The Hendricks Head for Portland

About 2 or 3 months ago, Randy said he was going to take off a few days of work and wanted to know what I wanted to do. I told him I wanted to go on a road trip - my favorite kind of vacation!! He thought Portland would be fun so that was the PLAN!!

This is our stop at Twin Falls, Idaho. Randy had always wanted to see Shoshone Falls and so it was the first stop on our trip to Portland.

Our first night on the trip we stayed in a Rodeway Inn in Pendleton, Oregon. Whatever you do DO NOT STAY THERE!! It was a dive! The room was small and the bathroom was really weird!! It had a tiled shower from the 1960's with a floor that severely sloped to the drain. Made it hard to balance as you were taking a shower. There was no tub - the refrigerator did not work . . . just don't go there!

As we were driving through Hood River - Randy mentioned that his printing company had done work for a pizza place there, as we turned off the road to find a place to get lunch, there was Pietro's Pizza, the place he had done printing for. We stopped and had a great lunch for a VERY good price!! The food was excellent too. Hood River is a very pretty place. This is a picture of Multnomah Falls - it was the biggest and best of the waterfalls we saw. They said that a few years ago a boulder the size of a bus fell out of the wall behind the falls and crashed down to the lower falls. We also saw Horsetail Falls and Wakeenah Falls.
We spent Saturday at Seaside the furthest point west of the Lewis and Clark trail. Here is Randy with Lewis and Clark!! There is a boardwalk area with shops behind the statue where we spent some time and had crab at the local restaurant.

We visited the Japanese Gardens in Portland on Sunday - it was very beautiful, peaceful and green. They insisted you not have your cell phones on and to quietly view the gardens.

I took lots of pictures of roses from the Portland Rose Garden. It is in the same area as the Japanese Gardens. There were lots of beautiful roses there. I think they create new breeds of roses in this garden. There was one they developed named after Julia Roberts. (Not this one)

No trip would be complete without visiting at least one shopping center. This is The Lloyd Center in downtown Portland. Lots of great stores and and ice skating rink as well!! This was our last Portland adventure - except the outlet malls on the way out of town!! It was so great to be with Randy for a few days and just be together. We listened to a book on tape on the way home and the trip just flew by . . . it was hard to come home. Except we missed all of you!!!

Thanksgiving Point

We recently went to Thanksgiving Point for their $2 Tuesday. Audrey and Chloe had a great time at the Farm Animals area. Here they are waiting to go on a ride on the horse drawn wagon.

Chloe loves this little house . . .

Audrey is very brave feeding the bunnies!

Happy Birthday Grandma

I had a great birthday - two of my favorite people are in the picture with me!! Thanks to all of my family for a great celebration!!!

Tea Party in the Backyard

Chloe, Audrey, Randy and I had a "tea party" in the back yard. The girls were most excited about having it under the umbrella!! Lemonade and cookies were on the menu and everything had to be little (little cups, little cookies, little chairs). Here is Chloe helping herself to the Lemonade. (I went all out with the food). Audrey had lots of drinks in her little cup.

Say CHEESE!!

One of the highlights of my week is watching Audrey on Mondays for Bethany and Ryan. She is a joy. Randy and I meet in Sandy to give her back to her parents and we all have dinner together. Here we are at Costa Vida - we went there because Audrey loves CHEESE and she can get a little cup of shredded cheese there!!

The Wicked Crowd

We made it to see Wicked. I read in the newspaper that tonight is the last night it will play in Salt Lake City. I'm glad we made it. Randy was the one who was willing to get up at 4:00 to go stand in line to get tickets. We went together of course and got our limit of 6 tickets. Let me tell you, it wasn't easy and we were lucky to get tickets at all - we ended up watching it in the directors box as they opened up those seats at the last minute. Pictured are Randy, Ann Heath, Kaleena, Emily, Rod Heath and ME!!

Chloe is our little soccer player. Her team is called the butterflies. Randy wants to know why that name wasn't considered for the REAL soccer team! Their team rally is gooo sparkle butterflies. Chloe spends most of her time following the crowd. She is one of the youngest on the team (she is 3) and so isn't really sure of what she is supposed to do. This uniform is the smallest size and drowns her.

We had a little Easter egg hunt with Chloe and Audrey a couple of weeks ago. Chloe is three years old and really gets the concept by now . . . Audrey is only two and will understand how it works by next year. They loved their little toys and candy - Randy and I love being with them while they experienced it! They are so much fun to be with!!!

Chloe is Totally in to it!!

Audrey would rather throw rocks in our waterfall than look for eggs!!

Audrey's favorite was the M & M's but doesn't like the Chocolate on her hands.

Chloe's favorite was the bubbles in a duck necklace.

Reno Automobile Museum

Randy was excited to visit the automobile museum in Reno. This was one of my favorites. It was beautiful and very expensive. It is a 1936 Mercedes Benz. It cost over $10,000 when it was originally built.

Circus Circus hosted the Aggie Fans

We stayed at Circus Circus in Reno for the trip - my brother Aaron got us a free room - it was great! We got there Thursday afternoon and stayed till Sunday morning. Circus Circus was the host hotel for the Aggies. They even had a pep rally in an open hallway between casinos. It was so fun walking around the hotel seeing all of the Aggie t-shirts being worn by Aggie fans. We were all excited to see one another and talk to each other about our hopes for the game that day. We were there for all three tournament games.

This is the final score of the game between Nevada and Utah State - We won! 2009 WAC champions! We were a little worried that they may not win after the previous game where they only beat New Mexico State by one point in the final seconds of the game, but they didn't let us down and the relief of having won was felt by all Aggie fans!!

I Want to be a Blogger!!

As you can see, I have not posted a blog on this site for almost a year. I had an intensive training session from Kaleena on how to be a blogger last night and so I am on my way. I also have a blog called Owning a Home in Utah at Utahhome4you.blogspot.com. It is in the development stages so check back when I get it going!! That is all for now . . .