Birthday Trip to Oregon

 We managed to sneak away from the impending craziness at church to take a road trip out to Oregon to see family, celebrate my birthday and cart back the stuff we had to leave behind back in January. It was a tiring trip with lots of driving, fun, food, family, and sunshine! Although it didn't start out that way at 5am on May 1st... 

It rained most of the morning but we still made a pitstop for donuts in Bismarck at Bearscat. While we really enjoyed their donuts at their former Salem location, it didn't travel back to ND. They were fun to look at but didn't take great at all... 

This was quite the storm we drove through with rain and wind so heavy sometimes we could hardly see out the windshield! 

But the weather was nice for our lunch stop at Taco John's for the first time...

We drove hard and made it all the way to Spokane our first night leaving a shorter day on Friday in order to spend more time with Zack and Tatum. But we did stop for lunch in Hood River to give Zack a bit more time to sleep and us some time to enjoy the beautiful weather and a flight...

I didn't realize how much I missed mountains until Mt Hood came into view... 

We did a bit of shopping and enjoyed a quiet evening with the kids at their place. Saturday morning we went to Pet Day to watch Tatum and Argus run a 5K at OSU before going to the creek to celebrate birthdays and Mother's Day with family....

Oh, and we also squeezed in a quick donut stop at Market of Choice before getting on the 5 to head north. Better... 

Ellis had gotten so big!

The Rohrers got a new puppy: Fozzie Bear

After the party we went to dinner with Amy and some friends to celebrate Cinco de Mayo a bit early but didn't get any pics... :( 

We had planned to go surfing with Zack on Sunday but God must have had other plans because neither the weather or the surf were cooperating. But the sun was out, so we drove out to the coast anyway. The blue skies were gorgeous but the sandblasting power of the wind kept us off the beach. So we had some delicious food and did a bit of sightseeing and shopping instead...

Monday was a quiet day with my parents collecting wood for VBS decorations at the Clarks' and then dinner with Brian and Dana at Marakeesh...

My birthday gift from God was gorgeous weather for hiking with Tatum down in Eugene. But my day started out with birthday pancakes from my dad...

Yes, we got donuts on our way to the trailhead at Spencer Butte. We had to. It was Albertsons! And the best donut we had on our entire trip... 

The hike up to the top was .7 miles up a pretty steep incline but the views from the top were totally worth it!

And the hike down was totally easy! 

Our second hike was more of a walk around Mount Pisgah Arboretum... 

Then we met up in Corvallis for dinner with Zack before he had to go to work...

Because he loves me so much, Chris drove me all the way into downtown Portland for vegan ice cream for my birthday dessert!

The Beavers baseball game got cancelled so we just had another quiet day with my parents and Zack and Tatum. 

No surprise that Dad made baked French toast for our final breakfast before we headed north to see Tom and Leslie before going back home.

The weather was pretty nice through Washington and Montana. In fact it was so nice that we decided to spend an extra night on the road and stop early in Billings. 

We had an early dinner and relaxed in our jacuzzi suite before our LONG WINDY drive through North Dakota! FYI driving with two giant sails on top of the van (aka Kayaks) made for a very long 9 hour drive! 

I wish the donuts from Billings had tasted as great as they looked

Chris let me stop at Teddy Roosevelt National Park on the way home

But we made it home just in time to mow the lawn (it finally grew a little), unpack and celebrate Mother's Day the next day with worship and baseball! 

Because it was 96 degrees, we came up with a new rule (excuse to eat Lundy's ice cream) that if it is over 90 in May we get ice cream. FYI- we had ice cream four days in a row!

It was a good vacation but it felt like we needed a vacation after our vacation.... LOL