime - organizing! Had so much fun working on the pantry. There are few things that make me happier than an organized pantry.

 

My sis even got time to play with my kids - she felt like she was on vacation because none of her kids were with her!

We got done with the pantry and tackled the task of finding a cute office chair for me. We found a gross old chrome one at goodwill, painted the Chrome matte black, got a beige herringbone fabric to recover the cushions with, and sewed a cute pillow for it. Loved the final product! (Wish I had a pic of the before. Looks so much better after ;)

My dad and Tommie came down from Seattle to join us for part of the weekend too. Brunching in Portland is always a good idea.

Such a fun weekend! Loved having some quality time with my sis.

 

Soccer Class

Before we moved we signed our kids up for some rec classes in Oregon, to help them have some fun things going on when we arrived. Before their first soccer class!

Coach Brian was so fun with the kids. We ended up having him for several classes over the years.

The first day I showed up a friend from our ward - Paige - was also there with her kids, randomly in the same class. She ended up being one of my good friends and favorite people in Oregon. 

 

Oregon Coast

Pretty Portland!

After we got to Oregon, we found out our moving truck was late because of the storms. We were at our house with almost nothing but clothes! Thank goodness for friends in Oregon who brought us some blow up mattresses and towels! We actually had fun "camping" out in the house for a couple days with nothing in it.

The Palmers invited us to the coast one day and how could we say no? We had nothing to unpack and nothing in our house ;)

 

Octopus Tree!

The Tillamook Factory! Endless cheese and ice cream. Yes please.

Christmas 2014

We were really glad we decided to spend Christmas in Utah! Mitch's parents made it so special. 

Here are the kids reading Christmas stories with grandpa Steve.

 

All ready on Christmas Eve. Mitch's mom collects Christmas Santas trees and has them all over her house. I love it. such a festive feeling home.

Cute kiddies on Christmas morning!

Testing out the new scooter.

Family Christmas shot. In the pretty snow!

The best hostess ;)

We even got some time to sneak away for a double date with Mitch's brother and his wife, and to see our best friends the Hamiltons. Time spent with them is never long enough!

  

Leaving Minnesota

Bittersweet every time we move - excited for new adventures but sad to leave a place we made home.

Our last Sunday in the Maple Grove Ward. Love that ward.


Anna babysat for us all the time in Minnesota. She and a couple other girls (McCall, Gabby, Charlotte, and Abby) were amazing young women and our favorite sitters! Our kids lucked out with some great babysitters there.





As I posted about earlier, our primary chorister made treats for anyone that passed off their articles of faith - that included presidency members, hehe. I insisted he didn't need to make me any but showed up with these goodies on our last Sunday. What a nice guy Brother Van De Veer is.



As we were leaving on our last Sunday, we found this huge ugly cookie jar taped to our car. It was a white elephant gift from our going away party that nobody wanted! We kept passing it around. Had a blast with our Minnesota friends. Such a random but funny memory.




Fun play date at the gymnastics center.






When you're relocated for a corporate move, the actual moving part is pretty painless. They hire packers to come to your home and pack you up completely, in one day. The following day the movers come and load up the truck. Then they schedule your drop off and you're done! All we had to do was get rid of some things and organize our stuff before the packers came.

Here is the moving truck - showing up in the freezing weather.



While the packers came (I had to stay with them) and Mitch was at work, my friends watched my kids - they even took them all day out, to see Santa at that. What saints these ladies are.






After the movers came, some friends came over to help me clean. I'm so thankful for friends helping with this. Let me say it goes much faster when 4 people are cleaning versus just 1.


That night we stayed with the Allreds. Such fun memories for the kids.






Mitch's company offered to ship our cars out to Oregon and fly us there, but we wanted to stop in Utah for Christmas, so we decided to take the money for the mileage used and drive. Crazy ! We thought it would be terrible but thanks to some car activities, our DVD player, and some fun hotel stops, the kids actually had a good time! We kept the driving days short so we could stop at the hotel to swim in the early evening.



Flat, flat and more flat. Nebraska seemed to go on for days.



So thankful when we found a Qdoba in the middle of nowhere. Fresh veggies!


When we got to Wyoming, we started hearing about storms coming though the Rocky Mountains.





At first it seemed pretty clear, but by the time we got to the I-80 interchange, the freeway was CLOSED. The storm was coming in. We were so close to getting to Salt Lake and exhausted from being on the road. However we felt like it was a blessing that we didn't get stuck in the mountains during a storm.

Luckily we were some of the first cars that arrived at the closed freeway and quickly got a hotel room nearby. Within an hour or so all the rooms had booked up. Not sure what we would have done if we didn't get a hotel room with 3 kids! No way we could have slept in the car.



We arrived at Grandma + Grandpa's with a dirty car, but relieved to be in gorgeous Salt Lake.



Mitch's parents had Christmas all set up. Was so wonderful to arrive to this after a hectic week of getting everything ready to move. They did literally everything for Christmas and we didn't have to think about a thing. Thank you grandma + grandpa. Bless your hearts.