Day 2

Our second day in the car was a little more tired, a little more slow and a lot more traffic! We started off with $4.13 gas... that is the cheapest we have had in months! That was in West Linn, OR. We took a potty break at the Centralia Factory Outlets where they have a Christian outlet store. We were able to get the new Veggie Tales movie and a couple worship CDs. The manager was telling us that her 5 yo goes to school and says, "My Mommy is the boss at the Veggie Tales store!" :o)

Mid-afternoon brought us to Smokey Point, about an hour shy of our destination. We stopped at the rest area to have a picnic lunch. This is an old western red cedar stump. Grandpa is showing A that there is a hole that she can look through.

It took a little convincing to get her to put her head up to the hole. Perhaps it was the fact that we recently read the Grimms Brothers original Hansel and Gretel story! LOL

This sign tells the story of the stump. I have pictures from the 1920s of my Mom's relatives driving a Model A through it and another of my Dad's family in it. It was located near the hometown of my paternal grandfather, Arlington, Washington.

The roof is obviously a new addition. Amazingly, this is even on the small side compared to some stumps found in western Washington. We often think of just the sequoia redwoods being so large, however western Washington was covered with pristine, centuries old, old growth forest. None of these ancient trees are left that I am aware of, however there are some very large trees that grew up just after the first loggings. I believe these are also considered old growth because they are 100+ years old. I have seen a few photographs, mainly by the famed Darius Kinsey of the "cabins" made in these stumps. Pretty amazing. I have a large book of Kinsey photography which I find fascinating. Some of the photographs were taken of the area that my step Dad grew up in near here and others are further south. He was a pretty amazing bw photographer who documented the logging and settlement of western Washington as well as produced studio portraits to keep the pay checks rolling in.

Here is sad little J who had a traumatic skinned knee incident! She is still working on learning how to use her feet! The kids had fun running around.

D is always the ham! We had a nummy lunch with home made bagels.

A enjoying her juice box.

Grandpa and I left the jelly to the kiddos - we had roast beef I made in the pressure cooker before leaving, avocado and cheese. Nummy!

J still whimpered off and on about her knee... I think that it was mostly exhaustion. Hugs from Grandpa helped.

A and J had fun picking a clover bouquet for Grandma.

J's and my hands with the clover flowers. Grandma was graciously delighted with her "bouquet"!

We thought we should document that I was actually there! Here we are - D, A, Me and J.

The kids and the tree for perspective.

J, D and A - Hi Daddy! :o)


Too bad they don't like each other much!

Finally, shortly before 4PM we arrived at Grandma's house. Before I even had the ignition turned off, D had flown out the door and literally jumped into Grandma's arms! A and J soon followed.

My favorite birdhouse - Noah's Ark. Babies were just recently occupying it.

Naturally the kids had to check out the toy box right away!

Grandpa's carvings displayed in the niche.

And this beautiful piece of work is the Murphy bed that Jack and a friend from church, Howie, made for the guest room.

As you can see, there is a lighthouse/seashore theme. This large lighthouse light was made by one of my nurse friends, Jeanene.

While Grandma and Mom unpacked, the kids played with Grandpa and all the toys. We were actually cold - it was in the 60s with wind and we Californians were all dressed in shorts! The kids played until ten! They were being so good and had been in the car for 2 days, I didn't have the heart to interrupt their playing with new Lego sets.

Well, I won't blog every day, but Daddy needs to see what we are all up to so far away. We miss and love you Daddy!